[Snorkles]

Yes, you know, even "The Real World" in the Matrix could be an illussion....

[Rat]

Hm. Anything we deem as reality is very likely an illusion. So if we do discover this "reality" is an illuion, then the next probably is, and the next, and the next...

The inexplicable. A scientist's worst enemy.

[Snorkles]

The thing is, that we can never discover that this world is an illussion, because if we would, that discovery too could be an illussion.

[Rat]

If only there was a way to get around illusions...non-scientific, of course. Also not religious.

[Vesuvius]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snorkles:
therefor we don�t know what has to be done to get more Points, to be a better person or whatever.
A mans life, for example, has no real value.

---

damn, I thought that life was worth 40 points.

a.) LEARN TO SPELL AND USE PUNCTUATION

b.) barring the existence of a god, why would life have any value otherwise anyways? real or fake? the value is in what you choose to value, if you choose to be someone with compassion, then through the interaction with others, moral behavior gains value. also, if you choose to believe in honor, then moral behavior in the absence of certainty has value as well, even if the world may be fake. fake or real, value must be found within, and often compassion, sympathy, and rationality lead to morality, as they lead often to satisfaction, safety, and greater well being. Your point however is hard to decipher, because good and evil are hard to define in a world that is definite anyways, so please clarify what you're getting at.

c.) and there is no certainty with morality, science, or existence unless you are absolutley omniscient. Faith/Practicality are therefore necessary. you need to understand that while it could all be illusory, your existence is unquestionable. you think, therefore you (your mind at least) are. and if you are, and your only means of being is through this world (real or fake), then you live or die. if you live, you have to live in the world you are given, and you must take the value of morality and behavior on at least a personal level. additionally, the sheer unlikelyhood of life being a delusion makes it important to behave in a moral manner, if repercussions of poor behaviors matter to you or merely if you care for the other people with whom you interact.

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Vesuvius ]

[Coaster]

Everything we see is just a perseption.. from our eyes to our brain. The world wouldn't really 'look' like this, all we see is the few colours we can. So in truth everything is just an illusion, when we are born we aren't able to make any sense out of all the stuff our eyes see until the brain adapts to it.

I have little trouble understanding this mater... ...just trouble communicating it

[Rat]

Vesuvius - Snorkles' punctuation is actually pretty good, very few misplaced commas etc, though his spelling/grammar could use some work.

Life is an illusion within an illusion within an illusion...hey, I like that! No matter what we can percieve, there is always something we can't. Like different dimensions.

Coaster - SPELLING/GRAMMAR!!!

[jome]

I hit my head on a cabinet door yesterday. I think it was a way of telling me that we are alive, as in real. And that we are a material lifeform. Note: I didn't really touch the cabinetdoor. I just experienced the interatomic forces counteracting.

[Snorkles]

Vesuvius- About the spelling- Hey, I�m a swede and this is the Internet and I was on a frenzy and there is something wrong with my computer,I cant edit what I just wrote, if I must I gotta delete it all.
About your ideas- I dont get that thing about God-clarify, please. 2. None is omniscient. Even god, if there is one, isnt omniscient. I mean, dont you think God would wonder about who created him? Besides, none can be omniscient, because there is no absolute truth. 3. My existence is NOT unquestionable. I question my existence, therefor it is questionable. The "I" -thing that you feel ias so real- what makes you think that there is no way that it could be an illusion? What makes the "I" more unquestionable than a stone? Do you think that thoughts that you think is some kind of guarantee that you are for real?4. One thing I do agree with you on is that we have to live in this world, and because we suffer the consequences of our behavior, it is natural that we pay attention to that matter. Thats just sheer logic. I mean, even if this would be an illusion, it would be better to be happy than to be sad. 5. I had to get my dictionary to understand a few of your words, so it took me several minutes to get what you mean. Is it really neccessary to complicate your message? The only thing you gain on that is that most ppl will loose interest. Maybe thats a good thing? Cause when you communicate sophisticated, only the sophisticated get the message, and because of the nature of this message, only sophisticated ppl will participate in the discussion. So I dont know, whatever.
Coaster- I read you. I feel exactly the same- speech is not nor will it ever be a perfect way of communicating. I�m sure loads of ppl will misunderstand what I�m saying now, cause I leave out things, forget to mention things, and the meaning of words aren�t the same for me as they are for other ppl. Not exactly the same. 2. Yes, but thats another illusion theory: What you are saying is that the world is an illusion because we can only see a part of it, and that is very true, but;What I am saying is that everything is an illusion.
Rat- Yes, that example with the dimensions is a very good example of Vesuvius' theory. But , as I said: It's 2 different theories.
That last guy( sorry, this is an edition so I cant see your name): LOL. I use to do stuff like that too when I feel crazy in my head.

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Snorkles ]

[-- Transcendent --]

I do not deny the existence of a real world. In the immortal words of Descartes, "I feel, therefore I am"

It is human nature to search for "higher purpose", the ineffable and unanswerable concept of "existence" - let me give you a challenge. You say the real world is an illusion. What is, then, an "illusion" ?

[Rat]

My definition of "illusion": 1) something you percieve as being real, you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch it, but isn't real. 2) a magic trick 3) holograms.

Give me a couple hours and I can think of quite a few more definitions. I'll get a dictionary definition as well. Want an essay?

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Rat ]

[Strawberrysauce]

essay? no thanks , what we experience as life is merely a computer generated illusion and our minds are actually quantum computers... and thats all i have to say about that.

[the_monkey]

boy, i guess i just better go on a murderous rampage. thanks for enlightening me.

[Steven Stahlberg]

About "dumb and intelligent people" - I've found that the lower the IQ the nicer the person, on the average. I think this is because low IQ gives the person no choice in whether they should be nice or not, they are nice by nature, but the smarter you are the more freedom you have to choose your degree of 'niceness' - and some very smart people obviously choose to be very 'un-nice'... (especially to all those they consider of lower IQ, a behaviour I really dislike.)
edit: not to mention that smarter people lie more.

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Rat]

I'm a nice smart person!

I find the people I know who aren't as smart as me (by very little) to be very hostile towards me and my friends of higher IQ. There are some exceptions, some of my best friends get the lower grades in my class.

[Pat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steven Stahlberg:
...low IQ gives the person no choice in whether they should be nice or not, they are nice by nature, but the smarter you are the more freedom you have to choose your degree of 'niceness'...

---

Being nice doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. Wanting to screw with someone doesn't take any degree of intelligence. It's just most people are not threatened by the machinations of dullards, as they're so transparent. We are, however, rightly wary of intelligent people because experience teaches us that they make the best liars. Ironically, the best liars also make the best leaders.

-Pat

[Rat]

No wonder politicians never do anything intelligent!

[Snorkles]

Transc.: I know what you mean, that the very existence of the term illusion might be an illusion; If there is only chaos, there is nothing, no such thing as illusion or truth or even chaos.

Descartes theory is questionable. To materialize stuff and stop being so abstract: Suppose the gaming industry has come so far that you can sit down in a machine and just float away into a new reality. It is possible, and some day it will be reality. It all comes down to one simple thing: the brain. When we get the technology to fully control the brain with devices, then the existence isnt so sure anymore. Think about it: The guy wakes up from the game, thinking: But I really thought I was Hitler...Thats seriously disturbed!

[edible snowman]

does anyone else think that none of this matters at all? until some girl in tight leather clothes disconnects your head from the machine that's controlling your brain, it doesnt matter if anything is an illusion or not.

[Rat]

It doesn't really matter, but it is an interesting discussion.

It probably wouldn't be a girl in tight leather. More likely some human thing with reptillian wings and claws. Hey, maybe that's what happens when we die, we're just detached from this illusion.

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Rat ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

quote

Quote:

Being nice doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. Wanting to screw with someone doesn't take any degree of intelligence. It's just most people are not threatened by the machinations of dullards, as they're so transparent.

I don't think it's a linear relationship, but there is some relationship between IQ and 'niceness' (for want of a better short term). Perhaps it's linear in the lowest IQ levels, then becomes increasingly random and disappears somewhere around 100 - 110?

Take for example Down's syndrome people, both children and grownups, eveyone who works with them says that if they're brought up reasonably normally (and not mistreated by their supposedly much smarter parents, as unfortunately happens sometimes) they are almost always more loving, gentle and happy than normal people. The same thing goes for most retarded people, smart animals like chimpanzees, most children, etc etc.
None of these would want to screw with anyone for no particular reason.

At the other end of the spectrum we have the Mensa crowd, most of them probably nice, but I've met some really snotty super-smart people in my day, very impatient with the rest of us 'dullards', and so bored they sometimes take up crime just for the hell of it. I think the more complex the brain, the more can go wrong with it. Ted Bundy was a very intelligent man.

And in the middle we have lots of average people saying things like 'kill all the dumb people', and "that jerk is a real 'tard", and "Hey, I know this great dumb-blond joke..." Or in a more serious vein, "Why do people have to be so dumb?"

It's almost as bad when lower-IQ people rag on higher-IQ people, but it's also understandable - they're scared, maybe jealous. I still think the higher-IQ guys should lead by example.

(Heh, you might think I'm one of those lower-IQ people raggin on my betters, but that's not how I meant it. I really admire smart people... as long as they use their powers for the good of mankind.)

[Rat]

I saw something somewhere that basically said: "the smarter you are, the more likely you are to go insane."

Extremely smart people turn to crime to test the limits of their intelligence. They try to see if they can outsmart whoever. Example: they try to commit the perfect murder.

[Lunatique]

Here's something interesting:

Everytime I ask someone who I think is really intelligent, "Would you rather be dumb and happy, or be as you are now and not as happy?"

They would think about it seriously, and the answer is always the same.

"I'd rather be smart and not as happy."

Weird, huh?

My brother thinks that lower IQ prevents people from coming up with brilliant, devious schemes. They would be evil if they had what it takes.

I've met stupid and mean people. They do exist. It's just easy to see through their BS because they are not very skilled at being evil.

[edible snowman]

luckily god protects us from really smart people by making them mostly skinny kids with bad vision.

[-- Transcendent --]

That's probabily because being smart is something to be happy about.

To have or to be ? That is the question.

[Snorkles]

There is allways a possability that your life is a big illussion, so if you take that into consideration in every discussion and thoughts you have, you will realise that nothing matters, because we don�t know anything for sure, and therefor we don�t know what has to be done to get more Points, to be a better person or whatever. There is no absolute truth. A mans life, for example, has no real value. Sure, you think its wrong to kill another person, but thats just biology. Your brain says its wrong, cause it has learned that it is wrong. The thought that you DONT KILL PERSONS is just a moral value, that you have gotten from society or your parents or whatever. Human life has no filosophic value, cause there is always this possability that everything is an illussion. But when you think about it, what does have a value, with the illussion theory in mind? Nothing. Still, I am bound to this world, and I cant reason my way out of it. Nothing in my life has given me a hint of either that my lfe is an illussion or that this world isnt true. So why should I question it? Does a question have any value? I dont get happy by asking such things to myself , so why do my head keep bugging me? Isnt the goal, in this world, to be happy? Is a smart person better than a dumb person? If they both can be happy, what is the difference between them? I mean, if the purpose of this life is to get happiness, both the dumb and the intelligent has the same chances of filling the purpose? Oh, I could go on about this for eternity, but I feel like a discussion, not a speech, so feel free to drop a comment on anything I have written or just anything philosophical and you�ll make me glad.

[Rat]

That theory sounds distinctly like the Matrix. Creepy, really.

Life probably is an illusion. I say this just because half the time it feels like I'm in a movie. The only thing scientists can't really explain - also the only thing that scares many of them.

[Coaster]

Rat - (on an earlier post) I'm not sure randomly telling people to go fuck themselfs is considered being a nice person...

I really don't see any problem under standing this. We as humans are just globs of neatly placed hydro-carbons that are 'smart' enough to understand that. What we see is only what comes through our eye which has very limited seeing capabilities and is assembled in the darkest reccesss of our minds in a way that was learnt from birth as we percieved more.

On death we only just cease in doing this.
Hard to explain. This would be better in person.

~Jeff

[wayfinder]

i think you guys are all confusing intelligent with clever.

intelligence is like a bottle. some people have a bigger one, some have a smaller one. it needs to be filled though, and some bottles can be filled faster and with more stuff than others.

cleverness is something else, and i would tentatively agree with steve in the notion that there is a link between it and being "nice". cleverness is not necessarily linked to intelligence, though. clever people have high social skills (whether they use them in a nice or a nasty way), they know how to push buttons in people. they are the opposite of naive. i say "they", because i dont feel like i'm one of them. they probably wouldn't ever say they're clever (what button would that push with you?).

i have been thinking a lot about the nature of different forms of fitness of the mind; academic ("classic") intelligence, courage, cleverness, motoric intelligence(coordination), determination (willpower), creativity, to name just a few. all of these can co-exist in a person, or just some of them, maybe just one in detectable amounts. there are certain links between them, as one talent makes another one easier, and they all have the greatest influence on what we call intuition.

please bear in mind that this is only my opinion, formed on observations i made mainly in myself and a number of others (i have had contact to an unusually large number of highly-gifted people during my education)

[Snorkles]

About intelligence- If a dumb person is as good as an intelligent person, then isn�t an insect as good as a human? And if that is true, hasn�t everything on this earth the same value? In the end, everything is just atoms anyways. What makes the atoms that build up you greater than any other atoms?