this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago

I have to say that I think if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, it still makes a sound. I think this riddle / philosophical conundrum is solved.

Why? Sound is air being disturbed. The air is still disturbed regardless of if anyone heard the effect.

[–] gigaqps@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Carve this in clay and put it in a cave. A thousand years after some societal collapse wipes out all digital data, this will be the only thing archaeologists will have from our time

[–] bunchberry@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The author's bias in this is rather... apparent lol

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

lol i thought so too at first. it's clear there's bell curves ... the author says that higher IQ value leads to "reality is subjective and all is mental" worldview.

but then i thought, wait a moment, maybe the author is wise enough to recognize that higher IQ value is not always a good thing? maybe they actually don't identify as being super-IQ? maybe they just want to live a chill live, and identify themselves somewhere in the middle of the curve? that would mean that the author does not actually think that all reality is just a thought construct ...

[–] heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

Really. Can none of these people check Greco-Roman philosophy debates about this very question.

reality is the opinion of the Republic of Estonia 🇪🇪🇪🇪🇪🇪🫡

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Chat, what coordinate system am I witnessing in this meme?

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

coordinate systems aren't real. silly.

you should use your IM-AG-IN-A-TION! WOOOO! YAY!

[–] Malica@lemmy.zip 5 points 13 hours ago

Nothing like ADHD existentialism

[–] A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 11 points 18 hours ago

"You see, i already put myself as the chad and you as the virgin."

[–] QueenHawlSera@piefed.social 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I wish reality was subjective, because then I could imagine it isn't what it is right now and it wouldn't be.

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 hours ago

Reality is ultimately subjective but has a very heavy input bias from your material conditions.

In other words, you aren't imagining your reality as being better than you are because you are insufficiently ignorant/delusional/disassociated.

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

Oh but it is.

One's reality is entirely constructed from their interpretations.

The problem is that it's a difficult state to remain in due to the ensnarement which comes from sharing reality with others. There's a reason why 'enlightened' folk live on mountain tops.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Gravity applies no matter how far away you are.

Reality might be completely constructed from interpretation if there were no outside forces in play. But if your atoms are interacting with other atoms, you're beholden to their rules.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

yes, but you can't convince people of that if they deny gravity is real.

the issue we have these days is gravity deniers get together and egg each other on in their delusions and create ever more elaborate theories to defend their denial of reality.

hell, many lemmy instances are created specifically for that purpose... because their theories often put that at odds with the general public.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

"gravity doesn't exist, we're pulled down because the earth sucks"

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 0 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

You are referring to some overarching reality, with a capital R, which is unknowable in its entirety. Contrast that to one's own reality, which is both more and less real than the 'outside world'. There are physical and social forces acting upon us all the time, but how we feel about them, when we even notice them, is what creates our internal reality. Which is vastly more important to our quality of life.

The rules can be bent.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

It feels like you're using the word reality as a duplicate of the phrase personal experience. In that case I would agree. You can absolutely choose how you feel about the things you perceive.

But no amount of choosing how you feel gets you to fly. And no amount of thinking you can fly will ever prove you to be right when you try and fail.

Though you can certainly feel like it's worth trying again if you're so choose.

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Sorry, looking over my usage today I just realized I didn't really address your statement at all, except to hand-wave it away. That seems to be happening more as I get older, sort of lose the thread and meander off to continue insisting on points nobody is really refuting. Probably just dementia or something.

But, yes, I certainly agree. There are some hard facts about the world that impress themselves upon us. Like there's no amount of mentalizing that's going to change physics. Hell, most spiritual traditions are largely about understanding and effectively coping with the things we can't change.

I have read some interesting proposals by legit philosophers that argue the entire world is in fact created by the mind. Post doctorates and well learned spiritualists are often as equally skilled in logical arguments as they are in sophistry so many of their points can be hard to refute. Not necessarily convincing, but certainly compelling in a way that makes you reconsider the nature of reality.

Still, if someone is convinced they can fly, they might better try taking off from the ground first.

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 0 points 14 hours ago

It's a deliberate use of the word. Because people's personal experience is their reality. Even among scientists, objective truth isn't necessarily agreed upon, so aside from specific cases, it's hard to use it as a guide post towards navigating life. Like you said, there are certainly hard facts in the world which impact us, but how we perceive and interpret these phenomena, how we grapple with theory of mind, creates our reality.

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

If that sounds a little too woo-woo then how about a more practical and fun example.

Your nose takes up 10 to 15% of your vision.

The capital R reality is that photons are bouncing off of your nose and entering your eye. Your eyes are seeing your nose. And yet, unless pointed out most of the time you don't even notice that your vision is nose-less when, in fact, a nose is constantly in your field of vision.

Your mind has edited out the existence of your nose.

That's not woo, that's neurobiology. But so is the conscious construction of your reality. If you think about getting into a fight, your heart races, despite there being no real threat.

Now if a baseball suddenly hit you on the nose, you would be quite aware of capital R reality making it's presence known upon you. But how you perceive why that happened and what it means determines the rest of your reality.

[–] noretus@crazypeople.online 2 points 21 hours ago (2 children)
[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

is there a written version of it? i really don't like getting news/explanations of things through videos

[–] noretus@crazypeople.online 1 points 13 hours ago

It's not news. And arguably this is the type of thing where you benefit from seeing the actual person talking because they have personal experience of what they are talking about. It's more than just conveying words.

[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What a great video so far. I'm on break so I could only catch half of it but I am excited to see the rest when I get home.

Reminds me of the Buddhist practice of negating every label one has for themselves. What's left? The ineffable.

[–] noretus@crazypeople.online 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Glad you like it! He's from a related system (advaita/tantra) so if you know anything of Buddhism, he would sound familiar. He just has stripped away pretty much all of the cultural trappings and focuses purely on the core nondual philosophy and practice.

Also he's what's called a "householder", tantra being primarily a "householder" tradition. Meaning, no sitting alone on mountaintops, it's realization while engaged with the world.

[–] Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Unfortunately it's only just subjective enough for us to all constantly miscommunate

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

I think I've eventually arrived at "Everything is an illusion but it's the only illusion we have, so it's as real as anything else." Everything we experience is a subjective response to a stimuli and no two people have that exact same response. It's irrelevant whether we're meat golems piloted by ghosts, dream figments, or NPCs in a massive simulation, because we live in a world with billions of others, and what we do matters to ourselves and those others.

I guess recognizing everyone else as real puts me in the Everything Is Real camp.

[–] bunchberry@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Broke: "Somethings are illusions, some aren't."

Woke: "Everything is an illusion."

Bespoke: "There is no such thing as an illusion."

Now, the apparent impossibility of basing ‘the correct knowledge’ ... on our perception says less about our perception and more about the conceptual framework we attempt to apply to it. Our perception is really just perception of what there is. ... In itself there is no ‘illusion’ here, only full contact with reality ... However, there seems to be a gap between the perceptual presence of these things and the concepts we try to apply to them ... The answer does not lie in the nature of this particular kind of perception, but rather in the nature of the conceptual apparatus through which we view it. For the very concepts we use in such cases ... are rooted in perception ... these concepts, that is, concepts that have made perception itself a norm, do play a central role. Thus, the notion of ‘perceptual illusion,’ ... in fact registers a gap between the specific way in which we are presented with things in a given perception and the general perceptual determination that imbues some of our concepts. ... We call those features of perception that are left outside the system of our perceptual concepts ... ‘perceptual illusions.’ ... The question is not whether in itself our perception conforms to a norm ... but rather how much of the perceived we have incorporated into our definition of that norm. ... illusions, just are perceptions on my account. ... we simply have a perception in every case where we may be inclined to say that we do.


Jocelyn Benoist, "Toward a Contextual Realism"

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 12 hours ago

Congratulations on your conversion to Buddhism.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

most people only have issues with stuff being real when it upsets them. and the response to hurt feelings, is 'it must/should not exist'.

when they like it, they are totally on board with it's reality.

but most folks are too big brained to admit that's the motivating factor. and also, that a most of us are raging hypocrites about it and refuse to acknowledge things exist outside our knowledge of them.

[–] inari@piefed.zip 10 points 23 hours ago
[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Trust not what the machine elves say, trust what the machine elves do

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If they don't make my cookies they can eff off.

[–] Gutek8134@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago
[–] AviAdi@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

I'm 44 and this is deep

[–] kat_angstrom@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The bell curves curves have curves

[–] FreshLight@sh.itjust.works 4 points 13 hours ago

I am aroused

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Ask not for whom the bell curves curve, the bell curves curve for thee

[–] story@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this is really very good, did you make this? if not, where did you find it?

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

archive of memes on my disk

[–] Furbag@pawb.social 3 points 11 hours ago

You have exquisite taste 👌

[–] mika_mika@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Where's that fancy green cup fellow I see everywhere to answer this?

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Where's "we live in a simulation and if you take enough drugs you can see the code in a laser beam"? Off the scale?

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 day ago

Included under “what the machine elves told me”

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

That would be Philip K. Dick's VALIS. Where the protagonist, Horselover Fat (a scifi author suspiciously similar to PKD himself), sees the truth of the world on a laser beam and takes a lot of dope. Great, insane book, 10/10.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

i'm real because i'm here, can't speak for the rest.