Real to me
Suppose a child is born devoid of all senses: he has no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste- nothing. There's no way whatsoever for him to receive any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If so, where does it come from? How does he get it?
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
A very scary, slightly sour, and yet deep thought.
The Scottish philosopher David Hume would have said that the eighteen year old will have no thought whatsoever and therefore imply that knowledge is exclusively derived from the senses. So does that mean the moon is not there when no one is looking? That a tree falling in a forest makes no noise if there is nobody around, not a soul, to percieve it?
Quantum Physics defines reality as that which is in the presence of observation. In other words, no observation implies no reality. No people implies no moon.
Yet again, that does not seem a convincing answer. In Osho Rajneesh’s book called the Psychology of the Esoteric, Osho believes that the western mind is a scientific one and the Eastern a philosophic. Thus, in stark comparision to the concept of Quantum Reality, lies Vedantic reality which says reality consists of ideas and perceptions. Dreams seem real when we are asleep, but we later realize that it is all in the mind.
What causes dreams when we are asleep can cause the same when awake too.
We simply donot know what is real. There doesn’t seem to be a constant we can compare anything with. Reality as you know it, just might be an illusion.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
-Edgar Allan Poe
posted by Prat @ 3:03 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
~my personal opinion ~
for years I have been pondering over such stuff ... written about it ... talked about it ... read about it ... and anlaysed it ...thought is always in constant flux ... in constant evolution ... neurons make new connections if stimulated ... in the absence of senses ... no new connections are made and becomes silent ... the complex system of intricate connections never occur ... equalling brain death ...
thinking is inherent ... intelligence is inherent ... knowledge learnt + experience ... combines with the rest ... and births wisdom ...
and yeah! 'Reality being relative' is an absolute(truth) ... just like the statement 'change is constant' ... hahah ...
this is an insightful post. reality is relative, i think. i used to think it was an illusion, but i'm beginning to realize it is actually a subjective phenomenon--a subjective definition of how we perceive the world, how we fit in it and how we want the world (and our place in it) to be.
Kishore: Being in your profession, I'm sure you know what it feels like when somebody is just regaining consiousness from anasthesia. You think its a dream the pain will go away once you wake up, but you just can't wake up. Reality feels like that at times.
Tranciense: Thanks for stopping by. Well, reality being subjective gets me thinking about karma and destiny...we just seem so little and helpless. And yet, here we are.
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