Day 4: the Reality

I think therefore I am.

France, René Descartes

When I was little, I was terrified to think that I might be in a huge play, all of the people I know including my parents acted in front of me in turns, and they discussed when and where to show up next time when I can't see them. All things happened around me were trying to lead me to somewhere. Even now I am fascinated by my childhood thoughts, however, I still can't prove they are wrong.

An exciting moment in Movie THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR. The character find out that the world is not real. and so are the worlds which created his. (photo source)

There is another famous mental experiment: brain in a vat. People always think what they experiencing or what they sensing make things real, but actually they can all be simulated by a super computer which generates and transports electrical signals into a brain, and the person with the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences without these being related to objects in the real world. None of us could even know whether we are living in a "vat" and your experiences are real. How could you know that you are not in a dream right now? How could you distinguish the reality from fantasy? And how could you be sure that your are not living in a cyberspace?

NONE OF THEM ARE REAL, ARE THEY? (PHOTO SOURCE)

It should all start with the question: what is real? In my definition, real is the objects or evens that really exist (it could lead to more questions such as "what is exist"). The observing is real, but the things we are observing might not. The memories are real, but the experiences in memories might not. It could be possible that everything turns out to be unreal except the doubting itself. In one word, we are not sure about anything of the "external" world.

Maybe we can get a little comforts from Ockham's Razor, there is no necessary for such a complicate and aimless system to exist, who knows what the purposes supposed to be? The problems are important because we have to know who we are and what is our roles in this world. In some degree, we are part of the real even that is far beyond us and we don't aware.