Forums » Smalltalk » "Is Anything Real?"

This is a super interesting video that challenges our belief on what we perceive as reality. Is the world we live in really real?

Awesome Epistemology! Hm, the fallibility of the senses... I studied philosophy for two years; this brings back memories of Solipsism, Descartes and Cartesian dualism, Plato's Cave, the Kantian division between Metaphysical and Physical reaities - the Phenomena and Noumena...

When it comes down to it, we trust that our senses are right most of the time, otherwise the entire foundations of our concept of reality collapses... which is what happened to Descartes... still we could always fall back on Cogito Ergo Est, "I Think, Therefore I Am."

When I was younger, I used to wonder if I were doing what I thought I was doing, or of I was really where I thought I was in terms of location- if everything was an illusion/my perception was seriously flawed. Might I be lying in the middle of a road, for example, when I thought I was in bed at home, safe and sound? Could I be I feeling and seeing blankets that weren't really there?

I also wondered if I was really on the toilet when I thought I was- something like this comic I recently discovered.