What If Life Is really A Dream?

[Dja Majista]

seems like an odd focus.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Why is that?

[Dja Majista]

I dunno man that's hard to answer. The better question is how is it a good focus?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Does it go with the premise?

[Dja Majista]

Apr 28, 2008 5:54:20 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Does it go with the premise?

Why are you so vague?

Never mind I'll start it over then.
Life could be someone's dream; it might not. Is there a way for us to know. If so how can we?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

That's relative. It really is.

Do you mean someone's life is their own dream? Or all lives are a dream of one person, or a collective of consciousness? If the dream is so deep that pain doesn't wake one up, what would?

[Dja Majista]

I'm gonna go with the second one. But saying it's a dream may be too specific. Maybe it could be some kind of simulation too. Just some kind of unreality.
I have my own opinion on this, but it's very thought terminating, so I wanted to know what you guys think.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Apr 29, 2008 23:10:00 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

I'm gonna go with the second one. But saying it's a dream may be too specific. Maybe it could be some kind of simulation too. Just some kind of unreality.
I have my own opinion on this, but it's very thought terminating, so I wanted to know what you guys think.

Well tell us what you think.

[Psyquis52]

The operative word being "IF" in this topic for myself.

IF in fact life is but a dream then it was all for naught and living in the moment is the only prequisite for a fulfilling and happy life.
Of course most of us like to live as though we support a greater cause of some kind.
Such as love, family, religion, work, what have you.
If we subscribe ourselves to this "live-in-the-moment" lifestyle then we need not surrender to those concepts of Happy Family or Adulthood what-have-yous but rather determine ourselves towards what makes me most happy Right now.
Not an ideal structure for life in my case. I'm not saying that we would be forced to take such a course but that the temptation to do so would be more prevelent.

[Dja Majista]

May 1, 2008 2:28:17 GMT -5 Psyquis52 said:

The operative word being "IF" in this topic for myself.

IF in fact life is but a dream then it was all for naught and living in the moment is the only prequisite for a fulfilling and happy life.
Of course most of us like to live as though we support a greater cause of some kind.
Such as love, family, religion, work, what have you.
If we subscribe ourselves to this "live-in-the-moment" lifestyle then we need not surrender to those concepts of Happy Family or Adulthood what-have-yous but rather determine ourselves towards what makes me most happy Right now.
Not an ideal structure for life in my case. I'm not saying that we would be forced to take such a course but that the temptation to do so would be more prevelent.

Yeah, I'm sure if life was a dream or some other kind of sub-reality we'd probably never know. So yeah the key word is IF.

Now IF you were to find that you existed in a world that isn't real, would that really remove from the authenticity of all your experiences? I mean either way you look at it, even if it is a dream, it still has the elements which make it effectively real: People experience pleasure and pain, we all more or less seem to exist in the same world. Does that place value on this world? I think it does, and it also places value in our actions.

First of all, if it's a dream it's a very long dream, and I think the longer the dream is, the more valuable we are, because our actions extend through time. I mean consider what you would do if the universe was about to collapse on itself in the next five hours, and you also knew there was no eternity afterwards; no afterlife. I don't know about you, but I'd probably just do whatever I want. Maybe I'd go out looking for a really thrilling way to die that's not too atrociously painful. Anyway, the reason for that is, suddenly when humanities lifespan is shortened, individual actions don't really matter that much. I mean, the reason I'm in college is because I expect to live on and become an adult, and get a job using that education. If I knew humanity was gonna die, I'd probably say screw philosophy, I'm gonna go play video games. So all of that's to say, that humanity's--or possibly the universe's--lifespan largely determines the value of our lives and our actions.

Secondly, a fundamental reality (such as the one the person dreaming us up lives in) is not necessarily more important than a sub-reality. Both are effectively realities as far as we can possibly be concerned. Assuming we live in this fundamental reality, there is really nothing to determine our importance or value accept ourselves, another intelligent race, and/or God. So either way, in the cases of the fundamental reality AND the subreality, we still have ourselves, an intelligent human race to determine importance.

Now assuming God--or just any old shmo--is the dreamer, that dreamer is essentially the one that determines the value of human existence within the subreality. This is not because that entity lives in the fundamental reality, but because he/she has the ability to control when and if this reality ends. That entity could let our subreality exist forever and we would have the same value as people in an eternal fundamental reality.

That's just a theory by the way. I'm not saying it's definitely the case.

So I disagree with you that life would be for naught, but I agree on your last point. The temptation to view the world as meaningless would be very serious.

[Dja Majista]

Apr 30, 2008 23:18:40 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

Apr 29, 2008 23:10:00 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

I'm gonna go with the second one. But saying it's a dream may be too specific. Maybe it could be some kind of simulation too. Just some kind of unreality.
I have my own opinion on this, but it's very thought terminating, so I wanted to know what you guys think.

Well tell us what you think.

Oh and that whole thought terminating thing I was talking about. I believe we can never find out if we live in a subreality on our own, and it doesn't really matter either, unless of course we can influence the one in charge of our reality. In short, it doesn't matter.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

May 1, 2008 2:28:17 GMT -5 Psyquis52 said:

The operative word being "IF" in this topic for myself.

IF in fact life is but a dream then it was all for naught and living in the moment is the only prequisite for a fulfilling and happy life.
Of course most of us like to live as though we support a greater cause of some kind.
Such as love, family, religion, work, what have you.
If we subscribe ourselves to this "live-in-the-moment" lifestyle then we need not surrender to those concepts of Happy Family or Adulthood what-have-yous but rather determine ourselves towards what makes me most happy Right now.
Not an ideal structure for life in my case. I'm not saying that we would be forced to take such a course but that the temptation to do so would be more prevelent.

I could never see you as a live in the moment person anyways.

[Psyquis52]

May 1, 2008 23:21:48 GMT -5 The Big Daddy C-Master said:

I could never see you as a live in the moment person anyways.

Thank you. ;D

Back on subject:

Actually I'm running out of viable subject matter here because I keep coming up with bad jokes instead.

[Dja Majista]

lol how about this. If life is a dream, is there necessarily a dreamer? If this world is some kind of subreality, what kind of connection must it have to the fundamental reality? There must be something to make it less real than said fundamental reality, otherwise it would be just some kind of alternate reality, no more or less real than the other...

[Psyquis52]

Certainly personality traits would have some bearing on the dreamer. We might be aspects of said dreamer's social existence.

It wouldn't suprise me if we at least resembled the dreamer in appearance to some degree.

I suppose it isn't too much to consider that we don't act or look anything like said dreamer but if that's the case then we're dealing with something so outside our ability to reason about that it would be a waste to consider.

Perhaps we are an inflicted dream?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Would we refer to this dreamer as "God" perhaps?

[Dja Majista]

May 2, 2008 21:09:19 GMT -5 Psyquis52 said:

Certainly personality traits would have some bearing on the dreamer. We might be aspects of said dreamer's social existence.

It wouldn't suprise me if we at least resembled the dreamer in appearance to some degree.

That's an interesting point because dreams are based on a random conjuction of ideas and experiences that you've already had. That's why we can't dream up anything besides through sight, smell, taste, feel, and hearing. Though we can distort images, we can never create something from scratch. Hence why we usually dream about things involving people that look like us. Therefore, it seems necessary that this reality is in one way or another reminiscent of the fundamental reality that spawned us.

I suppose it isn't too much to consider that we don't act or look anything like said dreamer but if that's the case then we're dealing with something so outside our ability to reason about that it would be a waste to consider.

That's true; anything we could come up with would be an utter shot in the dark.

Perhaps we are an inflicted dream?

What do you mean?

Would we refer to this dreamer as "God" perhaps?

If he has control over his dreams and consequently our reality, most definitely we would refer to him as God. But the people in his world would probably just see him as some dude who sleeps a lot.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Lol, close enough.

[Dja Majista]

But he doesn't necessarily have control over his dreams...
And it could just be some super computer program too, in which case you'd say the programmer is God, or at least the Creator.

[Psyquis52]

Inflicted, Computer, whatever, whomever.

What's to keep this thing or person or whatever from waking up and effectively killing us all?

[Dja Majista]

Absolutely nothing ...
that we know of.

[Psyquis52]

Well, that's a thrilling thought.
#faintthud#


If I actually believed life was a dream man that would suck.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

May 9, 2008 23:13:01 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

But he doesn't necessarily have control over his dreams...
And it could just be some super computer program too, in which case you'd say the programmer is God, or at least the Creator.

People have more control over their dreams than they think though.

[Psyquis52]

So we could be dealing with a "God" who has more control over his dreams than he thinks?

That's not a very comforting thought.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Sure it is, it makes less nightmares.

[Psyquis52]

How's that?

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

You can consciously control your subconscious, to a degree.

[Psyquis52]

What if I subconsciously control my consciousness?

[Dja Majista]

May 15, 2008 0:24:16 GMT -5 Psyquis52 said:

What if I subconsciously control my consciousness?

That would be awesome.
Nice sig btw. and the avvy, that's an awesome avvy. lol

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

May 15, 2008 14:50:43 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

May 15, 2008 0:24:16 GMT -5 Psyquis52 said:

What if I subconsciously control my consciousness?

That would be awesome.
Nice sig btw. and the avvy, that's an awesome avvy. lol

Where's the net when she's sliding down?