BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Philosophy The world and TV screen

When we watch TV, everything looks real.
switch it off and all goes away.
Is world like images on TV?

Hi CDM,

Certainly some philosophers have argued that when we close our eyes - switching off the world - we can no longer be sure that the objects we were seeing are still there.

However it is surely still possible to experience such an object through one of our other senses: for example we can still strike the table with our knuckles and feel it and hear the sound.

Similarly, there is strong evidence that when we are asleep - switching off the world completely - we still receive information through our senses. Have you heard the joke about the man who fell asleep and dreamed he was eating a giant marshmallow? When he woke up the pillow was gone :-)

He had to buy a new pillow? Poor fello. Good post, Chik.

Chik,

I am quite impressed with your articles.

Chic,

can we get serious with what i posted?
Is the world real?
or it is our imagination?
For a dead person there is no world!

Hi again

Thanks very much for the compliment about my articles. I often use a bit of humour but I definitely do take these questions seriously.

I've never been convinced by the argument that the external world is nothing but the product of my (internal) imagination or mind. It's possible, but how would we ever know?

It certainly is the case, however, that our contact with the external world depends on our brain's interpretation of certain sensory stimuli. But that's a different issue.

To answer the point about the dead person, it seems to me that what happens when someone dies is not that the world ceases to exist. If I die before you, you won't suddenly think that there is no world anymore. What happens is that the dead person ceases to experience the world which the rest of us continue to experience. It isn't the world that no longer exists, it's the person.

Can this be turned upside down?

Because the world has been called a product of our imagination. Right?

oh nice imagination but it's hard for me to could made the world in my mind. I guess just could perseive and comprehend it individualy that maybe some differences according to any mind.

Babak, there is some sense in this. The world is in our imagination.

The world isn't in our imagination and things in it are real because it is tangible. We can touch it, smell it and taste it so it is there.

Colors could be our imagination. Someone told us that green is green but it doesn't make it so. Maybe red is really green. Who came up with colors.

We are told that gravity holds us down to the earth. Who came up with gravity? Isaac Newton? Why, because an apple fell on his head? Why is it gravity holding us down and not centrifical force from the spinning earth?

Take a bucket of water and spin it around, water stays in the bucket. Why? Centrifical force, not gravity. What's the difference?