Illusion or Reality

[Ska]

Found this on Stumbleupon. It's meant to demonstrate how our reality is entirely constructed by our brain. It's pretty awesome...gets more impressive near the end.

http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/psych/www/about/BIT-1024.swf

 

[trisomination]

Went through it all. Interesting how our brain works. Thanks for the share!
I wonder if you could hide things in plain sight using this...

 

[CoryJames]

I haven't read the link yet, but it often causes me great wonder when I am looking around at a landscape and realizing that everything I am sensing, (seeing hearing tasting smelling) are just chemical reactions taking place inside my brain.

 

[Ska]

If you guys really want to understand how our reality is constructed by our brains, take hallucenogenic drugs. They're a much better example than this.

http://mescaline.com/huxley.htm

 

[Saeros]

Knowing that our reality is generated by our brain isn't really new. Descartes covers the problem in depth in his meditations in the 16th century CE. Plato writes about how our senses are unreliable in his dialogues, over 2,500 years ago. Very interesting animation, though.

 

[Ben]

If you guys really want to understand how our reality is constructed by our brains, take hallucenogenic drugs. They're a much better example than this.

http://mescaline.com/huxley.htm

Haha havent tried mescaline, but I have done shrooms. Did them twice in Amsterdam and the last time I did them it kind of broke me.......(in a good way), it was hands down the most profound experience of my life. I dont want to explain the trip too much because, with the exception of you, most people on this forum would probably just call me a piece of shit stoner. but anyway, it was extremely enlightening.

nice profile picture by the way.

 

[Da Blob]

Not only is the
Objective Universe" a mere subset of our Subjectivity or "Subjective Universe", but Consciousness, itself, is a very scary thing, so virtually everyone, wraps themselves in robes of ignorance in the form of self-induced trances. Self-hypnosis can serve a very useful purpose in eliminating redundant stimuli from perception, (Such as the 60-cycle electrical hum). However, most people take that ability to induce trances to mask non-redundant phenomena - any perception that is new, scary or threatening to the status quo.

Some so-called hallucinations are just realities stripped of self-imposed trances

 

[Ben]

Not only is the
Objective Universe" a mere subset of our Subjectivity or "Subjective Universe", but Consciousness, itself, is a very scary thing, so virtually everyone, wraps themselves in robes of ignorance in the form of self-induced trances. Self-hypnosis can serve a very useful purpose in eliminating redundant stimuli from perception, (Such as the 60-cycle electrical hum). However, most people take that ability to induce trances to mask non-redundant phenomena - any perception that is new, scary or threatening to the status quo.

Some so-called hallucinations are just realities stripped of self-imposed trances

what is the 60 cycle electrical hum?

 

[Da Blob]

what is the 60 cycle electrical hum?

In the U. S. (and perhaps elsewhere?) the alternating cycle of the electrical system emits a constant audible hum...

 

[CoryJames]

In the U. S. (and perhaps elsewhere?) the alternating cycle of the electrical system emits a constant audible hum...

So thats what I have been hearing all these years...I thought my ears were broken.

 

[amorfati]

I've been challenging this very idea in my head lately. Direct sense experience informs us of nothing of this sort. A child would never experience his toy as merely a mental representation. He experiences his toy as a toy, that is, until his mind is corrupted by his philosopher parent and then he starts to distrust his senses in favor of his reason.

If what we are experiencing directly is only our own brain, then fine, but again, direct sense experience has never informed us of this. Only our reason has informed us of this, and why should reason always triumph over the senses?

 

[Ska]

Haha havent tried mescaline, but I have done shrooms. Did them twice in Amsterdam and the last time I did them it kind of broke me.......(in a good way), it was hands down the most profound experience of my life. I dont want to explain the trip too much because, with the exception of you, most people on this forum would probably just call me a piece of shit stoner. but anyway, it was extremely enlightening.

nice profile picture by the way.

I've never done mescaline either, just LSD and shrooms (multiple times), although mescaline certainly sounds like a great experience. About the piece of shit stoner thing, well, I like being the minority.

And thanks about the avatar -- you like ska too?

 

[Ska]

Some so-called hallucinations are just realities stripped of self-imposed trances

I've never actually hallucinated while on these drugs, probably because I haven't taken high enough doses yet. But what I'm really talking about as pertaining to this thread is how these drugs alter the construct of reality your brain normally operates in.

 

[Cognisant]

In the U. S. (and perhaps elsewhere?) the alternating cycle of the electrical system emits a constant audible hum...

Most humming coming from electronics is either cooling related or there's some other sort of mechanical component moving in there, hard drives for example are not unlike the insertable disk drive, except completely different (sorry). Although various forms of lighting are also capable of humming, either because heat is causing air inside the bulb/tube to vibrate or the alternating current is causing the filament to heat/cool rapidly, thus vibrate.

You shouldn't hear the sound of electricity "jumping" unless something's seriously wrong, so as a general rule humming is harmless 99% of the time, but if you hear successive snapping/crackling noises, stay the fuck away from it.

 

[Ben]

I've never done mescaline either, just LSD and shrooms (multiple times), although mescaline certainly sounds like a great experience. About the piece of shit stoner thing, well, I like being the minority.

And thanks about the avatar -- you like ska too?

Yeah I kind of want to try mescaline and definitely DMT sometime in my life but right now im definitely not ready for it. Psychedelics can be very weird in high doses. They shake you to the core and force you to look at yourself from a third person point of view and not who you pretend to be on a day to day basis, but who you actually are. But lower doses are always fun!

Haha and yeah, I grew up on ska!