I think I’ve eventually arrived at “Everything is an illusion but it’s the only illusion we have, so it’s as real as anything else.” Everything we experience is a subjective response to a stimuli and no two people have that exact same response. It’s irrelevant whether we’re meat golems piloted by ghosts, dream figments, or NPCs in a massive simulation, because we live in a world with billions of others, and what we do matters to ourselves and those others.
I guess recognizing everyone else as real puts me in the Everything Is Real camp.
Now, the apparent impossibility of basing ‘the correct knowledge’ … on our perception says less about our perception and more about the conceptual framework we attempt to apply to it. Our perception is really just perception of what there is. … In itself there is no ‘illusion’ here, only full contact with reality … However, there seems to be a gap between the perceptual presence of these things and the concepts we try to apply to them … The answer does not lie in the nature of this particular kind of perception, but rather in the nature of the conceptual apparatus through which we view it. For the very concepts we use in such cases … are rooted in perception … these concepts, that is, concepts that have made perception itself a norm, do play a central role. Thus, the notion of ‘perceptual illusion,’ … in fact registers a gap between the specific way in which we are presented with things in a given perception and the general perceptual determination that imbues some of our concepts. … We call those features of perception that are left outside the system of our perceptual concepts … ‘perceptual illusions.’ … The question is not whether in itself our perception conforms to a norm … but rather how much of the perceived we have incorporated into our definition of that norm. … illusions, just are perceptions on my account. … we simply have a perception in every case where we may be inclined to say that we do.
most people only have issues with stuff being real when it upsets them. and the response to hurt feelings, is ‘it must/should not exist’.
when they like it, they are totally on board with it’s reality.
but most folks are too big brained to admit that’s the motivating factor. and also, that a most of us are raging hypocrites about it and refuse to acknowledge things exist outside our knowledge of them.
I think I’ve eventually arrived at “Everything is an illusion but it’s the only illusion we have, so it’s as real as anything else.” Everything we experience is a subjective response to a stimuli and no two people have that exact same response. It’s irrelevant whether we’re meat golems piloted by ghosts, dream figments, or NPCs in a massive simulation, because we live in a world with billions of others, and what we do matters to ourselves and those others.
I guess recognizing everyone else as real puts me in the Everything Is Real camp.
Broke: “Somethings are illusions, some aren’t.”
Woke: “Everything is an illusion.”
Bespoke: “There is no such thing as an illusion.”
Congratulations on your conversion to Buddhism.
most people only have issues with stuff being real when it upsets them. and the response to hurt feelings, is ‘it must/should not exist’.
when they like it, they are totally on board with it’s reality.
but most folks are too big brained to admit that’s the motivating factor. and also, that a most of us are raging hypocrites about it and refuse to acknowledge things exist outside our knowledge of them.