h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How can I be certain there are things going on, when I cannot sense them?
Let me give and example. I go on holiday to a foreign destination, I hop onto a plane and eventually arrive at the resort. There are people there,living their life’s speaking a different language you know the sort of thing.
The problem is how can I be certain that they existed before I arrived, and will continue to exist after I have left. How can I be certain it’s not all a product of my imagination.

You can't
But be warned, if you follow this line of reasoning then you will eventually conclude that you can never drive over a hill again since you cannot be sure that the highways department had continued building the road on the other side or not.

i know how you feel, im not sure that anything exsists but it does ... im confused!
cheers
ford

This is an old philosophy question. Let me save you some time. Don't do this to yourself. It probably is always there so don't worry about it. The biggest problem is finding the room in the brain to take in the encompasing amount of space and activity there is in the universe, especially when you need to concentrate on something as small as how you spell "philosophy". There is a change in gear that your head needs to make and it still doesn't get you up the hill. Don't torture yourself.

please dont go into a matrix speech about how things could be a computer generated dream.. that just scares me, i cant help thinking like this!

Ah no, it is not a computer generated dream. However, the odds are stacked rather heavily in favour of us all being a computer generated simulation of the universe.
The theory comes from time travel theories.
The train of thought is as follows (and yes, I know it has rather a lot of assumptions).
As computing power continues to develop, and our understanding of what and how we can do things increases, so it is possible, indeed some say likely, that in the future there will be some form of computational system (not necessarily one that we would recognise) capable of modeling the universe, or at least some significant portion of if.
One could then use that system to model a period back in time by ktracing/knowing the position of all the relevant particles at that time and location. Once you have done that, you can model reality. but since all the matter would be in the same place as it was originally, then from inside the simulation it would be impossible to distinguish it from reality.
Now if this does/will/has/willemhavebeen (need DNAs book on time travel tenses here ) happen then there will be more than one of them. Indeed, for research urposes there would be many of them.
But even if there is only one, then thqt makes our chances of living in the Real World only 50%. More likely there will be many of them, so our chances of existing in the real world are hundreds to 1 against.

So there ya go, it ain;t a dream at all

Thank you for that. it did explain a lot (maybe too much?, you could be one of 'them' who keep us unknowing prisoners in thier place!) but 100 to one against? your just enforceing my fear and dought of life! you monster!

This is another version of Plato's "myth of the cave" (which assumes no computer generated virtual reality) which was intended to describe how there is a world behind the world that we see. A world of Ideal Forms. The things that we see are mere shadows by comparison. It is also the philosophy behind the Gospel of John as well as the Hindu idea of Maya, illusion, which is like a curtain that separates us from experiencing reality as it really is. Doubt about the reality of what we perceive is also what Descartes was talking about when he solved the first step by reasoning that, whatever else he couldn't be sure of he could be sure that he was thinking about it ("I think therefore I am"). Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your point of view) he resorted to God guaranteeing the truth of his perceptions.

So basically, are we all insignificant?

yep.

Everyone but me that is

hehe.

you are all insignificant compared to me!
cheers
ford

We could talk about webcams and the ability to look over your shoulder (metaphorically) and keep an eye on what's behind you. But in reality, the Twilight Zone TV programme, which I think was a documentary, actually, once discussed the issue of the demolition and rebuilding of reality as the 'present' was only actually a few minutes moving through time.

What happens is that as the 'present' moves on, little men enter the used time and demolish everything, and another team is ahead of the present, rebuilding or freshly building everything.

This explains the phenomenon of losing such things as keys, etc. You would swear on your life that you placed them somewhere, only for them not to be there, and later, they're back in that place - easily answered - the little men missed something in the rebuild, and went back and corrected it.

It all becomes clear when you think about it....

Clear as mud

only joking!! When you think about it that would kind of make sense. But then you have a million and one other questions that come with that theory. Such as, do the little men also have little men demolishing and building their past and future?

I thought you were going to posit that the lack of overtly obvious time travelers in our own time was the evidence that we occupy a simulation of the universe, not a real one.