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Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Samantha's Question - The Matrix
Ok basically I'm just asking what is reality? And is reality defined by whatever is not reality? Like in dreams, hallucinations, imagination etc. So we can say our present state is reality. But then the philosophical question is that (I know this is going to sound ridiculous) how do we know we are not all "brains in a vat" controlled by a Evil Genius who makes us think whatever we are feeling is really reality, i.e. How do we know we're not trapped in "The Matrix"?
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9 comments:
In a way, we aren't really living in the real world.
We live in a created world with a created reality. And guess what? It is our mission to get out of this world and take others along with us as well. Feel like Neo yet?
Here's my take. The world that we live in is really, in only a manner of speaking, God's imagination. His thoughts and His love and His will sustains our natural laws, sustains us. Unfortunately, mankind messes this beautiful 'reality' up, which explains why we can never be truly happy or satisfied living in this 'world'.
So if this is not the real world, where is it? can we get out into the real world? if so, how?
i believe the real world can be found pre-Genesis. And what was existent before Genesis? God himself! (we have no evidence to suggest the cosmics/universe was where God lived so i choose to believe God created the universe and all spiritual realms) Indeed, it is to return to the Presence of God! We like to call this 'Heaven'. And how do we 'unplug' ourselves? Well, Jesus worked it out for us. He's THE ONE. No one goes to the Father but by Him. Indeed.
And because of that, we've become renegades. called to be holy rebels. im not trying to start a war here or incite any violence but we are called to be different from this world. So what's our job as renegades? We recruit! We bring the Lord's message to the world so they will be awaken, aware and truly ALIVE.
Only those who accept Christ as their Saviour can be unplugged into Heaven when He so desires. (It is not up to us to unplug ourselves) Those who choose not to believe in THE ONE, and succumb to this warped reality's rules and logic, will soon be deleted. An inevitable end for Mankind who chooses deletion over unplugging, fantasy over reality.
So it's time to wake up! We don't belong here! This reality's about to crash and there are millions out there who have no hope or worse, not know of the need for a hope!
Let us recruit, and draw men and women to Christ who desires to save us all and bring us up to His reality which is as eternally good as God himself.
Haha, you know what? If we change the phrase, "Evil Genius" to "God" in the original question, there you have it, a summary of what you've just said.
on the contrary, we know we are not being controlled. if we operate by remote control, there will be no meaning in us knowing tt we are being controlled...if we are controlled, we won't even know we're being controlled. so the fact tt you brought up the possiblity of being controlled, thus formulating an idea in your mind tt u are being controlled, goes very well to show that YOU (or anyone for that matter) are NOT being controlled.
a question here: let us imagine that we are being controlled. what can you do about it? anything you do about it is probably under control as well. since there really is nothing u can do to wrench control back to yourself, why bother wondering if we are being controlled or not?
Contrary to Normie’s illustration (but understanding his point), I would like to assert that we are living in a real world. Pre-Genesis was real, Genesis was real and so it is now. Saying that one is real and the other not would be the same as saying the bible is surreal, or at best, abstract. The scripture is as clear as it is, “In the beginning Yahweh created the heavens and the earth.” Created means it was caused to exist, permanent until destroyed. Reality is carved and shaped during creation.
Whether there are other realities ‘out there’ is the question but then we need not bother. After all so what if we know and so what if we do not know. The fact is that we do not know, and we can pride ourselves about it for the rest of our lives or rather, until we know and face this reality’s reality, death.
And because of the reality of death, people ask “how do I know that I exist” and I guess that is a very genuine question that has a felt reality. Especially for times like now with the arrival of cloning, the Human Genome Project and advances in artificial intelligence, the nature of personhood and what it means to exist becomes increasingly urgent. All bio-ethical questions ultimately require a concept of human essence as their point of reference.
The spirit of postmodern thought says that there is no truth, no meaning and therefore no certainty (in short, its Descartes). We now see that living is detached from reality and truth detached from meaning. What does existences mean when living doesn’t correspond to reality?
With this said the question then takes on a different form. If living corresponds to reality, I think the greater question then becomes “what does it means to live?” How can I find a meaning that is so powerful that I need not a ‘high’ for it to be meaningful and no amount of ‘low’ can take that out of my mind?
Pastor Benny Ho said it very well when he said that - “people can refine us but only God can define us.” Ravi Zacharias wrote that - “Our identity is sacred by definition, for we have been created by God to bear His image. We have been endowed with a moral nature, with the capacity to give love and understand goodness. A child, then, does not find her worth in physical beauty or mental prowess, but in reflecting the beauty of her Creator.” There is a transcendent value to being human, created by God and in his image.
I have mentioned the word ‘created’ many times, ever wondered as to why then are we created and not constructed? G.K. Chesterton astutely observed that "The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed, but a thing created is loved before it exists." If we do not know what reality is or rather what it means to exist, then I can safely say too that we would not be able to know what love is. But the fact is that we do recognize love when we receive it and we also have the capacity to give love. What does that say about existence or reality in essence then?
In romance dramas, in songs people write and sing, everywhere we turn we see and hear people claim that ‘love gives life meaning’. Whenever I read about other worldviews I’m always very surprised that none of them claim the same thing. You see, if love is the supreme ethic of what life represents, it must bear a coherency with what we believe. Only in the Christian worldview do we see love precedes life. Jesus Christ himself taught in John 15:13 that “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” And he demonstrated that great love when he died on the cross for our sins. Talk about walking our talk, Jesus does it better then anyone else. In this Jesus stands beautiful and unique.
Love gives life meaning and meaning can only come from a relationship. Coherence in existence and reality can only be found through a relationship with Jesus Christ. I urge you all to press on in your faith because it is in the person of Jesus Christ that coherence in life is found in existence.
Existence promise us hope and meaning if we find truth. After all why live when there is no hope, no meaning and no truth. And because of this very reason Jesus says to us that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Exclusive statement, defining answer.
matt asked me to comment here.all of them wrote such cheem and deep stuff.i feel so young lar.haha.
well, we touched on this subject during philo lesson a few mths ago.we watched matrix then discussed it as reality vs perception.i wrote about it in my philo log book.
Reality is what we define as real.Reality is shaped by perception.everything is relative.nothing is actually right and wrong, true or false. it's all relative.Our perception is our reality.Reality is our memories and experiences, and what we can go through with our five senses.but then again, what we go through with our five senses is not necessarily a reality to everyone.
Daniel Ho told me this : if there is a ball, half blue and half red on the other side.a person on one side may see the ball as blue, the other person sitting on the other side sees it as red.
To the guy on one side, the ball is blue. That is his perception, from his own angle.that is HIS reality. but that is not the other guy's reality. Each person's reality is different, based on each one's perceptions. There is no definite reality for each individual.
Reality is not necessarily smth thats scientifically proven.Man came out with science.so it's man-made.there MUST be a God, because man cannot make man.so man is not the ruler of everything.so there has to be a God.we cannot try to use science to prove God in some areas cause science is man-made.it is by humans.humans cannot fully understand God.if we could, we wouldnt be here on earth.and scientology is a un-right religion cos it was created by man and man cannot control man.because if we could create man, those scientists wouldnt have any questions in their minds now, cos they hold everything in their palms.so scientology is WRONG.
and eh sry. i realise im talking out of point =S.haha.
back to the point.
We experience God, to us, God is real, to some God isnt.
HOWEVER, this topic of whether God is real cannot always be scientifically proven.
BUT.we cannot doubt that God is real.we WILL NOT doubt that God is real.why? because GOD IS REAL!(quoted from suhui)
How come we're talking about the existence of God again huh?
Logic, reason, science, math and history can all prove the existence of God.
But even if logic cannot do that, does that mean our faith is illogical? No. If anything, it proves only one thing: logic per the human mind has limits. And because God's wisdom is unlimited, we have to accept there are just some things that we will never know.
We'll all struggle with this "just accept theory" because it just doesn't fit with our minds in such a time. We might ask, "How can I accept something that is vaguely proven to me?"
Well, it's not vague at all. And, we've to learn to ask the right questions to gain wisdom. Not intelligence, not smarts. Just wisdom for living. And living it right. First you gotta know WHO God is. Case for a creator. Then you gotta know that God spoke the word and that , "16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." - 2 Tim 3:16 and that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." - John 1:1
Jeremiah 33 sums it up well:
2 "This is what the LORD says [Authority of His word], he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it [recognition of Creator God]—the LORD is his name: 3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.' - emphasis mine.
Many people are too quick to cut to the facts. We might be tackling theological/apologetic questions from the wrong angle. It's not always from the empirical angle where we "show the facts". Facts can always be disputed. Who shot J.F. Kennedy? We'll never know. We'll speculate, we'll never know. But one thing is sure: JFK was shot. Just because we can't find out whodunit doesn't make JFK any less dead. Doesn't make the shot any less real.
For those who can't seem to put a finger to the reality of God, you know one thing for sure: God is real. Just because you can't find out exactly doesn't make the world any less a miracle. Doesn't make Creation a myth. The big bang, Evolution - all just theories. The world had to be created. There's just too many coincidences to leave to chance. And because you can't explain away creation, you've to point all of that to a Creator - God.
And because God created all of this, and because God is real, this is reality.
hi jan!
i was giving an example to explain what people usually think. but that one person sees the ball as blue while the other sees it as red, still doesnt take away the fact that the ball is half blue half red.
similarly, that one perceives the existence of God and the reality of our lives to be nonexistent, does not mean that God does not exist. as talked about by matt and samantha.
now it's just because the person on the blue side doesnt know the full picture of what the ball is like, or he perhaps doesnt even bother to find out, that's why we end up having to address such things. we may not be able to know the true side of everything in our lifetime, but i guess it's kind of a wake up call, that it's time for us to get out of our comfort zones, and get equipped and prepared. we cant just sit around and look at things from our own little hole, we need to take the initiative to walk around and find out.
nothing much to do with the topic, but just my two cents' worth.
Hi all. I think we may have misunderstood normie. so far all the arguments seem to contradict what normie say but if you all look carefully, he/she is merely stating views in, in his own words, "only a manner of speaking" and "in a way". (im guessing he/she is a lit student) I think maybe normie is trying to bridge the matrix movie and the real world we are all living in. also, i don see anything that suggests we live in an inferior physical world. heaven, according to normie, is is where the presence of God can be most felt...nothing like the heaven presupposed by manysyllables to be normie's view of heaven.
Actually, to go on we have to agree on what reality means. i think normie's definition of reality is what is original, not created. (just change his 'reality' word with the word 'original', then maybe it wun sound so weird) if we agree with that, then his arguments are not all that wrong.
i think this debate is turning into one of terminology.
Reality?
What is real?
How do you define real?
If you're talking about somthing you can see or taste or touch or feel, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain...
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