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What's the real difference between things that are real and things that only look real but aren't? (piefed.world)
submitted 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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Like movies. We react and get emotional and startled and stuff, but that's totally fake and we know it.

And AI. I know it's just a statistical illusion but I'll still have a conversation with it. Sometimes I'll even feel gratitude. So that's nuts.

And then you have stories handed down by important authorities. Science and religion. The guy said it so I treat it as real. Is that good or bad?

Fact is, we as humans do this thing where we treat fantasy as reality. And sometimes that's a good and useful and sometimes it's bad. And sometimes it's good for a while but then there's a AHA moment and then you realize you've been fooled and it was all fake. And sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn't. I don't know. I'm getting confused here. You tell me.

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[–] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

Yup. The crushing weight of the meaningless of everything is something the human brain, society, and religions has evolved to studiously avoid.

We are able to navigate the world pretty well with our head full of fictions, and it is only occasionally when reality will give us a challenge, which we can accept, ignore, or accomodate.

Then there's the psychological extremes to experience. Derealization and depersonalization are when people feel like they are characters in a video game, just following rules in an artificially constructed landscape. This sensation can be caused by trauma, but it can also be caused by existential unmooring. I think the general phenomenological category is "disassociation," if you want to look into it.

I also recommend Britt Hartley's YouTube Channel, No Nonsense Spirituality, since she had a psychotic break on her way through religious deconstruction and talks about intimately grappling with the nature of reality.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 minute ago

    I think that reality is inherently meaningless and any apparent inherent meaning is a strong push from biology or culture.

    It's like our native reality is not physical or biological but epistemological. our native reality is a space of dreams and meanings.

    maybe we're aliens from a vastly different universe. stranded here. trying to recreate our home world.

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