flexible assumptions about life:
"what happened when i was 20 was quite shocking to me. i mean huge upheaval. it's like i was born, i came into this world, i accepted everything i was told, and for a long time, i believed it all. but i suppose as a child, that's typical."
"there's a docile quality to childhood. it's like in a dream. you instantly accept everything you think about the dream world. in a way psychologically that is the most docile state perhaps, in that you're completely led by your thoughts no matter how strange they seem when you wake up."
"and the first thing i remember about this lifetime is a long series of dreams. well then the breakdown happened to me and all the craziness. but what it did was, it called all my assumptions about life, about the world, about earth, into question. it's like it scrambled my brain. i knew some of my thoughts were crazy, were definitely false, but then what if some of the assumptions i had when i was, you know, "normal", also false? how could i be sure?"
"you mean normal assumptions about life and the world?"
"yes, the ones everyone accepts, like the population."
"like seeing is believing."
"exactly. that everything you see and hear in three dimensions is somehow real is the core assumption. but when you have hallucinations, when you're not sure what you're seeing or hearing is real and what is not anymore, that changes everything. and you can never change it back."
"not to lessen what you're saying, but i wonder if, what if everyone experiences hallucinations, maybe just slightly in some cases, you know, not enough to raise the alarm, but it's like, no one admits to it!? maybe it's not a minority? or not hallucinations, in that they're not real at all, but a whisper here and there, you know, they're not sure if someone spoke or not, they certainly can't see anyone, but they're none the wiser? maybe they see something and think, that's odd, but they don't really question it?"
"so, so called normal forever isn't the case for anyone? that wouldn't surprise me. the mind is a delicate thing. it's an upset or something strange that happens first."
"what happened to you was your assumptions were shaken and you became a sceptic."
"no, you're right. that's why you have to have flexible assumptions about life. what happens when you realize you were crazy about something you believed for a very long time is that the shock doesn't wear off for years. you wonder about everything. like are the people i see real, is the world full of philosophical zombies or illusions of people? are the voices i hear, without seeing anybody, real people calling to me, or not?"
"and it's not definitely all or nothing. what if the answer is sometimes?"
"right. it's like changing gears. you wake up and think, what am i going to assume about the world today? you don't want to get stuck into a mindset that collapses when you find out some part of it wasn't true and never was."
CLEARCHARGE
Showing posts with label hallucinations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hallucinations. Show all posts
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Hallucinations Gone Wild
hallucinations gone wild:
"so that's pretty much how the hallucinations started. i was feeling quite paranoid, very alone. then i started hearing people's voices. it's interesting even though a lot of it was about what i was thinking, so i should have known really, i assumed they were real. you could say i was really naive about the whole thing. i was 20 years old. i didn't know what schizophrenia was at the time. and that all makes sense the normal way. anyway that's how it all began."
"but what triggered it? something must have happened. and what do you mean by makes sense the normal way?"
"in my case i think it was just fear. but to start with it was just auditory. the visual hallucinations came later. what i mean is i worked out that probably most of the voices weren't real at that time, which is more or less what a psychiatrist would say. you know, your brain's not working the right way so you hear your thoughts and so on. what i wanted to tell you is the visual hallucinations became a lot more in an episode i had over two years ago. i really saw things! at night i looked out of the window and saw buildings move and the atmosphere, it was like my house was a starship and i was flying over a huge city. that lasted on and off over a couple of days. it's when you don't sleep, you start thinking a lot, the hallucinations pick right up."
"it doesn't sound safe."
"it's not. you have to be careful when it starts up. but the thought presented itself to me clearly that if in the general equation of everything the mental component of reality were more, that the world even could be generated in a schizophrenic fit in a moment. and even before objects seemed to appear from out of nowhere, i mean that could be touched. i'm not 100% sure but i think i got an extra bottle of Coca-Cola in my fridge, for example. the thing is, i couldn't prove it, because i wasn't sure about the number. also, in the dark, i'd see ghostly images of extra cigarettes in the pack and i was kind of hoping if i could just touch them they would materialize. and then i'd never run out of cigarettes!"
"let me get this straight. so what you are saying is, a real magician is someone having an extreme schizophrenic episode!? magicking objects up from hallucinations?"
"yeah. i guess. but i haven't seen anything out of the ordinary for years."
"but can you make things disappear?"
"well, i have lost a few things over the years."
"if it's a world full of philosophical zombies, maybe you could delete a few people here and there."
"hold on. that's dangerous territory. what if you tried to delete a real person? not good. or just thought about it even? i don't want to go there."
"no you're right. but what if you deleted all the zombies to just leave only the real people on earth?"
"well that might sound fine to start with but what if everyone was left stranded? say 9 out of 10 people disappeared?"
"yeah, you're right again. but what i'm trying to say is, if only you could control it, it wasn't a dangerous out of control thing, you know what i mean?"
"no, i see what you're saying. it did occur to me that maybe all the other real people were in different countries but who knows, right? i had this experience a year after it all started, when i was 21, of sitting in a train to London from Durham and i had this definite feeling that no one else on the train was real, i was completely alone. it's just that the mood changes so drastically sometimes you're forced to go along with it."
"yes. that's true even when you're what they call mentally normal, not schizophrenic. what do you suppose will happen when you die?"
"i expect i'll start dreaming of somewhere else beforehand and then i'll wake up there one day. just how i got here. and that will be that, the end of my time on earth."
CLEARCHARGE
"so that's pretty much how the hallucinations started. i was feeling quite paranoid, very alone. then i started hearing people's voices. it's interesting even though a lot of it was about what i was thinking, so i should have known really, i assumed they were real. you could say i was really naive about the whole thing. i was 20 years old. i didn't know what schizophrenia was at the time. and that all makes sense the normal way. anyway that's how it all began."
"but what triggered it? something must have happened. and what do you mean by makes sense the normal way?"
"in my case i think it was just fear. but to start with it was just auditory. the visual hallucinations came later. what i mean is i worked out that probably most of the voices weren't real at that time, which is more or less what a psychiatrist would say. you know, your brain's not working the right way so you hear your thoughts and so on. what i wanted to tell you is the visual hallucinations became a lot more in an episode i had over two years ago. i really saw things! at night i looked out of the window and saw buildings move and the atmosphere, it was like my house was a starship and i was flying over a huge city. that lasted on and off over a couple of days. it's when you don't sleep, you start thinking a lot, the hallucinations pick right up."
"it doesn't sound safe."
"it's not. you have to be careful when it starts up. but the thought presented itself to me clearly that if in the general equation of everything the mental component of reality were more, that the world even could be generated in a schizophrenic fit in a moment. and even before objects seemed to appear from out of nowhere, i mean that could be touched. i'm not 100% sure but i think i got an extra bottle of Coca-Cola in my fridge, for example. the thing is, i couldn't prove it, because i wasn't sure about the number. also, in the dark, i'd see ghostly images of extra cigarettes in the pack and i was kind of hoping if i could just touch them they would materialize. and then i'd never run out of cigarettes!"
"let me get this straight. so what you are saying is, a real magician is someone having an extreme schizophrenic episode!? magicking objects up from hallucinations?"
"yeah. i guess. but i haven't seen anything out of the ordinary for years."
"but can you make things disappear?"
"well, i have lost a few things over the years."
"if it's a world full of philosophical zombies, maybe you could delete a few people here and there."
"hold on. that's dangerous territory. what if you tried to delete a real person? not good. or just thought about it even? i don't want to go there."
"no you're right. but what if you deleted all the zombies to just leave only the real people on earth?"
"well that might sound fine to start with but what if everyone was left stranded? say 9 out of 10 people disappeared?"
"yeah, you're right again. but what i'm trying to say is, if only you could control it, it wasn't a dangerous out of control thing, you know what i mean?"
"no, i see what you're saying. it did occur to me that maybe all the other real people were in different countries but who knows, right? i had this experience a year after it all started, when i was 21, of sitting in a train to London from Durham and i had this definite feeling that no one else on the train was real, i was completely alone. it's just that the mood changes so drastically sometimes you're forced to go along with it."
"yes. that's true even when you're what they call mentally normal, not schizophrenic. what do you suppose will happen when you die?"
"i expect i'll start dreaming of somewhere else beforehand and then i'll wake up there one day. just how i got here. and that will be that, the end of my time on earth."
CLEARCHARGE
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Reality and Earth and Dreams and Hallucinations and the Perplexing Question of What Is Real?
reality and earth and dreams and hallucinations and the perplexing question of what is real:
"i mean, what is the commonly accepted view, or opinion, about what is real on earth, or at least what everyone has to assume? i'll tell you, that there are at least billions of real people for a start, right? and for someone who is not, you know, a schizophrenic, everyone you see is real and you have to deal with them as though they're real, and also that there's some kind of science that connects everyone together but i'm not going to go into that, because i don't know a whole lot about science or how it really works or would work. and then it's like, that is the only completely real thing, everything else, dreams, hallucinations, you know, seeing or hearing things other people don't seem to, and other worlds, that's all deprecated or even dismissed as not real at all. it's like you have to believe waking life on earth is the only real thing in reality and only people you can see and meet and talk to that way are real, everything else, imaginary, or a product of the unconscious mind."
"so you're saying they could be real? i may really meet other people in my dreams?"
"listen, i can't say what is definitely real or definitely not real. i can't prove anything. what i mean is, i have doubts about the thing everyone on earth has to go by. what i'm saying is, in a sense, it's all real, it's all found in reality, you know? it's all sensory experience. the question is, are the other people you meet in waking life or in dreams or talk to in so called hallucinations, are they real or not? i mean, let's look at the possibility that even in waking life on earth some people are not real. i mean, people like to think in absolute terms, either everyone is real or it's all a simulation but it's actually more probable that, unless solipsism is true and you are the only real person in this reality, that some people are real and only some are simulated."
"i just hope it's not solipsism that's true."
"right. who wants that? but as a schizophrenic, you have to consider, you're forced to think really, at some point, that the whole thing, earth, everyone you know, is just a huge hallucination, and even if it's not, it's probable, as a schizophrenic, that some people you walk past or even know, are just not real. they're hallucinations."
"wait. but couldn't everyone on earth be schizophrenic, at least slightly? i mean, that's how we all got here? you know, it could be suppressed for most people most of the time, but my theory is the earth thing is based on, it's derived from some form of schizophrenia that everyone has, like everyone dreams, though maybe schizophrenia isn't quite the right word."
"it could be. a lot of people hear things, more than are diagnosed schizophrenic. and people have imaginations, right? it's not much of a leap to think that this feeds into what they see and hear. and who said science existed at the start of time? i'm sure it was a little different to start with."
"yeah, maybe it was all a woozy schizophrenic mess to begin with. anyway, so it's like you have to figure out all the combinations of possibilities. so like maybe i mostly live in a simulation but i know a few real people on earth and when i dream, i'm completely meeting real people sometimes, and perhaps some of the voices i hear, the so called hallucinations, i'm talking to real people."
"right. the problem is, if you assume it's neither 100% or 0% anything, you're left with a huge scale of possibilities. it could be anything in between. but i mean, it does come down to the question, how many real people are there, anyway? if it turns out there are only like 30 real people in the whole of reality, well, i mean, isn't the unconscious that's feeding the hallucination of earth huge? to power the whole illusion. if it's really in the billions, well, that means earth, as given, as it's put up to be, is something like the truth. but if it's only in the thousands or even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it becomes harder to think about."
"right. like who are the real people on earth?"
"yeah. and what is everyone else doing?"
"do you think they're the guardian angels? wondering about poor old us who went to earth and left and when are we going to come back?"
"you know, you have to consider that everything that's out there, in books, in culture, in myths and legends, is somehow real in some sense, though maybe there's a distortion of the truth."
"not everything is real surely?"
"well, the case may be that some things are only real in thought, truly imaginary."
"you mean, like some things in history never happened? they made it up?"
"i don't know if someone consciously made it up or history just appeared, you know. there is a theory the earth, as it is, is only like less than 200 years old. at the very start it came with a history that just wasn't real. reality could only be a few hundred years old. the real year on the calendar may be something like Year 442."
"that would be A.D. 1572 for Year 1?"
"right. except earth didn't start until about 1850 and then it was mostly illusion, a simulation."
"so gradually more and more real people went to earth. i guess you just have to think of everything, every possibility. but if it were true, why would people want to think everything is billions of years old?"
"i think people underestimate how fast things change and really how much existed already or was possible at the start of time."
CLEARCHARGE
"i mean, what is the commonly accepted view, or opinion, about what is real on earth, or at least what everyone has to assume? i'll tell you, that there are at least billions of real people for a start, right? and for someone who is not, you know, a schizophrenic, everyone you see is real and you have to deal with them as though they're real, and also that there's some kind of science that connects everyone together but i'm not going to go into that, because i don't know a whole lot about science or how it really works or would work. and then it's like, that is the only completely real thing, everything else, dreams, hallucinations, you know, seeing or hearing things other people don't seem to, and other worlds, that's all deprecated or even dismissed as not real at all. it's like you have to believe waking life on earth is the only real thing in reality and only people you can see and meet and talk to that way are real, everything else, imaginary, or a product of the unconscious mind."
"so you're saying they could be real? i may really meet other people in my dreams?"
"listen, i can't say what is definitely real or definitely not real. i can't prove anything. what i mean is, i have doubts about the thing everyone on earth has to go by. what i'm saying is, in a sense, it's all real, it's all found in reality, you know? it's all sensory experience. the question is, are the other people you meet in waking life or in dreams or talk to in so called hallucinations, are they real or not? i mean, let's look at the possibility that even in waking life on earth some people are not real. i mean, people like to think in absolute terms, either everyone is real or it's all a simulation but it's actually more probable that, unless solipsism is true and you are the only real person in this reality, that some people are real and only some are simulated."
"i just hope it's not solipsism that's true."
"right. who wants that? but as a schizophrenic, you have to consider, you're forced to think really, at some point, that the whole thing, earth, everyone you know, is just a huge hallucination, and even if it's not, it's probable, as a schizophrenic, that some people you walk past or even know, are just not real. they're hallucinations."
"wait. but couldn't everyone on earth be schizophrenic, at least slightly? i mean, that's how we all got here? you know, it could be suppressed for most people most of the time, but my theory is the earth thing is based on, it's derived from some form of schizophrenia that everyone has, like everyone dreams, though maybe schizophrenia isn't quite the right word."
"it could be. a lot of people hear things, more than are diagnosed schizophrenic. and people have imaginations, right? it's not much of a leap to think that this feeds into what they see and hear. and who said science existed at the start of time? i'm sure it was a little different to start with."
"yeah, maybe it was all a woozy schizophrenic mess to begin with. anyway, so it's like you have to figure out all the combinations of possibilities. so like maybe i mostly live in a simulation but i know a few real people on earth and when i dream, i'm completely meeting real people sometimes, and perhaps some of the voices i hear, the so called hallucinations, i'm talking to real people."
"right. the problem is, if you assume it's neither 100% or 0% anything, you're left with a huge scale of possibilities. it could be anything in between. but i mean, it does come down to the question, how many real people are there, anyway? if it turns out there are only like 30 real people in the whole of reality, well, i mean, isn't the unconscious that's feeding the hallucination of earth huge? to power the whole illusion. if it's really in the billions, well, that means earth, as given, as it's put up to be, is something like the truth. but if it's only in the thousands or even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it becomes harder to think about."
"right. like who are the real people on earth?"
"yeah. and what is everyone else doing?"
"do you think they're the guardian angels? wondering about poor old us who went to earth and left and when are we going to come back?"
"you know, you have to consider that everything that's out there, in books, in culture, in myths and legends, is somehow real in some sense, though maybe there's a distortion of the truth."
"not everything is real surely?"
"well, the case may be that some things are only real in thought, truly imaginary."
"you mean, like some things in history never happened? they made it up?"
"i don't know if someone consciously made it up or history just appeared, you know. there is a theory the earth, as it is, is only like less than 200 years old. at the very start it came with a history that just wasn't real. reality could only be a few hundred years old. the real year on the calendar may be something like Year 442."
"that would be A.D. 1572 for Year 1?"
"right. except earth didn't start until about 1850 and then it was mostly illusion, a simulation."
"so gradually more and more real people went to earth. i guess you just have to think of everything, every possibility. but if it were true, why would people want to think everything is billions of years old?"
"i think people underestimate how fast things change and really how much existed already or was possible at the start of time."
CLEARCHARGE
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The True Population Puzzle
the true population puzzle:
we can say, yes, the human mind is flexible when thinking about the true population. it can seriously consider it to be anything from one, the self only, during a solipsistic phase, to billions, if not trillions. what do i mean by the true population? now obviously, my mind, or anyone's mind for that matter, bases many considerations or comparisons on the self, we cannot deny we are self-centred to a certain degree, and what we are may be most of what we can know. so, when this question is asked, everyone considers the same category, those that can be defined in the same way, that is, with a mind, a capacity to think, and a human body.
is this a worrying bias? to consider only those the same as yourself to be truly alive, perhaps? we worry very much about physical damage to the human body. it may be we are less concerned about damage to things we do not even consider to be alive, for they are so different, not human. perhaps it matters, perhaps it does not.
to suppose there are billions or trillions of souls out there is pretty much what earth presents. but where do they come from when they are born and where do they go when they die? do they go back to wherever they came from? onward to heaven? and is it possible to create a soul that did not exist? and if it existed, could the death of the soul happen?
now anyone who has ever experienced hallucinations, visual and auditory, can easily consider the possibility seriously that there are far fewer people who are real. once you start hallucinating, to put it simply, you are no longer sure what is real and what is not anymore. to give examples, you see text and moving images on the wall or floor, people suddenly appear and disappear, you hear people in the background and you can talk to these disembodied voices as well, are they truly hallucinations? i personally have seen a train schedule suddenly change completely before me, a train map of the country with the cities in the wrong places, and seen used underground train tickets that seemed dated in the future. i have teleported twice and i suspect several times not obviously as there was no sudden difference to be seen all around me, the explanation being that a distant street was visually smoothly connected to the one i was on. of course eventually, i was diagnosed schizophrenic and i admit i was crazy and delusional, but who wouldn't be confused with all that happening? in acute schizophrenia, the mind is so unstable, that anything can happen, which is why it is truly dangerous.
that i had truly teleported confirmed that the "external world", whatever it is, is not what it seems. most definitely, i cannot really "move" as such in the conventional sense, what i see happening when i walk is the world moving relative to me, not me moving relative to the world. my teleporting was a sudden change in my visual feed for my supposed location on earth. the frightening solipsism hallucinations induce, that you could be the only real person in existence and everyone else is an illusion, and the realization that conventional motion is a falsity, and merely theoretical, is what fuels theories that earth could be a kind of electronic computer simulation and the "external world" does not exist as such.
does it make any difference what the true population is? what if it were only 30? or 4500? everyone has considered billions. i have considered 1 quite seriously! whatever it is, if we ever get the true answer, we would have to adjust our thinking, "change gears" as to what we believe about reality. everyone has assumptions about existence and life, we assume we would function better with the truth, after all.
CLEARCHARGE
we can say, yes, the human mind is flexible when thinking about the true population. it can seriously consider it to be anything from one, the self only, during a solipsistic phase, to billions, if not trillions. what do i mean by the true population? now obviously, my mind, or anyone's mind for that matter, bases many considerations or comparisons on the self, we cannot deny we are self-centred to a certain degree, and what we are may be most of what we can know. so, when this question is asked, everyone considers the same category, those that can be defined in the same way, that is, with a mind, a capacity to think, and a human body.
is this a worrying bias? to consider only those the same as yourself to be truly alive, perhaps? we worry very much about physical damage to the human body. it may be we are less concerned about damage to things we do not even consider to be alive, for they are so different, not human. perhaps it matters, perhaps it does not.
to suppose there are billions or trillions of souls out there is pretty much what earth presents. but where do they come from when they are born and where do they go when they die? do they go back to wherever they came from? onward to heaven? and is it possible to create a soul that did not exist? and if it existed, could the death of the soul happen?
now anyone who has ever experienced hallucinations, visual and auditory, can easily consider the possibility seriously that there are far fewer people who are real. once you start hallucinating, to put it simply, you are no longer sure what is real and what is not anymore. to give examples, you see text and moving images on the wall or floor, people suddenly appear and disappear, you hear people in the background and you can talk to these disembodied voices as well, are they truly hallucinations? i personally have seen a train schedule suddenly change completely before me, a train map of the country with the cities in the wrong places, and seen used underground train tickets that seemed dated in the future. i have teleported twice and i suspect several times not obviously as there was no sudden difference to be seen all around me, the explanation being that a distant street was visually smoothly connected to the one i was on. of course eventually, i was diagnosed schizophrenic and i admit i was crazy and delusional, but who wouldn't be confused with all that happening? in acute schizophrenia, the mind is so unstable, that anything can happen, which is why it is truly dangerous.
that i had truly teleported confirmed that the "external world", whatever it is, is not what it seems. most definitely, i cannot really "move" as such in the conventional sense, what i see happening when i walk is the world moving relative to me, not me moving relative to the world. my teleporting was a sudden change in my visual feed for my supposed location on earth. the frightening solipsism hallucinations induce, that you could be the only real person in existence and everyone else is an illusion, and the realization that conventional motion is a falsity, and merely theoretical, is what fuels theories that earth could be a kind of electronic computer simulation and the "external world" does not exist as such.
does it make any difference what the true population is? what if it were only 30? or 4500? everyone has considered billions. i have considered 1 quite seriously! whatever it is, if we ever get the true answer, we would have to adjust our thinking, "change gears" as to what we believe about reality. everyone has assumptions about existence and life, we assume we would function better with the truth, after all.
CLEARCHARGE
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