Hello Dave ...

I had to read your post a few times to recollect my thoughts ... In fact I am not even sure where to begin ... your post is so to the point ... and deserves my full coherent response.

You are right, Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." ... very true ... but I do believe that .... just because I have the ability to create a thought does not mean that I, actually exist ...  but then surely this would demand the question: "Who am I"?

My "I" woud have to broken down into segregate parts, like my physical being and my non physical being ...

It is said that the brain is the seat of the mind ... (conscious and subconscious), ... but physically, my brain is nothing more than just matter ... a 3lb organ made up of pure fat compounds, flushed in liquid ... which ... after death ... is incapable of creating a thought... therefore, in light of that,  I would have to sustain that it is incapable of creating thoughts whilst I am alive.

We have to agree to disagree with the fact that we cannot create our our reality ... as I believe we can ... A perceived cold chilly air to me ... may seem like a warm summer air to someone else ... so, technically, in fact we have created our own two separate realities ... based on our perceptions.

Of course, I agree, that we all have common realities, we all know what a PC is ... and what it is used for ... but in some remote part of the world a tribesman who has never been exposed to a PC may think it is an alien object which he would, probably define, in accordance to his lack of knowledge and experience with such an object. He may even think it is the devil impersonified .... but then we may all have that feeling from time to time ... hehehe ...but you know what I mean ....

I do believe that you are right ... that we are part of some greater scheme ... not necessarily in a game or supercomputer ..... but ... perhaps in an infinite universal superconscious ... where as you quite rightfully said ... there is no beginning and there is no end ... and I strongly believe that my thought making capacity comes .... not from me ... but from this universal consciousness ... the supremacy of all living matter ....

We are all but energy fields, made up of atoms, neurons and particles various ... so we react, intereact and behave as energy forces in unisom with our environment .... being it too ... an energy force ..... even our eyes can deceive us .. as they are only receptors for reflections of light that determine a "possible" definition of reality. 

Could it not be that we live in multiple realities at the same time ... similar to the concept of parallel universes? ... after all ... if I choose X option ... the outcome will be Y ... but if I choose W option, in the same, occupied, space and time ... then the outcome would be Z ... so I have made my own new reality within an existing reality ... and parallel to it ... because I still have the original option of choosing X.

Ok, I have rambled on now and it's not my usual time of day for philosophical thoughts .... I'm ahead of myself ....

Take care and I shall look forward to this debate going further ...

Best wishes

Venerina

Hello Joe

Thank you ...

I must admit that I adore reading Carlos Castaneda and I do believe that he really does make a good point there when he says that everything has its own reality ... and everything felt within that reality is only real for the entity to which it refers ... ie. that is experiencing that reality ...

My father use to tell me I was living in a dream world when I told him I wanted to be a singer and travel around the world ... but ... in time ... his definition of a dream world became my living reality ...

I think like Nan said ... our reality is what and how we choose it to be and the decisions we make along the path we choose to follow ..... to wherever it may lead ....

Of course we can set out on a path to a "wanted" reality ... and never get there because we choose to change our path at the various crossroads ...... but two realities can never be the same ... by the sheer difference that divides us in our own conceptions and preconceptions....

Have a great evening my friend

God Bless and a big hug

Venerina

heheheheh Larry ...

I have to confess that many a time I have flipped a coin to choose the path to take on something ... It hasn't always been right ... but what the heck ... isn't taking risks what makes life fun?????  Isn't that what living is all about??? ... sometimes we just need to take a leap in blind faith ....

Take care my friend

Venerina

Hello Venerina,

Thank you for this philosophical topic.

My reality now is that I should be filing my quarterly tax return, but I'm reading your thread and even responding to it now. Just kidding. :)

On my journey to where I'm right now, I was learning about the reasons why some people are successful against all the odds and other people are failures in spite of all the opportunities given to them.

I found out that our brains produce waves in the same areas and in similar intensity regardless of if something is happening to us or we are just imaging it. Further the longer we deal with something or the more often we imagine it, we become better at it.

In essence it doesn't matter if things are happening to us or if we imagine them for the chemical reaction to happen in our bodies. We can create emotions by imaging situations which will produce thoughts which if put into action will change reality around us.

As all other participants in this discussion noted, each of us has different reality.
The reasons for that are that our experiences and our thoughts are different and there is different chemistry in our system due to smilingly similar stimulus.  Best of all,  we can create our reality at will as soon as we are realizing it.

If we want to get rid of some problem in our lives, it is just enough to start thinking that this problem is insignificant, or even better just not think about it. This will change our chemistry.

If I want to become somebody we just think about it and we start feeling and acting like that somebody. If we continue doing it, chemistry in our body will bring us to the state we imagine easier, faster and better each time we are doing it.

The world outside you will see what you send out and will act accordingly.

The main problem is though if we know what we want, who we are and where we are going.

 

Deepak Chopra  said in one of his latest books.

"You are not in the world. The world is in you. "

The best proof for this is that your reality stops its existence as soon as your consciences and subconscious stops functioning.

 

Bogdan Fiedur

Dear Dr Venerina & friends,

Thank you for the invitation to a great  discussion where many friends give us their opinion. I love such forums where we can discuss.

What is reality? Is everything we see and feel real? Are there things we don't feel but or aura reads them?
 
Mr Bogdan wrote: "The reasons for that are that our experiences and our thoughts are different and there is different chemistry in our system due to smilingly similar stimulus.  Best of all,  we can create our reality at will as soon as we are realizing it."

I agree to that but I believe we are as micro-cosmos a part of macro-cosmos whish means that we all bear something that could be real for some people and un-real for others, but a part of the total.

Dave Cortrell had a topic on same subject months ago there is also good information.

Five senses, an incurably abstract intellect, a haphazardly selective memory, a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through? Are there any other senses?  A sixth ?

Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way peace and security which he can not find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

Much can be said and written here.
I give place for others to tell us their meaning.

Thank you for these nice thoughts.

Sincerely,
Georgios