...and it's cheesy science fiction. My proof is that one of my co-workers just asked:
"Does anyone have a dongle for a Xircom?"
A 1950's science fiction author who wrote that line would have been tarred and feathered. But he would have been right.
(UPDATE: Cheesy isn't necessarily bad.)
ID:668
 Jun 7 2005, 6:55 am
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Yeah, I nearly cracked on that same question a few years ago. The possibility that non of us truly exist and we're all some aliens dream or something........
Well, I don't plan to delve too much deeper anymore. | |
Wow... people could go psycho thinking too hard on that. Well, I did... | |
Well, considering that the philosophy of life or dream dates back thousands of years and never really got anywhere says alot. It is true, though that we are limited by our sensory set. What is real to the brain is all we know. That is why people have phantom pains, for example (itches/pain in a missing limb). The limb is gone, but the brain still triggers a pain response for some reason, so they feel very real pain in the missing limb.
But there is an objective reality (contrary assertations require assumptions that are completely untenable). Our understanding of it is our subjective reality. No matter how weak you show the subjective reality to be, it does not bear on the existence of an objective reality. I disagree that we live in science fiction, unless it's maybe really bad, reeeaaallly low buget stuff. I mean we don't even have our hovercars and the vehicles we do drive use a technology that was behind the times when it was invented! And where are the laser guns and robo-people? | |
I disagree that we live in science fiction, unless it's maybe really bad, reeeaaallly low buget stuff. I dunno... everything about contemporary society, from the technology to the politics to the culture, would be utterly fascinating (and often appalling) to the average sci-fi reader of past decades if you presented it as a work of fiction. I think we tend to take it for granted because we see new developments as logical extensions of the older science-fictional stuff we grew up with, and because we have at least laymen's understanding of the ideas these technological/political/cultural developments are based on. Though of course the farther down you go, the hazier it gets -- sure, we know a lot about how electricity behaves and how it can be routed and transformed, but it's only familiarity that makes it seem less than magical. I agree that there's an objective reality. To the extent that our senses reveal it to us imperfectly, I think what they show us is not so much an error as it is a small cross section of something incomprehensibly larger. | |
I disagree that we live in science fiction Almost nothing I do during my day was even possible a few decades ago, or in some cases a few years ago... | |
"I think, therefore I am." doesn't cut it. What if we're dreaming we're thinking. Ever thought about that thought? Have I said enough about thougts and thinking and dreams? Have I?
Wow... people could go psycho thinking too hard on that.