Is there a possibility that the world around us is simply an illusion?

Question:I give everything a possibility credit.
wanna see your opinions
thanks

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I give everything a possibility credit.
wanna see your opinions
thanks

Only a few hundred years ago learned men believed the world was flat and at the centre of the universe. To them, that was a reality.

Now we believe that the world is round, orbiting the sun, which is part of a galaxy, one of inumeral galaxies in the universe. To us, that is a reality.

A few hundred years from now, learned men will view our reality much as we view the reality of learned men a few hundred years ago. Our reality will seem illusionary to them.

It's only real to us because we don't know any better.

Is there a possibility that it isn't?

yep i believe you are in acoma and when you 'die' you go back to the real place you should....

Watch the Trumman show movie with Jim Carey, then come back and ask the same question. He was the star of a TV show and the whole world was the audience but he didn't know he was on TV.

yeah i reckon

Yes it's called the Matrix

The world is real, it is our perception that suffers from illusions.

There are some people who propose that the world must *necessarily* be an illusion, because they argue it's virtually impossible that universe as we know it could exist (see such ideas as the strong anthropic principle & the carter prophesy / doomsday argument).

Instead, they say we're living in some sort of highly advanced computer simulation (like the matrix), and the real universe (if there is such a thing) looks completely different to the one we perceive every day.

This belief is solipsism. I think it was invented by a teenager in antiquity who wanted to ignore parents. In any event, the traditional 'refutation' is recorded in Boswell's "Life of Johnson."

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

Yes, it is.
What is real around you, say your job. You had been performing very well and you were the best. If your performance goes down, your thrown out like a rag. All the good work done by you- for which you had your everything- goes to waste.
Your wife is also an illusion, she can also desert you for some reason for a more comfortable life with some one else.
Your son or daughter could leave you for a slightest reason or disagreement totally disregarding all that you had been doing for them all their and your affection and love goes to the drain.
You could also leave your parents when they do not seem to agree to your view point on some occasion.
In a moment you would become selfish and forget your duties towards parents regardless of the pain that you give with this.
If you make a slightest wrong move, all your money and wealth may go in one stroke leaving you penniless.
All we think is our own view point and totally disregard others who may be effected due to our decision.
Today one may be a top actor, the other day when his fortunes are gone, no body may bother for him.
What is permanent, is your dealings with others, the selfless work you do for others, the help you give to others. This gives you satisfaction and lives with you forever.

World is real but our view/thoughts about the world is bound to be illusory as thoughts/reason alone can not comprehend the whole of real world; we have to awaken our intuitive/non-rational faculty - the right brain along with the left brain - to apprehend the non-illusory/real world!

Yes.

Maybe what people think of as 'dead' we are actually experiencing now and when we really 'die', we are actually being 'born' and that's our life.

what is possible, is your perception of the world around you being an illusion.

Everyone's view of a sunset, or sunrise is different, therefore can be interpreted as an illusion.

1.Illusion is something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impress the state or condition of being deceived
2.Nothing can be directly known outside of the minds of thinking beings
3.The spirit of finding a scientific concept of truth is not dependent on either personal insight (or revelation) or reference to some metaphysical realm.
4.Delusion's a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact

It is entirely possible, isnt it?
The movie that comes closest is the Matrix.
Picture a very elaborate programming. This is state of the art "play as you go" technology.
Then the subjects ( you or any of the people answering your question)are interactively "living out" this program.

I have a love-hate relationship with this philosophy...

On the one hand I find it very interesting but on the other it gives me an immense headache when I start to think that maybe we don't exist and that it's all a dream and...oh God here comes the headache...

It could be a figment of the imagination. But who evers doing it I'd wish they'd have more happy thoughts for me. ether that or it's all my invention and I'm my own worst enemy. This lack of trust makes it almost impossible to follow the white rabbit.

No everything around us is a reality. The only illusions you see are by trickery or in artwork.
A sculpture is just material that is formed to represent an object a subject, whether the material is marble, granite, or paper mache'. The same with a painting or a drawing, they are real representations of a scene but never the less it is a two dimensional illusion.

Solipsism that is the word you are looking for.
If I kick you it will prove that ain't true.

Stick your head in an oven, that's what the heavyweights did when it came to a crisis of reality. Hey, apparently we're all strings vibrating in the 10th dimension, so this reality is only as relevant as the infinite others out there. And if you're interested in proofs againste solipsism, read Wittgenstein. Personally, I buy what he's selling, but there's a real strong case for not.