Stop Saying Everything Is An Illusion

[Math Is Hard]

I hope I wasn't rambling on too much and I got across some of the points I wanted to make (its hard to write about deep philosophical questions concisely and clearly), there is a rich philosophical history on the nature of reality, and it isn't as simple as, of course nothing is an illusion or everything is real.

No rambling perceived here. It was a very clear and thoughtful post. Thanks for writing it.

 

[JoeDawg]

I thought Berkeley, Hume, and Kant already dealt with this.

And Plato's allegory of the cave.

Nice post.

Just remember, its only trivial, if you already know it.
Getting your mind around it the first time, is the hard part.
And the implications can be shattering to your worldview.

 

[jnorman]

how about this - there is, at the most fundamental level, no thing there. an electron is a point particle which occupies no volume - there is really no thing there. protons are made from quarks, which are point particles with no volume - there is no thing there. photons have no location - they are expressed as mathematical probability functions - there is no thing there. all we see and experience is the interaction of fields, which are not things. this is, indeed, illusion of the first water...

reality - what a concept!

 

[Moridin]

The problem with the illusion argument is that to be justified that something is an illusion, you would have to know what is real to contrast it against. But if you know what's real, then the issue goes away.

 

[junglebeast]

how about this - there is, at the most fundamental level, no thing there. an electron is a point particle which occupies no volume - there is really no thing there. protons are made from quarks, which are point particles with no volume - there is no thing there. photons have no location - they are expressed as mathematical probability functions - there is no thing there. all we see and experience is the interaction of fields, which are not things. this is, indeed, illusion of the first water...

reality - what a concept!

the notion of point particles with no volume may very well be an illusion -- perhaps that have some miniscule volume. the notion that photon locations are truly expressed as probability functions may very well be an illusion resulting from a completely deterministic patterned motion occurring below the observable level. point being: you can't even use the "truths" of physics to disambiguate the illusions, because experimental observations are subject to the illusions.

 

[JoeDawg]

The problem with the illusion argument is that to be justified that something is an illusion, you would have to know what is real to contrast it against. But if you know what's real, then the issue goes away.

Real vs illusion is entirely arbitrary, epistemologically. Again you're confusing this with an ontological argument.

All that is needed to concieve of an illusion is two contradictory elements. One can then attribute reality to one and falsity to the other, or vice versa, or neither.

 

[WaveJumper]

how about this - there is, at the most fundamental level, no thing there. an electron is a point particle which occupies no volume - there is really no thing there. protons are made from quarks, which are point particles with no volume - there is no thing there. photons have no location - they are expressed as mathematical probability functions - there is no thing there. all we see and experience is the interaction of fields, which are not things. this is, indeed, illusion of the first water...

reality - what a concept!

Some point "particles" have charge, that's enough of a prerequisite for the illusion of the existence of solid matter.(not that i am happy to be composed of positive and negative charges)


A deeper question would be what is causing the apparent manifestation of "particles" and where do they get their energy/charge? For the sake of how we are used to view reality, it'd be best if this research is proven wrong:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html



Nobody is happy about it, but we cannot meaningfully talk about "our" atoms. Quantum theory shows that most of your X number of atoms(approximately 100 trillion trillion) in your body are yours... most of the time. A quantum system in an excited state(atom, electron, nucleus,...) has a chance different than zero of being able to "depart" your body. This is a result of the link between wave function and probability in the highest energy state of atoms. While the probability of finding the wavefunction of an electron or an atom in a bound state diminishes and gets closer to zero after distances larger than 10^-10m, it doesn't become zero. Because of the wave character of matter, a very small number of atoms are able to "jump" out of your body and can be localised anywhere in space - in your blouse, in your car, in the air, on the Moon or in the person you are talking to. So, strictly speaking, the notion of "My" personal atoms is also an illusion, though statistically speaking(read quantum mechanically) most of your atoms are really only yours. At least for an year, then 99% of your atoms get replaced by biological processеs(food and water intake intake, metabolism, oxygen intake...).

 

[Moridin]

Real vs illusion is entirely arbitrary, epistemologically. Again you're confusing this with an ontological argument.

All that is needed to concieve of an illusion is two contradictory elements. One can then attribute reality to one and falsity to the other, or vice versa, or neither.

Not at all. What does it mean to be justified in claiming that X is an illusion?

 

[JoeDawg]

Not at all. What does it mean to be justified in claiming that X is an illusion?

That depends entirely on one's epistemology... and there are more than a few...

 

[Red Fox]

First, the concept of an "illusion" used in the whole "everything is an illusion claim" is just ridiculously broad and all encompassing. Find a better word or make a new one.

Second, there is a hint of truth to this mentality, however the wording and general direction it has taken has, for me, ruined it.

I think it would be much more accurate to say "There are no Absolutes" than "Everything is an Illusion". For anything to even be an illusion there must be something that is real, otherwise the concepts of reality and illusion are pointless.

 

[baywax]

I said "reality as we experience it" is an illusion(of the mind). The illusion that we are touching things is very powerful and convincing, when in fact no one has ever touched anything over the last 14 billion years. The impression that we get that we are standing on floors is also an illusion. We are hovering at 10^-8 metres above the floors and the illusion is very strong. Most people, who aren't affiliated with physics or aren't interested in physics, will tell you that you are crazy when they first get acquainted with these facts.

So to sum it all up, while energy in bound states may or may not have an objective existence prior to measurement/observation(depending on the preferred interpretation), reality and the universe the way experience them is purely an illusion(creation) of the mind.

I know what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that creations of the mind are electromagnetic pulses which are real. In this instance, you equate illusion with em pulses of the mind. How can an electromagnetic pulse of the mind be an illusion? It is real and it is a real adaptation to our environment which happens to be semi-solid if not completely made up of waves. Even if it is entirely made up of waves, the waves appear to be interacting with each other in such a way as to create tactile sensations that stimulate our neuro-net which in turn is creating or reporting a sensation of solidity.

I think what is being forgotten here is the basic fact that we are a result of natural selection and the survival instinct. Our bodies... including our "minds" (brains) are purely the result of years of adaptation and natural selection. The best way for us to survive has been to be able to categorize our surroundings. Now, it may be that calling fire "fire" is an anthropomorphic way of describing combustion... and, it may be that we don't actually burn when we're on fire... we just combust like "magma"... and the pain we feel is an "illusion". But, the pain is our adaptation to what happens next, when you're on fire... which is certain death especially 1 million years ago.

So, I don't think you can call our reactions to our environment and our categorizations we have built to describe our environment "illusions"... I think they are artifacts of our personal and collective mythologies.

 

[WaveJumper]

I know what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that creations of the mind are electromagnetic pulses which are real. In this instance, you equate illusion with em pulses of the mind. How can an electromagnetic pulse of the mind be an illusion? It is real and it is a real adaptation to our environment which happens to be semi-solid if not completely made up of waves. Even if it is entirely made up of waves, the waves appear to be interacting with each other in such a way as to create tactile sensations that stimulate our neuro-net which in turn is creating or reporting a sensation of solidity.

I think what is being forgotten here is the basic fact that we are a result of natural selection and the survival instinct. Our bodies... including our "minds" (brains) are purely the result of years of adaptation and natural selection. The best way for us to survive has been to be able to categorize our surroundings.

This is correct but it isn't telling the whole story. On a larger scale, even what we term physical "universe" appears to be an illusion. The equations of GR lead back to a singularity, which did not expand after the Big Bang quite in the regular sense. The true "expansion" of the universe after the singularity has been a mere metric expansion(this has been known in cosmology for a few decades now). It says the universe is not expanding into anything but into itself and its "outside" dimensions are not changing, they are still infinitesimal. Only the future will show if physics has totally lost track of reality or if the true nature of reality is much much weirder than we could ever possibly imagine. Georg Cantor had the courage to look infinity straight into its eyes - and what he saw deeply shocked him. You could say that our animalistic brains have not evolved enough to make sense of the universe on the larger and smaller scale, since that wasn't beneficial for survival in the savanna. Or the other valid viewpoint is that no level of logic could ever grasp the true nature of infinity and it may forever be a limit toward certain questions.

 

[dave247]

I know this is a majorly late reply, but I just googled, "everything is an illusion" and found this thread which I want to reply.

OP: I know what you are saying, and everything is real in a relative way.

However, everything really is an illusion because everything that exists is, in actuality, an illusion -- as far as how we perceive things.

I could go on forever about why this is apparent to me, but for now, I will just try one example:

The idea that I am a living being is an illusion because on the atomic level, I am made up of atoms -- the atoms to not acknowledge that I am a human; they merely are there doing their thing. Atoms are made up of something else -- energy. So if you want, you could say that everything -- all these systems we are a part of in life -- are basically energy, which is really nothingness. So basically everything is nothing, and nothing is everything, so on and on infinitely.

Dont get me wrong; I am not saying I don't exist. I do, but I only exist in the way I think I do, but I really exist in a different, more fundamentally complex way, which I -- or anyone else -- do not actually understand.

dave

 

[baywax]

This is correct but it isn't telling the whole story. On a larger scale, even what we term physical "universe" appears to be an illusion. The equations of GR lead back to a singularity, which did not expand after the Big Bang quite in the regular sense. The true "expansion" of the universe after the singularity has been a mere metric expansion(this has been known in cosmology for a few decades now). It says the universe is not expanding into anything but into itself and its "outside" dimensions are not changing, they are still infinitesimal. Only the future will show if physics has totally lost track of reality or if the true nature of reality is much much weirder than we could ever possibly imagine. Georg Cantor had the courage to look infinity straight into its eyes - and what he saw deeply shocked him. You could say that our animalistic brains have not evolved enough to make sense of the universe on the larger and smaller scale, since that wasn't beneficial for survival in the savanna. Or the other valid viewpoint is that no level of logic could ever grasp the true nature of infinity and it may forever be a limit toward certain questions.

Very cool to find this out. Still, you know when a bird sees a moth with 2 black spots on its wings that look like eyes, its not an illusion... its a phenomenon that works to scare the bird away. Similarly, our "animalistic brains" see expansion or heat waves or any number of phenomena and we react accordingly.. in a manner that has helped our species survive for over 6 million years (controversy).

Its another thing to have an "animalistic brain" telling us that things are not as they appear. Who do you believe?!

The expansion of the universe may only seem infinitesimal in comparison to... the rest of it... or the rest of them (universes).

 

[dave247]

Very cool to find this out. Still, you know when a bird sees a moth with 2 black spots on its wings that look like eyes, its not an illusion... its a phenomenon that works to scare the bird away. Similarly, our "animalistic brains" see expansion or heat waves or any number of phenomena and we react accordingly.. in a manner that has helped our species survive for over 6 million years (controversy).

Its another thing to have an "animalistic brain" telling us that things are not as they appear. Who do you believe?!

The expansion of the universe may only seem infinitesimal in comparison to... the rest of it... or the rest of them (universes).

eh... A lot of people like you don't seem to understand the whole "everything is an illusion" bit because it involves a lot of deep, abstract thinking over a long period of time. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, to feel the unsettling unsurity when you realize everything you think you know may not be as it seems. Hmm, yes, kinda like in the Matrix, but this is a lot more grand, I think.

However, I won't leave it at that: all things are relative, and nothing is absolute (Nothingness I mean). Nothing can be compared to anything, because it is not a thing -- it is nothing. That is to say, things that have individual components -- things that are parts of systems as well as systems themselves, can not be compared to non-systems. Can a system not be a system and still be a functional thing?: Not logically.

So the nature of existence -- energy and atoms all reacting in ways that perpetuate other systems that essentially support our lives and ability to think -- are all dependent on other things. Nothing can stand fully alone and have a value or reason.

This is all very hard to explain out, but I think about this stuff and reason it all the time. Maybe I should take time to make a concentrated effort to write it all out well so it can be understood.

BTW: i realize that in saying these things that I could be wrong -- and that's the point, no one can know anything for sure. Its like a paradox that is itself a paradox (because its a paradox that's not a paradox)
Someone at the top of the forum mentioned something about absolutes... They are on the right path to understanding the whole illusion thing. Basically everything is relative and nothing is absolute because no one thing can exist, or have a value, without reference to something else. Pretty much everything in our world and universe (and beyond?) is a working part or effect of a functional system, or subsystem, which are all in a greater system; ie: the solar system, the natural systems, atomic systems, that all stem from a lower level of form of existence that supports the things "above" the levels.

 

[baywax]

eh... A lot of people like you don't seem to understand the whole "everything is an illusion" bit because it involves a lot of deep, abstract thinking over a long period of time. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, to feel the unsettling unsurity when you realize everything you think you know may not be as it seems. Hmm, yes, kinda like in the Matrix, but this is a lot more grand, I think.

However, I won't leave it at that: all things are relative, and nothing is absolute (Nothingness I mean). Nothing can be compared to anything, because it is not a thing -- it is nothing. That is to say, things that have individual components -- things that are parts of systems as well as systems themselves, can not be compared to non-systems. Can a system not be a system and still be a functional thing?: Not logically.

So the nature of existence -- energy and atoms all reacting in ways that perpetuate other systems that essentially support our lives and ability to think -- are all dependent on other things. Nothing can stand fully alone and have a value or reason.

This is all very hard to explain out, but I think about this stuff and reason it all the time. Maybe I should take time to make a concentrated effort to write it all out well so it can be understood.

BTW: i realize that in saying these things that I could be wrong -- and that's the point, no one can know anything for sure. Its like a paradox that is itself a paradox (because its a paradox that's not a paradox)



Someone at the top of the forum mentioned something about absolutes... They are on the right path to understanding the whole illusion thing. Basically everything is relative and nothing is absolute because no one thing can exist, or have a value, without reference to something else. Pretty much everything in our world and universe (and beyond?) is a working part or effect of a functional system, or subsystem, which are all in a greater system; ie: the solar system, the natural systems, atomic systems, that all stem from a lower level of form of existence that supports the things "above" the levels.

A lot of people like you make claims... then refute their claims by saying how they might be wrong, all to avoid being told how contradictory their statements are. Typical of an illusionist.

What you're forgetting is that nothing does not exist and that it cannot be discussed without the existence of something... like a brain.

 

[Red Fox]

We can all agree that there are things that are fundamentally real; when we see a rock we know there is some object that corresponds with what we are seeing. Our perception of these things may not necessarily be perfect, but they come together to compose our reality. This reality can be said to be an "illusion" in that it is a construct of our senses and consciousness, however our reality real none the less. I would argue that an "illusion" based reality of this kind can be just as real as the base world it represents, even if it is relative to each individual. I also think it is fair to say that even though subtle (in some cases not so subtle) differences may exist between each person's reality, there are enough similarities to establish a standard of reality which can only be deviated from so much before it is considered wrong.

 

[WaveJumper]

This is correct but it isn't telling the whole story. On a larger scale, even what we term physical "universe" appears to be an illusion. The equations of GR lead back to a singularity, which did not expand after the Big Bang quite in the regular sense. The true "expansion" of the universe after the singularity has been a mere metric expansion(this has been known in cosmology for a few decades now). It says the universe is not expanding into anything but into itself and its "outside" dimensions are not changing, they are still infinitesimal. Only the future will show if physics has totally lost track of reality or if the true nature of reality is much much weirder than we could ever possibly imagine. Georg Cantor had the courage to look infinity straight into its eyes - and what he saw deeply shocked him. You could say that our animalistic brains have not evolved enough to make sense of the universe on the larger and smaller scale, since that wasn't beneficial for survival in the savanna. Or the other valid viewpoint is that no level of logic could ever grasp the true nature of infinity and it may forever be a limit toward certain questions.

Very cool to find this out. Still, you know when a bird sees a moth with 2 black spots on its wings that look like eyes, its not an illusion... its a phenomenon that works to scare the bird away. Similarly, our "animalistic brains" see expansion or heat waves or any number of phenomena and we react accordingly.. in a manner that has helped our species survive for over 6 million years (controversy).

Its another thing to have an "animalistic brain" telling us that things are not as they appear. Who do you believe?!

The expansion of the universe may only seem infinitesimal in comparison to... the rest of it... or the rest of them (universes).

Wait, this isn't all yet. You have to see how secular science is "interpreting" observational data. You will be shocked.

The metric expansion of the universe leads to an understanding that the "outside" diameter of the universe is infinitisimal. But all this theory of the metric expansion is based on an assumption(as if you'd have thought otherwise). The assumption is that the Earth(or the Milky Way galaxy) is not and must not be the centre of the universe. Here is what Stephen Hawking says in Brief history of Time:

"...all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe."

he goes on to say:

"There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe."Here is what Paul Davies says about the assumptions in cosmological models built by modern day physicists:

" Often the simplest of observations will have the most profound consequences. It has long been a cornerstone of modern science, to say nothing of man’s cosmic outlook, that the Earth attends a modest star that shines in an undistinguished part of a run-of-the-mill galaxy. Life arose spontaneously and man evolved on this miscellaneous clump of matter and now directs his own destiny without outside help. This cosmic model is supported by the Big-Bang and Expanding Universe concepts, which in turn are buttressed by the simple observation that astronomers see redshifts wherever they look.

These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! The argument advanced by George Ellis in this article is more complex than this, but his basic thrust is to put man back into a favored position in the cosmos. His new theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations, even though it clashes with the thought that we are godless and making it on our own."

Cosmologist George Eillis comments on the same topic:

"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. "You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”Here is Nobel Prize winner Edwin Hubble's commentary after his discovery that every galaxy in all directions of the universe are receding equally fast from us:

"…Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth...This hypothesis cannot be disproved, but it is unwelcome and would only be accepted as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore we disregard this possibility... the unwelcome position of a favored location must be avoided at all costs... such a favored position is intolerable...Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position…must be compensated by spatial curvature. There seems to be no other escape."

Cosmologist Prof. Lawrence Krauss of Arizona University comments that the motion of the solar system, and the orientation of the plane of the ecliptic that are aligned with features of the microwave sky, which on conventional thinking are caused by structure at the edge of the observable universe(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle):

"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the Earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the Earth around the sun — the plane of the Earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe."

All this goes to show that the metric expansion which leads to the weird conclusion that we are 0-dimensional beings(and the outside diameter of the universe is infinitesimal) is not the only model that could explain the observations, though this comes at the cost of having our galaxy located at the centre of the universe, with of all of its thousands of billions of galaxies. Pretty philosophical, huh?

I, personally, would love to hear all sides to an argument. I find it unacceptable when overly secular scientists sweep under the rag the assumptions being made in their theoretical models that favour some pre-conceived philosophical ideas.

 

[baywax]

Not being overly concerned with expansion theories or discovering which grain of sand our galaxy represents on the universal beach... I'm just glad that the sun usually ends up where it was the day before, generally.

Illusion is primarily rooted in perception. Perception is a direct result of a nervous system. A nervous system is a product of the natural selection process that started, long ago, with the beginning of the universe.

Our "primitive nervous system" perceives the universe by using a complex network of freely associated neurons that fire with identifying signatures in order to construct an understanding of its environment. These actions are driven by the naturally selected instinct to survive. We interpret what may actually be a collection of waves, at various frequencies, as solid objects, light, plasma etcetra...

Our interpretations of our environment are not illusions. They are autonomic extrapolations that give rise to concrete decisions about how we are going to perceive, receive and work with the concentrations of waves/matter we are faced with.

I think when people use the word illusion, they're talking about how they saw their mother's car somewhere when it wasn't really her car... it was just the same model. Yet the person who saw the illusion was still effected in the same way they would have been were the car their mother's. That illustrates illusion and the actual effects it can have. The effects are not an illusion but have been caused by one.

 

[GUS]

Nothing annoys me more than when I read 5,000 threads on this forum about how everything is an illusion.

Oh, you're not really breathing. That's just an illusion!
Oh, you're not really eating. That's just an illusion!
Oh, you stabbed yourself in the eye and are bleeding profusely. But that's just an illusion!

It seems to be the mantra for people who think they're talking like they're sophisticated. But it's really simple minded and authoritative. If you ask them to prove that something is an illusion they'll just give you a convoluted response with some meaningless jargon. Here's a thought, get original.

Ok, just so this topic stays within the guidelines all of you illusionists need to provide some evidence for why you think every thing is an illusion.

Everything is an illusion because everything you perceive is processed by your senses which are fallable and limited. On top of this you have your cultural conditioning .Words with attached cultural concepts to allow us to function taught to us since birth by our culture - they are if you like part of our "operating system" yet our operating system does not define the objective reality of the world it merely allows us to interact with it - sometimes in very deluded ways. To you "blood" - to a fly a "refreshing drink" - its all a matter of perspective.
Science for example tells us that there is more nothing in matter than something - ie the distances between subatomic particles are greater than the actual objects themselves - yet we perceive matter as solid - another example of an illusion. Science tells us the world is made of lots of tiny little bits and bobs and waves and electromagnetic radiation most of which we can't perceive at all and what we do perceive we reduce absurdly to allow us to exist and fuinction within the confines of our currently ludicrously materialistic culture. So yes everything we perceive is an illusion - sure you breathe - but what is breathing ? - it is the complex interplay of oxygen, carbon Dioxide etc etc but what is Carbon Dioxide - it is a molecule - what is a molecule ? A molecule is a collection of atoms - and what is an atom ? A collection of subatomic particles some of which can exist as a wave or a particle etc etc You can keep going until you reach the froth that lines the spacetime continuum each bubble of which mathamaticians suspect may be an entire universe flashing in and out of existence . Do you see all this when scratch your *** and drink another cup of coffee - no of course you don't because you live in a total illusion that allows you to function - but don't get annoyed with people who point this out to you - I know its scary - but that doesn't make it any less true.
...and all this is before we even get onto the curious land of quantum physics.

 

[baywax]

Everything is an illusion because everything you perceive is processed by your senses which are fallable and limited. On top of this you have your cultural conditioning .Words with attached cultural concepts to allow us to function taught to us since birth by our culture - they are if you like part of our "operating system" yet our operating system does not define the objective reality of the world it merely allows us to interact with it - sometimes in very deluded ways. To you "blood" - to a fly a "refreshing drink" - its all a matter of perspective.
Science for example tells us that there is more nothing in matter than something - ie the distances between subatomic particles are greater than the actual objects themselves - yet we perceive matter as solid - another example of an illusion. Science tells us the world is made of lots of tiny little bits and bobs and waves and electromagnetic radiation most of which we can't perceive at all and what we do perceive we reduce absurdly to allow us to exist and fuinction within the confines of our currently ludicrously materialistic culture. So yes everything we perceive is an illusion - sure you breathe - but what is breathing ? - it is the complex interplay of oxygen, carbon Dioxide etc etc but what is Carbon Dioxide - it is a molecule - what is a molecule ? A molecule is a collection of atoms - and what is an atom ? A collection of subatomic particles some of which can exist as a wave or a particle etc etc You can keep going until you reach the froth that lines the spacetime continuum each bubble of which mathamaticians suspect may be an entire universe flashing in and out of existence . Do you see all this when scratch your *** and drink another cup of coffee - no of course you don't because you live in a total illusion that allows you to function - but don't get annoyed with people who point this out to you - I know its scary - but that doesn't make it any less true.
...and all this is before we even get onto the curious land of quantum physics.

Oxford American Dictionary definition of "Illusion":

a false idea or belief : he had no illusions about the trouble she was in.
• a deceptive appearance or impression : the illusion of family togetherness | the tension between illusion and reality.
• a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses : Zollner's illusion makes parallel lines seem to diverge by placing them on a zigzag-striped background.
PHRASES
be under the illusion that believe mistakenly that : the world is under the illusion that the original painting still hangs in the Winter Palace.
be under no illusion (or illusions) be fully aware of the true state of affairs.
DERIVATIVES
illusional |- zh ənl| adjective
ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense [deceiving, deception] ): via Old French from Latin illusio(n-), from illudere ‘to mock,’ from in- ‘against’ + ludere ‘play.’

Thesaurus
illusion
noun
1 he had destroyed her illusions delusion, misapprehension, misconception, false impression; fantasy, fancy, dream, chimera; fool's paradise, self-deception.
2 the lighting increases the illusion of depth appearance, impression, semblance; misperception, false appearance; rare simulacrum.
3 it's just an illusion mirage, hallucination, apparition, figment of the imagination, trick of the light, trompe l'oeil; deception, trick, smoke and mirrors.
4 Copperfield's amazing illusions (magic) trick, conjuring trick; (illusions) magic, conjuring, sleight of hand, legerdemain.

When each of us deals with the emergent phenomena of, as you suggest, the Quantum Foam, we deal with this phenomenon in a capacity that is equal to the sensitivity of our senses and the accuracy of our education/experience. The only deception visited upon our poor demented perception is just that... our inability to sense the microcosm and, in some cases, the bigger picture. I'm not sure that this inability can be termed "illusion"... although it does bring to mind the fun house at a circus where the eye is tricked into thinking a room carries on some distance when it does not... that is truly an illusion.

I think the general root and meaning of the word "illusion" comes from "illumination" or light or... "visuals"...(actually the origin is stated as being from: Middle English (in the sense [deceiving, deception] ): via Old French from Latin illusio(n-), from illudere ‘to mock,’ from in- ‘against’ + ludere ‘play.’) as in a play on what one can see and how it effects the rest of one's senses.

The very fact remains that our senses are a result of a neuronal structure that resides in our bodies and that this structure reacts to stimulus.

That is no illusion.

How we interpret the stimulus and the reaction of our neurons is up to the individual. You can go around like Chicken Little demanding that everyone see how all stimulus is an illusion... but you will probably end up in Foxy Loxie's cooking pot... in the end.

Addendum: In order to experience an illusion there must be some reality in place to ascertain the experience. The ability to discern between illusion and some other state suggests that there is a structure and a "reality" in place acting as a compliment to the "illusion'. Therefore it would be wise to identify one's illusions and to identify one's realities carefully.

 

[century1800]

Material things invented/created by humankind have an outright explanation of their workings.
Humankind created something out of something that is already there. Humankind perceive things that are already at work. Things work as it was and it is. Humankind investigate, study and utilize things and get educated of its purpose. Things did not work as it is just because humankind discovered them.

Are the working of things just an illusion? If everything we perceive in this world is just an illusion, then we are living in illusion. What are we then?


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“The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality.”
“ …. the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion.”

 

[baywax]

“The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality.”
“ …. the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion.”

This is a beautiful quote but metaphors will get us nowhere in terms of qualifying and quantifying whether life and living in general is an illusion.

 

[JonF]

I think the op is arguing a bit of a straw man. The claim "everything is an illusion" isn’t really that philosophically relevant, the claim that troubles philosophers “It is possible that everything is an illusion. And even worse, if everything was an illusion I would never know.” This is essentially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_daemon" whose never really been successfully vanquished by philosophy.

 

[century1800]

…. metaphors will get us nowhere in terms of qualifying and quantifying whether life and living in general is an illusion.
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Who defines illusion? What is the basis of defining something as an illusion?

With the following: How do we perceive ‘life’? How do we perceive ‘living in this world’? Which are illusions and which are not?

- Things that are visible, tangible, material that the sense of touch, smell, taste, hear, and seeing can experience –-- including magic tricks, the sun, tables and chairs .…
- Experiences/qualities/attributes that are non-material, non-tangible --- including justice, love, compassion, magnanimity, nobility ……
- Discoveries/observations that are non-visible (become visible through stimulus) such as gravity, electricity, air, space, any field of discoveries …
- Human potential, latent capacity, understanding, the ability to perceive ….
- Human construction such as establishing a system, exchange and trading, utilizing resources …
- Is learning, acquiring knowledge, education an illusion?

 

[baywax]

ds

…. metaphors will get us nowhere in terms of qualifying and quantifying whether life and living in general is an illusion.
========

Who defines illusion? What is the basis of defining something as an illusion?

With the following: How do we perceive ‘life’? How do we perceive ‘living in this world’? Which are illusions and which are not?

- Things that are visible, tangible, material that the sense of touch, smell, taste, hear, and seeing can experience –-- including magic tricks, the sun, tables and chairs .…
- Experiences/qualities/attributes that are non-material, non-tangible --- including justice, love, compassion, magnanimity, nobility ……
- Discoveries/observations that are non-visible (become visible through stimulus) such as gravity, electricity, air, space, any field of discoveries …
- Human potential, latent capacity, understanding, the ability to perceive ….
- Human construction such as establishing a system, exchange and trading, utilizing resources …
- Is learning, acquiring knowledge, education an illusion?

In the end you need a contrasting state to recognize another state. If we call "reality" a state and "illusion" a state and decide that these two states are in contrast and therefore compliment one another then we can also say that "not everything is an illusion".

To even be able to make that statement (everything is an illusion) we must have knowledge of the opposite of an illusion because we are able to recognize the state of illusion.

Further to the definition of illusion:

an illusion is something that has been deliberately constructed to fool an observer. The word does not apply to our inability to detect the microcosm or the macrocosm.

 

[baywax]

Another observation with regard to the topic:

It may be an illusion that "everything is an illusion".

One has to remember that "reality" is comprised of several, if not an infinite number of, realities. To survive, our species focuses on one of these "realities" and adapts to it as best it can. We may have an unconscious awareness of some of the other levels of reality surrounding the one we have adapted to but, for the most part, we must adhere to the adaptations we have evolved, (or to the mechanisms that nature has evolved) if we are to experience anything such as "reality" and/or "illusion".

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
-Woody Allen

 

[baywax]

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
-Woody Allen

Dear Woody, if nothing exists then that's one thing that exists.