What if ...
By cobrateacher
@cobrateacher (8432)
United States
July 31, 2008 2:15pm CST
What if we're all just figments of our own imaginations? Or someone else's?
When I was really litle, I thought we were toys that some huge kids played with. I figured that was why things happened around us. Maturity put that on a back burner. Then I took that beginning philosophy course at the beginning of college, and I became convinced that none of us is real. So who imagined us?
Why would somebody imagine us all? If we were all dreamed up by the same entity, why don't we all know each other? Why don't we all speak the same language?
Couldn't they think up better lives for us all, including enough money to do what we want to do? Much more importantly, why don't we all love each other, putting an end to arguments, wars and terrors?
1 person likes this
5 responses
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
31 Jul 08
Wow, I don't know what Philosophy course you took but that's a pretty odd view of things. When I was a kid I used to wonder if this life was just a dream and that one day I would wake up to live my real life...but it's been going on for too long for it to be a dream. 
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
31 Jul 08
Things get boring in those classes sometimes, so the prof plants a seed and it grows into an amazing patch of flowers in my mind!
2 people like this
@xParanoiax (6987)
• United States
28 Aug 08
I often think of it like this;
I'm a writer. I create worlds, realities, characters. But these creatures and people in my stories do no know eachother, don't always understand eachother, and dn't usually understand the world around them.
Why don't they have better lives? Because I imagine their conflict. Because secretly I feel everything that they do, and everything their experience is me entertaining the ideas of those experiences and what it might be like for that to happen to someone. Secretly I enjoy their pain as much as it pains me to hurt them.
Creators don't have to be necessarily malevolent or evil.
And just because you're not really real, doesn't mean you don't have a choice.
Like my characters often rebel against me, I'm as much as a slave to my stories as my stories are dictated by me.
In the end, one has to wonder what the nature of reality truly is.
What if the creator is created by its creations?
1 person likes this
@xParanoiax (6987)
• United States
29 Aug 08
Well, I don't think God's made up, per se. It is a question of perception and reality in the end, and everyone, I think...wrestles with this question.
But I think it's very possible. I think human beings -- real or imagined, are meant to create. Some of us create by writing, others with their hands, some by building ideas (religion, world leaders, etc). In the end, I think the created and the creator blur together a bit...they're still separate things, but their roles with eachother evolve over time and I think it's very easy to lose track.
Maybe we create so that we can keep being created.
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
28 Aug 08
Many philosophers, throughout history, have believed that we made up God to answer questions for which no answers are satisfactory. I tend to think that, unlike being made in Her image, She's part of each of us.
When I write, I'm as surprised as any reader by the action in each story. Once I've sketched out the characters, they take over and write their own stories. I love the things they do, quite often! Could this be why we write?
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
1 Aug 08
I believe that we are living in The Matrix. Just kidding... but it would explain a lot. All the strange things that happen in our lives could be chalked up to a computer glitch.
I read a lot of philosophy and it can cause the mind to wander in so many directions. It can be an explanation of human existence or a jumble of ridiculous nonsense. It all depends on the mind of the philosopher and who gives it validity.
I'm a realist. There's no supernatural in my personal philosophy. But my philosophical readings add a great deal to my already healthy imagination!
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
2 Aug 08
It's a wonderful combinatin! I once had a lecturer prove in a full four-hour lecture that God is a black woman. Another prof proved that none of us looked anything like what was in the mirror, but that people saw us as what they wanted to see. Philosophy can get really full of itself. ut it's such fun to scramble up the atoms now and then!
@schulzie (4061)
• United States
31 Jul 08
No, I don't think that we are figments of our own imaginations. I know we are real. I know there is a higher power - God - that created us. I think a lot of what goes on in this world we have brought upon ourselves. Such as different languages, envy, hate, jealousy, pollution, etc. But I think that we also nurture one another with love, conservation, consideration, kindness, etc.
I don't know why we don't just all get along. I would love that. But I think that is what paradise will be. Or Utopia.
Pretty deep conversation/discussion you've started here.
Have a great day and happy myLotting!
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
31 Jul 08
You actually feel as I do. I did play around with these ideas, both in philosophy classes and just daydreaming. However, what rarely becomes clear because I'm a very private person is that I'm deeply religious, and I don't doubt the existence of God for a minutee. Philosophical issues are fun to play with, but that's about all.
Somehow, we must get rid of the hatred and intolerance, or we're going to destroy all God's given us.
@tikiselene (129)
• United States
1 Aug 08
THis is a very interesting discussion and something interesting to think about. I think as "thinkers" this is just the kind of thing to get us going. I used to wonder about such things, then I thought I had the answer via god, then I didn't know and didn't have time to think about such things anymore. Can we ever be sure of anything? At least most of us don't doubt our own existence.
1 person likes this
@cobrateacher (8432)
• United States
1 Aug 08
Can you imagine what it would be like on this planet if we could be sure of things? Nobody would be driven by angst. People would be content, and therefore, lazy. Oops! I forgot -- most people are content and lazy. I never get the physical exercise I need. When it comes to mental exercise, well, I teach twelfth grade English. Obviously, by the end of a day, I need mental exercise! I'm not sure about that not doubting our own existence, though. I've come across too many who think there's is the only existence that matters!
Keep thinking, my friend! 
