Go on. How does this make one re-examine our place in the world, one's concept of self and identity, and elementary philosophies of truth and reason? Does it at all?

As somewhat of a non-traveler these days, for all I know, the entire world outside of my tri-county area may not exist. Of course, I know this to be false. I have friends in other parts of the world, I've traveled to places before, I can track shipments for packages that travel to and fro as well as watch live webcams of places. But for many practical intents and purposes, it's like the world outside our own little spheres of interaction may or may not exist.

I doubt I'll ever step foot in the White House, for example. So, at least for my existence, it's as if the place does not exist, never did, and never will. Yet it does, surely. Might I ask: is Schrodinger's cat involved here in any way? :smile:

Suppose when people say "real" or "fake" they mean something that exists in the manner in which we do, that can either be touched, felt, observed, or otherwise "experienced". There was a thread here about (or touching on) such differences between "existing" and "real". I forget the relevant quote at the moment but something along the lines of "unicorns are imaginary, but exist and are real". I've likely butchered the original quote in my misrememberance but it was something along those lines. Reminds me of the proofs thread where something can be factually false whilst simultaneously being valid and sound. A bit hard to grasp and easily dismissed as nonsensical.

What do you mean, man?

Try living in a picture of a house for a week, and get back to us.

Try living in a picture of a house for a week, and get back to us. — unenlightened

Yo mamma is so fat, her picture weighs 10 pounds.

What I mean by this is that we draw a false distinction between that of real and fake. The matrix did exist, as a server in a computer. The matrix's computer existed in the physical world, and by proxy, the matrix itself existed in the physical world. The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense. Any thought you have exists as neurons in your brain. If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper

Welcome.

This is something that get's discussed fairly often here on the forum, generally without consensus, because everyone has a different idea of what "real" means. I am interested in Taoist philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching, one of the founding texts, says "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name." My understanding of the meaning of those lines is that things don't really become "real" until we name, conceptualize, them. That seems consistent with what you have written. Imaginary things are as real as material things because they are both brought into existence as concepts.

On the forum, getting everyone to agree on the definition of the central ideas of a discussion is often neglected and often impossible. That is the cause of a lot of derailed discussions here. I think we'll probably see that in this discussion.

That made me think of this. It's from Woody Allen's 1966 "What's up Tiger Lily" and is badly edited.

https://clip.cafe/whats-up-tiger-lily-1966/this-shepard-wongs-home/

If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper

Circular reasoning & compositional fallacy.

The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense.

So how do you designate the distinction between a copy / counterfeit and the original? or distinguish a fictional account from a nonfictional account?

Anyway, consider "Meinong's Jungle" ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinong%27s_jungle

Try living in a picture of a house for a week, and get back to us.
— unenlightened

Yo mamma was so fat, her picture weighed 10 pounds. — T Clark

:lol:

Things that aren't real aren't meaningfully different than things that are real.
What I mean by this is that we draw a false distinction between that of real and fake. — Hyper

The paper of a fake bill is real, but that doesn't mean that the bill is real. Real money is meaningfully different from fake money.

The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense. — Hyper

Everything doesn't exist in the same sense. For example, money is made of social agreements, paper is made of cellulose fibers. They exist in very different senses.

An original work of something is produced in a particular context, a plagiarized version is produced in another context in which the producer has knowledge of the original version. A fake is always different from the original (regardless of practical distinguishability).

If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper

All the same, the electric events in a computer are real in one sense, but the simulation in the computer is real in another sense. You conflate the two different senses in which they are real, and get a fallacy of composition.