This is an idea almost as old as philosophy itself. "How real is reality" has been a central question through the ages, and there are lots of threads on the issue.

thats fair. this is different because scientists are starting to think its true.

There is a bit of a problem. If there is evidence that reality is an illusion, then the evidence is equally illusory. In which case there is no evidence. Things for which there can in principle be no evidence do not generally count as 'science', but as 'metaphysics'.

As always, my first question is, "Wait--why would we believe this?"

We can make up fantasies all day long. Why would we believe any of them?

Also, "information" would need to be defined if we're making this sort of claim about it, because it's rather ambiguous.

"To some physicists, this indicates that all the matter, with its solidity and concreteness, is an illusion that only the mathematical apparatus they devise in their theories is truly real,"

The way I read this is that it's just reinforcement of the fact that physics is so mathematics-oriented in practice that at least some physicists take mathematical platonism even further, to a point of math-worship, basically. That's unfortunate, but understandable. It's simply an instantiation of the old "to a hammer, everything looks like a nail" tendency.

thats fair. This assumes things like this matter in the first place. If there is consistent data between multiple sources then you can some information is valid and other information is not valid.

https://www.disclose.tv/physicists-are-starting-to-suspect-physical-reality-is-an-illusion-364016

In this article it speculates the only thing real is information and how we perceive reality is a product of our brain or at the very least what we percieve as our brain.

Questions and comments? — christian2017

The blog in Scientific American referenced by this article is actually opposed to the view you summarise here. Kastrup is against 'information realism' and proposes instead that the mental universe is 'a transpersonal field of mentation that presents itself to us as physicality—with its concreteness, solidity and definiteness—once our personal mental processes interact with it through observation.'

thats fair. Atleast you actually read the article. I've read similar articles to this before. Thanks for the post.

From the article:

This new idea is basically saying that that the physical universe that everyone sees, all the matter, all the physical objects only exists because humans perceive it as that. ItBreitenberg (848532) resembles a sort of mass hallucination that is being used to make sense of the mathematical relationships of objects. While this does seem quite far-fetched, according to Kastrup, it’s gaining ground.

What is actually new in this interpretation?

I think it's rather close to the Copenhagen interpretation in quantum physics.. just enlarged to be something of an overall philosophy thanks to rampant methodological reductionism, of course, with a lot of positivism. Similar ideas have been put forward for quite some time as well, reductionism and positivism, are quite old ideas. So our thinking happens in our mind....

But of course, who would study age-old philosophy?

Notice which columnist the thread is pointing to: Bernardo Kastrup, who is, if you like, a scientific idealist. He was discussed in this thread a while back and was predictably dismissed as a crank by many of the contributors. (Actually it's interesting that if you google him, that the Philosophy Forum thread is one of the top five hits.)

From which it follows that the idea he's presenting here is convergent with the Hindu notion of maya, the cosmic illusion in which living beings find themselves enmeshed.

(Although it might also be noted that even conservative scientists are willing to entertain notions such as the holographic universe or the many worlds of Hugh Everett. So reality sure ain't what it used to be.)

If the world isnt real then what does that say for the other humans that are part of it? This is the typical anti-realism nonsense that doesnt admit that human beings are a "physical" part of the world like everything else, yet they don't seem to apply the same illusory characteristic that they apply to everthing else. How can there be a mass hallucination when the existence of other human beings with minds would be part of the entire illusion of reality? How does this idea not collapse into solipsism?

'Hallucination' is an unfortunate term. What is needed is the notion that there are degrees or domains of reality; which means that you can assign the phenomenal realm a degree of reality; it is empirically real (obviously) but 'the empirical' itself is only part of a larger whole.

The problem with modernity is that this notion has dropped out, and so the empirical domain is believed to be all that is real. But that needs a lot of philosophical elaboration. Check out the essay in Aeon from January this year about 'the blind spot of science'.

Behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is). Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. The scientific task becomes about figuring out how to reduce them to something physical, such as the behaviour of neural networks, the architecture of computational systems, or some measure of information.

This framework faces two intractable problems.

Read on for more....

How does this idea not collapse into solipsism? — Harry Hindu

Because, speaking colloquially, 'we're all of the same mind'. In other words, members of a culture (and species, come to think of it) will inhabit a domain of shared meanings. It's not as if the 'hallucination' (bad word, again) is particular to you. Or put another way, when it is, then you really are hallucinating.

This article is another iteration of asking "if you have a brain, why should it be hooked up with what is actually happening."
There you are, using your brain, wondering if it is doing a good job of letting you know what is happening around the brain.
But nobody gave you a brain {that can be described}. It is found after accepting particular assumptions.
I love my brain. I am glad it can be understood as a place where stuff is happening.
But it is the furthest thing from self-explanatory.

This article is another iteration of asking "if you have a brain, why should it be hooked up with what is actually happening." — Valentinus

Although it doesn't actually contain the word ‘brain’....

Fair enough. But the OP does"

In this article it speculates the only thing real is information and how we perceive reality is a product of our brain or at the very least what we perceive as our brain. — christian2017

Yes, you’re right. I overlooked that mention.

By illusion what we're really saying is there's an x (real) and it's image x1 (illusion). According to such theories we only perceive the image and not the real thing. Noumena/phenomena? A simple proof for thus view is magic with its many illusions.

However there's another way to look at it. Take a car for instance. Each sense organ discerns a specific aspect of what is a car: the eyes perceive color, shape, size; the ears discern the sound of the engine; the sense of touch picks up the texture of its surface, etc. Each sense perception in isolation doesn't make a car but taken together we perceive a car.

Reality may be analogous to the car scenario. x (real) has multiple images x1, x2, x3, etc. depending on our perspective or whatever else. The truth or reality of x can be known by awareness of these images x1, x2, x3, etc. implying that these images aren't illusions but simply different aspects of reality that we must perceive in order to know x, the real.

What is actually new in this interpretation?

I think it's rather close to the Copenhagen interpretation in quantum physics.. just enlarged to be something of an overall philosophy thanks to rampant methodological reductionism, — ssu

Yeah, after reading a bit about and by Kastrup yesterday, I got the impression that it's a wide-ranging Copenhagen interpretation, half-motivated by Kastrup's background with qm, including working at CERN, and half-motivated by his religious beliefs.

Unfortunately the 30 pages or so that I checked out of his book Why Materialism is Baloney read like a stereotypical Christian apologetics text, and not like a book written by someone capable of academic philosophical writing.

Disappointingly, he seems to base a lot of his argument against materialism on what he considers to be a lack of a materialist explanation of consciousness . . . with (a) the typical complete absence of anything like an analysis of or list of (demarcation) criteria for explanations, and (b) the typical complete absence of any sort of competing explanation. It's basically the old, "I don't consider anything an adequate explanation of this, so God did it"--just not in those exact words, because that doesn't make the sale.

Because, speaking colloquially, 'we're all of the same mind'. In other words, members of a culture (and species, come to think of it) will inhabit a domain of shared meanings. It's not as if the 'hallucination' (bad word, again) is particular to you. Or put another way, when it is, then you really are hallucinating. — Wayfarer

:roll: Word salad. If "we" are all of the same mind - meaning there is only one mind, then solipsism.

Cultures and species would be part of the illusion - what isnt real.

If you were speaking colloquially, why would anyone disagree with your ideas or use of terms?

If it is an illusion, then how do we distinguish between schizophrenics and everyone else?

How is it that you are aware of other minds if not by the same way you are aware of everything else in the world - via the senses? If the world is an illusion, then why wouldn't the other humans and their minds be part of that illusion? You actually never experience other minds, only bodies, yet anti-realists believe in something that they have no evidence for while rejecting what they do have evidence for. Anti-realism inevitably falls into solipsism. To even say that there are other minds is to say that they are separate from yours, and what is the medium that separates them if not the shared world that they are part of?

"Other minds" is an inference based on the use of your senses, not fundamental like the experience of other bodies. The idea of other minds comes after your experience of other bodies. In other words, you would never have the idea of other minds if not for your experience of, and need to explain, the behaviors of other bodies.

If the world isnt real then what does that say for the other humans that are part of it? This is the typical anti-realism nonsense that doesnt admit that human beings are a "physical" part of the world like everything else, yet they don't seem to apply the same illusory characteristic that they apply to everthing else. How can there be a mass hallucination when the existence of other human beings with minds would be part of the entire illusion of reality? How does this idea not collapse into solipsism? — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure. All I know is that new perspectives nearly always offer something worthwhile, no matter how small. This particular perspective may prove to be useful ... or not. Consider it in a positive light first, and see if you can glean anything useful?

I'm not sure. All I know is that new perspectives nearly always offer something worthwhile, no matter how small. This particular perspective may prove to be useful ... or not. Consider it in a positive light first, and see if you can glean anything useful? — Pattern-chaser

What do you mean consider it in a "positive light"? If you are asking for me to assume the idea for a moment and contemplate the implications of such an idea, then I have done just that, which is why I posed the questions I did. Read the first sentence of what you quoted from me. I said, "If the world isn't real then...". They aren't rhetorical questions. They are questions based on assuming the idea is true. In other words, it doesn't offer anything coherent (and therefore useful) if it can't answer those questions.

Old perspectives were once new perspectives. How recent a perspective is in the mindset of an individual or group of people has no bearing on the validity of the perspective. Logic and reason are what determine the validity of some perspective.

i have no problem with that. I would have to study what these scientists are getting at further.

I only read the first 3 paragraphs of the article because i have read other articles like it before. Perhaps i'll read the whole article later.

According to Wolfgang Hofkirchner, a multi-disciplinary concept of information has been developing based on Emergentist Systemism (an integrationist approach to complex systems), having Physics as its point of departure.

Hofkirchner, Wofgang. 2017. Introduction: Information from Physics to Social Science. Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 226, 157–159. EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag.