Nothing can be proven abstractly that isn't tautologous, nor proven to always remain true, but eventually the rubber must meet the road.

To the extent that beliefs and opinions are affecting, or about reality, then they must either work towards the aims, or results they claim to, or describe, and represent in the ways they purport to.

That's why observation, study, trial and error are all so powerful. Sure, everything is tentative, and provisional, but far from equally valid.

24 years old and I feel like I’m living for the sake of it, I feel stripped of any aspiration/motivation and only have unanswered questions. — Reece

No one seems to tell you this, but everything turns to shit in your twenties. Playtime ends, and we begin to crave meaning, and significance. We can't just waste our time doing things that don't "matter" anymore, as it all becomes empty. Time to go insane, and believe, and move towards things that you feel matter.

Maybe you should try reading Heidegger. I think you might have a taste for it, it's a completely different way of thinking about things/the world.

Thanks I'll give it a try :)

I need help.

What is real?

I feel stripped of any aspiration/motivation and only have unanswered questions. — Reece

This cannot be real. You are motivated to question, and aspire to answers. Congratulations!

The real is that from which you cannot awaken, that to which you belong whether you like it or not. What we know is that we need help, and that ideals - love, justice, whatever, are not real, except to the extent that we realise them by living them. Welcome to the circle of wakeful dreamers.

I'm with unenlightened, confratulations! Wakeful dreamers indeed. I'm 24 as well and I've written journal entries upon journal entries with 100 different ways of expressing what you did in your post...the dreaded feeling of hopelessness tagged along to a frighteningly real perspective that everything people claim to "know" is guessworkand it doesn't seem like there are any answers out there that will quell your search for true knowledge about this life.

After growing up with a strong desire to learn from and become like Jesus, ghandi, Buddha, etc, I plummeted deep into despair when I first grasped the possibility that all of my beliefs were concepts that were only as real as I believed them to be. For a few years I was up and down depressed and bipolar, with an ever decreasing motivation for anything other than searching for truth, always grasping onto new revelations but soon after seeing how limited that revelation was.

It sounds to me like you are in a similar boat that I was; with a mind constantly seeking truth but unable to find any in the world around you. keep going! In plato's allegory of the cave (check it out if you haven't read it), you have just realized that you have been living in a dark cave watching a projection of reality constructed onto a screen. You've turned away from the screen in search of something real, but all you can see is darkness around you. But if you keep walking, you'll start to see there is light at an opening, and one day you'll make it out and see the world for yourself. That day is inevitable, just keep going! A mentor of mine stresses that the most difficult and important thing as a truth seeker is to have a "tolerance for ambiguity."

Right now, it might seem depressing to think that you perceive only your own truths, but eventually you will see that truth is not a single idea of concept to hold onto. That is a lie we are trained to depend on that keeps us and mentally immature as a child! Truth is not an idea to lock down but insight revealed moment by moment. When you can tap into this, the sun comes out, and it shines brighter than ever.

This is the truth I currently stand on, which is what transformed me from being stuck in a cycle of despair all around me to seeing it trailing far behind.

Some of My significant influences contributing to my journey were Alan watts, Chuang tzu, zen.

Safe travels!

Thank you for your reply, greatly appreciated. It feels like I'm looking at myself from the outside of a box.

After growing up with a strong desire to learn from and become like Jesus, ghandi, Buddha, etc, I plummeted deep into despair when I first grasped the possibility that all of my beliefs were concepts that were only as real as I believed them to be. — Crane

I find it really hard to focus/fixate myself toward anything without questioning its worth, refusing to participate in the everyday distraction. It's almost as if the life we (think we) 'know' was designed to be that way. A distraction from the answers we should all be searching for. Instead we're all mad at each other.

Don't confuse weakness for strength, ignorance for knowledge, nor I/me for us/we.

I find it really hard to focus/fixate myself toward anything without questioning its worth, refusing to participate in the everyday distraction. It's almost as if the life we (think we) 'know' was designed to be that way. — Reece

It's nice to talk with someone who speaks the same language. All day everyday my mind tunes into what people say and do, and how things work around me, why they exist and what function they serve...and like you say, usually the thoughts I have are that most of what people do is a distraction that keeps everyone's minds boxed in. For a while I hated that I did this because it ostracized me from society, yet without giving a better alternative. But now it's like that constant thought process and self awareness is what grounds me in reality and gives me life - living with my inner and outer eyes open.

I'm the great metaphorical Dragon that has eaten your father and is hoarding the Golden Girls.

If you would die for Sophia, come and defeat me. I also accept gifts, wagers, exchanges, and pawns if the conditions are to my taste. If you need a pay day loan I can do that also.

For only $29.90, my Self-Authoring Program will help you to plan for a better life. Statistics show how effective it is. If you don't know where you are, how will you be able to plan where you want to go?

Come at me bro. You know you want my gold and girls and truth and power and fusion core. Everything has its price.

Pretty sure that he's the one copying me. I didn't even know he existed until someone else that was copying me (which I'm positive of, because I figured out who they were on here, and confronted them and they admitted that it was them.) brought them to my attention. Also, his motivation seems to be (now that I've absorbed him), is that he had recurrent nightmares of nuclear Armageddon since he was a teen, the terror of those dreams has led him to attempt to figure out what could make something like that occur, and is attempting to prevent it. He also was on antidepressants for like a decade or longer until recently. My fears and motivations greatly differ.

Though, stop attempting to trigger me bro.

Pull the trigger bro. Punch a Draconic Metaphor much? It ain't like punching Nazis. Bruce Lee has nothing on me.

Just don't bug me. eh. You're no where near seeing through me.

All day everyday my mind tunes into what people say and do, and how things work around me, why they exist and what function they serve. — Crane

It fascinates me, I find comfort it evaluating other peoples 'perspectives' although often concluding more questions. I try relax to music/sounds and let my imagination take me away from all these questions but I can't escape. You ever feel like your mind is restricted? Is it possible to erase memory?

why do you want to escape these questions? Why not let the questions be a point of return for your mind as you let your imagination take you? the questions only hurt when you need an answer. So perhaps this is a good question to dwell on: what is the answer you're REALLY looking for? You may find that the answer you are looking for is the cause of your feeling restricted.

Music wise, check out Joseph Jacobs on YouTube, its great music for imagining. Also, I think you'll like this song and associated music. Nujabes - Yes ft. Pase Rock (2011)
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=2MPfx_Aa94o

he had recurrent nightmares of nuclear Armageddon since he was a teen — Wosret

Get him to read The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula LeGuin, one of my favouritest bookses.

There is reality, and there is your perception of reality. Reality just is, and it's not flexible; it always is the way it is, no matter how it evolves, and no matter how you perceive it. Your perception of reality on the other hand is malleable, because you can't ever know everything there is to know about reality, and information you find about it may be flawed or even totally wrong. The best you can have (and science works with this in mind) is a model of reality that is close enough to reality itself that it works well enough in practice. If your model of reality is too flawed, you'll eventually be facing consequences (if you take your children to an exorcist instead of a doctor, and they end up dying).

This is also why science works in reverse: they don't try to prove things, they try to disprove them. You posit a hypothesis, and then try to blow holes in it. Put simply, if you can disprove it, then it's likely wrong; if not, then it's likely correct to the degree you understand it. In math they can prove things because math is absolute. 2+2 is always 4. And math is indeed something we came up with, but so far it seems to works quite flawlessly (to the best of my knowledge). Well, philosophically, 2+2 might be 22, or a pepin, but mathematically it's really always 4.

Con artists, advertisers, politicians, and many other people take advantage of our perception of reality in some way. Some in dishonest ways, some even unknowingly. The best you can do is investigate for yourself, and try to corroborate information, or find people who know more about the subject to do that for you (I rely on some youtubers) and give you back their assessment of it, and learn to detect whether they're being coherent or not (learn about fallacies, get a bit of an understanding of the scientific method and compare to pseudoscience (a synonym of fraud, if you ask me). There are probably other useful things to know, but I could only think of those).

Not many things can be proven to an absolute degree (though facts are facts), but everything that isn't real can be disproved to the point at which anyone defending it will only be stubbornly clinging to fallacies (the Argument From Ignorance, for example). Most stuff that is real or true can be easily backed up by at least an objective argument, or at least one piece of evidence. The only obstacle to how easy it is, is usually people who profit from, or have some vested interest in muddying the waters (and they usually resort to fallacies or sophisms all the way).

Some perhaps useful links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

If he's paying attention, then maybe he will! Are his dreams of the coming revolution prophet? We'll have to wait and see.

unenlightened, a portion of your reply has been posted on The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Congratulations and Thank you for your contribution!

Aha, I seem to be convinced that I would find it easier to live if I wasn't so aware. Thanks for your suggestions I've listened several times :)

Thanks for your reply :) I'll look into the links over the week.

There is reality, and there is your perception of reality. Reality just is — Sephi

How do I access the 'just is reality'?..

How do I access the 'just is reality'?.. — Reece

Hush. You just is, already.

Your experiences and what you can and will observe, depends upon sensitivity and intuition. This is a skill that takes time to nurture. My favorite means to develop my observations skills and intuition are the arts, sports, chess, music, dance, Tai Chi. To see more one must practice to see more. Reading books may help to develop intuition if you read intuitive authors.

A portion of your reply has been posted on The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Congratulations and Thank you for your contribution!

What is real? Unfortunately one cannot give you an answer that will probably satisfy you. You have to go through the process of working it out for yourself. There is no definition of real that will encapsulate every possible use of this word. The meaning of this word is in how it's used within a language. I'm not saying you don't have private experiences, but that the use of the word real is something that takes place in a community - a community of language users. It's not you who decides how the word is used, so in that sense it's not you who decides what's real.

One can correctly say that one's experiences are real, but there are many uses of the word real, and because it seems so vague, it may seem like one doesn't have a grasp of reality. Maybe you're just trying to be precise where there is no precision. Many words are like this, that's just the way language is.

Reece confesses, "I Need Help On Reality".

Well, don't we all.

Everything feels like a gimmick from what we’re ‘allegedly’ told.

I’m not religious as I feel to believe in something is to not ‘know’ sufficient enough information. I would rather start a sentence with “I know...” rather than “I believe...”. Unfortunately nothing can be proven.

24 years old and I feel like I’m living for the sake of it, I feel stripped of any aspiration/motivation and only have unanswered questions. — Reece

You are suffering from late onset Holden Caulfield Syndrome. Everybody is a phony and everything is a gimmick. You get hung up on semantics. Nothing can be proven. You are experiencing ennui, anomie, alienation, depersonalization. Life has become one big headache.

You feel bad. What can be done about it?

My suggestion is that you immediately embark on a program of acting like life is meaningful and entirely worth living and that what you do with you life in the near future matters.

You will probably say, "your advice is just one more gimmick" and you would be partially right. But as gimmicks go, it has some advantages over wallowing in the slough of despond.

William James, an American psychologist (the first Professor of Psychology at Harvard) observed that there is a clear relationship between how we behave, act, feel and think. If the kind of thoughts we have are not helping us, then we need to act. . So, if you want to feel alive and engaged in a meaningful life, then you need to begin living AS IF you were engaged in a meaningful life.

I don't know anything about you, except that you are human (presumably not a bot) and that your psychology is pretty much like everybody else's. So go find yourself something to do that you suspect might be a meaningful, socially useful, and interesting gimmick. Then stick with it. Find several socially useful, interesting, and personally meaningful gimmicks to keep your mind occupied by positive things instead of negative crap. But the important thing is ACT LIKE YOU WANT TO FEEL.

Thanks Sam. I fear the answer won't come from another 'human' anyway :/ I'd ask the Royal Family but I don't have that privilege.

Thanks for reply BC. Are you asking me to play pretend? I have so many questions as to why, what or who put us here. It's scientifically clear we didn't evolve. We are the only species that isn't natural to this planet. I adamantly refuse to speculate, assume or believe in insufficient 'knowledge' that doesn't lead anywhere.

The only thing I can think of is to try imagine there is 'greater good' at work, because in the end we're all slaves to our own society. You know it's an issue when the basic necessities for survival come at a cost.

We don't have the freedom of choice. We all have to go to school, we all have to work or contribute in someway. Where's the 'wild' aspect in our 'civilized' way of life? There isn't one.

Thanks :) the just is, is all I've got so far.

Thanks for all your replies. It's a topic I love talking about. Whether we agree/disagree it's nice to hear from you all and understand your views.