What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? (Allen)
February 13th, 2007 | Published in Existentialism, Humor and Satire, Quotes | 26 Comments
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
–Woody Allen, Without Feathers (1975) in The Complete Prose of Woody Allen, 10
May 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm (#)
If everything is an illusion, then why am i sitting on this seat smoking a cigarette-which feels real enough- drinking a bottle of beer -which certainly ‘feels’ real enough- looking at the plastic computer monitor which, if i am not mistaken and have suddenly been transported through a worm hole to a parallel universe, looks real enough. In fact, my entire life seems perfectly real to me. If nothing actually exists then why am i sat here typing all these words-don’t you have to ‘exist’ to do that? By the way, i think the Woody Allen quote is very funny!
I think to believe that all existence, whether sentient or insentient is just illusion, is in itself an illusion.
I bet if you told somebody who’s just lost a person very close to them that the pain they are feeling is just an illusion, they would punch your lights out.
Chris
September 6th, 2007 at 11:43 pm (#)
Well, it’s just a theory. Actually it is a very in-depth physical theory and I think that to know and understand theories, we provide ourselves the information required to form our own opinions, educated ones at that. You have stated yours here, but I am only saying, by raising a philosophical question (hence the ‘what if..’ factor), a person isn’t stating a fact, but opening the minds of others to ideas and possibilities that provoke thoughts.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:16 am (#)
I agree with you chris. I also think that believing the world is an illusion, that nothing exists, is a way to escape from the lack of purpose, lack of meaning that we sometimes feel life has. Its also a way to escape responsibility, a way to justify doing whatever it is you want to do; a way to follow only your own rules.
Though I feel that in a world where the social contract didn’t exist and anarchy reigned, this philosophy would be universally embraced and accepted.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:04 pm (#)
This is very complicated to understand, but if we see deeply in our lives we can understand it easily, I think that power is an illusion, also weakness is, it’s only about what you think of yourself, if you believe that you are powerful that’s what you’ll be, and also the same for seeing yourself weak, in fact your power is an illusion and also your weakness, it depend on you, you can change your lifestyle the minute you change your thoughts, about yourself and about the things you do, I’ve seen people facing their fears and doing things that all their lives thought they could never do them, so their fear was an illusion, the same as the act of facing it, it depend on you, everything is an illusion everything is possible, you can be weak or powerful, fit or fat, fearful or fearless, follower or leader, slave or master, everything you want to believe, your mind will make it appear true.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:43 am (#)
everything is an illusion to us because our perception is imperfect. we cannot perfectly sense reality. it is filtered through our skin, eyes, tongue, nose, and ears; and it is muddled by our beliefs and emotions. reality is not an illusion. the picture we get of reality after our mind processes it is.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:50 am (#)
We are controlled by our five senses and to say that reality is an illusion isn’t so far fetched. It is wrong however because reality isn’t an illusion just our perception of reality is an illusion. To truly see reality as reality you would have to be away from your five senses just like in a dream. That is why when you wake up your thought processes has to start over because you were in a reality that you made in your mind. So sorry Chris but leave it to the smart people that aren’t drinking and smoking to actually tell you what is real.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:29 pm (#)
The whole world is an illusion. Just think about it and believe it, and only then will you be free.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:06 pm (#)
Everything is an illusion. That does not mean that “I” am going to go out killing people and doing destructive things just because its all an illusion. All things being an illusion also does not necesarrily mean nothing exists. The essence of our true selves is eternal divine existence. I am simply a silent and invisible selfless eye (infinite eternal consciousness/the void/nothingness) that is watching the world and the drama of life unfold through the eyes of a man. The mind thinks. The body feels. Deeds are done. But it is not me doing te doing or feeling the feeling. Im just watching it happen, remaining unaffected. I am watching this man, who i once called ME or I, do the things he is on this earth to do. The true you does not think, nor feel, because you are nothing, which is also everything. Life exists so that we can experience thought and feelings. You are free when you unclutch and unidentify yourself from the thoughts and feelings that are happening in that body you are peering through. You are not that body, but that body is a piece of you, as are all bodies, and things. Do not let thoughts drive you, just let them arise and pass by, like clouds in the sky. You are free, and have been all along, eternally untouched and divine. The only thing keeping you from feeling that freedom is the fact that you let your thoughts think you are not free, that theres is something to search for, something more to find and even worse that you are your thoughts. They are just clouds, and I imagine that you dont let a cloud thats passing by drive you mad and make you search for a thing that you already are, driving you further and further from it………..
December 5th, 2009 at 4:10 pm (#)
I believe to use “All these things feel real enough” is a bit narrow minded, It’s just underestimating the power of the illusion. Would it be impossible to imagine a feeling of reality? Have you never woken up from a nightmare and thought “Wow, that felt so real”? I know I have. I’m not saying I agree with this theory but I wouldn’t just ignore it cause you feel you know better.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:19 pm (#)
Something must exist otherwise no one would be able to express these thoughts, nor would I.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:27 pm (#)
Or are you just dreaming that you’re expressing them? ;)
March 20th, 2010 at 4:46 pm (#)
have u ever felt in your dream that what ever dreamworld you are currently in , is actually an ILLUSION.
no never while in dreams its all so real for us.
the a logic behind discarding the theory of “everything is illusion” is not satisfactory just by saying it all feels so real ,,, it wouldn’t have been termed ILLUSION if it wouldn’t have been so real.
just think deep …think DEEP and u would get one answer at last explaining most of the philosophical questions about life and everything.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:28 pm (#)
Everything is an illusion, our minds our so powerful we believe we live in reality it is hard to understand but thats because we have been brought up to believe everything around us is real
May 24th, 2010 at 3:17 am (#)
lol i know that everything is an illusion!
November 14th, 2010 at 12:08 am (#)
for me, everything doesn’t exist .. My theory is god install our brain a program and this program make us think that everything is real in fact it is not. Think about it, who is really controlling our body ?? who is making thoughts and give orders to our body ???
what if this is all just a dream like an illusion, the day we die is the day we wake up and realized ??
The only way to find the answer is to go way back , the beginning of human being .. The zero !!
Good place to start is mexico, people said they heard low frequency sound from there maybe thats the place to find the answer. i think.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:55 am (#)
@melvin:
uh, what does the low frequency have anything to do with what you said?
November 25th, 2010 at 9:39 am (#)
Illusion or not, it all ends rather quickly…
January 18th, 2011 at 3:08 am (#)
we are all in and illusion the eye sees. we are in the matrix we are flesh and bones. we are fake nothing exist.i can spilt my head open and take my brian out then what. everything is a vibration state. mind is run by the eye. eye is flesh everything is seen by the eye then is processes through the mind. this universe is all about minds. the mind is the universe it creates it. mind holds power that cant be comprehended. human minds are created by the reps. their are other minds that are more intel then the humans. wonder if the machines have illusions are its a hole another story for them.
January 24th, 2011 at 3:08 pm (#)
Things we SEE are not real, they are just images that mislead us.its all an illusion
e.g if u meet a guy for the first time, and u start labelling him as a good guy while in actual fact he is not, are u really being realistic? the real fact is he is not good, ur eyes are just misleading you from objective reality
February 14th, 2011 at 12:31 pm (#)
what if everything you are saying and typing is just an illusion of the whole matter….this things sucks.truly like an illusion..
February 25th, 2011 at 6:26 am (#)
Self does not exist, we only percieve self as us, because we are raised to think we are seperate from everything. Everything is an illusion but that does not mean everything does not exist. For everything to be non-existent then nothing would every be, and we could not be were we are now or anything else at another time. Are minds try to make sense of the world around us and dont truly know what is going on for what is going on is signals of light being transfered to our brains and our brains are actually making the image of the world we see around us. We can lose the self by meditating and focusing on only on are breath and dissolving the self letting go of self, and you shall soon see that You does not exist. You are everything and everyone, their is no seperation between anything because we are all the same thing, energy. All energry broken down on its finest scale is the same thing, not anything different. What you think is you is not you, because its exactly what everything else is and everything that always is. Nothing truly dies everything is renewed in an endless cycle of energry being transformed into everything and everyone. Your energry was once something or someone, we are all stars and stars are all us, nothing is and everything is. Life?, Death? It is just an illusion. You are an illusion. Dissolve the self and dissolve your chains of ignorance.
June 18th, 2011 at 6:45 pm (#)
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. -Morpheus
June 24th, 2011 at 8:24 pm (#)
Give me the blue pill and a shovel silly rabbit, I’ll dig my own holes. It is quite obvious that this is all an illusion and you will never escape, as the outside of the illusion is itself an illusion. Every step you take in either direction, every move you make or don’t make, just reinforces the illusion. I could speculate about death as an escape but I’m guessing it would be a pointless escape, as you would be dead. But who knows, I’m just speculating. After all, “dead men tell no tales.” But be honest with yourself for a sec. You don’t want out anyways… remember how fun the illusion used to be? You just want to know how to control it and make it fun again. :) We are all entitled to that right and everyone has the power somewhere inside them. Just please; try not to get greedy and control others like those fucks that used to control your illusions did. (Disclaimer: What I’ve told you is another illusion. Stop following rabbits and dig your own holes!)
June 25th, 2011 at 2:35 pm (#)
Sorry about my previous illusionary statement. Its just so easy to get confused within ones own illusions. If you think about it in matrix terms again, Morpheus said: “what you hear, see, touch, taste, smell… are merely electrical impulses interpreted by the brain.” So… everything you THINK is an illusion. In order to be free, stop letting your mind think for you, and start thinking for your mind! Your own mind is whats controlling you, its always bitching and moaning, “I’m hungry, I need to use the bathroom, your breath stinks, blah, blah, blah… all day long, right? And its constantly changing its mind. Hence, its not permanent and therefor, its an ILLUSION. What if you say to your mind “shut up, I just ate, I can hold it, and oh, thanks for the heads up.”
If your illusions have allowed you to interpret this message, than now is the choice: red pill or blue?
(Disclaimer: I’m not trying to mislead you, but what I’m telling you is still an illusion. “I can show you the door, but you have to walk through it.”)
July 31st, 2011 at 3:42 pm (#)
Only a few hundred years ago learned men believed the world was flat and at the centre of the universe. To them, that was a reality.
Now we believe that the world is round, orbiting the sun, which is part of a galaxy, one of inumeral galaxies in the universe. To us, that is a reality.
A few hundred years from now, learned men will view our reality much as we view the reality of learned men a few hundred years ago. Our reality will seem illusionary to them.
It’s only real to us because we don’t know any better.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:07 am (#)
Okay here i know this topic really old but heres to prove a fact.
Energy, exist’s all around us, our eyes see illusions that the energy form to pleasure our eyes.
People are capable of sight see things.
People who are not capable of sight can still feel psychical objects.
To them they are nothing.
Ask a blind person that’s been blind since birth and has had eye implants. Ask them if existance was more real to them when they couldn’t see or when they could see, they would say it was more real when they could not see.
Truely, the things we see do not really exist, It’s only created by a void of energy that pleasures our eyes.
This is also another theory on skitso people.
Truely, ask you’re self this
Just because you can see something, and feel it.
Does it really mean it’s actually there ?
Now read this.
If you have an illusion of some1 or something, and you go up to it and touch it, you can feel it just as well as you can see it.
But does that mean it is truely there? Or is it just an illusion to you’re eyes and mind?