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so lets take this just a bit farther, with science fiction coming into play...and what i mean by this is VIRTUAL REALITY...like you said if reality is based on facts independent of perception couldnt a computer create a reality that is almost exactly the same as the one we wake up to day after day...or has it already happened? meaning that despite gaia's best intentions some of the people on this site have taken the ideals of certian religions to the far extent...thinking that they are dragons or vampires and such...to us this is ridiculus but to them the internet allows them this place to make a dream a reality...so my point is that i agree that reality is made up of actuall facts (facts that we know, and facts we yet can find out.. lol ) but if i virtual place can alter a reality would that reality take precedence over the real reality thus creating a paradox...(i think thats the word i want to use here... lol )

ok so lets change up the persepective then...say a person does get caught up in this flashing light of a screen and sees it as reality...would thier idea of reality (even though it is fantasy based on virtual reality) be the same definition that we give about reality? if so what is the difference, if not how would you explain that to the person?

Reality has only one meaning. To exist. That's how I see

If nothing is real, never was, and never will be -- the just what exactly are you and where do you come from? Or any of us for that matter. Even if you want to say the "real" world is fake, then what are any of us to be experiencing these delusions? We're not real in any way too, we do not exist in any form, not even one different then what we think we exist as, because that ultimate actual form would be something "real." What it really comes down to as to why there must be some real thing at least in existence, if you want a quick and simple answer, how about "I think, therefore I am." It does not cover in itself all of what is reality, but it's a quick way I think to prove your theory of absolutely nothing being real false.

Have you had the chance to actually read "The Meditations Concerning Primary Philosophy"? (I don't suggest "Discourse on Method", unless you really don't have a life.) What I took from DesCartes as far as the Cogito is the concept that one has an idea of Perfection, although no sum of the parts of anyone's reality is "Perfect". In fact, he tries to play Devil's Advocate and make an argument that any belief in things existing can be shown to have a trace of doubtfulness EXCEPT belief in oneself and belief in Perfection. This leads to the idea that one's consciousness Must have come in contact with a Perfection. Bound by his own western base of knowledge, the only name he could ascribe to this concept of Perfection was God. Not YHWH, Allah, or any of the other deities he was familiar with. His own "reality" wouldn't accomodate any true God but the one he was indoctrinated into following.

You sort of have to Expect the conclusions of "The Meditations" to support the Church of the day. That was his target audience, and his benefactor. To decide otherwise would be social (and perhaps Literal) suicide.

He was, I'm certain, aware of the other deities I mentioned. Remember, in the Middle Ages it was possible for an educated man to have read all (or damn near all) the written texts in one's own lifetime. The Torah, Koran, Vedas, etc. were all available to the elite. However, to use them as anything more than tools to understand the nonbelievers was strictly heresy.

True, it does figure considering the times and the place he lived in he had certain other interests to act in which would influence him.

I've heard similar propositions before of the "they're all looking at different incomplete aspects of one thing." The thing is though, when it comes to "perfection", it's being asserted as a characteristic of another thing. That other thing they may disagree on other aspects of, but they're supposed to agree upon that characteristic of it being "perfect." If they all agree on it being that one thing, perfect, shouldn't they all agree on what that attribute is that they are ascribing to something? It's like 30 people all agreeing they saw something tall, but to one of them that means between seven and eight feet high and to another it's thirty to forty feet high and still another he/she just throws up their hands and says "who's to say what 'tall' is? It's all relative. That said, the thing was indeed tall, whatever tall is". It means you've got people who do have a clear definition of the attribute giving different definitions and then you've got people asserting the attribute without giving it any real meaning at all. So saying everybody believes in "perfection" proves any one thing exists conclusively is just ridiculous.

Oh true, I do know he was limited a bit in his perspectives and all, especially with his motivations for doing things pushing him in certain directions. I'm not saying I have no idea why he did what he did, I do, it's just that I think it's a shame that with a pretty decent idea to start with -- getting an undeniable fact and working logically from there to deduce further truth. He ended up abandoning that nice idea ,after going through all the trouble to get a good starting point too, and selling out his intellectual integrity and stepping all over the good name of "truth." It would have been really great if he had kept up honestly what he originally said he was going to do and stuck to his guns on the real conclusions. It would have been a really beautiful stand he'd have made I think.