To what degree do we live in make-believe?

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To what degree do we live in make-believe? Plato’s Cave Analogy comes to mind here.
 
To the precise extent that our lives do not correspond to reality. 😉
 
tonyrey said:
To the precise extent that our lives do not correspond to reality. 😉
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But how do we measure this? How do we know it? By the very definitions we already know that make-believe is just the opposite of reality. We live in a world in which everybody disagrees as to what is reality. Could you provide your own perception of reality here?
 
Robert_Sock said:
To what degree do we live in make-believe? Plato’s Cave Analogy comes to mind here.
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“The finger that points at the moon is not the moon.” comes to mind.

Consider our sensations from the environment around us as being metaphors for the environment. In the cave allegory the people were accustomed to shadow metaphors. Those of us that have grown outside the cave may have more complex metaphors (or less complex). From these metaphors we build a mental model of the environment (perception). Though our models are an approximation and are of limited detail. Without trying one may automatically fill in details of presently unsensed properties with an influence from past experience (confabulation). The resulting perception could be internally consistent, but divergent from what is actual.

I think “make believe” mischaracterizes what is going on here. Make believe is usually voluntary and among adults contrary to what may be implied from the word “believe” being in the phrase, when one “make believes” there usually is not belief involved, though one may try to act like the the belief is held.

There’s some amount of constructive mental process that could be said to be involved in both perception and make-believe.
 
Robert_Sock said:
*To the precise extent that our lives do not correspond to reality.
*
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We can obviously measure the degree of correspondence of our beliefs about the physical aspect of reality far more precisely than our metaphysical beliefs. No two persons perceive intangible reality in exactly the same way because we have all have different experiences and different views on a multitude of topics. Some even deny that anything is intangible! A solipsist on this forum recently denied that anything is physical! Between those two extremes there is an immense range of possibilities depending our views on anything under the sun - and beyond…
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We live in a world of illusion and deception! Our world is miserable and corrupt.
 
Robert_Sock said:
We live in a world of illusion and deception! Our world is miserable and corrupt.
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We also live in a world of realism and love. Our world is often noble and joyful.

Heaven is not only in the next world but here and now:

“The kingdom of God is within you” - without the need to make-believe…
 
tonyrey said:
We also live in a world of realism and love. Our world is often noble and joyful.

Heaven is not only in the next world but here and now:

“The kingdom of God is within you” - without the need to make-believe…
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Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
-John 12:25
 
Robert_Sock said:
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
-John 12:25
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“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great…” - Matt 5:12

We cannot make others happy unless we are happy.
 
Robert_Sock said:
To what degree do we live in make-believe? Plato’s Cave Analogy comes to mind here.
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If we turn our eyes away from Christ then we turn to make-believe. We must always meditate on Christ to stay on the path of truth.
 
Sacred_Heart said:
If we turn our eyes away from Christ then we turn to make-believe. We must always meditate on Christ to stay on the path of truth.
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Christ said, “I am THE way, THE TRUTH, and THE Life . . .”

Because we lack complete understanding of THE TRUTH, we do live in make believe to some degree. Societies, well at least governments and media, that try to teach us to ignore or go against THE TRUTH live in greater degrees of make believe.

Christ also said the LOVE is the greatest Commandment.

Selfishness is the opposite of LOVE. The more we try to be selfishish, the more we try to live in make believe. It is OK, and even necessary, to take care of ourselves so that we can be able to love others as we should. If we love Christ and others to the best of our ability, we are living in the greatest degree of reality we can in this life.
 
You sound like you would like to read GK Chestertons “Orthodoxy”
 
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