I'm not denying it. I think it's 100% real within its own terms. I just don't think that those are the only terms, that's all. There may be other realities, and from the vantage point of those, this one may seem unreal.

For instance, Slag, I think you believe in Heaven, don't you?

Okay, so where is it? Can you touch it? Can anyone? Can we fly a plane there...or a spacecraft? It would seem not.

So why do you believe in it when you have no tangible proof? If it is real, it probably exists in a reality completely apart from this time-space continuum that we think of AS reality (physical reality).

And if it does exist, then I would think that it's a realer reality than this one, given the status of Heaven in a spiritual sense! ;-)

Yet we have no tangible proof of it. Why would my belief that this tangible reality is illusory be any stranger than your belief that Heaven is not illusory?

You realize, it's all happening in your brain. Your brain receives signals which it then translates as touch, sight, smell, taste, and sound. Thus you perceive this world we live in...or you at least think you perceive it. If your brain ceases to function, this world (at least for you) ceases to exist. It is no more. It vanishes.

But are you then no more? Are you dependent on your brain or is it the other way around?

You don't know. You can only make an assumption about that. Ditto for me.

This world may be an illusion...as suggested in some Eastern religions...but we have no way of testing that out, because our own existence as physical beings would be part OF the same illusion.

Think of it as a giant virtual reality game on a computer, via the Internet. Everyone who logs in and plays the game (gets born) sees exactly the same game, with all the same stuff, but they all play individual roles which differ, and they wander around in different parts of the game, and they look at things in the game from different angles, and they have different reactions to things they encounter in the game, and they use their free will. Thus, you have a totally consistent interactive world within the software of the game and it appears to be totally real...as long as the players think think it is. In fact, it appears to be the ONLY reality.............until someone turns off the computer or the power fails (you die)! Then it's gone. Vanished.

It was an illusion.