Always Dance

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The painting can be beautiful even if it's not real, it just can't be real, and that matters. I can't hang it on my wall. That makes it less valuable.

Unicorns are beautiful but not real. I can't own one. That's a big deal. That's why I make the distinction.

Regardless of the arbitrary values we assign the concept it is still there. I don't care what the quadratic formula is called, I care about the knowledge.

Another example is, if somebody told me that I could jump off of the Empire State Building and survive, I would wish to trust that knowledge just as much.

Mother 2 is real. I know she gave birth to me because I have seen the video. It matters because I owe her my life and childhood, I do not owe Mother 1 any such thing. She didn't do anything.
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I will assume that they could both show you the video in their respective worlds. They are exactly the same up until the divergence, where their memories split off.

Practicalism would also have me not trust the knowledge that the jump will not kill me. However, this is not because there is a 'real', but because the knowledge is not useful; it will not help me get to the bottom alive, which is my goal. You would want to know just to know, whether your goal was to get to the bottom or not. Whether they are 'right' for you is the same as whether it is useful to me, but you 'believe' or would rather have something you can accept. I 'make use of' to a definite end.

If I were dreaming, and every other person in the dream died when they jumped in a puddle, practicalism would tell me not to jump in the puddle. It does not matter if it is real or not, because my goals do not require reality, but only consistency.

Why does reality matter when flexibility based on consistency is just as if not more effective and less worrying?

You believe or disbelieve the information whether you intend to use it or not. This makes no sense to me. It has no bearing on your goals in any way. If you really wanted to know without any doubt, you could always jump and see for yourself.

lol, sorry but I have no physical body to perform activities with~

You can kiss my spirit anytime though~

More on the formula bit: you are not trusting your knowledge, you are relying on common understanding. Like with words. The arrangement of sounds and letters making the word "green" does not 'truly' associate with the meaning of the color itself. It is defined by men and used among them to better communicate. It is the same with that formula. You wish to 'trust' that the name of the formula is "the quadratic formula". What if someone else discovered the same principle and called it something else?

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Again I do not consider reality arbitrary, you just admitted that whether something is real or not affects how you think about it. Unicorns are interesting and I seek knowledge about them- what cultures believed in them, where the myth may have started, etc. Whether unicorns are real or not is included in the knowledge I seek about them.
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You only care because you believe it has meaning. Deciding whether a painting is real or not has exactly the same property as finding out whether it is valuable or not. Allow me to illustrate.

Someone asks you if a painting is beautiful. You know of the painting but also "know" that it never existed. You, with your arbitrary association with reality, respond with, "It can't be beautiful if it isn't real." But value is subjective! So you base your value on reality, and placing value on reality is arbitrary. It is same as whether you think the painting is beautiful or not. "This painting is beautiful" and "this painting is real" only mean something if you say they do. Both are equally meaningless to those who do not claim them.

Now, are unicorns beautiful? You would make the distinction between whether or not idea of one is and whether or not they 'really' or 'truly' are.

Why do you make that distinction? Not rhetorical.

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Of course I want to trust knowledge I gain. When I learn that the quadratic forumala is the -b +/-( b^2-4ac/2a)^1/2, I want to trust whether it's true or not, otherwise I am going to fail my test. What use is knowledge if I can't trust that it's true?
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That is logical, not knowledge based, and you are using the test as a basis for truth. Please try again with something other than axiomatic truths such as arithmetic and use something other than "what another says is true" as a standard.

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Again, if that were to happen, they would both be real, but only one of them would matter to me because only one of them is an actual person that exists independently of me, only one of them actually gave birth to me. That matters to me.
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Why does it matter?

Furthermore, and after you actually answer that question, how can you know that only one of them did? And let me be more clear: You say that only one of them would be important. Which one would you see as more important? Give me a name. Mother 1 or Mother 2?

I have a thirst for knowledge, as well. You thirst for security, not knowledge. You seek to trust the knowledge you find. You want to gain knowledge and "believe" in it. I, on the other hand, seek to gain knowledge of a unicorn. This does not imply that I trust my knowledge of it or seek to trust my knowledge of it.

I see no reason to thirst for belief. Knowledge of the unicorn is just as interesting whether you believe in them or not. It is the same for anything, no matter how extensive your knowledge is. If you saw a unicorn, you would have more knowledge of it, but for all you know you hallucinated it. It is still just as interesting—unless you let your arbitrary definition of 'reality' get in the way of your thirst for knowledge.

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Well first of all it's generally irrelevant because Dream Characters tend not to remember anything but past dreams. If they did, then they would be functionally just as "Real" as real people- but only one is my actual mother, who gave birth to me and raised me, the other is nothing but a representation of her.
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That's the problem. When I say "dream", you think "temporary whimsical one-night stand of a memory". The mind can easily carry over a character from one dream to the next, just as you can convince yourself that something happened when it did not and that something did not happen when it did. The fact that this does not happen often does not limit the capacity for it to do so.

I'll let that slide and assume that one of them is 'real', but which one?

If you cannot answer, then how do you know that one of them is real at all?

What if you never stop the cycle? What if it continues on like that until you die, and there is no other reality? Would there be any meaning to 'real' at that point?

Also, please read my second example. I feel that your answer to it is relevant.

I do not need a scientific explanation, that is asking too much. What I want is an explanation that is not a logical paradox. It is one thing if there is no evidence to support a claim. It is another if it is hypothetically impossible. I do not brush off the need for a scientific explanation. That implies that the need exists. Instead, you have been raised on science, so you need it by default.

I do not necessarily want brush off evidence so much as I want shake your fundamental view of the world into being less linear and more "maybe" than "yes or no". Not your intellectual view, no, that is easy to change; I can get you to admit that you can't prove something. But what I want to shake is your attachment to the ideas. To get you to roam freely in the vast world of them. To have no loyalties. That is why I appear to brush them off. It is freeing. You ask me why I brush off the need, but let me ask you: why do you embrace it?

Here is an example that is more relevant.

You wake up and have a conversation with your mother.

You wake up again and have the same conversation, but say something different, mentioning the first time you had it. She doesn't remember.

You go back to sleep and speak to your mother again. This time she remembers the first time you had the conversation, but not the bit that you added the second time. To all intents and purposes, she is mother from the first time you woke up. We'll call her Mother 1.

You wake up again, and the other one remembers the bit you added but not the conversation about it. So this is Mother 2 again.

This goes on for a while, changing cycles, with each of them remembering different things. Let's say you wake up to the other one every twelve hours on the hour.

Which Mother is 'real'?

Because it is just as good as real. Right now, this dream is all that I know. I will have no wish to leave it until I feel that I have learned all that I can here. Perhaps I will kill myself then and find out.

You wake up and have a conversation with your mother.

You wake up again. You have the same conversation.

To you, these events are exactly the same. The only reason why you might call the second one "real" is because your mother does not remember the conversation when you wake up the second time, while you do. Now let's say that you never wake up the second time. Would it be any different than if your mother had remembered the conversation when you woke up?