That would make things easier. I think I could go gay for myself. Anyway, how do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king's bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.

i read a novel by camus once too

That's Zhuangzi, asshole

you're so fung shui it's intimidating

I've got Disaster Date on TV even

I'm 100% sure my dad is dead. I was in the hospital when they took him off support, and I have some of his ashes in a necklace around my neck. Plus, he hasn't been by asking for dinner or anything for the last 23 days or so. . .
maybe i should send him some psychic messages so he knows for sure?

That's not generally understood as faith. Faith is generally regarded as belief without or in spite of reason and evidence. One can be reasonably sure of his or her belief without resorting to "I don't need evidence, it's faith."

For example, I am rather sure the Sun will come up tomorrow. This is not based on faith. It is based on experience, observation, and testing. Of course, I am not completely positive the Sun will rise. It might not for some (probably awful) reason. But my belief that the Sun will rise tomorrow is not based on any faith whatsoever, just very good reasons that allow me to feel rather sure it will come up.

Well that's the beauty of being dead, being there but not being there

I can't be sure, but I have no good reason to think we live in a perfected virtual reality.
But if you truly do doubt reality as commonly understood, and think this is all a perfected virtual reality, I invite you to get into a car and drive straight into a wall at a speed proportional to your lack of belief in the true existence of said wall (to pull from Bertrand Russell).

I believe the magic words are "perfected virtual reality" then who needs a real "reality"?

We would still wake up somewhere else if we hit the wall, no?

Nope, because in the "perfected virtual reality" there's no difference with the real thing, being hurt in the "perfected virtual reality" is being hurt in the real world, that why is "perfected" isn't?

First I don't understand how you can say you're sure the sun will come up tomorrow and then say you're not completely positive it will...

So then, at what point for you does it become 'faith' not empirical? You gave the example of 99%. What is your threshold for faith vs. empirical (evidence)?

Something would have to happen when we hit the wall. Either go right through it, we walk away fine, we wake up in true reality, or we are dead.

I would have to go with the last one

Well, it's virtual reality for me, and all you are just code.

I don't think this is all perfected virtual reality though. I didn't say I think it's anything; saying I know it's fake would contradict my reasoning behind not knowing it's real. Even if it is, I don't know the consequences of running into that wall would be any different for me than they are for everyone else, whether they're human or code or other stimuli to my brain; even within a "fake" world, I could face real consequences. Then again I might not. Even if I thought there's only a 30% chance I'd die (though I figure it's a lot higher chance), I'm pretty risk averse when it comes to essentially motiveless death, so proportionality would not make any sense. Expected value doesn't apply to most day to day life situations (cue Math thread jokes).

My head hurts.