What is reality?

[TinyBubbles]

Since our understanding of reality underpins our understanding of everything else, I think it's really important that we know and all agree on what exactly reality is.

Is reality only what we can objectively see, touch, hear, taste and smell? Or are there other levels of reality?

Are dreams "real"? When you're having a dream, you don't know that it's a dream (typically); likewise with daydreams. It's only when you come OUT of them, that you realize that you were in one to begin with. During that time, your AWARENESS of tangible reality was low, if not completely absent -- so is what you experienced more real than that sensory information which didn't register in your mind during your (day)dream?

I'm also thinking about time, you know how they say time goes faster when you're happy, and slower when you're sad? Time also seems to go slower when you're focused on it. Just try watching the clock for a few minutes and see if you don't "experience" that minute stretching out for a long, (perceived) time. Is time really outside of ourselves? I mean, can we measure it objectively, when everyone is running on their own mood clocks, and speeding up or slowing down time depending on how they feel? Is a minute to you the same as a minute to me?

What about fantasies, fiction, even the process of using the internet to communicate, when we know that really all we're seeing is points of light on a fluorescent screen. On some level we extrapolate that sensory data and kind of amplify it using our imaginations. I think this is how you can picture a person's face just by what they write on a screen, and how you can imagine a whole world through a novel. Are those things that you envision in your mind, real? How would you separate sensory data from the "real" world, from that which you attach TO the data through your imagination?

Think about religion, about God. Are those things real, or have we made them real through our ability to supplement factual data with our imaginations? You could also consider hallucinogenic drugs, and how they effect the mind and its perception of reality. If chemical imbalances generated by drugs (or heredity, in the case of depression for eg.) can warp a person's experience of the real, then how do we know there is a REAL outside of themselves to begin with?

What if we are really in some sort of matrix? Like we're on some permanent drug, that is continually warping what we see of the world but we can't detect it because it's always been there - it's been there since the first human being walked on the earth?

Would love to hear what you think!

 

[Roger]

I am thinking, your reality how much you are in present time and by living in present moment how much you accepted where you are in any field of your life.

For example,

Someone is thinking about their family relationship. When they accept where there are relationship, are they fulfilling or not? Are they offering peace to their mind or not? IF answer of this questions comes in yes or no, this is said they accepted their reality.

 

[Gaze]

Well, it's partly a matter of separating reality from our experience of it. 3D is not real when you go to see a film, but yet you have a 3D experience when watching a film projected on the screen using that technology. Simply because something is not real doesn't mean it any less real even if it the imagination simply because it is based on fantastical images projected visually or created in the mind. Should I discount a nice, restful, relaxing dream simply because you can't open someone's brain and find it? I couldn't. Of course, when it comes to nightmares, we're usually happy we can wake up and find out they're not real (or won't become reality hopefully).

 

[TinyBubbles]

Should I discount a nice, restful, relaxing dream simply because you can't open someone's brain and find it? I couldn't. Of course, when it comes to nightmares, we're usually happy we can wake up and find out they're not real (or won't become reality hopefully).

interesting, so a good dream would be real, while a bad dream you'd relegate as to just a nightmare? maybe what we consider real has nothing to do with objectivity at all, but how much we enjoy the experience.
reminds me of that guy in matrix, who connived with the evil guys to kill Morpheus & Neo. he was eating a piece of steak and saying how delicious it was, despite him knowing it wasn't real. but to him, it seemed real, because it was so tasty. maybe it's the same with life, whatever we completely are enthralled by, we take that to be more real than what we dislike?

 

[TinyBubbles]

I am thinking, your reality how much you are in present time and by living in present moment how much you accepted where you are in any field of your life.

For example,

Someone is thinking about their family relationship. When they accept where there are relationship, are they fulfilling or not? Are they offering peace to their mind or not? IF answer of this questions comes in yes or no, this is said they accepted their reality.

that's a good point, yes, it could be a matter of acceptance, and whether the experience would fill you with peace or not. are we more likely to accept reality if it makes us peaceful? this kind of relates to what restraint was saying, hmm

 

[Rakawi]

Definitions

Main Entry: re

 

[NeverAmI]

Is reality only what we can objectively see, touch, hear, taste and smell? Or are there other levels of reality?

To me reality is all about persistence. Whatever persists is seen as real. Science is built around this principle. Some people believe a God/infinity persist the longest or even transcends time and so that is the ultimate reality. We observe the objective world through our senses as having persisted the longest and so this has become the primary reality for many.

Are dreams "real"?

The dream is real until persistence ends. Think about this scenario: If you could resume a dream every time you slept, regardless of whether you knew it was a dream or not, how real would that be versus a typical dream? If you said something hurtful and the next night you dream the hurt is observed as continuing in your target, that would have some hints of reality, even if not seen as the ultimate reality.

I'm also thinking about time, you know how they say time goes faster when you're happy, and slower when you're sad?

Time is witnessed to be intertwined with space and motion and matter adheres to certain rules that aren't objectively consistent, they are relative. Our clocks only judge time based on the movement of some piece of matter through space. That clock is only trusted because it has shown to have persistence in terms of predictability.

As for personal sense of time, I don't know the brain/mind well enough to make an educated guess, but I do realize that it depends on what we focus on. Sometimes I can be working on a technical problem and it is suddenly 4 hours later which only seemed like 20 minutes.

What about fantasies, fiction, even the process of using the internet to communicate, when we know that really all we're seeing is points of light on a fluorescent screen.

Probably the best representation of a conceptual reality is seen in MMORPG games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft. People invest A LOT of time, energy, emotion, and thought into these virtual worlds. People may say the game isn't real, but it is. The game persists. You do something and come back, it is still there (in most cases). For some these games become a much more pleasurable reality than the real world, and so they immerse themselves completely.

We understand that at some point the servers will be shut down that host the game and it will eventually end, but then again our bodies eventually shut down and end, are they any more real?

What if we are really in some sort of matrix? Like we're on some permanent drug, that is continually warping what we see of the world but we can't detect it because it's always been there - it's been there since the first human being walked on the earth?

Quantum theory can give you this feeling sometimes. Even well before that we realized how flawed the senses are. Many admit that we can never know the true nature of reality (what persists beyond all else). Some say energy has been the only persistence (the singularity or other dimensions). Some say a God/Infinity transcends all else.

 

[TinyBubbles]

Main Entry: re

 

[IndigoSensor]

Reality is what I can interact with.

 

[Norton]

Reality is no more than the data received and stored from your senses and the mental processing that proceeds therefrom. Sometimes the mental processing is consistently faulty and pharmacological intervention is needed.

 

[Ecton]

My personal view:

Reality is "experiencing"... not identity or objective views, but that act of existing in experience. A mind that had no sensory inputs at all would none-the-less experience, and therefore have reality. A mind that is defective in processing experiences, and therefore has reality. There is a common existence that many of us share, and we call it 'Reality'. This overlapping area is the common definition of reality. At that level of definition, our existence outside common experience is not Reality. Yet we have faith that some fraction of it is in fact Real, and we call this the Universe.

For me, my reality includes all of my dreams, the people and things in them, my sensation of time, objects, and all of my other interpretations. It also includes all of my illogical thoughts including deja vu, synchronicity, and other perceptions that rarely correlate with Universe.

To summarize, to me 'reality' is the stream of perception that is my life, and the lesser, shared communal 'Reality' is that which we believe is common, and the even lesser 'Universe' is the part we believe is shareable, and Science is the part that will obey laws of consistency that we understand. I think what makes my view a little different is that I put highest emphasis on them in this order, rather than the modern preference to view Universe as most "real". To me, as both a professional scientist and amateur (and neophyte) philosopher, it is the least real, with Science at least being a perception I directly experience.

That's why I still get a thrill talking to other people, cause I am reaching across something tentative to find something more real. I accept, however, that the more common and shared part of this will kill me some day.

 

[Rakawi]

yeah the implications of that would be immense & terrifying, although in some ways completely liberating. you could then literally create your own reality.

thanks for the definitions btw, i find it interesting that sometimes reality is defined not by what it IS, but by what it's NOT .. not fradulent, not artificial, not UNREAL. it reminds me of how they say in art, a form is defined as much by the negative spaces as by the positive:

(so like in this picture, the shape of the white would define what the birds looked like as much as the shape of the birds. they're intertwined- maybe inseparable? Is reality & experience the same way?)
also in music, how it's about the notes you DON'T play as much as the notes you do with defines the overall sound.

can we even define reality accurately if not in terms of what it ISN'T (at least partially?) I think not..

Perhaps time is the negative space around reality?

Must reality be communal, or agreed upon?

 

[just me]

They speak of the conscious and the unconscious mind. I think it is for our perception of the mind. Perception does not always translate into reality. I, therefore, think reality is what we know, what we knew, what we will know, and very many things we will never know. To one reality is to another a new frontier of questions with answers leading to a better view of reality at any given time. I personally feel reality is something one may never fully know or understand in this life.

Realities seem to be always changing.