Reality according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary is "the quality or state of being real." This makes us ask then what is real? The dictionary states real as "of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things" So this makes reality the quality or state of or relating to being fixed, permanent, or immovable things.
Plato believes there are two worlds of reality also known as the two-tired metaphysics. The world that we see and the world of the enlightened which is summed up in the cave analogy. Plato believes that we are all metaphorically in a cave trapped staring at a wall of shadows and sounds and one day one person broke free and found the way out of the cave thus reaching a new form of reality.
Aristotle disagrees with a two-tired world and believes everything is connected yet separate. He looked at humans as each being a separate primary substance and stated that primary substances have no opposites yet can have attributes that are opposite. An example would be Bush and Obama are both primary substances and have no opposite although their political views, speech, and backgrounds are opposite in almost every way.
Some people such as Christine Scivicque believe that reality is perspective and emphasize the perspective of things. They take what your view point is forms your reality and thus everyone has different realities since no two people have the exact same life experiences. Your fears,doubts, knowledge, desires and environment also play a part in how you perceive the world.
This goes completely against the dictionary since if it is based upon what's fixed, permanent and immovable there can't be many different views of that. Although this vague definition gives room to fight over if God is or isn't real. It also states that most of reality isn't what we seem to believe it is.
There is a church of reality that is a group of darwinists stating that there is only one reality and it is as the dictionary states based upon what is real. Simply if it isn't able to be seen it isn't real. On the section about religion they state that rather than being faith based they are doubt based.
This is throwing out the whole theory of perspective and discredits the ability to create your own reality. The problem with this belief of being the only reality is it makes you exceptionally closed minded. To disbelieve God and claim the world needs to is very dangerous, since Christians, Muslims, and Hindus all focus on God and make up 67.5% of the world population.
With all the facts the confusion of reality is pretty strong. So real objects are fixed, permanent or immovable. The truth is that by this definition the stars, planets and moon aren't real, they are movable and constantly not fixed and can be obliterated at anytime. This is the case for everything we see, the problem with this definition is the more you know the less real everything would be by the definition. So real is not properly defined by the dictionary.
Now we come to a psychological principle known as mind over matter. This belief is that you control what is real, some have been able to walk across burning hot coals without a scar or pain, others have sat in subzero weather in just a cloth and not been cold, and infact they have determined that the human mind can cause an individual to get sick or healed.
This brings us back to the beginning.I will close with these questions. What is real? Why is it real? Can I make it not real? If I think its real but can potentially make it not real then does that fit my view of real?
The mind is very powerful. My uncle pulled a bent steering column off a guys chest after a car accident; saved his life. I think the definition of what is real is unique to the individual. Our thoughts determine our 'real' image of the world. Only what we have seen or experienced factor in, and personal experience should always overrule secondhand accounts or broadcasts.
ReplyDeleteI think you touch upon one of the "big" philosophical questions of the 20th century: do we share a single reality?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't the Plato-Aristotle question of whether reality is composed of physical objects and idea(l) forms. It is a question of whether our individual consciousness perceive-interact-access-generate the same reality (however that reality is composed).
There is another question embedded here: does reality exist outside of the human mind? Think of the cliche: if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?
Philosophical movements such as existentialism and phenomenology have moved us toward more subjective considerations of reality.
Does something have to be visible to real? Electricity is real but we only see the power of it when something is connected to the source. Many things exist in our world that we cannot see, so reality is more then what we perceive.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting point you made was that 67.5% of the world population believes in a God, why is the minority so bent on removing God from society?
Well, in response to the previous comment, not all non-religious people feel the need to alter others' views, just as not all of those who are religious and faithful feel the need to run over everyone else's views.
ReplyDeleteReality as a fixed state, and is there just one, versus reality as a matter of perception is the question humans have been trying to answer since they started to think. What is real? Every time we think we have discovered all there is to know about anything, we find an opposing truth that forces us to redefine our views. We now have quantum physics, the theories of which attempt to explain ideas and concepts of how space or time itself is structured, and other things that make most people's heads hurt to attempt to comprehend. "The opposite of one profound truth is another profound truth." - Neil Postman