Assuming nothing is real or fake, what is reality?

[LuckyR]

Hello.

I have done a lot of philosophical thinking and have become very confused about the concept of reality. I asked myself, what is real? More specifically, what is real to me?

After giving it some thought, I reached a conclusion which became my perspective on the topic. My personal point of view is I cannot assume anything is real because everyone has different perceptions of what is real. I don't believe it can be fake or false either because to me that means there is something real to compare it to. There doesn't seem to be a word for what describes this concept of not-real and not-fake in the English language, or at least a word that I know of.

The main question I have, in a nutshell, is this: Assuming nothing is real or fake, what is reality?

This is a topic that cannot be tackled without commentary on perspective. In it's most simplistic form the universe is what it is. We are all observers of small parts of this universe. Our perceptive apparatus is imprecise such that what we perceive is a distortion of the universe. This distortion is (by definition) imperceptible to us without significant effort to discover it, and even in that circumstance all we do is lower (but never eliminate) the distortion. This leads to areas of common understanding and areas of differences of perception even of the same subject. And ultimately to questions like yours.

So is "reality" my perception, your perception or the universe as it actually is (but can never to completely observed by anyone)? You get to say, but each answer is slightly different.

[Belinda]

Hello.

I have done a lot of philosophical thinking and have become very confused about the concept of reality. I asked myself, what is real? More specifically, what is real to me?

After giving it some thought, I reached a conclusion which became my perspective on the topic. My personal point of view is I cannot assume anything is real because everyone has different perceptions of what is real. I don't believe it can be fake or false either because to me that means there is something real to compare it to. There doesn't seem to be a word for what describes this concept of not-real and not-fake in the English language, or at least a word that I know of.

The main question I have, in a nutshell, is this: Assuming nothing is real or fake, what is reality?

The word that you seek, Mariojinx, is Essentialism. In particular essentialism versus existentialism, and it seems that you yourself are existentialist.

Your questions to Steve are particularly revealing:

To apply that to the concept of reality would mean that reality is a working hypothesis.

Does that mean reality is currently undefined?

If so, is it even definable?

I suspect that you are not at all a novice at philosophy. Your questions almost answer themselves.

[Mariojinx]

The word that you seek, Mariojinx, is Essentialism. In particular essentialism versus existentialism, and it seems that you yourself are existentialist.

Your questions to Steve are particularly revealing:

To apply that to the concept of reality would mean that reality is a working hypothesis.

Does that mean reality is currently undefined?

If so, is it even definable?

I suspect that you are not at all a novice at philosophy. Your questions almost answer themselves.

I'm not sure what your point is. Why is Essentialism the word I am looking for not-real and not-fake?

[Kiwikat131]

Reality is whatever you believe it is, we each create our own. Although this may at first sound crazy, on a deeper level it becomes increasingly clear that it is the only possible explanation for a concept which has over 7 billion (and counting) different answers. You can change your own reality, some people do it by changing a belief, others by changing a behaviour or even an automatic reaction. Therefore if you can change something in your reality and make it something else, you change your reality. In fact everyone's reality is constantly changing - we call it learning or growing up. Since you can't live in someone else's reality it follow we must all have our own. Once you get the hang of this it opens up the potential of creating for yourself the best reality you can, so why wait? Be happy now.

[Belinda]

Kiwikat, I agree with you but we should remember that no individual lives in a social vacuum. We humans need each other maybe not for chit chat or emotional reassurance but at least for helping to procure the basic necessities of life.This being the case our world views are caused not so much by isolated individuals but but societies especially those that contain the same cultural beliefs.

Our world views are also dictated by what we as biological systems are capable of perceiving and needing to stay alive and reproduce our kind. For instance natural selection has determined that we are sighted creatures who thrive only on the surface of the ground. This is one important reason that so much of our language is visual metaphors e.g. "I see!" means "I understand."

Thus we specify 'social reality'. Or we might venture into metaphysics and specify like Kant things in themselves, i.e. noumena; which are beyond social reality as beyond social reality is where metaphysics ventures to go.

[Kiwikat131]

Yes Belinda, I agree. That's one of the joys of metaphysics - you can go everywhere and then some. I was just trying to answer the original question which to me seemed to imply a searching for a definition of reality, whereas in fact it is merely an individual mental (and/or spiritual/intellectual) construct. Of course society/others/religious beliefs impact on what we choose to perceive in our personal reality "cocoon". I guess it's very much a paraphrase of "The Limits of my language are the limits of my world" which I feel could in this context read as "The limits of my perceptive abilities are the realities of my world."

All different and yet all so intertwined. I sometimes wonder if this "social entanglement" is one manifestation of quantum entanglement. That might in itself go some way to explaining the persistently and transculturally pervasive view that "all things are one".

I look forward to more ...

[Belinda]

Kiwikat131 wrote:

I was just trying to answer the original question which to me seemed to imply a searching for a definition of reality, whereas in fact it is merely an individual mental (and/or spiritual/intellectual) construct.

Is it likely that we need to evaluate the methods that might help with answering the original question?

My previous answer to yours, and your response to it were empirical, presuming as they did that there was evidence for social reality, evidence of linguistic determinism, and evidence of mental scope that metaphysics allows for.

How would you evaluate use of pure reason as the rationalists pursue pure reason? Or mysticism as for instance the religionists believe that mystical experience evidences truth?

Is faith in some ultimate reality reasonable? Can that faith be supported by reason or by evidence?

I guess that whatever sort of faith anyone possesses (I myself like pantheism and Spinoza's dual aspect explanation of existence )emerges from one's environment especially perhaps the environment of one's formative years of childhood.

[Sy Borg]

I posit that what is unreal is a much shorter list than what is real.

When we think of what is unreal the obvious - hallucinations - has already been well covered here and I agree with Misty and others about its subjective reality. Australian Aboriginals devised a concept called The Dreamtime - a parallel world of dreams. In a sense, imaginary beings and scenarios lead a fractured existence in the "dream world", a realm that operates by different logic and rules to physical existence, with looser and more fragile causal chains. Of course dreams have a long history of influencing subsequent waking actions. I embrace the grey area for (apparently) purely informational entities; I believe the technical term to describe their existential status is "kinda sorta real" :)

Another area that probes unreality is pure mathematics, equations that don't correlate with known physical phenomena but follow their own logic. Interestingly, some of these equations will almost certainly one day be found to have physical correlates, although we don't yet know which ones.

[Kiwikat131]

That's a lot of questions to which I make no claim to possessing an answer, except insofar as the answers I live by work for me. Pure reason likewise will differ from one person's reality to the next so it is difficult to put any answer on that either. The only answer to anything that I believe would apply in all realities is that all things are not only possible, but they probably exist somewhere/somewhen.

I am not sure that mystical/religious experiences or any other experiences can be said to evidence "the" truth, rather just "a" truth. Like statistics, mystical experience can be used to both prove and disprove many things, but only those of like mind will likely see that "truth" whereas sceptics will likely reject it.

I do believe that it is important that each individual firstly knows that their own reality is not immutable and secondly that the consequences of shaping it must be accepted as our own and only our own responsibility.

[Grunth]

More specifically, what is real to me?

Physical sensations along with a language that attempts to describe and communicate them. Description being an assumption therefore 'reality' being an assumption.

[Rr6]

PING!, BANG!, PINCH!, PUTRID! etc.....is reality of procession{ spirit-2 }

.... "to go forth, advance, proceed".........

Scientific experiments--- a procession -- reproducing these phenomena above, validate reality{ spirit-2 }

Real estate stems from royal estate, i.e it is not really our land, until the king deems it so.

Occupied space is the King, we identify with, as UniVerse

Real particles we observe as quanta.

Quasi-real phenomena-- metaphysical-3 and 4 ---we deduce indirectly from our direct observations of the real/reality

Metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concept{ spirit-1 } is the is the pathway of deduction i.e. that which deduces. The deducer{?}.

Spirit-of-intent, is the resultant of the procession.

r6

[ThamiorTheThinker]

Hello.

I have done a lot of philosophical thinking and have become very confused about the concept of reality. I asked myself, what is real? More specifically, what is real to me?

After giving it some thought, I reached a conclusion which became my perspective on the topic. My personal point of view is I cannot assume anything is real because everyone has different perceptions of what is real. I don't believe it can be fake or false either because to me that means there is something real to compare it to. There doesn't seem to be a word for what describes this concept of not-real and not-fake in the English language, or at least a word that I know of.

The main question I have, in a nutshell, is this: Assuming nothing is real or fake, what is reality?

I can tell that you are new to this site, and that you are also not well versed in academic/scholarly philosophy - i.e, philosophy proper.

First, define your terms. What is it that you mean when you want us to assume that "nothing is real or fake? If real is the negation of fake, and fake the negation of real, then you've created a contradiction.

Let me show you: Suppose I define "real" with some linguistic definition, call it A. Then, I define the negation of "real" and call it ~A, or not-A (fake).

If A does not exist as a concept, and ~A/not-A does not exist, then anything defined by being A (definition or meaning of "real") does not exist, but then again because A's negation - not-A/~A - does not exist, then anything defined as being non-real ALSO does not exist. That's a contradiction. When two statements are contradictory, they can be neither both true nor both false, according to logic. One must be true and the other must be false.

So, we can't answer your question if you define "fake" as the negation of "real", or "truth" as the negation of "falsity"... Well, we can, but the answer is that the question is wrong - the inquiry doesn't mean anything/can't be answered.

[RJG]

The main question I have, in a nutshell, is this: Assuming nothing is real or fake, what is reality?

And then the answer is of course obvious ---> "reality" is that which you experience (whatever that may be).....

Not so! We can NEVER trust the ‘delusions of our illusions’ to reveal the ‘real’.

For who knows, we may be dreaming, hallucinating, or exist as a brain-in-a-vat. The ‘contents’ (delusions) of our subjective experiences (illusions) should NEVER be trusted as real!

However, I feel that by excluding anything not experienced by any living individual from what is considered reality is an unfair observation, with all due respect.

Agreed, but to be more accurate, I would take it a step further, and say -- the pathway to the ‘real’ EXCLUDES all subjective experiences. As (subjective) experiences should not be trusted to paint the (objective) picture of reality.

Remember -- that which we 'perceive', is merely just a ‘perception’!

Reality exists OUTSIDE the confines of our illusions (subjective experiences). Therefore we can never 'know' the (objective) reality from (subjective) experiences. That being said, there are only 3 items of reality that can be 'known' with certainty, (…without the use of subjective experiences!). And they are… ... [to be continued... ]

[Rr6]

r6---Scientific experiments--- a procession -- reproducing these phenomena above, validate reality{ spirit-2 }

When do we have enough experiments t conclude were not having a mass-hallucination/delusion? From our experience with politics and religion, we know that many people can share a delusional theme. What makes the process more scientific, is when we can observe that this is not a contiguous phenomena between households of families on the same street or block, or neighborhood or township, or burg or city etc......

If 95% of the adult people are all thinking the same delusion, then we may have a mass-hallucination occurring.

So we to go to the next city and see if the mental plague is happening there also. So on and so on, if we want to confirm, that, a scientific methodology is the process being used to determine if there is a house-by-house, mass delusion going on.

To some degree a common mass, house-by-house delusion could occur via what media/communications outlets/mediums that are being used from town to town, burg to burg, or township to township etc.....

r6

PING!, BANG!, PINCH!, PUTRID! etc.....is reality of procession{ spirit-2 }
.... "to go forth, advance, proceed".........
Real estate stems from royal estate, i.e it is not really our land, until the king deems it so.
Occupied space is the King, we identify with, as UniVerse
Real particles we observe as quanta.
Quasi-real phenomena-- metaphysical-3 and 4 ---we deduce indirectly from our direct observations of the real/reality

Metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concept{ spirit-1 } is the is the pathway of deduction i.e. that which deduces. The deducer{?}.

Spirit-of-intent, is the resultant of the procession.

r6

[Steve3007]

RJG:

Agreed, but to be more accurate, I would take it a step further, and say -- the pathway to the ‘real’ EXCLUDES all subjective experiences. As (subjective) experiences should not be trusted to paint the (objective) picture of reality.

This, and all your other posts, are responses to subjective experiences. I imagine you probably attribute those subjective experiences to the thoughts of some other people? Why? They're just subjective experiences. Commit them to the flames. Since they contain no truths, no truths could ever come from replies to them.