Reality

Reality--tautologously, everything that is real--is one of the broadest of topics, and this very broadness lends itself to a wide variety of theorizing and speculation about the topic.

"Reality," the concept, has been subject to a number of well-known contrasts in various domains. In philosophy, reality is sometimes contrasted with existence, and of course with nonexistence, as well as with possibility. In ethics and political theory, discussions of ethical perfectionism, as well as utopias and utopianism, lead to distinctions between the real and the ideal (or perfect). In artistic (for example, literary) contexts, reality is often contrasted with illusion. In each of these cases, discussions of reality take on quite different casts; indeed, what we say about reality often depends on what we want to say it is not.

A common colloquial usage would have "reality" mean "perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward reality," as in "My reality is not your reality." But in this sense, the topic of reality encompasses many other topics: perception, psychology generally, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, religion, sociology and anthropology, and topics in philosophy. For a broad overview on reality in that sense, the reader is enjoined to peruse Wikipedia or any general reference work. General encyclopedias are, after all, supposed to be descriptions of everything.

But there is a way to make the topic of reality less cumbersome for present purposes: restrict the discussion to theories about the general topic of reality itself. Thus, for example, a certain Christian world view would not count as a theory of reality, but the theory that the Christian world view is a "construction" of reality would count as a theory about reality. It is theories about reality, in this sense, that philosophers discuss as part of metaphysics.

Philosophical views of reality: realism vs. idealism and phenomenalism

In philosophy, and particularly in discussions of objectivity that have feet in both metaphysics and epistemology, discussions of "reality" often concern the ways in which reality is, or is not, in some way dependent upon (or, to use fashionable jargon, "constructed" out of) mental and cultural factors such as perceptions, beliefs, and other mental states, as well as cultural artifacts, such as religions and political movements, on up to the vague notion of a world view or Weltanschauung shared by many people.

Realism...

Phenomenalism...

Idealism...

Cultural relativism...

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The Onion Theory

Reality can be viewed as like an onion. There is an outside layer, the reality of everyday life, common sense reality so to speak, but as you look beyond that outer layer you find first, not just one "reality", but many as the common sense reality of different cultures is considered. In addition, close examination of reality leads to ever more sophisticated definitions of reality as one moves from everyday reality to sophisticated theories of philosophy. The notion that there is another reality which lies behind everyday reality was classicaly expressed by Plato a philosopher of ancient Greece in Plato's allegory of the cave where everyday reality is compared to shadows and echos of a deeper truer reality.

Reality is:

1. All that has been; is; or can be. The ultimate nature of things. All Noumena.

2. All phenomena which may directly or indirectly observed. See science knowledge and phenomenon

3. The nature of things as established by authority or social norms. The world view internalized from one's parents and peers. One's reality includes one's culture, social status and sense of what is right and wrong.

Reality in sense No. 3 is socially constructed. An individual does not sui generis internalize the external world from experience and analysis but in large part absorbs from others the social constructs which make up a culture. One's sense of what is "real" may at times differ from what acually is which is sure to make life interesting. In some mental states such as psychosis or delirium, the subject's perception of the world may be strikingly at odds with the social consensus. In some surrealist, idealist and other theoretical writing this is called "consensus reality".

The physiological creation of reality

It is arguable that none of us directly perceives reality (even if a single physical reality can be demonstrated to exist). (Direct realism, however, questions this assertion.) The following account represents the current beliefs of cognitive scientists.

The brain receives information from a variety of channels, all of which are more limited that they appear, as is demonstrated by the existence of optical and other sensory illusions. Standard models of human perception estimate our information-processing capacity for the external world at a few hundred bits per second of conscious information.

Vision: an example of the creation of reality

In spite of this, we live with an illusion of a hi-fi 360-degree full-colour full-motion sharp-focus external visual reality (that would take several gigabits per second to represent) that is assembled from a series of gazes and fixations of a very limited foveal visual field, combined with blurry low-resolution surrounding vision and peripheral motion-detection.

The rest, as many experiments in human vision have shown, is supplied by the imagination. Indeed, it is reasonable to describe the whole human visual field as a hallucination -- albeit an active hallucination that is kept up-to-date and consistent with reality wherever information is available. When this checking mechanism fails, the phenomenon of unreal hallucinations is generated by the same mechanism that generates the "real" ones as optical illusions.

Illusionists manipulate these mechanisms to generate their illusions, by generating misleading and distracting stimuli designed to spoof the visual and perceptual systems into generating the impression of unreal events.

The social construction of reality

All cultures admit of alternate realities, some quite esoteric

Listening to the disputes of groups with widely separated points of view, it is clear that they actually have different points of view about what is self-evident -- that is, "real". Often, they reveal their biases by describing their viewpoint as the "real world" or their views as those of "real people" or "ordinary people", showing that they consider the beliefs of their opponents to be disordered and unreal.

Some commonplace examples are Israeli reality versus Palestinian reality; Democratic Party reality versus Republican Party reality; and male reality versus female reality. Surrealist beliefs about the nature of reality are radically different from those of most people. There are also semi-real virtual realities such as within a MUD.

more is needed on this topic, including the social dimensions of acceptable behavior and manifestations of

 mental illness

Psychoactive drugs and the perception of reality

stuff to go here on the effect of psychoactive drugs on perception of reality

Reality, sanity, and mental illness

to be written

Platonic forms and the philosophy of reality

we need a bit here about Plato, Platonic realism / Platonism, Platonic forms and [[mathematical

 realism]]

Reality and quantum physics

stuff to be written on the Copenhagen interpretation and Everett many-worlds interpretations of quantum physics, including the concept of the Multiverse

Reality in fiction

stuff to be written on Philip K. Dick, Jorge Luis Borges and other authors whose work involves themes of reality and perception

Quotes

• "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality," Pierre Jules Theophile Gautier.
• "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in all of your philosophy", Shakespeare, speaking as Hamlet.

See also:

• consciousness
• evolution
• perception
• scientific method
• virtual reality
• reality enforcement

External Links

• 3 views of reality
• Quantum Reality
• Bertrand Russell on Appearance and Reality
• A Marxist perspective
• The Philosophy of George Berkeley
• The cognitive studies program at Tufts University
• New York Times article "The Universe Seems So Simple, Until You Have to Explain It"

Further Reading

• The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch, published March 1997, Publisher Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, ISBN 014027541X
• Telling the Truth, Lyne V. Cheney, Simon & Schuster, 1995, hardcover, 256 pages, ISBN 0-684-81101-4 A strong case for a conventional commonsense reality.
• The Language WarRobin Tolmach Lakoff, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 2000, hardcover, 322 pages, ISBN 0-520-21666-0 A sociolinguistic approach which contrasts sharply with Lyne Cheney's Telling the Truth
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl G. Jung, edited by Aneila Jaffe, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, Vintage Books, 1989, trade paperback, 430 pages, ISBN 0679723951, hardback ISBN 1199538892 An autobiography of the psyche which illustrates the role of internal experience.