What is Reality, Anyway?

 As a continuation of my last article regarding what we think and believe, I am often intrigued by the question of What is “Reality?”  Even deeper than that, Can we even know what “reality” is?  If so, how do we KNOW?

 

This common Internet meme seems to sum up the problem of just 1 set of perceptions about reality, but it’s not even the tip of the iceberg, really. What about politics?  Religion?  Philosophy?  Psychology?  Science?  So let’s grab the Dictionary.com definition and get rolling:

 

 

 

1. The state or quality of being real;
2. Resemblance to what is real, a real thing or fact
3. State of affairs: the reality of the business world, vacationing to escape reality;
4. Philosophy”
   1. Something that exists independently of ideas concerning it;
   2. Something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.

What’s Your Reality?

I find it fascinating that so many people seem to “know” what reality is, especially when it comes to politics, religion, and science, and most especially where these three intersect.  As a few examples:

• Fox News or MSNBC? Holy cow……can there be a bigger difference in reporting of the news?   Devotees of Fox News tend to think of MSNBC as the bastion of liberalness and therefore unworthy of the term “news”, while the exact opposite can be said of MSNBC devotees and their opinions of “Faux” News and the conservatives.  How is it possible that people observing the EXACT same events can have such polar opposite views of them? On Fox News, the term “progressive” is an insult, but on MSNBC it’s the highest compliment.  On MSNBC, the term “conservative” is almost equated with “Neanderthal,” while on Fox it’s the highest level of evolution.
• Newtonian Physics and Quantum Physics?  As a general rule, Newtonian Physics operates on a level that we humans are capable of perceiving – buildings, balls, cars, planets, stars, etc.  Once we learn the basics, we can usually predict how objects in our world will act under certain circumstances.  Delve into Quantum Physics, however, and it seems that this visible “reality” is turned on its head.  At the quantum level, quite literally, something CAN come from nothing!   Read just a little bit and I promise….your brain will feel ready to explode.
• Science and/or Religion?   First of all, there are more religions on the planet through history than you can shake a stick at, and almost all of them have, at one point or another, claimed that THEIR religion was the only right one, and all the others are wrong.  Then there’s science, which is supposedly all evidence-based and testable (should be, at least), but even within the scientific community there is often debate about the interpretation of testable results.  THEN you start having the debates between scientists who claim religion is dead; the religious who claim science is meaningless; the religious who also accept science; the scientists who admit religion may be real; and the list goes on.  And everyone thinks that “their” reality is the “real” one.  But since everyone believes theirs is the only real one, whose is really “reality?” 

I Have No Idea What “Reality” Really Is

As I mentioned briefly in Paradox and Balance in Life, I am a scientist by choice and belief, but I also profoundly believe (by choice and experience) in the Infinite, although I don’t use the word “God” to describe what I believe.  Because of that very paradox (a statement of seemingly conflicting beliefs that may nevertheless hold an inexplicable or hidden truth), I really have no idea what “reality” is, because what I perceive as “real” isn’t the same as other people’s perceptions.  And if our perceptions are different, who is to say which is right, which is wrong, maybe both are wrong, maybe both are right!  If I claim absolute rightness because of A, B, and C……but someone else claims absolute rightness because of X, Y, and Z…..where do we do from there?  Is there a way to reconcile A, B, C, X, Y, and Z? Or some combination of some of them?  If so….how?  If not….why not?

 

Sure, I have my own version of reality, but if I’m completely honest – why should “my” reality hold any more validity than anyone else’s?

One of my Facebook friends and I had a number of interesting, albeit fruitless in the end, debates about science and religion.  Ultimately, we chose to discontinue those discussions to maintain our friendship, but I found them quite fascinating as an example of this question.  He will remain nameless out of respect, but I would like to use him as an example of just how perplexing this question can be.  In several political discussions, he made the point that, when he was younger, he was a passionate liberal, but he changed and now believes that liberalism is a lost cause and corrupt idealism that has no validity.  Interestingly, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see liberalism as far more “realistic” than the conservative viewpoint, although it must be clearly stated I believe in some parts of “conservative” thinking as well as “liberal” thinking.  

 

But I am fascinated by the passion with which my friend now denounces “liberalism,” whereas he admits that he used to champion liberalism with the same exact passion.  So which is right?  Is one right and the other wrong?  Clearly, my friend no longer espouses the same views of “reality” that he used to do, yet why does he now claim that “this” reality is the “right” one and his previous reality was wrong?

 

Of course, my friend is one example of a person changing from a liberal to a conservative; quite clearly, other people have gone the opposite direction as they matured.  So if people can move in either direction, what makes one of them “right” and the other “wrong” in terms of their beliefs and “reality?”

In a different FB discussion recently, this same friend made the comment to me, “Only if you’re one who believes you can “create your own reality”. The rest of us (or most of us) know that you can’t.” 

I find this a most fascinating comment, because to me, it seems quite obvious that each person creates his or her own reality by the CHOICES they make, whether simple or profound, such as:

• Do you choose to get up in the morning or stay in bed?
• Do you choose to exercise today or not?
• Do you choose to eat healthy food or junk food today?
• Do you choose the road less traveled, or the beaten and proven path?
• What books did you choose to read, and how did you analyze them, or did you read at all, and even if you did, did you analyze them or accept them at face value?  Why did you choose those books, and not others?
• Do you believe the wealthy are greedy scumbags or people worthy of emulation?
• Do you believe hard work is necessary for success, or is it about working smarter, not harder?

Quite clearly, whichever choices you make on any or all of those questions, will change your reality from health to disease, mental stimulation or stagnation, activity or sloth, from being one who forges new trails or follows old, from poverty to wealth.  And no one else can make those choices for you, right? Or do you believe you have no choice?

Also, as a really challenging thought: did you stop even once during that list of questions to say, “Hey, he left out Option C that I picked?!”  If so, you immediately became aware of how I was limiting your choices, but you overcame the limitations! Just because these are the choices I presented, does NOT mean they are the only choices possible!

Quite frankly, if you don’t believe that you create your own reality every day, but that there is some immutable reality that is unchangeable, I don’t understand how you reconcile that with a simple examination of your own life and beliefs, which always change over enough time. If you can introduce me to someone who has remained unchanged in any way for their entire life….well, you can’t, since it’s never happened, but you can try, I guess.  But until then…..a very simple examination of the ways different people perceive identical events and interpret identical sources of information in radically different ways, or a simple examination of how you’ve changed over the course of your life…..well, it should seem rather obvious.

So What’s YOUR Reality?