Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Got any? I occasionally like to contemplate what we mean by real and, conversely, what we mean by unreal. The word itself undergoes many different changes of meaning depending on its useage. It can mean authentic as opposed to fake. Or actual as opposed to illusory. Or genuine as opposed to deceptive. Or factual as opposed to imaginary. But metaphysically speaking, what is it that the word Reality refers to? Is it a place say like the physical world? Is it a state of mind? Is it relational or absolute? Is it the unmediated presence of the phenomenal in our consciousness? Or is more generally anything that we can say of something that it "is"? Here's some thoughts on Reality and what it may be:

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."--Philip K. Dick

"reality"
in American English
(riˈæləti)
noun
Word forms: plural realities
Origin: ML realitas
1. the quality or fact of being real

"Reality is the perception of a consciousness from its relative reference frame. Everyone's reality is different. However, there is a mass/social/or general reality of us sentient beings that is generally defined by overall and popular beliefs at that point in time that may or may not be evidence based."

“Here’s my view of these things. Our minds are part of reality, but there’s a great deal of reality outside our minds. Reality contains our world and it may contain many others. We can build new worlds and new parts of reality. We know a little about reality, and we can try to know more. There may be parts of it that we can never know. Most importantly: Reality exists, independently of us. The truth matters. There are truths about reality, and we can try to find them. Even in an age of multiple realities, I still believe in objective reality”
― David J. Chalmers, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy

Various philosophers defined the real in different ways. For Hume it was perceptions. For Kant it was the in-itselfness of things that we can never experience. For Leibniz it was the fundamental unifying interconnectedness of everything. For Heidegger it is whatever has being as opposed to not being at all. At one time I defined real as whatever can be interacted with. I have since then amended that to whatever can be experienced. But can all reality be experienced? Perhaps not. Perhaps there are numerous grades or levels of reality, some experiencable to us and others not. Is reality then whatever is unchanging and invariant, like the laws of physics and numbers and facts? Is it the necessary Source of all information? Or is it simply the property of identity, expressed in the law A = A? It seems as often as we use the term Reality, we really have no clue what it seems to be referring to, it anything at all. Perhaps in the end it is not even definable in itself, serving more as a placeholder for anything that exists outside our minds.

I confess that the below is the opposite of or a flip-flop of what I usually consider the two to be. Reality in this capitalized Truth context completely kills plugging anything into it. We'd never have access to reality unless the manifestations of consciousness are all there is to it. Or reality (things as they actually exist) can only be technically described, which still wouldn't be the language or human-independent version. In the vein of Plato, one might assert that reality is a "government" or nomological stratum of principles regulating the manifestations. But that's again concept and language dependent (an immaterial realm) represented by symbols or an intellectual communication system. Not how that government would "really exist".
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Existence versus reality: What's the difference?
https://thisvsthat.io/existence-vs-reality

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QUOTES

George Orwell: “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”

Immanuel Kant: "All appearances are real and negatio; sophistical: All reality must be sensation."

Frank Herbert: “Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”

Rick Riordan: “The real world is where the monsters are.”

Shirley Jackson: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”

Haruki Murakami: “In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.”

Hermann Hesse: “There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”

RELATED:

Douglas Adams: “Reality is frequently inaccurate.”

Jessamyn West: "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

C.S. Lewis: "Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become."

Chuck Palahniuk: “I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching.”

John Lennon: “The more real you get the more unreal the world gets.”

Soren Kierkegaard: “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

Lao Tzu: “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

Neil Gaiman: “You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.”

John Lennon: “I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?”

Great quotes CC! I actually stole them and added them to the post I put up on my Substack site.

I've always distrusted existence and this cultural fiction of objective context-independent things. Of objects that are always already there complete and static suspended in some absolute space. Reality otoh is to me simply whatever is happening now, and now, and now, bifurcating itself into the twin directions of past and future. Not a timeless aggregate of solid 3D things but the nascent fact of changing and yet continuing both within us and outside at once. It is consciousness understood to be inherently transcending itself and opening up to all that is happening and changing around it. The qualitatively-manifesting flow of the unmediated and concurrent happening of all events. We are living inside an omni-directional holographic movie, not a universe of discrete and static things.

“A dream is real as long as it lasts. Can any more be said of life?”---Havelock Ellis

Do not be decieved by the introduction to this video - the gathering of the church masses. As it portrays materialism as the appearing reality, which amounts to an appearance of exclusive materialism. It is a false appearance. A chimera.

In actuality the metaphysical reality remains hidden. I have a way of percieving this reality when using old green. I am able to penetrate the outer shell of reality and enter into a metaphysical realm using the 6th sense. Nothing is more valid than this metaphysical experience. So to sum up: the atheistic experience is due to being cut off from this metaphysical realm and the false belief that only the mundane is real.

I'm starting to see "things" outside of my usual dark apt in bed at night. When I go walking in the park I see about a foot ahead of me a pale blue ghostly "veil" or "membrane" that forms a bubble-like shield before me. One time I stopped to look at it and it stopped too and then started spinning around in circles like it was alive! I have no idea what it is. Maybe the living spirit energy of that park? Maybe my own protective aura? Or maybe it's just a phantom of my own aging retinae! lol

(Mar 21, 2026 10:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]Got any?

I guess that I might go with something like, 'Reality is the sum total of 'objective states-of-affairs', of totality of what has existence (but...what does that mean?) independently of what I, or anyone else thinks about it. The oceans, the Moon which has existed up there in splendid isolation from Earthly events for something like 4.5 billion years. Dinosaurs and bacteria. Billions (to the billionth power) stars out there, most of which probably have multiple planets. And countless objects and events are real in those exotic places and would have to be included in reality too.

I have to admit that there are problems with that. Beliefs exist, meanings exist and are part of reality and have to be considered real in some perhaps non-materialist sense despite depending very much on what we think about them. A classic example is money. Money has to be considered part of reality, but coins would be nothing but little disks of metal if we didn't endow them with meaning and with function. (Which suggests the kind of problems we might encounter if we ever discover space-alien artifacts.) Mathematics is the classic problem case. The 'laws of physics', as abstract as that idea is, seem to be part of reality too.

Quote:I occasionally like to contemplate what we mean by real and, conversely, what we mean by unreal. The word itself undergoes many different changes of meaning depending on its useage.

True. But 'reality' isn't nearly as bad as 'consciousness'. Most words (not just philosophical words) have vague and indistinct meanings. What is 'truth', or 'good' or 'beauty'? Wittgenstein famously showed that a seemingly well-behaved word like 'chair' is exceedingly fuzzy when we get down to it. (Chairs are what we sit on, except we sit on tree stumps and they aren't chairs. And there are little chairs in doll-houses that nobody can sit on...)

Quote:It can mean authentic as opposed to fake. Or actual as opposed to illusory. Or genuine as opposed to deceptive. Or factual as opposed to imaginary. But metaphysically speaking, what is it that the word Reality refers to? Is it a place say like the physical world?

I'd say that reality is the physical world... and perhaps lots more.

Quote:Is it a state of mind?

Whatever we believe about reality is a belief about reality. Whatever we perceive to be reality is a perception about reality. Many people (the philosophical idealists) try to collapse the distinction and reduce reality to beliefs and perceptions. (Maybe they are right...)

But as for me, I'm not going there. I'm a stout metaphysical realist.

Quote:Is it relational or absolute?

I'm certainly inclined to consider relations to be real. We couldn't have a complete description of reality if we didn't include relations.

Quote:"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."--Philip K. Dick

Yeah, that's basically it, I guess. Except that there's a perhaps nearly infinite class of things that no sentient being has ever believed in or even been aware of (all those billions of exoplanets) that I would consider full-fledged parts of reality.

(Mar 23, 2026 05:22 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]

(Mar 21, 2026 10:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]Got any?

I guess that I might go with something like, 'Reality is the sum total of 'objective states-of-affairs', of totality of what has existence (but...what does that mean?) independently of what I, or anyone else thinks about it. The oceans, the Moon which has existed up there in splendid isolation from Earthly events for something like 4.5 billion years. Dinosaurs and bacteria. Billions (to the billionth power) stars out there, most of which probably have multiple planets. And countless objects and events are real in those exotic places and would have to be included in reality too.

I have to admit that there are problems with that. Beliefs exist, meanings exist and are part of reality and have to be considered real in some perhaps non-materialist sense despite depending very much on what we think about them. A classic example is money. Money has to be considered part of reality, but coins would be nothing but little disks of metal if we didn't endow them with meaning and with function. (Which suggests the kind of problems we might encounter if we ever discover space-alien artifacts.) Mathematics is the classic problem case. The 'laws of physics', as abstract as that idea is, seem to be part of reality too. 

Quote:I occasionally like to contemplate what we mean by real and, conversely, what we mean by unreal. The word itself undergoes many different changes of meaning depending on its useage.

True. But 'reality' isn't nearly as bad as 'consciousness'. Most words (not just philosophical words) have vague and indistinct meanings. What is 'truth', or 'good' or 'beauty'? Wittgenstein famously showed that a seemingly well-behaved word like 'chair' is exceedingly fuzzy when we get down to it. (Chairs are what we sit on, except we sit on tree stumps and they aren't chairs. And there are little chairs in doll-houses that nobody can sit on...)

Quote:It can mean authentic as opposed to fake. Or actual as opposed to illusory. Or genuine as opposed to deceptive. Or factual as opposed to imaginary. But metaphysically speaking, what is it that the word Reality refers to? Is it a place say like the physical world?

I'd say that reality is the physical world... and perhaps lots more.

Quote:Is it a state of mind?

Whatever we believe about reality is a belief about reality. Whatever we perceive to be reality is a perception about reality. Many people (the philosophical idealists) try to collapse the distinction and reduce reality to beliefs and perceptions. (Maybe they are right...)

But as for me, I'm not going there. I'm a stout metaphysical realist.

Quote:Is it relational or absolute?

I'm certainly inclined to consider relations to be real. We couldn't have a complete description of reality if we didn't include relations.

Quote:"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."--Philip K. Dick

Yeah, that's basically it, I guess. Except that there's a perhaps nearly infinite class of things that no sentient being has ever believed in or even been aware of (all those billions of exoplanets) that I would consider full-fledged parts of reality.

Congratulations Yazata, you've successfully gotten my attention.

It seems that metaphysical realism is a flawed interpretation of reality. As it believes in object-independence. This is false. As nothing is external to the mind. All that we know we know from what appears in our minds. In the words of Berkley, "to be is to be perceived"... this is a philosophical assertion that resonates with me on a deeper level. As it is the metaphysical experience and not the atheistic experience that has proven valid.

(Mar 21, 2026 10:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ][...] Is it relational or absolute? [...]

When interpreted as this: "The word 'reality' means the state of things as they actually exist."...

Then it seems to entail being absolute or immutable. Since you can't have a stable "as they actually exist" if time (change) and perspective were also constantly altering the affairs of such an ultimate existence the same way as with the content of consciousness. Plato's intelligible forms or governing principles were unchanging and unmodifiable, but not the illusionary or sensible world that they either generated or were deemed a higher order to that the lesser was incapable of perfectly emulating (constantly reiterating).

I suppose a block universe could be construed as an absolute or fixed structure from a passive, external view outside it. But if the latter is wholly imaginary, then its immutability is probably vulnerable to the internal relationships composing it. That's demonstrated by different brain states along a biological body's worldline relationally construing that there is a "movement" progressing through them and everything else, resulting in the appearance of a 3D universe that constantly changes. (Though it would be cognitive rather than time treated literally as a flowing substance.)

Quote:[...] Perhaps in the end it is not even definable in itself, serving more as a placeholder for anything that exists outside our minds.

That's all it can ever be, since there's no way to confirm any of the concepts varyingly plugged into it.

Although morality does dictate that other human minds must exist (regardless of the personal metaphysical choice) -- that those minds exist external to one's own or even as distinct parts of an overarching mind.

Morality (the humanities) even dictates to the social sciences in the end (and that's kind of what the ambitions of Extended Naturalism seem to be on a broader scale).

Society (due to its own survival or self-esteem) could never accept that there is a single stream of consciousness existing like a self-contained movie without any need of external causes for its internal coherence. Or that alternatively there are multiple phenomenal continuums -- each independently with their own stories that have zero obligation to interweave with or be inclusive of the others in any way. That's why Leibniz had to have his "windowless" monads still superficially affecting each other via pre-established harmony or an inner pre-set coordination. Morality.

Quote:I'd say that reality is the physical world... and perhaps lots more.

I'm adverse to limiting reality to just the physical world. There are just too many aspects of it that defy the definition of being physical as being spatially "there" and discrete from everything else. Take possibilities for example. Here's a case of things that evidently persist in some kind of temporal state, and yet cannot be said to be physical in any sense. I would in fact call them real, so real they seem sometimes to color our entire experience of the world.

Like the Iran war, so engrossing and worrying to so many of us because every event is so latent with possibilities that we are uncertain of them at every turn. Possibilities also drive our lives. That there are events in my future that may or will come to pass motivates me to take action and experience present objects/places/persons as pregnant with either glowing promise or teeming with impending threat.

A hardcore physicalist would probably say that possibilities are all in our heads, fictive ideals projected on a static physical world from our own desires and fears. But possibility is in fact interwoven into the intricate fabric of reality. It is "there" whether we think of it or not. They enable predictability and inquiry and exploration and purpose and moral judgement and reason and even freedom. This is just one example of non-physical but very real things in our world. There are also properties and patterns and concepts and stories and processes and facts and fictional characters and forms and metaphors and relations and theories and information and persons and numbers and the laws of physics and of course consciousness. Reality, whatever it is in itself, is an intermingling mix of the physical and what I call the ideational--of entities concretely "there" in space and entities not spatially anywhere in any sense but somehow present to us and independent of our minds nonetheless.

(Mar 23, 2026 07:33 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]

(Mar 21, 2026 10:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ][...] Is it relational or absolute? [...]

When interpreted as this: "The word 'reality' means the state of things as they actually exist."...

Then it seems to entail being absolute or immutable. Since you can't have a stable "as they actually exist" if time (change) and perspective were also constantly altering the affairs of such an ultimate existence the same way as with the content of consciousness. Plato's intelligible forms or governing principles were unchanging and unmodifiable, but not the illusionary or sensible world that they either generated or were deemed a higher order to that the lesser was incapable of perfectly emulating (constantly reiterating).    

I like where you are going with this train of thought. 

Your use of the word "time" to undermine the absolute and immutable is appropriate in this case. As Plato's eternal forms are a priori to the phenomenal world. And would thereby suggest that the phenomenal world is a veil of sorts. God consciousness is collective consciousness. The one thing that unites all of us. It is eternal and everlasting (to borrow the Batman phraseology).