I was sitting in a car today, spying on terrorists… or maybe I was waiting for my girlfriend to come out of the shops, it all depends on which one of us you asked. I started to wonder what was inside my realm of reality. The street sign was real, but the way that the street sign reminded me of my childhood wasn’t, the terrorists with push chairs that walked by were real, but the characters that I assigned to them weren’t.
So is that to say that a thought is not real?
If we accept the definition of Reality being “the state of things as they actually exist”, then depending on who you asked, either there was a terrorist lurking across the street, or there was a person. Using this example, it feels like there is a distinct difference between your version of reality and the actual reality of a situation. One is biased and based on personal perspective, and the other is a truth that would be accepted by most reasonable people. So what happens in a different situation, for instance; If a person holding a knife at me and I choose to see it as threatening, then is that real, or not? I feel fear, but it’s still my perception of the situation.
In order to determine how something “actually is” would require input from one, or multiple points of view. We could have a hypothetical consensus of every living creature that was capable of conscious thought, and if they all agreed that in my situation, the person holding the knife was being threatening (assuming that the perspective of the person holding the knife was not counted), would that mean that it was the reality? I don’t believe so, it would probably mean that that 100% of the people interview shared a similarity based on their own perspective.
So although we share certain aspects of how we see the world around us, the idea of something being real or not, will always be subject to perspective. There is no reality, only your own version of it. At first it’s a scary thought, that nothing is real. But after accepting it, knowing that I have control over my own reality, regardless of how it is seen by other people, it became a beautiful and empowering thing.
One Comment
Assigning an impropper name to something doesn’t make it any more real than the act of not acknkowledging a thing make it less real.
You didn’t realize that the said “terrorist” was a mother or a father, yet that thing existed. You considered them a terrorist and that thing did not exist.
Determination does not make a thing what it is as information is not a judgement. There are several real things. The judgement happens in your head, and not all judges are fine judges.
Perhaps this is more of a concept of classification of perception. Words are convenience and help us to communicate ideas. Words work because we either agree on them, they are intuative and instructive, or they are forced upon us early enough to hold in place. We all agree that there are “boys” and “girls” though there is no “boy” and none of them are exactly alike – only similar.
The “reality” of a “terrorist” is not possible to see because it is a perfect idea and there is no perfect example.
Imagination is not reality, it is lie. Lies can be useful, however, as they are a tool.
All of us walk around with a universe of perspective inside of our blood. As entertaining as it is to pick and choose what we hold inside of our universe – determining that fiction rules your world is only as useful as reaction from the things outisde of your imagination that it can motivate.
I hope that you’re thankful that your body can still elicit such reactions from the world you think inside of. Such fanciful thoughts are a convenience that do not come to every animal.