Get Real
Published on Nov 06, 2015
What's a good definition for The Real? What's under the surface of what we see? Here are several definitions of what remains after all the illusions are gone.
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
WHAT'S REAL?
What's a good definition for The Real? Philosophers and others have come up with many definitions to try to explain what lies under the surface of appearances--what is really real in a shifting world.
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the Appearances
the Reality behind
What we see is not always what we get. In fact, what we see is not always what is there. Why does this matter? Because we want to know what lies beneath the surface of things. Is there something there at a deeper level that is truly real, that is substantial and reliable?
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Ontology
The study of what is real
Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies what is real.
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Perception is Reality
Perhaps you've heard . . .
If that were absolutely true, each of us would have our own reality with no guarantees that we could communicate our experience to anyone else. At its most extreme this is solipsism, the position that nothing exists but one's own mind.
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The Greeks saw:
- Earth
- Air
- Fire
- Water
The Pre-Socratic philosophers, people like Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Democritus, were trying to understand what held everything together. Beyond what we can see is there a single element that is ultimately real?
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Water . . .
the Ultimate Reality
The Greeks thought there were only four elements: earth, air, fire, or water. Not a bad idea really, based on observation. Thales (624-546 BCE), the first Western philosopher, thought the basic element was water. In his view, that's what every single thing has in common.
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Fire . . .
not matter but energy
Heraclitus (536-470 BCE) suggested that reality is like fire. In modern terms we could understand Heraclitus' view that the nature of ultimate reality is not matter but energy.
"This world that is the same for all, neither any God nor any man shaped it, but it ever was and is and shall be ever-living Fire that kindles by measures and goes out by measures."
"This world that is the same for all, neither any God nor any man shaped it, but it ever was and is and shall be ever-living Fire that kindles by measures and goes out by measures."
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THE TURTLE DEFINITION
THE GREAT TURTLE RESTS ON ATOMS
The belief that the world rests on a great elephant, which rests on a great turtle which rests on . . . Atoms. Everything rides on smaller, more fundamental, physical elements.
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THE MATRIX DEFINITION
WHAT APPEARS TO YOUR SENSES
Even though something appears to our sense, that is not sufficient evidence. Hallucinations appear to be real and they seem to come through our senses.
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1984 DEFINITION
WHAT APPEARS REAL TO MOST PEOPLE
Real is that which appears to the senses of a sufficiently large number of people. What appears to most of the people most of the time. Reality exists in the collective mind of the party. This is Orwell's dystopian view in 1984.
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THE JOHNSON DEFINITION
REAL IS WHAT YOU DON'T MAKE UP
Samuel Johnson, refuting Bishop Berkeley's idea about the nonexistence of matter, kicks a stone and exclaims, 'I refute it thus!' For Philip K. Dick, the real thing was what didn't go away, once you stopped believing in it.
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APOCALYPTIC DEFINITION
WHAT'S LEFT IN A WORLD WITHOUT HUMANS
Real, in this version, is what is left in a world without humans. Real is what is untouched by human minds--all wishes, desires, concerns, taken away.
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Untitled Slide
Perception is Real
But it's not Reality
Is perception really reality? Perhaps we'd be better off affirming that perception is real: it's just not Reality.
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Faith and Reason
Our operating system runs on
In both science and religion, the two main sources of our models of reality, we rely on reason and faith.
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Science
Process of discovery, venture in imagination
Existence precedes theories. Our theories "arise from structures and relationships already existing in nature (Barbour 118)." Science is predicated on discovering what is real. But we always select and interpret the data we bring to our theories. A critical realism uses models in science as sources of new ideas and modifications of existing ones. Reality is mediated through our models in a provisional way.
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Religion
Revelation, Reason, Experience
Models in religion must be used with humility. They are built from reason and experience and provide us the means to understand revelation. We should take religious models seriously but not literally. They are "human constructs that help us interpret experience by imagining what cannot be observed (Barbour 119)."
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"Just beneath the surface of the mud there's more mud there. Surprise!"
-- David Crosby
Can we ever penetrate the appearances and get to the really real? Or will our experience always be as David Crosby sang, "Just beneath the surface of the mud there's more mud there . . . Surprise!"
"God acts in the lives of individuals and communities, especially in the life of Christ, we have said, but the records of these events reflect particular personal and cultural perspectives. There is no uninterpreted revelation."
- Ian Barbour
Many religions hold that the Divine communicates through revelation. The Ultimate Reality reaches us through stories, through written works, and especially through lives. All of these are open to interpretation, in fact, there is no communication of any sort without interpretation. This is where faith--and reason--may work together to bring us to what is real. But our understanding and knowledge of the Real is always, and forever shall be, provisional.
Faith and Reason
We have enough provisions for the journey
The Real is what we discover and experience in faith and reason. In a community of faith we can compare our understanding, and through our guiding stories arrive at a provisional Reality that is open to revision. We'll be alright: we have enough provisions for the journey—and there's more to be found along the way.
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References
- Ian Barbour (1997). Religion and Science.
- David Crosby
- T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
- Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins (2006). The Big Questions
