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What is reality?

Started by FreethinkingSceptic, May 16, 2025, 08:24:09 PM

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FreethinkingSceptic

While I would agree that there are objective laws that govern reality, my understanding is that every individual person will experience reality differently and have a different perspective on it. Everyone has their own private, subjective reality which isn't mutually-exclusive to an objective reality. Such as how fast a car will appear to be traveling depending on where a person is viewing it from, regardless of the objective speed that it is traveling.

For example, the earth may look flat to the naked eye, though most people would agree that the earth is objectively round.

So since no person likely has a perfect perspective on the reality around them, and their perspective will be biased by subjective judgments, prejudices, and assumptions, how does anyone know what reality even is, especially if their perspective on reality comes from trusting the judgment of others who don't have a completely objective perspective on it?

aitm

Well....math for one. When one hundred people see 5 cows, they pretty much see the same reality.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Gawdzilla Sama

Sophomoric babble goin' on.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Blackleaf

Reality is all the product of the awoken dreamer. We are but characters within that dream, and yet, because we have thoughts and experiences, we exist. By reconciling this contradiction of being both fiction and real, one can achieve chim, becoming a lower case god. But be careful, because if you fail, you can zero-sum, with your existence being erased from history.

Beyond godhood, it's possible to ascend even higher. When you step back from the aurbis and view it from the side, you realize it's shaped like an I. With this understanding, one can separate themselves from the dream and become a dreamer of their own reality.

Wait. Hold on. Ah, shit. I got my notes mixed up. I was thinking about the universe of The Elder Scrolls. Sorry about that.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Mr.Obvious

You know, it's not a merritless excercise to think about how one might argue that one can never truly know and experience 'reality', as reality is always filtered by our flawed, biased and human senses and interpreted by a 'shaped' brain and mind.

But in at least a colloquiacle term, we aren't just certain of reality by trusting other's judgements. We can discover reality by testing and finding established (or establishing) 'facts'.
For example, gravity, is a constant. One might subjecrivly experiencie it differently, but it works the same.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.