What is Reality to you?

[steeldancer-x]

I would like to hear some thoughts. It's what you make of it of course, but there's always more to the story.

[Alvin]

I suppose there are distinctions to be made between what exists, what is true, what is measurable, what is observable, what is verifiable, etc.. I’d argue concepts are a part of reality but they exist in a different format to material objects and beings. Fundamental mathematical concepts would seem to be true even before being given expression by us. Although, we could speculate about whether the physical properties of matter in this universe have formed those concepts and maybe a different universe might have alternate properties. Something can exist as a concept and also be false. If we can talk about it though, or imagine it, it’s a part of reality in some sense. That may not be the cold, hard facts of the situation we are in and have to deal with.

[2020k]

I've been asking myself this more and more every day, so I'm curious to read some things and come back to this.

[Alvin]

It is what it is.

[NTFMTS]

I don't know if this will come off as anything but acid brained lunacy but here I go. Reality as it is to humans is a certain spectrum of experiences and perceptions, and like Plato's Cave analogy, our brains and our evolutionary genetics form a sort of net that casts onto certain things. Or rather, a dam for something infinitely more complex, in which it manages the flow of into our rivers of perception.

Reality is eschewed by perception, but if we look to all the shared aspects of behavior and evolutionary traits that reflect how every living thing on the planet behaves, there's a constant pattern. Call it the path of least resistance maybe, but breaking down our perceptions of ourselves into an understanding of the connection between all things on the planet, even down to the the complex chemical interactions between all things, or further down to the atomic level, it's evident that there's something that coerces "things to come into form."

It's at least my human perception that all things have an intrinsic tendency to build into greater forms, ie quantum chaos influencing atomic behavior which constitutes the aforementioned molecular and chemical interactions. And another example is cellular evolution creating living things or life, which for humans, when it becomes more complex, we create more an more complexities around us, etc. systems like culture, belief systems, infrastructures like highways and cities, the internet, tools to try to parse the quantum soup etc.

So in that sense, I feel like reality is a construct of our evolution, but behind that curtain, there's an inherent energy or force that compels things to "be."

Call it god, a simulation, magic, idk whatever, but it's almost like everything was always there to capitulate in some way.

Also on another note, I don't think there's meaning to everything in a way that every question has an answer. I think the desire to create meaning is also an inherently human trait. So reality is also only a shadow to us. Or maybe this was just a waste of ten minutes to type up.

[Negamuse]

Thinking about how from the moment you're born you're discovering what reality is, you're finding things, experiencing, learning what things are. Neurons excite and they become a part of you in the form of memories. You look up into the sky and see the stars, see forever, and wonder about the infinity of things you have yet to know.

As you get older new memories have to find somewhere to go and they build on top of what you've experienced before. Associations are formed that are completely private and meaningless to anybody else, just neurosynaptic compression building stories about the new using the grammar of the old. Sounds remind you of places, remind you of tastes, remind you of people.

One day you go somewhere you know and find that it changed when you weren't looking. Things aren't the way you remembered them to be. Its happened before but this time you realise the only version of the thing you knew is the one you carry around in your head and you can descibe it to people, in minute detail, they might even see it in their mind for a second, but nobody will ever experience it on their own again. You think: all these things I learned that just WERE the way they were and were so concrete, well they never were. They were always changing, stretching back before you were born, stretching out after you are gone.

The stars are moving apart from each other as space expands in every direction at once. From your vantage point, if you could percieve it, it would look like you were the center of the universe. A lot of people have thought that we were, but it's just a trick infinity plays on you. They're moving apart from each other faster than we can ever travel. places we can see but never reach. The sky tonight is just a little bit darker than it was last night. But it's still beautiful.

It could make you sad, but you find it oddly comforting. That you're OK with it makes people mad, like accepting limits is the death of ambition. Knowing that everything will change is oddly freeing; you see the absurdity of trying to map the world before you dare to go there. You don't define yourself by the strictures of the world imposing itself upon you, you finally give yourself permission to truly be yourself by building yourself from the inside out. Stopped trying to find a home among stars that are always accelerating away from you and just enjoying them for the fading beauty that they are.

You accept you will never see Venezuela. But you take your friends back to a place you loved in Germany. It's not quite how you remember it, but you see the joy in their eyes and it's like you're seeing it for the first time all over again. They share some music they loved. It's not quite how they hummed it, but it reminds you of something you once knew. We are alone, together, as we always were, with nothing but our badly remembered stories of a place that never quite existed. And it's a peace that once you feel it, will never ever leave you.

[rodox_head]

Reality is a collective thing. The collective unconscious, mandela effects, and all that. It forms faster than some people can process. My reality is very limited since much of my life is a blur, except for the bad stuff, which I struggle to keep from consuming me.

All the best things are collectives
Don't say such a thing
Vaya con huevos
We're not khaki pants

[Alvin]

Reality is a collective thing.

Our perceptions of reality are becoming more atomised though, as implied in the irksome title of this thread. We can customise our experience more easily than ever before. As individuals living this kind of bubble existence, the less likely we are to band together for any kind of collective action. On the other hand, for creative minds, being able to form a bespoke path through our shared reality might to lead to something unique.

[steeldancer-x]

someone sent this to me and it fits here. Made me laugh and feel better about this hard question. I think it's okay to not know. saves yourself from a lot of guessing games

[Samplehunter]

A David Bowie album.

[Jonse]

Way better than Rubber.

[SamuraiDrifter]

Consciousness

[rodox_head]

Fake and gay

[Orbited insanitarium]

The only great thing about reality is that it's so big, you can give multiple answers on it.

[mechanismj]

The only great thing about reality is that it's so big, you can give multiple answers on it.

Heck, reality is so big and all-encompassing that it is all the answers all the time all at once.

[mechanismj]

Thinking about how from the moment you're born you're discovering what reality is, you're finding things, experiencing, learning what things are. Neurons excite and they become a part of you in the form of memories. You look up into the sky and see the stars, see forever, and wonder about the infinity of things you have yet to know.

As you get older new memories have to find somewhere to go and they build on top of what you've experienced before. Associations are formed that are completely private and meaningless to anybody else, just neurosynaptic compression building stories about the new using the grammar of the old. Sounds remind you of places, remind you of tastes, remind you of people.

One day you go somewhere you know and find that it changed when you weren't looking. Things aren't the way you remembered them to be. Its happened before but this time you realise the only version of the thing you knew is the one you carry around in your head and you can descibe it to people, in minute detail, they might even see it in their mind for a second, but nobody will ever experience it on their own again. You think: all these things I learned that just WERE the way they were and were so concrete, well they never were. They were always changing, stretching back before you were born, stretching out after you are gone.

The stars are moving apart from each other as space expands in every direction at once. From your vantage point, if you could percieve it, it would look like you were the center of the universe. A lot of people have thought that we were, but it's just a trick infinity plays on you. They're moving apart from each other faster than we can ever travel. places we can see but never reach. The sky tonight is just a little bit darker than it was last night. But it's still beautiful.

It could make you sad, but you find it oddly comforting. That you're OK with it makes people mad, like accepting limits is the death of ambition. Knowing that everything will change is oddly freeing; you see the absurdity of trying to map the world before you dare to go there. You don't define yourself by the strictures of the world imposing itself upon you, you finally give yourself permission to truly be yourself by building yourself from the inside out. Stopped trying to find a home among stars that are always accelerating away from you and just enjoying them for the fading beauty that they are.

You accept you will never see Venezuela. But you take your friends back to a place you loved in Germany. It's not quite how you remember it, but you see the joy in their eyes and it's like you're seeing it for the first time all over again. They share some music they loved. It's not quite how they hummed it, but it reminds you of something you once knew. We are alone, together, as we always were, with nothing but our badly remembered stories of a place that never quite existed. And it's a peace that once you feel it, will never ever leave you.

Wonderful read! Thank you!

[Jonse]

Fake and gay

Nothing is Fake and Gay

[Gazebo4]

I love this question

Reality is just a concept. But the word itself points to that which is always already present.

All you ever know is the knowing of your direct experience, that's all you ever know.

Let that sink deeply into your mind.

It's a lifeline and it's always accessible to you, right now. No external knowledge is required for you to know that, because you already are that pure and empty knowing.

All experience is made out of consciousness, because for an experience to be experienced there must be one who is observing, conscious of that experience.

All experience is fleeting, it exists but it is not real. The only reality to experience is the one who is knowing it. All experience will pass, but the one who knows doesn't come or go, it's ever-present! That is what we all are.

There is a metaphor with a TV screen. When you see a landscape on a TV screen, is it real? You could say yes, because you see it and so you experience it. But the only reality to the landscape is the actual screen that is displaying it. And in that sense our sense perceptions are what is appearing on the screen of awareness, that which we are. Pure emptiness, and therefore potentially everything is possible to be experienced.

So you could see Life as a dream, but you are not a character/body inside the dream, you are the One dreaming the dreamed character, the One dreamer who is just aware of all experiences coming and going, the body, sense perceptions and thoughts. But none of these are essentially you.

There is a deep peace in that recognition. On the contrary, when it is not recognised, what always follows is suffering, by resisting what already is or trying to get away from current experience in search of something else to fill that sense of lack, of feeling incomplete, cut off from the Source of Life.

All suffering can be summarized in one sentence, "I don't want what is happening in my direct experience". It's quite insane when you think about it, all there ever is, is this moment right now, always. And moreover it is always changing! And when you don't want what is happening right now, what else do you want? There is nothing else but this moment. It's crazy how the mind resists Life and therefore creates enormous suffering for humans, personally and collectively.

TLDR: Only You are real(ity), and You are the space in which all experiences come and go.

[steeldancer-x]

Good thread thank you guys for all the input
Make your reality like a liquid, viscous and rippled, and keep it from being stone, hardened and cold

[Alvin]

This is a big topic. Reality can be described as a meta-concept, a higher level abstraction encompassing other concepts. This includes the concept of future realities. We can’t directly access these potential realities but we know some of them will manifest and some of them won’t. We can try to predict them and if we are right, somehow, either by luck or by foresight, we have brought a part of the future into the present. That might be one reason why gambling feels so addictive.