Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". [1] [2] The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Disambiguation For the Wigwam album see Being (album, for spiritual or religious beingness, see Ego (spirituality Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a Human) which senses and assimilates the Knowledge of a Phenomenon, or the recording of data Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature). Disambiguation For the Wigwam album see Being (album, for spiritual or religious beingness, see Ego (spirituality Nothing is a concept that describes the lack or absence of anything at all In common usage existence is the world of which we are aware through our senses but in Philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning and is often contrasted with Nature, in the broadest sense is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe. In other words, "reality", as a philosophical category includes the formal concept of "nothingness" and articulations and combinations of it with other concepts (those possessing extension in physical objects or processes for example).
In the strict sense of western philosophy, there are levels or gradation to the nature and conception of reality. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle These levels include, from the most subjective to the most rigorous: phenomenological reality, truth, fact, and axiom. Subjectivity refers to a subject's perspective particularly feelings beliefs and desires Rigour or rigor (see spelling differences) has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality Generally a fact is defined as something that is true something that actually exists or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation In traditional Logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject
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Phenomenological reality
On a much broader and more subjective level, the private experiences, curiosity, inquiry, and selectivity involved in the personal interpretation of an event shapes reality as seen by one and only one individual and hence is called phenomenological. This form of reality might be common to others as well, but at times could also be so unique to oneself as to be never experienced or agreed upon by any one else. Much of the kind of experience deemed spiritual occurs on this level of reality. Spirituality, in a narrow sense concerns itself with matters of the Spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and Faith, a transcendent reality From a phenomenological perspective, reality is that which is phenomenally real and unreality is nonexistent. Individual perception can be based upon an individual's personality, focus and style of attribution, causing him or her to see only what he or she wants to see or believes to be true.
Truth
According to the less realist trends in philosophy, such as postmodernism/post-structuralism, truth is subjective. The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with tendencies of twentieth-century When two or more individuals agree upon the interpretation and experience of a particular event, a consensus about an event and its experience begins to be formed. This being common to a few individuals or a larger group, then becomes the 'truth' as seen and agreed upon by a certain set of people — the consensus reality. Consensus reality (rarely or mistakenly called "consensual reality" is an approach to answering the question 'What is real ?' a profound philosophical question Thus one particular group may have a certain set of agreed truths, while another group might have a different set of consensual 'truths'. In Sociology, a group can be defined as two or more Humans that interact with one another accept expectations and obligations as members of the group and share a This lets different communities and societies have varied and extremely different notions of reality and truth of the external world. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment. A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions A notion in Philosophy is a reflection in the Mind of real objects and Phenomena in their essential Features and The religion and beliefs of people or communities are a fine example of this level of socially constructed 'reality'. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos A social construction or social construct is any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular Culture or Society Truth cannot simply be considered truth if one speaks and another hears because individual bias and fallibility challenge the idea that certainty or objectivity are easily grasped. For Anti-realists, the inaccessibility of any final, objective truth means that there is no truth beyond the socially-accepted consensus. In Philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe anyposition involving either the denial of an objective Reality of Entities of a certain (Although this means there are truths, not truth).
For realists, the world is a set of definite facts, which obtain independently of humans ("The world is all that is the case" — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), and these facts are the final arbiter of truth. Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs Generally a fact is defined as something that is true something that actually exists or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length work published by Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Michael Dummett expresses this in terms of the principle of bivalence[2]: Lady Macbeth had three children or she did not; a tree falls or it does not. Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA DLitt (born 1925 is a leading British Philosopher. In Logic, the semantic principle of bivalence states that every proposition takes exactly one of two truth values (e A statement will be true if it corresponds to these facts — even if the correspondence cannot be established. The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i Thus the dispute between the realist and anti-realist conception of truth hinges on reactions to the epistemic accessibility (knowability, graspability) of facts. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge
Fact
A fact or factual entity is a phenomenon that is perceived as an elemental principle. Generally a fact is defined as something that is true something that actually exists or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation It is rarely one that could be subject to personal interpretation. Instead, it is most often an observed phenomenon of the natural world. The proposition 'viewed from most places on Earth, the sun rises in the east', is a fact. It is a fact for people belonging to any group or nationality, regardless of which language they speak or which part of the hemisphere they come from. The Galilean proposition in support of the Copernican theory, that the sun is the center of the solar system is one that states the fact of the natural world. Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 &ndash 8 January 1642 was a Tuscan ( Italian) Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, and Philosopher The word theory has many distinct meanings in different fields of Knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. The Sun (Sol is the Star at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by Gravity. Nature, in the broadest sense is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe. However, during his lifetime Galileo was ridiculed for that factual proposition, because far too few people had a consensus about it in order to accept it as a truth. Fewer propositions are factual in content in the world, as compared to the many truths shared by various communities, which are also fewer than the innumerable individual worldviews. A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term Calqued from the German word Weltanschauung ( Welt is the German Much of scientific exploration, experimentation, interpretation and analysis is done on this level. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding In scientific inquiry an experiment ( Latin: Ex- periri, "to try out" is a method of investigating particular types of research questions or Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of Theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena
This view of reality is well expressed by Philip K. Dick's statement that "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. "
What reality might not be
"Reality," the concept, is contrasted with a wide variety of other concepts, largely depending upon the intellectual discipline. It can help us to understand what we mean by "reality" to note that what we say is not real because we see it through different perspectives, therefore there is no basis for reality. But usually if there is no original and related proofs, it isn't reality.
In philosophy, reality is contrasted with nonexistence (penguins do exist; so they are real) and mere possibility (a mountain made of gold is merely possible, but is not known to be real—that is, actual rather than possible—unless one is discovered). Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language In common usage existence is the world of which we are aware through our senses but in Philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning and is often contrasted with Sometimes philosophers speak as though reality is contrasted with existence itself, though ordinary language and many other philosophers would treat these as synonyms. In common usage existence is the world of which we are aware through our senses but in Philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning and is often contrasted with They have in mind the notion that there is a kind of reality — a mental or intentional reality, perhaps — that imaginary objects, such as the aforementioned golden mountain, have. The term intentionality is often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" Alexius Meinong is famous, or infamous, for holding that such things have so-called subsistence, and thus a kind of reality, even while they do not actually exist. Alexius Meinong ( July 17, 1853 - November 27, 1920) was an Austrian Philosopher. Most philosophers find the very notion of "subsistence" mysterious and unnecessary, and one of the shibboleths and starting points of 20th century analytic philosophy has been the forceful rejection of the notion of subsistence — of "real" but nonexistent objects. Shibboleth (ˈʃɪbəlɛθ or ˈʃɪbələθ is any practice which is indicative of one's social or regional origin The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Analytic philosophy (sometimes analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of Philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century
Some schools of Buddhism hold that reality is something void of description, the formless which forms all illusions or maya. Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices Maya ( Sanskrit sa माया māyā) in Indian religions, has multiple meanings Buddhists hold that we can only discuss objects which are not reality itself and that nothing can be said of reality which is true in any absolute sense. Discussions of a permanent self are necessarily about the reality of self which cannot be pointed to nor described in any way. Similar is the Taoist saying, that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao, or way. Taoism (pronounced /ˈdaʊɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊɪzəm/ also spelled '''Daoism''') refers to a variety of related Philosophical and Religious traditions Tao ( 道, Pinyin Dào) is a metaphysical concept found in Taoism, Confucianism, and more generally in ancient Chinese philosophy
It is worth saying at this point that many philosophers are not content with saying merely what reality is not — some of them have positive theories of what broad categories of objects are real, in addition. See ontology as well as philosophical realism; these topics are also briefly treated below. In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs
In ethics, political theory, and the arts, reality is often contrasted with what is "ideal. Ethics is a major branch of Philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life Political science is a branch of Social sciences that deals with the theory and practice of Politics and the description and analysis of Political systems The arts is a broad subdivision of Culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called "
One of the fundamental issues in ethics is called the is-ought problem, and it can be formulated as follows: "Given our knowledge of the way the world 'is,' how can we know the way the world 'ought to be'?" Most ethical views hold that the world we live in (the real world) is not ideal — and, as such, there is room for improvement. In Meta-ethics, the is-ought problem was raised by David Hume ( Scottish Philosopher and Historian, 1711 &ndash
In the arts there was a broad movement beginning in the 19th century, realism (which led to naturalism), which sought to portray characters, scenes, and so forth, realistically. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Realism in the Visual arts and Literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in Everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting This was in contrast and reaction to romanticism, which portrayed their subjects idealistically. Romanticism is a complex artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Commentary about these artistic movements is sometimes put in terms of the contrast between the real and the ideal: on the one hand, the average, ordinary, and natural, and on the other, the superlative, extraordinary, improbable, and sometimes even supernatural. Obviously, when speaking in this sense, "real" (or "realistic") does not have the same meaning as it does when, for example, a philosopher uses the term to distinguish, simply, what exists from what does not exist.
In the arts, and also in ordinary life, the notion of reality (or realism) is also often contrasted with illusion. A painting that precisely indicates the visually-appearing shape of a depicted object is said to be realistic in that respect; one that distorts features, as Pablo Picasso's paintings are famous for doing, are said to be unrealistic, and thus some observers will say that they are "not real. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 " But there are also tendencies in the visual arts toward so-called realism and more recently photorealism that invite a different sort of contrast with the real. Realism is a visual art style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see Photorealism is the genre of painting based on making a painting of a Photograph. Trompe-l'œil (French, "fool the eye") paintings render their subjects so "realistically" that the casual observer might temporarily be deceived into thinking that he is seeing something, indeed, real — but in fact, it is merely an illusion, and an intentional one at that. Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English ( French: "trick the eye" tʁɔ̃p lœj is an Art technique involving extremely
In psychiatry, reality, or rather the idea of being in touch with reality, is integral to the notion of schizophrenia, which has often been defined in part by reference to being "out of touch" with reality. Schizophrenia ( from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν "to split" and phrēn The schizophrenic is said to have hallucinations and delusions which concern people and events that are not "real. " However, there is controversy over what is considered "out of touch with reality," particularly due to the noticeable comparison of the process of forcibly institutionalising individuals for expressing their beliefs in society to reality enforcement. Consensus reality (rarely or mistakenly called "consensual reality" is an approach to answering the question 'What is real ?' a profound philosophical question The practice's possible covert use as a political tool can perhaps be illustrated by the 18th century psychiatric sentences in the U. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system S. of black slaves for 'crazily' attempting to escape. See also anti-psychiatry and one of its prominent figures, the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. See also Psychiatry See also Biopsychiatry controversy Anti-psychiatry refers to a post-1960s configuration of groups and theoretical constructs Thomas Stephen Szasz (pronounced /sas/ born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Psychiatrist and Academic.
In each of these cases, discussions of reality, or what counts as "real," take on quite different casts; indeed, what we say about reality often depends on what we say it is not.
Reality, Worldviews, and Theories of Reality
- Further information: World view
A common colloquial usage would have "reality" mean "perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward reality," as in "My reality is not your reality. A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term Calqued from the German word Weltanschauung ( Welt is the German " This is often used just as a colloquialism indicating that the parties to a conversation agree, or should agree, not to quibble over deeply different conceptions of what is real. For example, in a religious discussion between friends, one might say (attempting humor), "You might disagree, but in my reality, everyone goes to heaven. "
Reality can be defined in a way that links it to worldviews or parts of them (conceptual frameworks): Reality is the totality of all things, structures (actual and conceptual), events (past and present) and phenomena, whether observable or not. It is what a worldview (whether it be based on individual or shared human experience) ultimately attempts to describe or map.
Certain ideas from physics, philosophy, sociology, literary criticism, and other fields shape various theories of reality. One such belief is that there simply and literally is no reality beyond the perceptions or beliefs we each have about reality. Such attitudes are summarized in the popular statement, "Perception is reality" or "Life is how you perceive reality" or "reality is what you can get away with" (Robert Anton Wilson), and they indicate anti-realism - that is, the view that there is no objective reality, whether acknowledged explicitly or not. Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (born Robert Edward Wilson, January 18, 1932 &ndash January 11, 2007) was an American In Philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe anyposition involving either the denial of an objective Reality of Entities of a certain These topics will be discussed in greater detail below.
Many of the concepts of science and philosophy are often defined culturally and socially. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" This idea was well elaborated by Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Thomas Samuel Kuhn (surname ˈkuːn July 18, 1922 &ndash June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ( 1962) by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the History of science. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
Philosophical views of reality
Philosophy addresses two different aspects of the topic of reality: the nature of reality itself, and the relationship between the mind (as well as language and culture) and reality. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic
On the one hand, ontology is the study of being, and the central topic of the field is couched, variously, in terms of being, existence, "what is", and reality. In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part The task in ontology is to describe the most general categories of reality and how they are interrelated. In Metaphysics (in particular Ontology) the different kinds or ways of Being are called categories of being or simply categories If — what is rarely done — a philosopher wanted to proffer a positive definition of the concept "reality", it would be done under this heading. As explained above, some philosophers draw a distinction between reality and existence. In fact, many analytic philosophers today tend to avoid the term "real" and "reality" in discussing ontological issues. But for those who would treat "is real" the same way they treat "exists", one of the leading questions of analytic philosophy has been whether existence (or reality) is a property of objects. It has been widely held by analytic philosophers that it is not a property at all, though this view has lost some ground in recent decades.
On the other hand, particularly in discussions of objectivity that have feet in both metaphysics and epistemology, philosophical discussions of "reality" often concern the ways in which reality is, or is not, in some way dependent upon (or, to use fashionable jargon, "constructed" out of) mental and cultural factors such as perceptions, beliefs, and other mental states, as well as cultural artifacts, such as religions and political movements, on up to the vague notion of a common cultural world view, or Weltanschauung. Objectivity is both an important and very difficult concept to pin down in philosophy Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge For Wikipedia jargon see WikipediaGlossary. For hacker slang see Jargon File. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term Calqued from the German word Weltanschauung ( Welt is the German A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term Calqued from the German word Weltanschauung ( Welt is the German
The view that there is a reality independent of any beliefs, perceptions, etc. , is called realism. Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a Reality that is completely Ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes linguistic practices beliefs More specifically, philosophers are given to speaking about "realism about" this and that, such as realism about universals or realism about the external world. Generally, where one can identify any class of object the existence or essential characteristics of which is said not to depend on perceptions, beliefs, language, or any other human artifact, one can speak of "realism about" that object.
One can also speak of anti-realism about the same objects. Anti-realism is the latest in a long series of terms for views opposed to realism. In Philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe anyposition involving either the denial of an objective Reality of Entities of a certain Perhaps the first was idealism, so called because reality was said to be in the mind, or a product of our ideas. In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called Berkeleyan idealism is the view, propounded by the Irish empiricist George Berkeley, that the objects of perception are actually ideas in the mind. In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called In Philosophy, empiricism is a theory of Knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from Experience. George Berkeley (ˈbɑrkli (12 March 1685 14 January 1753 also known as Bishop Berkeley, was a Philosopher. On this view, one might be tempted to say that reality is a "mental construct"; this is not quite accurate, however, since on Berkeley's view perceptual ideas are created and coordinated by God. By the 20th century, views similar to Berkeley's were called phenomenalism. In Epistemology and the Philosophy of perception, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects do not exist as things in themselves but only as perceptual Phenomenalism differs from Berkeleyan idealism primarily in that Berkeley believed that minds, or souls, are not merely ideas nor made up of ideas, whereas varieties of phenomenalism, such as that advocated by Russell, tended to go farther to say that the mind itself is merely a collection of perceptions, memories, etc. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian , and that there is no mind or soul over and above such mental events. A mental event is a particular occurrence of something going on in the Mind or mind substitute Finally, anti-realism became a fashionable term for any view which held that the existence of some object depends upon the mind or cultural artifacts. The view that the so-called external world is really merely a social, or cultural, artifact, called social constructionism, is one variety of anti-realism. Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Cultural relativism is the view that social issues such as morality are not absolute, but at least partially cultural artifact. Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual Human 's Beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own Culture.
A Correspondence theory of knowledge about what exists claims that "true" knowledge of reality represents accurate correspondence of statements about and images of reality with the actual reality that the statements or images are attempting to represent. The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i Knowledge is defined ( Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education the theoretical or practical understanding For example, the scientific method can verify that a statement is true based on the observable evidence that a thing exists. Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena Many humans can point to the Rocky Mountains and say that this mountain range exists, and continues to exist even if no one is observing it or making statements about it. However, there is nothing that we can observe and name, and then say that it will exist forever. Eternal beings, if they exist, would need to be described by some method other than scientific. Disambiguation For the Wigwam album see Being (album, for spiritual or religious beingness, see Ego (spirituality
Quantum physical views of reality
- Further information: Principle of locality, Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and Philosophy of physics
Quantum mechanics (QM) has kept physicists and philosophers in debate on the nature of reality since its invention. In Physics, the principle of locality is that distant objects cannot have direct influence on one another an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings An interpretation of quantum mechanics is a statement which attempts to explain how Quantum mechanics informs our Understanding of Nature. Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental philosophical questions underlying modern Physics, the study of Matter and Energy Quantum mechanics is the study of mechanical systems whose dimensions are close to the Atomic scale such as Molecules Atoms Electrons A physicist is a Scientist who studies or practices Physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language QM states that prior to observation, nothing can be said about a physical system other than a probability function which seems to be definable to a degree by assumptions about the system's elements. With observation a system's probability wave function will collapse into a precise quantity which is observable by the means of measuring the device applied. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that there are certain measurements that reduce the accuracy of other measurements of the same system. In Quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that locating a particle in a small region of space makes the Momentum of the particle uncertain Primarily, one cannot measure the location and velocity of sub-atomic elements such as an electron precisely because the more one looks for the former the less accuracy one can achieve for the latter. This imprecision introduces an uncertainty into the overall state of the system and the necessity of a choice on the part of the one making the measurement, namely which aspect will he find accurately at the cost of the other. This decision on the part of the measurer has created no small problem for objectivists who insist that at its core reality is objectively present whether anyone notices or not. Several experiments such as the double-slit experiment, and tests of Bell's theorem and the CHSH inequality have confirmed that the simple act of observing does impact the system's state in a noticeable way; since the detector itself has to be changed to detect anything at all, there is necessarily a change in the observed particle because of quantum entanglement. Bell's theorem is a theorem that shows that the predictions of Quantum mechanics (QM are not intuitive and touches upon fundamental philosophical issues that relate to modern In Physics, the CHSH Bell test is an application of Bell's theorem, intended to distinguish between the entanglement hypothesis of Quantum mechanics and But also the state of correlated particles which have not been measured appears to be affected. Even the notion of cause and effect is brought into question in the quantum world where irreducible randomness cannot currently be avoided as a basic assumption. In theory large numbers of random quantum elements seen as a group from a very great distance can seem like cause and effect which is why our level of experience appears to function almost completely deterministically.
It has led some such as Amit Goswami, a theoretical nuclear physicist and member of The University of Oregon, to assume that there is no reality existing, independent of our own consciousness as observer. Amit Goswami is a theoretical nuclear Physicist and member of The University of Oregon Institute for Theoretical Physics since 1968, teaching Physics However, there is no clear evidence that human consciousness has any special role to play beyond the influence of instrument-settings on result. These phenomena can also be given the more cautious interpretation that quantum systems do contain properties, but not properties directly corresponding to measurements performed on the system by macroscopic instruments. [3]
See also
- Absolute (philosophy)
- Demonstration
- Hyperreality
- Real life
- Real world
- Reality in Buddhism
- Church of Reality - A religion dedicated to the pursuit of the understanding of reality using the Scientific Method. The Absolute is the concept of an absolute unconditional reality which transcends limited conditional everyday existence In Semiotics and Postmodern philosophy, the term hyperreality characterizes the inability of Consciousness to distinguish Reality from Fantasy Buddhism evolved a variety of doctrinal/philosophical traditions each with its own ideas of reality. The Church of Reality is a Religion based on the practice of Philosophical realism, "belief in everything that is real " Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena
- Reality shift
- Simulated reality
- Virtual reality
- Social constructionism
- Solipsism
References
- ^ Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press, 2005 (Full entry for reality: "reality • noun (pl. In Metaphysics and Esoteric cosmology, a plane, other than the Physical plane, is conceived as a subtle state of Consciousness that transcends Simulated reality is the proposition that Reality could be simulated—perhaps by Computer simulation —to a degree indistinguishable from "true" Reality Virtual reality ( VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a Computer-simulated environment be it a real or imagined one Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological and psychological theories of Knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in Solipsism ( Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists realities) 1 the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. 2 a thing that is actually experienced or seen. 3 the quality of being lifelike. 4 the state or quality of having existence or substance. ")
- ^ [1] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Michael Dummett
- ^ Norsen, T. - Against "Realism"
Dictionary
reality
-noun
- The entirety of all that is real.
- The state of being actual or real.
- Each individual's own subjective perception of that which is real.
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