Does the negatively colored, light blue chair to the left exist?
Perhaps this chair never existed in reality but was always an image made from scratch or, perhaps it was a picture of a real chair that still exists. In any sense, the chair exists in some form otherwise, how could I even reference it at all with language?
Reality is the sum total of all that exists, so the concept of reality is highly dependent upon one's concept of existence.
My page on existence is much more extensive and the concepts are so closely related that they could be merged quite easily- but I will leave this page for an examination of the sum total of what we think exists rather than the specific idea of existence and how some things do or do not qualify as "existing" in reality.
Reality is different for each who experiences it, though the overlapping parts of such experiences are what we agree is real.
Most would agree that the earth is real, but many deny that the changing of the earth's climate due to man's influence is real.
What is real is what is true and what is true for one person may not be for another.
Some people believe that those who believe that god exists are out of touch with reality.
It is certainly possible that most people are not fully living in reality unless god does exist and those who do not believe in god are not living with a full grasp of reality. For some, love is not real. For others, colors are not real.
Reality is the sum total of that which exists and, because we have no apparatus to observe all that exists, we can not fully comprehend our reality.
Each additional sensory apparatus would expand our reality. One's reality is broadened with experiences.
The sum total of reality could only be known by that being which has every possible sense affected by every possible thing.
In other words, all of reality can only be known by all of reality.
From 1999: Definition of Reality:
_______________________________________
Reality is the world that we think we perceive ourselves to be in. We
assume that the things in the world, such as a chair, actually do exist in some manner
related to how we see such things. Why do I say "think we perceive ourselves
in"?
Because we think that the world in which we are perceiving is real, and we think
that we are in this world or this reality.
The question of exactly what is reality is
difficult, but the best route to finding reality is looking at how we form our reality-
through the senses. We perceive reality through the use of our mind.
Our mind perceives through
the senses. So, reality must ultimately come from the senses, but it seems as though the
mind can override the senses in dreams and hallucinations.
So how do we know when it is
our senses and not just our mind creating reality? This is a difficult question.
How do we
know that a chair exists in some absolute or real reality that is not just made in our
thoughts and ideas?
In a dream, can one prove the existence of a dream chair?
Can one
prove the existence of a hallucinated chair?
In the dream state, we could ask other people
if they too think the chair exists.
Of course, they too, would see the
chair in the reality your mind creates.
