What’s Real in Reality?

Mayank Gupta
mayankbindas@gmail.com
Computer Science & Engg., 4th Year
Ch. Devi Lal M. Engg. College
Panniwala Mota, Sirsa

A brief outline of the paper

Reality in everyday usage means "the state of things as they actually exist." The term
reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether it is observable,
comprehensible, or self-contradictory by science, philosophy, or any other system of
analysis.

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. 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 real unless one is discovered). Sometimes philosophers speak as though reality is
contrasted with existence itself, though ordinary language and many other
philosophers would treat these as synonyms. 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. 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. 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.

This paper gives an overall view of the participant’s thought about reality rather than
an amalgamation of what others have said about reality but a comparison between
others viewpoint and the author’s viewpoint has been made wherever necessary.

The participant’s contribution to the paper

Reality cannot be discovered it can only be deduced. In my opinion what we find real
is just a simulation of our mind or brain. I have listed various case studies in support
of my theory some of which are listed below:

Case Study I :
There is a disease called Schizophrenia in which a person is said to live in
imagination which in his/her context appears to be real which for others doesn’t exist
at all or is unreal.

Case Study II :

When we look out of a bus while traveling at distant objects we find them moving
with us but are they really moving? The answer is no. It’s just a mirage, a virtual
reality or we can again say a simulation of our mind.

Case Study III :

Sometimes a person gets so much involved in our dreams that he/she is unable to
distinguish the real part from the unreal one.

Case Study IV :

Sometimes we may find a situation where we thinks that this incident has already
occurred with us or we have passed through this situation somewhere in the past
which we call Deja-vu in scientific notion but is it also a simulation of our brain.

What is new in the paper

There is a fight between the notion of existence and reality. What we find existing
appears real but what we do not appears unreal.

Whatever we can see, feel, touch, taste, smell, hear or in other words whatever we can
sense appears to be real to us but what about the kind of things which are not sensual.
We cannot sense a bacteria or an atom but they are real. Scientists have proved so.
Also what humans’ sense is different from what other kinds of animals in this world
sense like humans can see millions of colors but animals might not. So are colors real.

Humans can listen to the sound ranging in frequency of 20-20kHz but other animals
can listen to much more varying frequencies, for example dogs can listen to ultrasonic
sound but we cannot. So does that mean the sound which is audible to a dog but not to
a human is unreal. There exactly we find the distinction between reality and unreality.
What our senses can feel is real and what they cannot is unreal – this is the simple rule
which governs the notion of reality and unreality and I have termed it as “The Golden
Rule of Distinction between Reality and Unreality”.

Scope of the paper

The scope of this paper is limited to the scientific notions and what the author thinks
of reality and tries to cover every aspect of reality whether it is in terms of existence
or a disease called Schizophrenia or in terms of senses or in terms of scientific
assumptions. This paper does not discuss any of the mythological aspect of reality and
leaves that all which is bound to theory.