Reality Check

What is reality? I asked myself the other day as I sat out in the garden. I had to ask myself, because there was no one else there to ask.

What I mean, and what I also meant when I asked myself that question, and got no answer; (albeit, I might add, the dog barked for no apparent reason). He always does that when I sit quietly talking to myself. I don't know why.

Anyway, what I meant by the question, if you can still remember that far, is that, what is reality to us, might not be so to other people in the past. Something can be real to us, but not to others.

Let me explain.

Take my great great great grand-parents for instance. If you can find them that is.

If you told them that you could be sitting at home, writing on your computer, and someone else many miles away could be receiving your e-mail within seconds and respond to it whilst you're enjoying your cappuccino coffee. They would not understand about the internet, e-mails, texts, tweets, and so on. They would most probably ask, "What's a cappuccino?" Because they didn't have that in their time. It may be reality to us, but not to them.

Take another example. The other day my wife was looking through a ladies' magazine and she came across a lovely brown winter coat. She looked at me and said, "I'd like that!" So I cut the picture out and gave it to her. It was not reality to her ... but the consequences of my action were a reality to me.

So you see, reality is how you perceive it to be.

It's like looking at a mirage which is not there. Which, when you think about it, in reality it is not there. Because that's what a mirage means: a hallucination, a vision, an illusion. If it was there for real then it would not be a mirage, would it?

Is a marriage a mirage? Or is it real? If it is real then why does my predictive text type marriage when I mean mirage? Come to think of it, many couples lead a mirage type of marriage. They pretend to love each other but in reality they only stay married for many other reasons: the children, their religious beliefs, the cost and heart-ache of divorce, or just because they are plain lazy to do anything else.

And here's another example of reality not being real. The other day I met a friend I had not seen for ages. When he was young he was a boy. Then when he grew up he had a beard and he became an accountant.

I'm not sure if the incidents are related or not. So which one of these instances is real? My friend being a young boy? Growing up and having a beard? Or being an accountant? Which leads to the question: can someone be an accountant and not have a beard?

Anyway, when I met him the other day he was clean-shaven and no longer an accountant. He became an undertaker. He was so popular that people are dying to meet him. They always signed letters to him; "Eventually yours ..."

I said to him, "If you had a moustache you'd look exactly like my mother-in-law!"

He replied, "I do not have a moustache!"

I said, "But my mother-in-law has."

The moustache was a reality, but it was on the wrong person.

This friend of mine is very rich now. Obviously either accounting or undertaking has suited him well as a career. He has a house with a cinema in it. The problem is that when there's a bad film on he has to leave his own home.

And that's what reality is. It is what it is perceived to be.

I am sitting here writing this article on the Internet. But how do I know that you out there reading it are real?

Are you a reality? Are you ordinary or extra-ordinary people in your own homes in far flung places reading my daily writings? Or not?
 
What if you are a figment of my imagination? What if I am a figment of your imagination? What if we are all a figment of each others' imagination and none of us really exist?

If so, then who is writing this? And how do you know that it has been written and it is not a figment of yours and my imagination?

René Descartes said, "Cogito ergo sum".

He then translated it into "je pense, donc je suis" which as you know means, "I think, therefore I am!" This does not prove that he is not a figment of his own imagination.

Which leads to the question; Who is René Descartes anyway? Did he have a beard? Was he an accountant or an undertaker?

So - What is reality?

Does this prove that I am? Does it prove that I exist? 

Maybe I just thought, or imagined that I thought, what reality is? 

And maybe I don't really exist; but the thought that I thought it does exist. Perhaps we are all just a passing thought in someone's mind.

Hein? Have you thought about that? 

Share your views in the comments box below. 

That is if you truly exist.