Perceiving Reality and the Many Problems Therein.

Before I begin, perhaps it would be prudent to assert that this whole post is going to be deeply philosophical but not in any studied or formative way. This is to say that I will be dealing with some existential questions in lieu of almost absolutely nothing for the sheer exercise of it. I don't know if I'll find any answers.

Reality and perception are two concepts that work together in a human life to define the very fabric of being. Reality is, by some accounts, that which still exists even when we are not aware of it. This awareness is our perception. Perception is the way in which our minds conceive of the world around us. By these definitions then it would seem that while perception cannot meaningfully exist without reality, the latter notion is nevertheless unaffected by the former. This idea of course proposes the question of the tangibility of reality without perception: is what we perceive not in fact somehow more real than reality? This is a concept that has been explored by numerous minds in innumerable methods for decades. To wit, popular culture has most famously explored the notions of reality versus perception in films such as The Matrix and Inception to name just two. In both of these works, the central ideas form around that which is indisputably 'real' and the 'reality' that our minds create. Both stories involve characters who live in realms that are entirely the construct of the human mind. This is to say that these 'realities' are an illusion; a fact that the characters are fully aware. Yet it must be noted that despite the awareness of illusions in both instances, the characters therein still perform meaningful actions while inhabiting them. There are causes and there are effects -- actions and reactions. This raises the question of further examination: what is it that constitutes reality from fiction?

Reality as we know it is defined by infallible truths or laws. These are always the same no matter the circumstance -- they are constants. Concepts such as the passage of time, forces of gravity, and conservation of matter fall under the purview of 'constant'. These very same ideas can be implemented in the exploration of perceptional reality. Put simply, because these rules cannot be institutionally enforced or checked they invalidate the so-called reality of the construct. Indeed, free from the laws and measures by which we bind the term 'real', the human mind is conceptually without bounds. Consider the fact that dreams often follow the operational guidelines of waking only as a reference point that our conscious minds may more easily process. Now consider the notion that while dreams may operate fundamentally in a synchronous pattern with 'waking reality' (a term that I'll use as a means to footnote the reality we perceive while we are awake that is generally considered to be 'real'), the laws by which it does are not. Concepts such as linear time, singular perception, and physical possibility are liquid or malleable in even the most shallow daydream. The human conscious is so complex that events can take place in an incongruous fashion and still be extrapolated as logical. This is testament to but a fraction of the limitless potential for perception of the human mind. Still, it is widely accepted that the realms of the imaginative unconscious do not a reality make. The key here is the nature of subjectivity.

Subjectivity is the individual perception of an object or concept apart from its true nature independent of whether one perceives it or not. This is of course the very heart of this examination. One could potentially invalidate the idea of perceptional realities by the simple acceptance that outside of that individual perception such realities cannot exist. Essentially by virtue of being perceived they are perceptible. This argument would be extremely potent if not for the fact that 'waking reality' as we know it can paradoxically ever be subjectively perceived. Though it may sound incredibly obvious, by being wholly and inextricably oneself it is therefore impossible to measure objectivity without the bias of subjective perception. While chances are good that if a baseball rolls off a table it will fall to the floor, whether that happens free of our perception can never be completely proven. This is of course indicative of the age-old question: 'if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to see it, does it still make a sound?'.

This is the point in the argument that the proverbial wheels come off and it becomes purely speculative. Take the aforementioned tree in the woods. One imagines that the proof of it falling is illustrated in the discovery of the tree laying on the ground. The tree being on the ground is, for all intents and purposes, objective reality. It is there, it is on the ground, and it is a tree. Now consider the action of the tree falling and the assumed sound it would make. It is known that in order for a tree to fall it must lose stability and be forced by gravity to the ground. A creaking or cracking sound is generally assigned to this action. One knows that trees follow this pattern by observing it in other instances in life. In the case of the tree found fallen in the woods though, one must extrapolate these actions as having happened without any way of knowing if they did. The question becomes whether the falling action and its accompanying sound happen if there is not a perception of it doing so. Does 'reality' as we know it depend on our perception of it? Is it any more real than the processes of a dreaming mind if no one is present to perceive it? By the mere action of perceiving something does one not remove its objectivity?

In the end, the tree as well as its fall are defined as real because it leaves a lasting effect on the world around it -- there is a fallen tree in the middle of the woods. That effect has meaning in context to the things around it. This meaning is perhaps then the most crucial part of defining a reality. That which is real has the capacity to affect meaning to the world and the perceptions surrounding it. If it is meaning that defines the reality of things, is it not possible then to view byproducts of the human mind as such? Concepts such as love and happiness or anger and sadness are no more tangible than the tree falling in the woods that no one saw, and yet these ideas carry with them meaning that implicate far more than the individual perception of a single person. They can be perceived by others and yet still exist in an individual regardless of that outside perception. By this thinking, are things like love and sadness not in part objective? Paradoxically, do they exist if there is not one person to originally and subjectively perceive them? By this logic, is there not room to consider that though no one else may be privy to individual perceptional reality that it may indeed be just as real regardless? Perhaps not in a way that fits concretely into our pedestrian surface-knowledge of 'real', but still in a meaningful and contextual way that would make it thus. The Matrix yields a helpful illustration. In the end of the film, Neo enters the Matrix to save Morpheus and along the way fights Agent Smith and even dies. When recounting the events of the movie, would one not include these acts as having happened? Or would one simply choose to explain that Neo sat in a chair for an hour and had a lucid dream? The Matrix in the film is real because it has meaningful effects on the world outside of it and therefore is considered as such.

There are of course arguments to be made against what I have pondered above, and I could go on at length about the difference between physical realities and conceptual realities. My overarching point is that perhaps reality is more than it seems. Perhaps perception is not unimportant to objective reality; perhaps it is essential. Maybe more of the world is a byproduct of our perceptions than we care to realize. I don't know for sure which school I belong, but I am aware of the power of ideas and thoughts. I can't help but wonder if this power makes them any more real, and if they can be real what's to stop any construction of perception from being so?