A Brief Defense of "Reality," and Its Compatibility With Illusion

Going off of our class discussion yesterday, I would like to argue that what we were referring to in the question that was raised "What's so great about Reality anyways?" was not, in fact, Reality as such but rather social structures and mediums of perception that we created and which are so thoroughly ingrained into our psyches that they can be difficult to discern (as we demonstrated in class) as separate from Reality. The reason I think this was what we were really talking about has to do with the examples of how unpleasant Reality is that were presented; namely, having to wake up at godless hours of the morning to go to class/work and the absurdity of Scantron tests being used to judge learning. Merely writing out these examples should make the reason these cases are the result of human systems rather than an essential feature of Reality so obvious that I will not explain them further, but I want to make the stronger claim that these cases are relevantly similar to the ones we tend to think of when we despair about the nature of Reality. The first case, for example, is part of a larger concern over the apparent necessity to waste a significant portion of our lives toiling away in obscurity at some mindless and unpleasant task simply to earn enough money to have shelter, food, water, and clothing. Other concerns people tend to have involve the seeming pointlessness of it all; the fact that most of us never seem to get a "higher calling" in life or manifest some ideallic "full potential" or that we are tiny insignificant specks in a cold, dead, and indifferent Universe.

First, let's look at Reality, I mean really look at it. Go hike up Sehome Hill until you find a spot where you can't see a road, other people, or buildings. What do you see? Here are some things I don't find up there: straight lines or boxes of any kind, electricity, artificial lighting, flat, unobstructed planes to stand or walk on, words or symbols of any kind. These are all artificial things that we have imposed upon the world. They are so ubiquitous in our everyday lives that one must travel a significant distance to not encounter them, and even then it is difficult to truly escape their influence. For instance, even when you are in a silent place such as this, how often do you really hear nothing? If you are like me you will have a million thoughts, conversations, songs, and other noises being thought and remembered in your head. And while you are on this hike, how many of the trees, plants, groundcover, and animals did you really look at? When you looked at them, did you really see them, or did you merely think the words "tree," "rock," "bird"? Did you focus on how each of them were different, uniquely shaped and positioned, or did you only notice these differences when they varied significantly from the idea of the tree, plant, or animal you have? My point is that we are rarely capable of actually perceiving what is real (even relative to our inherently limited and flawed senses) anymore; instead we almost exclusively look at these things through some constructed medium of perception, some artificial mode of presentation or other.

Regarding the second concern, I will not try to deny the fact that the Universe is ultimately indifferent to us. Certainly, one will notice that up there on Sehome Hill or anywhere in which the constructs of human society are absent. However, I find this not so much a cause to despair, but a rather liberating realization. The source of the despair seems to come from the realization that there is no God, the Universe is not justified, and things like Justice, Love, and Goodness are nothing more than lies we tell ourselves to pretend that this isn't the case. In part this is true, the question though is what do we do about it? I think that when we ask whether or not there is any Justice in the world, we are often asking an ontological question. We are asking whether or not there is some abstract entity, Justice, that exists and has certain properties; "exists" here is used in the way we might describe Plato's Forms as existing. Justice is being thought of as a property, perhaps instantiated over certain acts or dispositions. Certain vaguely defined ethical theories that these people informally accept hinge on the existence of this property; leading them to declare, for example, that without these moral truths everything is permissible. But let us look instead at the man who believes these lies. Does he not nevertheless act justly? Given political power, would he not establish courts and laws of adequate reparation and attempt to meet out some form of Justice? Does it matter, then? Does it even mean anything at all to say that there is no such thing as Justice in this case? I think not. I think that the man in this case has created Justice of a sort. Sure it is not the infallible, divine property of the sort we originally had in mind, but on the other hand we are the ones who are entirely responsible for it and I find that much more preferrable. This is the power of the lies we tell ourselves and our children, the power to make something that is false become true. What's so great about Reality? That it is malleable; That we can change it and choose what kind of world we live in and this power of ours is not merely an illusion because defining it as such does not, in fact, mean anything at all.

And finally, because I simply cannot allow an opportunity to post a relevant Terry Pratchett quote go by (from Hogfather):

"All right," said Susan, "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."
No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meet the rising ape.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?"
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
Yes. Justice. Duty. Mercy. That sort of thing.
"They're not the same at all!"
Really? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act, like there was some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged:
"Yes. But people have got to believe that or what's the point?"
My point exactly.