Hypotheticals
What is “Not Real”?
I keep going in circles about trying to define what it means to be “real”.
I have a lot of strange out of body experiences, and they feel real, but are they really real?
I’ve also experienced a psychedelic trip using DMT, which I’m still not sure where to categorize it on the real-ness spectrum, or if that’s even possible.
I keep returning to: how do you define what is real? But any definition I give, everything turns out to be real. So I’m left wondering: what does it mean to be not real?
Where does this concept of “not real” come from?
Well, movies aren’t real, right? I watch horror movies all the time. Those aren’t real.
But what exactly isn’t real?
People really did act out a scene. It really was caught on camera. Computer graphics were really overlayed on the frames. The final product was really encoded as a binary file, that was really streamed to my Roku, and really output to my TV, and really beamed into my eyes, and really interpreted by my brain.
It’s a very real thing in that sense.
But that’s not what we’re talking about when we say it “isn’t real” – we’re talking about the story.
A zombie apocalypse didn’t really happen.
The movie simply gives the impression it happened.
Compared to what, though?
Well, the Nintendo Switch was released in 2017. That really happened.
People really did design the hardware. They really used factories to manufacture computer chips. They really used injection molding to press plastic into the necessary forms. They really assembled all the pieces, and boxed the device. Then they really shipped the boxes to different stores across the world.
So when we say “the Nintendo Switch was released in 2017”, we are actually summarizing an incredibly complicated series of events. We are telling a story about an aggregate.
This “telling a story about an aggregate” is really the crux of the matter.
The zombie apocalypse didn’t happen. That story isn’t accurate. The Nintendo Switch was released. That story is accurate.
So when we say something “isn’t real”, I think our minds are performing a function of evaluating story accuracy.
I think we are asking ourselves: is this story an appropriate summarization of the incredibly complicated series of events that I experienced?
This definition seems good… but it says nothing of an objective reality. A reality “out there” that I experience.
When I wonder if out of body experiences are real, what I’m asking is whether my senses are perceiving the reality “out there”.
Except I can’t find “out there”. Everywhere I look, I see stories of aggregates.
I will continue to ponder this.