What is the 'real' colour of an orange..? I'm a touch red/green colourblind - so my version of orange, and your version of orange is different. But as long as my 'orange' remains consistant from day to day, I can interact with it unimpaired. The question remains though - which orange, yours or mine, is more 'real'..?
Existance and reality are tricky terms. Common sense would dictate that "that which is real, exists" and equally, "that which is exists, is real."
Which leaves us exactly nowhere. Which makes me think of trees and falling and no-one being there. I dunno, perhaps I'm trying to edge toward "That which is noticed, exists", or "That which is real, leaves a mark somewhere."
The former is self serving - If there is something capable of noticing anything, then of course something already exists, even prior to the act of perception. And also time. Time is an artifact, created by awareness, principally, awareness of change. The slightest sliver of time, is still an instant that can be noticibly divided from the next. What I mean to say, in a universe, or any other place of being, without some form of awareness, there can be no time, and without time nothing can exist. A play on words..? Or something more profound - I'm damned if I know which.
But I lean toward - "There is no existance without a [sentient, memoried] perceiver."
The second - the leaving of the mark - is different. Differing in perhaps not requiring a sentient watcher, a cataloguer of events. Let us have a very simple universe, consisting of space, and a single, lifeless rock. Does anything exist..? Is there any time..? I'd say no. Let the rock move in space. But how to tell here from there, up from down..? Does it move..? Can it move..? Now let us add a second rock, moving in opposition. They collide - each leaving a mark on the other. Now is there time..? Now does each rock exist..? Exist now it is given location, velocity and shape in relation to the other..? I still don't know. Did a trilobite see a universe into being..? Was its perception deep enough..? I still don't know.
Perhaps the act of naming is necessary.
So, I would work from the idea that reality and existance are fundamentally linked to a third component, which is us, or something like us. This idea has consequences, probably more than I can think of - not least the anthropomorphic principle involved - only realities, frames of existance that support the survival of a watcher... Exist. (A little oxymoronic I know).
The other I've been thinking about is perhaps more subtle. Reality contains three qualities - it is noticible, vivid, and unlike dreams and hallucinations, which skip merrily through the first two requirements, consistant, or at least predictable, over time.
But we must remember another condition on reality - something that constrains it. "Nothing exists except in relation to the watcher" "the watcher is finite" "what exists is noticed" "What is noticed is either that which is effective toward, initially, the survival of the watcher, or, secondarily, to the aesthetic sense (much related to the initial proviso) of the watcher."
Physicists say there are many ways to view what is around us. The keyboard in front of me is at once a thing of plastic and metal with symbols transposed across its face, it is also a complexly related set of atoms dancing in space. It is at the same time a unique and very improbable set of probabilities, constantly being collapsed into 'reality' by the act of my attention. It is also simple information encoded into waveforms on the 'surface' of a multidimensional 'brane.' (At least if I remember Dr. Hawkins correctly).
Which is it..? Well, it still looks like a keyboard to me, because I don't come equiped with quantum vision.
No lifeform is. Imagine a fish going through the tortuous evolutionary path toward developing some sensory apparatus able to 'see' quantum probabilities. Imagine how incredibly unsuccessful it would be in discerning lunchtime from dinner, and dinner from a swirl in the mud.
The requirement for a watcher requires that reality be watchable. Usefully watchable, in forms and configurations that allow you to fill your belly.
Okay - we could measure the mass of the orange, the refractive index of the orange, spin that bugger through a gas chromatograph or a spectrometer and read off its consistuant parts. But would all those numbers and readings make orange juice for breakfast..? Are those numbers the 'real' orange..? What about the less empirical traits..? How sweet it tastes - a sweetness again mitigated by whether I'm full or not, or how long its been since I last had an orange, or whether or not I'm happy or sad, or sitting on top of mount everest, or taking my last breathes of this life. The smell of it the feel of it in my mouth..? Is the orange I ate yesterday different from the one I eat today..?
What if I just don't like oranges..?
...Continued...
Hey kids. To give you some idea of when I'm writing this: I'm watching you my son, playing Spyro on our knackered old playstation. You're only wearing your red pants because it's August, and as hot as a big pile of hot things. Your sister is sitting on the floor nearby; it's well past her bedtime - she's just demanded that her nappy be removed for the umpteenth time and we are no doubt just waiting for the next surprise puddle of wee.
