For The Philosophers Out There...

[MoonKit]

I've been pondering this for a very long time and would like your opinion.

What makes something (or someone) real?


Is it a physical form? Is it a soul? Is it the fact that we can see it? Just the fact that people believe in it? What?

[Midnight]

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[Moss27]

I think that what makes something real, as in tangible or absolute, is observation.

Like... how would you know something is dead until you actually see the thing? Or... you know how people have seen bigfoot? Well, you will never know if it's true unless you experience it yourself.

So until we observe that something is there, no one can ever be sure that something exists or not. So, in theory, werewolves exist and are non-existent at the same time. XD

I don't know if I make sense, but that's how I think.

[RedEye]

(Sigh) Reality is many things to many people.

Personally, my opinion is: If I say a thing is real, treat it as real, and live with it as part of MY reality; then it's real--at least to me.
Things like shapes, forms, tangibility and such are really just what you have declared they are. The Sun is warm and bright. To a blind person, part of that statement would have no meaning.
Souls are the province of philosophy, just like Religion. Personally, I believe that everything has a "soul", from rocks to stars to people and animals. The soul is the spiritual essence of the thing and is as eternal as the universe it inhabits is.
Think the Japanese concept of "Kami"... or the Pacific concept of "Mana"... or the Amerindian idea of a thing's "shadow"...or the New Age idea of "essence". The soul is the spiritual/energy basis of the Physical manifestation of a thing.
Belief gives a thing more of this essence. The greater the belief, the stronger the physical manifestation.
In the next few lines, the "You" may or may not be "Moon Kit". The "You" I'm using is the General "you"; because the word "One" sounds affected.
Behold the Intimate Universe...You. Everything that exists in that universe is there because you have said it exists. You named it, and therefore it existed in that intimate universe.
Really, it's all just stimulus that you have recognized and named, from the warm sun to the cold of winter. Stimulus you experience personally, and have valued, named, and declared to be a certain thing. Everything has a "Bright Shadow" that is its genesis, existence, and fossil. That Bright Shadow is the Soul of the thing, and is separate from the thing it gives a pattern for by virtue of the nature of being "Out" of time. Eternal.
Like this: You have a soul. That soul has "clothing" of personality and physical nature. When you die, the Soul gets a "change of wardrobe."
Sometimes, you carry a favorite pair of shoes or a shirt from one wardrobe to another. That's memory and talent and Deja Vu.
Next is the Consensual Universe: What is generally agreed upon. Things external to "you" are a part of this universe. Morality, Social Norms, Philosophy and Language are a part of this Universe; everybody around you uses them, and you do, too. Consensual Universes are part of a group's concept of things...and have different meanings to different groups.
To the blind, concepts of "bright" and "shining" and all light-related things have no meanings, because they have a Consensual Universe that dosen't include light. Their Intimate Universes have no concept of Light because they do not experience the sensation of light...get it? While they use the same words, to them the meanings are totally different. They share most of their Consensual Universe with the rest of us, but parts are different because of their non-sensing of the stimulus of light.

So what is real? That which is real to you, what you treat as real, and what you respond to as reality.
Example: I write about Werewolves. To me they are real when I am dealing with the sub-set of my intimate universe that my stories arise from. To me, they are absolutely real in that sense. To tell about them, I have to become one myself. To me they are real in that sense as well, because I am real.
To my housemate, they are just what I write about.
Still, to me they are real, and I tell stories about them.
Who is right? Both of us are. Both of us...
Because we are both real to each other.

[Wselfwulf]

To some degree I agree with redeye and his fundamental premise is something I keep my eye on. Appearance is reality, your perception is your entirety, and you apply your knowledge to the logical extensions of pragmatism. And yet, utter volumes have been written. While I usually defer to the past giants it would be boring to spout the pages of debate existing, so I will say that short bit.

[Noir-Okami]

Reality is based on the perception of the majority. This is why schitzophrenics are seen as crazy. They view the world differently and it impairs their ability to function. If someone keeps their unusual perceptions wrapped up tight, nobody thinks that they are crazy. And, even then, they'd have to get a diagnosis.

On a different note:

There used to be the geocentric theory (the sun revolves around Earth), which was popularly believed. That was their reality, and the people who were correct (Heliocentric theory; sun revolves around the Earth) were shouted down because it contradicted the Church.


But if you want to get specific:

Fact is real.
Truth is one's perception of fact. (It's even pointed out in Indiana Jones.)
Reality is one's perception of fact and truth.

[outwarddoodles]

What makes something real is the effect it has on other things (or people).

The catch in this is that you need to be able to identify precisely what something is. There's a whole lot of people here who are definitely affected by werewolves; who think in deeper terms than "oh, they're cool". But that doesn't mean that werewolves themselves are real (not the shapeshifters of fiction, anyway); it means that the werewolf myth is very real.

This idea is most famously explored in the (appallingly saccharine) story of a little girl who wrote to a newspaper asking them if Santa Claus was real.

One could say werewolves are representative of symbols and themes we experiance every day -- the connection between man and beast, or the general paranoia present in the society which werewolves originate. Likewise, vampires represent the willingness to live beyond death at the cost of others, and unicorns virtue and fidelity. Are these themes and emotions not real facets of the human psyche? Could that, in a way, give werewolves reality even if they aren't tangible?

[Terastas]

Well. . . To quote the Matrix, if real is what we can see, hear and feel, then real is just electronic impulses being received by the brain. That's not to say that nothing exists except for empty space and you, only that anything outside of the mind may or may not be what it seems.

So. . . I guess what I'm leaning towards is that the only way something may certify that it exists is by. . . Well. . . By certifying that it exists. The whole "I think, therefore I am" argument, I guess is what I'm leaning towards.

[Uniform Two Six]

That's kind of similar to the old adage "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?"

My thought: Yes. Sound can exist even if there is no one to hear it. Basically the same principle. Microwave radiation exists. Just because you cannot sense it, doesn't make it imaginary. On the flip side, just because the crazy homeless person down by the BART station sees and hears Jesus and Elvis singing a duet of "I've Got You, Babe" doesn't make it real. Something actually existing or not, does not rely upon human witnesses. We are in a cosmic sense, irrelevant. The universe existed long before we were around and will continue to do so long after we are gone.

On the other hand, with a nod to the Matrix reference, the human experience is in many ways just a series of electrochemical impulses. Thus, if they ever come up with something like the Matrix or Simsense (for any Shadowrun fans out there), and we could experience lycanthropy vicariously, my response would be: "Real enough."

[Terastas]

First of all, Jesus and Elvis =

That summed it up pretty well for me though. On one hand, the existence of anything is never absolutely dependent on the confirmation of others; just because nobody can see or hear it does not mean it isn't there. Likewise, however, just because someone can see or hear something does not mean it is there.

I guess you could call that the agnostic approach.

It's far from a true portrayal, but I keep thinking of this: (warning: messed up claymation). Namely how at the end he says "nothing exists, save empty space and you." Two things wrong with that:
1) Your own existence is all that may be guaranteed, not all there is period.
2) The empty space may or may not exist as well.

[Gevaudan]

Merriam-Webster's definition of "real":
Of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things; not artificial or fraudulent; being exactly what it implies; practical; occurring or existing in actuality; existent based on ideals, laws, or standards; capable of being detected.

"Real" in the scientific sense:
Being composed of matter that moves through time and can gather and use energy.

"Real" in the philosophical sense:
Debatable. It's not quite the same thing as existence. Saying something is "real" basically excludes it from everything "not real", like the imaginary, mythical, fictional, etc. Nothing positive or conclusive is added to something's "existence", but it does deduce what something can't be.

"Real" in the political sense:
Anything that comes out of your candidate's mouth.


What I think "real" is:
I'm not too sure. The only thing real to me is anything I have experienced. I can only argue for myself, but not for anyone else.

[Ink]

I'm not a philosopher but reality is a construct of the human mentality and suffers the context of a culture and society, along with an individual's perspective of what is real or reality.

This means that all things - intangible and tangible, ethereal and corporeal, are the same in the distinction of existing (i.e. They exist!) if so allowed or disallowed by a group of people.

That doesn't mean things are or are not truly 'real' under this connotation - even if your culture and society determine norms for associating beliefs and allow them to be 'real' it is only true until the physical 'real' tests the ethreal. A great example of this comes from the mid-to-late contact period when Native American Indian's were fighting against the whites, before rifles had been intigrated into their own cultures. They held special belief in magic embued upon leather vests, which would protect them from bullets. It was indeed a real belief to these people and no doubt 'real' in that sense. However, for as real as it was to them, they would still pay with their lives.

Cultural 'reality' and the laws of the physical world, when they come to a head, reveal what is and is not real as far as planet earth is concerned. There is a difference.

Note: Cultures can garner reasons for why their magics did not work or failed, but the fact will remain that you can't, unlike in Hollywood, stop a bullet effectively with your teeth or your ideals.


~ Adriana

P.S. Also, the idea of what is or is not 'real' is a human thing by definition too... Asking your cat what is or is not real won't yield anything inciteful.

[Scott Gardener]

Real is a relative concept as far as philosophy is concerned. I find the most functional definition to mean that which exists in the mundane physical realm or has a direct effect on it. Defining "direct effect" is a little tricky, since I can imagine a story character of mine coming up with a brilliant idea and my acting on it, but my novel character isn't real. I'm simply a real being getting the idea by running a simulation.

This, of course, assumes the physical realm itself is real, which is a rather arbitrary resolution of a long-running philosophical debate.

One can also extrapolate "real" to apply to any realm, as existing within that realm. For example, a Second Life avatar is real inside Second Life, but not real in our world, though the characteristic patterns of electromagnetic etchings on various hard drives on servers around the planet are.

To this end, a "realm" is a collection of universes in their totality, with all cosmic strings attached. The categorization of "real" is distinct from "simulated" and "never came up." Anything that is not real is simulated. I am unable to give examples of things that are neither real nor unreal, because as soon as I think of them, they have to be re-categorized.