V: More types of reality

Just to recap: in my last I enumerated three types of reality. For convenience, let’s call them Certain, Felt and Inferred.

Certain reality: It’s what I know for a fact, with my faculty of knowing.
Felt reality: I can go there, feel its cold wind on my face etc. Its impact upon me is more immediate than “knowing”.
Inferred reality: I construct a picture of reality from evidence, using logic and established understanding of effects produced by causes.

It’s important to add some more types, with minimum delay. Only when we have collected a full set can we get a comprehensive mapping of this composite of overlapping ideas that we generalise as Reality.

(Personal note. The more I work with Bryan, the more I feel able to rely on him to point out my errors, whether in expression or—more arguably—deep content. This liberates me to write down the ideas which pop into my head without too much worry as to how a reader from off the street might find them. When I say “the ideas pop into my head”, I mean the words come flowing unconstrained via my fingers and keyboard. The ideas themselves have lain in my head for years, sometimes stagnantly, sometimes churned up by attempts to make sense of them. But they have not till now been put into words.)

Survival reality: “This is edible, that is not.” “This creature might kill me. That one might help me.” This I guess to be the kind of reality that an animal lives in pretty much all the time. In the lower animal, the instinct is built-in from birth. In the higher species, the basic program is there but some data has to be obtained to activate it properly. With certain birds, the first thing that moves is henceforth considered to be the chick’s mother, ever after. With humans there is a propensity to learn language: what language becomes one’s mother-tongue is environmentally determined. With humans, learned behaviour so much exceeds instinct that the role of instinct is easy to overlook, for example in a discussion of the place of reason in human life.

Survival reality is what we see if the survival centre of our brain has gone on alert. It’s a filtered version of reality, simplified on a “need-to-know” and often time-critical basis. The young of many species including man use play, especially fighting games, to exercise and populate with data the instinct for operating in survival-reality mode.

To summarise, survival reality is the subset of reality we see when we are in survival mode. In survival mode, we are not just driven by instinct and analogous experience. We can use all the rationality we have at our disposal too. But we may not use it too well. The champion golfers, tennis-players and ruthless dictators are those whose use of reason is not diminished by the deadliness of their plight. Enough! This is about types of reality, not modes of being. But of course they are connected.

Lastly, (but I don’t suppose finally), there is what I shall provisionally call—

Existential reality. This is reality based on the sense of self. What I see as reality is biased in favour of the person I perceive myself to be. If I call myself a Democrat, I’ll see one reality: if a Republican, another. There are all sorts of other antinomies to be considered: homeopath/allopath; atheist/Christian; pro-life/pro-choice, and so on. The moment I say to myself “This is what I am”, I have taken sides, and my world of reality will be filtered accordingly.

But self-declaration is only the visible tip of this great iceberg of difference, that generates as many worlds as there are observers. What I consider myself to be is more often left unsaid. Even in my private thoughts I may not say it: especially in areas where my self-image is negative. If I feel unloved, the world is a hostile place. So when I do feel loved, my world changes in an instant. It’s hard to find someone who will love me, especially if I am unable to love myself. So thank God for Jesus! When I’m convinced (I mean I know) that Jesus loves me, the world changes. That the world changes before my very eyes is proof that the love I receive is real; and therefore proof that Jesus is alive. (I don’t speak personally in this matter, only sympathetically.)

There is a connection between survival reality and existential reality, as if they are ends of the same spectrum. The first seeks survival in a dangerous world. The second seeks well-being.

Having reached this far, you might argue that reality is not at all how I’m depicting it. You might say that reality is not altered by my perception. It goes on being what it is. That is what makes it reality. You might even say that I have betrayed my own argument, by talking of filters; because surely, on the other side of the filter, lies raw, unfiltered reality—the very thing which you call Reality, pure and simple. All the rest you may say, is merely perception, which is obviously imperfect. If you say this you are in noble company; for this is precisely what Plato said.

I shall agree with you, for agreement is always more agreeable than dispute. But I shall point our that the pure and simple unfiltered reality is not directly knowable, because you and I (and all the others) all have our own filters firmly in place. They change but they can never be removed. The only kind of reality the other side of the filters, therefore, is Inferred reality. Not everyone makes the same inferences, nor do they use the same evidence or the same rules for the effects produced by causes. So, much as Science depends on inferred reality for both its inputs and outputs, it has to rely on consensus.

Which is part of my argument for there not being one absolute Truth.

And, as has often been said, by those on various sides of the argument: God, if He exists, is unknowable, dwelling in that unreachable place where, no doubt, absolute Truth, absolute Reality, perfect Reason, and all kinds of imagined perfections, also dwell. This doesn’t prevent hopeful vendors from promising to sell you the key.