Michael Mitchell: Archive

Over at Hopes & Fears some "renowned" scientists (and other "experts") were asked to answer these questions: "Is this real life? How do we know that we are not hallucinating it all? What if we're plugged into a Matrix-style virtual reality simulator? Isn't the universe a giant hologram anyway? Is reality really real? What is reality?"

Representative quotes from the scientists' answers are below...

"What is our metric for determining what is real? That is probably different for each person."

"How do we know this is real life? The short answer is: we don't. We can never prove that we're not all hallucinating, or simply living in a computer simulation. But that doesn't mean that we believe that we are."

"With psychedelics or 'classical (serotonergic) hallucinogens', individuals can often distinguish between perceptual disturbances, visualized experiences (it feels as if I was in another place, or I had traveled to another time, but I realized my physical body was still 'here'), and whatever is happening 'outside' in the 'real' world. However, in psychosis (for instance, in the midst of a psychotic break in a person who has schizophrenia), hallucinations are quite clearly defined as something that an individual believes is real, persistent, and seemingly independent and autonomous in the world."

"The closest we come in science to 'real' or 'objective' is intersubjective agreement. If a large number of people agree that something is real, we can assume that it is."

"The usual notion that perception is just hallucination grounded by sensations is somewhat subverted by the fact that we can, on occasions, know that our perceptual inference is false."

--Jessica L. Nielson, Ph.D., Sean Carroll, Fredrick Barrett, George Musser, Jr., Karl Friston

These are not scientific questions and no scientific method of inquiry will ever be able to answer them. Science is the study of reality. If there is no reality, there is no science. It is impossible to use science to prove or reject reality. Reality is an axiom.

Anyone who cannot tell the difference between reality and illusion is not a scientist. Philosophically, a scientist is a person who chooses reality over fantasy or illusion, reason over faith or emotion or intuition. The ability to separate fact from fiction is a scientist's greatest quality. It's why we trust them when they say "meat causes cancer" or the universe started with a "big bang." The fact that none of these alleged scientists chose reality over illusion is embarrassing.

"Is reality really real? What is reality?"

Reality is a concept that refers to the physical world -- all of it, including illusions, hallucinations, holograms and virtual worlds. Imagine a piano is falling towards your head, do you run away from it or let it kill you? It doesn't matter. It's all in your head. That's the difference between reality and illusion. Concepts like "imagination," "fantasy" and "illusion" refer to the mental world. If a piano is really falling on your head, you will get out of the way -- unless you're suicidal, of course.

Even if you can't tell the difference between a real piano and an imaginary one, you will still get out of the way. Why? Because reality is the primary, the fundamental, and everyone is conscious of it. Dreams are dreams of reality. Illusions are illusions of reality. Fantasy is an imaginary reality. Take away the physical world and the mental world goes with it. Take away the mental world and the physical world remains. Consciousness is consciousness of reality. If you don't know the difference between reality and illusion, then you cannot be conscious of either.

You may not be aware of it when you're hallucinating or dreaming, but you know when you are not. A hallucination or dream may seem real, but reality cannot seem like a hallucination or a dream. If you really couldn't tell the difference, then the words would have no meaning. The question of whether reality is real could not even be asked, much less answered.