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Well golly sergeant! (Sorry Gomer Pyle flashback.) How’s that for some serious alliteration in a post title? Now, stop asking yourself if I’m going to say Shazam! and let’s get back to this most interesting dichotomous (yes - I did look that up and I do believe it’s a valid word, and no it’s not a kind of dinosaur) quandary.

Follow up:

One definition I found summarizes reality as "all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you". Now that’s kind of interesting don’t you think? Your experiences and how those experience shape your perception of the world around you - that’s reality. Reality as defined by Wikipedia "in everyday usage, means ‘the state of things as they actually exist’." Well, the way things actually exist is also based on the perception of the observer is it not? Is my actuality the same as yours? Given that we have had different experiences, I’d guess that our perceptions might be different in many various ways.

What I’m getting here is that reality is really totally subjective to the individual. There is no "normal" reality. No "real" reality. Regardless of whether you are the only person in the world who sees something in a particular way, your reality is the real one. How can anyone have an altered perception of reality if reality is all perception in the first place? I’m getting a little confused…

I do so love one definition I found on Fusion Anomaly where reality is a "shared hallucination". Oh, that’s the most beautiful definition! That is just beyond poetic as far as I’m concerned. Take a look at it this way. To be real something must be tangible yes? We must be able to see it, touch it, smell it - at the very least we must be able to prove it in some way. So anything we can’t see or prove must not be real then right? Now somehow I don’t think that’s gonna float with most people. So let’s see, there are some things that are real that we can’t really prove. Seems to me that’s the same thing doctors try to convince us is some type of illness, when we believe things we can’t see are real? Um, so when the masses have the same belief (dare I say hallucination) then it’s ok? Perhaps reality is only the sum of shared commonality? I’m beginning to think reality is only real some of the time - but what is it the rest of the time?

In the theory of Alternate Universes for every choice you make, there is a parallel universe in which you made a different choice and thus end up with a different reality. Now I realize this may be getting a bit off track. I mean really, who could believe that you actually exist in multiple universes, and in each of these different worlds there is a different you making different choice, and becoming a different person. Anyone who can imagine all that must certainly not be living in reality right? Or is one of those alternate universes actually reality and the world in which I am currently living, as a result of all the choices your alternate personally made in this universe, is not really real?

I’m pretty sure this is one of those topics I’ve managed to twist and convolute until it’s unlikely anyone can follow my mangled logic at this point. I guess what I’m really pondering…asking…is all there in the title. Is reality really real? Is there any such thing as real? As reality? Rhetorically is reality really real? I dunno - but alliteration sure is! Oh yes - if you never bothered to look around Fusion Anomaly when I posted about it once before you really must go take a look around…