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Does objective reality exist?
Tuesday, 16 May 2006
From Scientologists, to The Matrix, to a recent post by Steve Pavlina there are a lot of people out there who seem to be claiming that objective reality doesn’t exist. Or at least, that it only exists in the way you choose it to.
This is a seductive theory, but it's also nonsense. Here’s why:
What is objective reality?
For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to define objective reality in the terms that most people understand it. That is, that there's an underlying reality which exists independently of our perceptions and thoughts.
There is a physical world out there with rules that limit what we can and can’t do. An example of such reality is the Earth’s gravity. As long as we are on the Earth’s surface, its gravity will keep us here unless we consume some form of energy to overcome that gravitational pull.
We experience this reality through our five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch and taste.
I’m going to expand this definition to say there are also other people and animals who share this reality with us. Our perceptions of what’s going on can differ, but using the scientific method, we can find common ground on what’s real and what’s not. Of course, some phenomena remain unexplained, but we can at least use science to agree that they exist.
If something exists in objective reality, we should be able to prove it to others using science. This is the best way of establishing what the characteristics of the reality we share are.
On the other side of the coin, we should not insist that something exists simply because it hasn't be disproved. The burden of proof lies with those who support a particular theory, not those who are sceptical about it. Humanity doesn't have the resources to disprove every crackpot idea that gets thrown out there, so this is the only sensible was of understanding the universe.
For example: if I say Elvis's ghost is living on Pluto, President Bush is the reincarnation of Julius Caesar, and there's an alien spacecraft buried 50 miles below Manhattan, it's going to be very difficult for you to prove me wrong. This is not, however, grounds for my insisting I'm right until such disproof is offered.
But what if it’s all just a trick?
There is, of course, another interesting possibility. Since we're relying on our senses to establish the truth of objective reality – it’s possible that our senses are being deceived. Perhaps, like in The Matrix, it’s all just a big computer simulation.
Steve Pavlina sums up this point of view in his post: “In an objective universe, consciousness is made secondary, so you must take a huge leap of faith that something actually exists outside your conscious experience, even though you can’t prove it. No one can actually prove that objective reality exists — it’s an unprovable assumption".
This is absolutely correct, but it’s a pointless statement as it demands disproof. It's easy to get some evidence that reality exists outside yourself - just poke your skin with a pin. It's more difficult to prove the reality you experience is a fantasy. Once again, to demand that a theory requires disproving is to get things backwards.
Perhaps reality isn’t exactly how we believe it to be, but that's always been the case and will continue to be in the future. Prehistoric people had no understanding of galaxies, germs, or atoms, but that didn’t make those phenomena any less real. Their ignorance of these basic truths cost them dearly in hunger, poverty and disease. Science has since enlightened us, and allowed us to use its understanding to improve reality for ourselves.
This improvement came by using sound practices for establishing what was true, not fantasizing about what would be “nice” to be true. Advancement has come through finding what the laws of reality are, not by trying to wish those laws away.
The world of The Matrix takes the same situation and puts a twist on it. An objective reality did exist, but it wasn’t the one Neo thought it was. When he freed himself from The Matrix, he still lived in an objective reality, just a different one to the one he'd experienced previously.
His understanding of what reality was and his power over it increased, but he was still restricted by its rules. The world of the Matrix become a kind of computer-game for him, but outside it, he continued to live in a world that existed independently of his thoughts and perceptions.
If the truth of the Matrix had never been revealed to him, then it would have been irrelevant to his everyday existence. He would have lived life within the rules of the computer simulation. Ignoring those rules would have had serious consequences. He would have felt pain, hunger and sadness. The fact those feelings were the result of simulations would have had little effect upon his experience of them. They would have felt real, so for all intents and purposes they were.
The revelation that things were different than what he’d believed was dramatic, but they followed a similar path to Einstein’s revelations about the nature of the universe. Reality didn’t change, but our perception of it did. Things that we’d previously found confusing became more clear.
Einstein's theories have been proven by experiment to be true, however. The world of The Matrix has not.
If reality is some sort of trick on our senses, then this is irrelevant unless we can overcome that trick. If gravity only exists because some computer tells me it does, that doesn’t change the fact that falling down a flight of stairs is likely to cause me a lot of pain. Pain is a very unpleasant experience and I wish to avoid it, whether it’s simulated or not!
A brilliant scientist being able to show us that there is a fake world between ourselves and our perceptions would obviously change everything. But until that occurs, we have to deal with reality as we currently understand it. And the best way to do that is establishing its rules using science.
The idea that our experiences are fed to us by a computer simulation is an interesting thought experiment, but there is not one shred of evidence to support it. It belongs with beliefs in unicorns, the Loch Ness monster, astrology, and Valhalla. It's a compelling theory without any evidence to back it up.
Its practical uses as a method for understanding the world are virtually nil - that is, unless you're trying to make a hit movie.
But what if reality doesn’t exist at all?
Which moves us on to the next possibility which Steve hints at in his post – that reality doesn’t exist at all. Or at least it only exists inside our consciousness. We choose to create what appears. Scientology, from what I can gather, contains similar ideas.
Well, maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. But only one person can have free-will in such a universe. If you have absolute power to create the reality around you, it follows that nobody else can have any control at all. Otherwise that person's actions become an external reality which limits your power.
If nobody and nothing exists but himself and his wishes, Steve is making very curious use of his time. If reality was mine for the creating, I wouldn’t be typing up blog posts to make AdSense revenue from. I’d be recreating the Garden of Eden and teleporting myself to other galaxies and stuff like that.
If none of us exist with free-will, Steve, why are you bothering to write articles for us to read?
If the argument is that certain things exist in reality and certain things are in our minds, then you’ll get no argument from me. This is obvious. The world of Star Wars exists in our minds, but gravity exists in reality.
You can blog on all day about how "limiting beliefs are holding you back". But if I believe my body has the ability to fly unassisted and I jump from a 50-storey building to prove it, I'm going to find out the limits of my beliefs when I reach street level.
A bit extra on the possibility of psychic phenomena
Steve goes on to say that psychic phenomena exist. He gets around the complete lack of verifiable evidence for such occurrences by insisting this reality can only be bought out if you’re surrounded by other believers.
“Here’s the interesting thing though… I never had such experiences with people who didn’t believe they were possible,” he says.
Fair enough.
But couldn’t a group of LSD users sharing a hallucination say the same thing? A bunch of people tripping-out and claiming to all see the same little green man isn’t convincing proof of the existence of little green men.
Just as Steve insists “You can’t see it if you don’t believe in it”, the LSD users could say “You can’t see it if you don’t pop a tab, man”.
I'm going to state the obvious again. In order for us to agree something exists, we must prove it does using established scientific methods. If you are unable to do so, then what you’ve got is a worthless theory. If we use the criteria of “you can’t see it if you don't believe in it” for establishing what’s real, we can just make up any old stuff and claim it’s true.
I’m also a little concerned that Steve keeps insisting that if I view something as impossible, no amount of proof will ever convince me otherwise. This is news to me!
Any casual glance at the history of human understanding seriously challenges this notion. In 1900, for example, large numbers of people thought airplanes were impossible. Ten years later, most had changed their minds based on the evidence supplied.
This is not meant as an attack on the integrity or intelligence of Steve, Scientology, or those who choose to believe in the world of The Matrix. Instead, I invite them to deal with the concerns I’ve outlined above.
For my readers, my advice is to ignore the “there is no objective reality” crowd until they're able to provide evidence that their assertion is true. For all intents and purposes, there is an objective reality that you must live in and deal with. If you want to test this, try putting your hand on a hot stove (just kidding, no lawsuits please).
If you’re determined to push back limits of this reality through experiment, all well and good. Just remember to come back and provide convincing proof to the rest of us if your experiment is successful.
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