• Cidat
    128
    I would define it as "That which is right now, irregardless of belief, attitude or consideration."

    Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?
  • Manuel
    3.9k
    It's a problematic word as it is honorific in English. Like you can say there is the real deal or the real truth or even the real news.

    This doesn't mean there are two different kinds of deals, truths or news. We are emphasizing something in these cases.

    Would you want to exclude fictional entities from reality? Why? Fictional entities play an important role for people all over the world, so they have a kind of reality to them. Also, nature is colourless, odorless and so forth. These aspects are things we add to the stuff of nature. Yet we would not want to say that a flower is a colourless, odorless thing. So, things quickly become insurmountable.

    Given these considerations, I don't think you can give a definition of "reality". All you can do is to say which aspects of reality are those which you are interested in clarifying.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    "Natura naturans ... is reality." ~Benny Spinoza
    Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?Cidat
    "Possible"? Yeah, there isn't a contradiction entailed in doing so, as I think my own (perhaps insufficiently rigorous) attempts show:
    The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)).

    Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)]. 
    180 Proof
    The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it, and is as unavoidable as it consists in whatever preceeds-resists-exceeds all (of our) rational categories and techniques of control (e.g. ambiguity, transfinitude, contingency, uncertainty, randomness). The real encompasses reason (Jaspers) and itself cannot be encompassed (Spinoza / Cantor) ... like that 'void within which all atoms swirl' (Epicurus).180 Proof
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it, and is as unavoidable as it consists in whatever preceeds-resists-exceeds all (of our) rational categories and techniques of control (e.g. ambiguity, transfinitude, contingency, uncertainty, randomness). The real encompasses reason (Jaspers) and itself cannot be encompassed (Spinoza / Cantor) ... like that 'void within which all atoms swirl' (Epicurus).180 Proof

    Awesome.
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?Cidat

    I think reality is circumstance. I think reality is nature. It brings to mind an Emerson quote, emphasis added:

    "Here we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."

    I once stood on a chair-shaped rock, high on a peak where a friend died in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. I looked out over what he looked out over as he died, and Emerson is all that came to mind.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    "Here we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."

    I once stood on a chair shaped rock where a friend died in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. I looked out over what he looked out as he died and Emerson is all that came to mind.
    James Riley
    :fire:
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Reality? "The world in which we occur."
  • Richard B
    365
    So, we give a “rigorous” definition of reality. Some things are excluded and some things included to our liking. I suppose someone can come along and say “but wait you don't want to exclude this or include that”. So, we modified the definition again. This can go on until when? Until we reach 100% agreement or enough agreement until we can call a small minority ,who disagrees, crazy.

    What started out for the search for truth looks more like search for consensus and exclusion.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty.Tom Storm
    Ineluctability.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    That which I simply cannot be bothered to change.
  • Yohan
    679
    Non-answer: Non-being. Chaos. The void.
    The non/pre-conceptual answer: Being-ness
    Idealist answer: Awareness and its ideas.
    Materialist answer: That which can be observed and measured with the five senses
    Pragmatic answer: Whatever has consequences
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?Cidat
    You don't try to define reality. You prove or justify it. That's why philosophy is well equipped when it comes to this topic.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    You just did it yourself. It is silly to define what you mean then ask for a definition of what you mean.

    ALL terms are context dependent. There is no ‘universal’ meaning that isn’t subject to differing interpretations due to differing subjective and contextual items.

    I recommend putting a bit more thought into your OP’s or just reply to other threads instead for the time being.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    There is no ‘universal’ meaning that isn’t subject to differing interpretations due to differing subjective and contextual items.I like sushi

    Ah, but now did you not just do the same? 'There is' harkens to the name of the biblical God of the Old Testament 'I Am', ala absolute facts even if stating that facts themselves are relative ie. subjectivity. You seem to know reality, at least more so than the next guy. How is that?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it180 Proof

    Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. — Philip K. Dick

    In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept. You can complain of course, that's what morality boils down to, but don't expect reality to do anything about it.

    However, nothing about reality seems logically necessary, that is to say, we maybe able to make some alterations, give it a makeover and that's exactly what humans have been doing ever since we could imagine and thereby conceive of, let's just say, a better deal in life.
  • Banno
    23.1k

    Reality is what is the case.

    Some may quibble as to the details.
  • Merkwurdichliebe
    2.6k
    Some may quibble as to the details.Banno

    "Some may"? More like "most will"
  • Caldwell
    1.3k
    In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept.TheMadFool
    Yes.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Ah, but now did you not just do the same?Outlander

    Whatever you wish. Not interested thanks.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Reality (ground) =/= the real (horizon).
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Reality (ground) =/= the real (horizon).180 Proof

    Explain...please.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Caveat: When you quote me, try not to conflate "reality" with "the real" because that is not how I use the terms. Of course, use them as you wish, Fool, and take issue with how I distinguish them from one another when you must, but don't just ignore (deliberately or not) my conceptual distinctions in your replies or else we can only talk past one another. NB: Terms are explained (sketched) beginning with the following post –
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/601278 – chew on that (with further links provided).
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)).

    Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)].
    180 Proof

    I'll work on that. Looks too complicated but I'll give it my best shot. Thanks.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    As Spinoza does, think geometrically
    (re: 'ground & horizon' ... encompassed & encompassing, respectively.)
  • Yohan
    679

    You differentiate between the real, and reality. Does this mean reality is unreal?
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    You differentiate between the real, and reality. Does this mean reality is unreal?Yohan
    No. Only fictions (or mere possibilities) are "unreal". Reality – this or that reality (i.e. configuration of facts) – is contingent: necessarily change-able (or non-necessary, in the sense that it is (always at every moment) possible for 'a reality' to come-to-be or continue-to-be or cease-to-be); and this radical, inherently necessary contingency is (my conception of) the real. (E.g. vide classical atomists (re: void), Spinoza, Jaspers, Rosset, Meillassoux-Brassier.)
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    As Spinoza does, think geometrically
    (re: 'ground & horizon' ... encompassed & encompassing, respectively.)
    180 Proof

    Copy that!
  • Yohan
    679
    The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)).180 Proof

    Per Wikipedia ""Supreme Brahman" that which is beyond all descriptions and conceptualisations. It is described as the formless (in the sense that it is devoid of Maya) that eternally pervades everything, everywhere in the universe and whatever is beyond."

    Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)].180 Proof
    Per Wikipedia: "For the Nondualists, maya is thus that cosmic force that presents the infinite brahman (the supreme being) as the finite phenomenal world. "

    Sounds like you are contrasting the Infinite with the Finite?
  • Cidat
    128
    Basically, that which you are forced to accept.
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