What is Real?

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Generally, what we all can verify, what we all can observe and agree on, is considered real. Personally I think this definition is too narrow. There are levels of "real" that must be considered. The requirements for an emotion to be real, for instance, are not the same as the requirements for a stone to be real.

Emotions can't be considered as being real until they are physically expressed.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

The key phrases 'functional context' and 'acquired through socialization' really nail it for me. As you say, a chair only has reality through it's functional context.
Does that mean that ideas of 'absolute reality' are merely generalizations of very specific experiences which we superimpose on our surroundings?

Ideas have no substance until they are acted on, produce something tangible, something real.

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@Rickoshay75,

Rick, don't you mean physically "felt"? I think that we "feel" our lives more than we think them, and that such feelings are often very subtle and complex to the point of being indescribable, but some are obvious and to them we give names (e.g., anger, sadness, happiness, fear) . We call these culturally defined categories "emotions". Otherwise we refer to sensations which are sometimes difficult to identify. For me anger tends to be reduced to sensations like a burning in the nose along with other sensations like a tensing of the muscles.

1 Reply

@mars90000000,

mars90000000 wrote:

Perhaps it would be easier to define what "real" is if we can define what "un-real" is?

So, what is "not real", by which, the rest is real? And is there something that is not real nor un-real?

Spirits, fantasies, beliefs, ghosts, miracles, un-natural...

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Rick, don't you mean physically "felt"? I think that we "feel" our lives more than we think them, and that such feelings are often very subtle and complex to the point of being indescribable, but some are obvious and to them we give names (e.g., anger, sadness, happiness, fear) .

Feeling anger, sadness, and fear are reactions to certain situations, sometimes the reaction is physical, sometimes not. Happiness, OTOH, is a state of mind, not a reaction.

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@Rickoshay75,

Is it a matter of location? Where are feelings when felt? Or better yet (alluding to another topic entirely) where or what is our sense of reality?

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@Rickoshay75,

Quote:

Emotions can't be considered as being real until they are physically expressed.

So if you are feeling sad, it isn't real until you tell someone or do something that reveals your emotional state to the rest of the world?

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

I would say that emotions (and feelings) are not real until, and unless, they have been psychologically felt (is "felt" what you mean by expressed?).
Emotions are culturally identified , or labelled "feelings". To that extent they are public in nature, but insofar as they are phenomena they are subjective in nature.

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@JLNobody,

Would the word embody be a good substitute for psychological?

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@Procrustes,

My problem with that is its suggestion that feelings are ghost-like entities that require "embodiment" to become emotions. Reminds me of a startrek episode in which highly evolved bodiless mind-only creatures seek to take over the bodies of humans in order to have emotional lives.

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in this " feeling " discussion here on this thread

there are people that are far more sensitive to our world , than the rest of us

shall we go there to prove what is real ?

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@Procrustes,

Procrustes wrote:

Is it a matter of location? Where are feelings when felt?

In our guts -- some gut want feelings can cause physical pain, ulcers, and sometimes even back or leg pains.

One time when I desperately wanted my football team to win, my back pain got so intense I suddenly stopped caring, and never sweated close games again -- just keep track of the final scores.

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@JLNobody,

I don't think it suggests that at all. I think emotions and feelings have synergy with physiological systems as well as environmental contexts. This notion of 'ghost-like entities' that require embodiment sounds fanciful just like your example of that startrek episode. All I was trying to reduce it it to was a sort of phyiscalism, to deal with it in terms that doesn't require numinous or meta speculation.

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@Rickoshay75,

I haven't read up on much on this topic but I'm sure our gut's isn't the only place our bodies respond to when we have feelings or emotions. I know I break out in pimples when I feel stressed out about something. When I'm happy, I feel I have heaps of energy. When I eat too much junk food, I feel like **** the next day etc...

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How about what Philip K. Dick thinks when he says "reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"?

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Or what about "We think, therefore, we are".

Is the fact that we think this is the reality, sufficient for it to actually be the reality?

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@mars90000000,

What is "real"? How do you define "real"? >>

Real is what you can hear, touch, taste, see, smell, and pain.

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How do you define real?

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@Rickoshay75,

Rickoshay75 wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Generally, what we all can verify, what we all can observe and agree on, is considered real. Personally I think this definition is too narrow. There are levels of "real" that must be considered. The requirements for an emotion to be real, for instance, are not the same as the requirements for a stone to be real.

Emotions can't be considered as being real until they are physically expressed.

Why?

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@Razzleg,

For me the "real" is unproblematical. Delusion or the "unreal", on the other hand, IS more of a problem. What is THAT? I've said before that everything is real--even a mirage is a real mirage--but some things mislead us; delusions and illusions are tricky and sometimes injurious for that reason. But why?

1 Reply

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