Reality is not real

Let's start with a good one.

It's in the word, right? "Real" is a part of "reality". It should be as simple as that. But it's not.

Here's question. If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one (animals, people, cognizant life, recording devices, etc.) around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The obvious answer is: Yes, what the fuck kinda stupid question is that? Something hits something and it makes a sound. What the fuck doesn't?

Okay, so put aside the snark and let me ask this then: How do you know? Can you confirm it? Are you one hundred percent sure that it made a sound? How would you even find out if there was nothing there to confirm it?

In fact, this is a philosophical question that has been asked for a long time and the answer is: You can't be sure. Because of the fact that when you look at the obvious answer, you are operating on the assumption that the rules of the world are consistent. But what if they aren't? What if the reality we perceive is not the truth of the reality that exists.

For example, our senses are certainly not a perfect representation of what reality is.

Our eyes can perceive only three colors: red, green, and blue. The multitude of colors that we can see are derived from those three. Dogs have different color sensing cells in their eyes so they see colors differently. Whereas a mantis shrimp has a dozen different color sending cells in their's. So they see things really differently. So who the fuck sees the real reality? May be no one.

Perhaps, the best and simplest place to start to explain is with a movie that everyone has seen, and if you haven't you should: The Matrix. Spoiler alert for those of you who haven't seen it. The Matrix is of the latest reiterations of one of the oldest philosophical mysteries of all time. The problem of the mind and the body and their relationship. I won't get into it too much since that's an entire topic in of itself but I bring it up because The Matrix provides a very profound simplistic take on the nature of reality. Namely, that what we perceive to be real, really isn't.

At the beginning of the movie, Neo finds himself living a simulated life as a Mr. Anderson. He finds things being just slightly off but isn't quite sure what. It's only when he takes the red pill offered by Morpheus, named after the god of sleep and dreams, that he is able to wake up from the Matrix and see the false reality for what it is. And the movie provides a great explanation for how easy it is to actually fool or senses. After all, everything that we perceive is comprised of electrical signals in our brain, sent from our eyes, nose, skins, muscles, etc. So theoretically, if you are familiar enough with which part of your brain handles which senses, it's entirely possible to stimulate those parts of the brain in just the right manner and cause us to hallucinate. Take that thought just a bit further and you can see the Matrix as being an entirely possible thing.

So is it possible then that we ourselves are in some sort of Matrix? Well, you can't really answer that question until, like Neo, you step out of the Matrix. How the hell do you do that? Who the fuck knows.

But this is only one possibility of how our perception of reality is not necessarily real. There's a lot more.

Another possibility is that you, as an individual, are simply having a dream and your entire life as you know it will disappear and fade away once you wake up. Yes, I know that it's a TV trope but that only shows how prevalent the idea is in the collective consciousness. And it's been around for a while now.

Back in the old old days, there was a famous Chinese philosopher that once had a very very vivid dream. I'm sure that everyone has had those sort of dreams where it seems so real that you swear that it was real even after you wake up. Well, this philosopher named Chuang Tsu woke up from this dream where he was a butterfly and asked himself a question: "Was I a man that dreamt himself a butterfly or am I a butterfly that dreams himself a man?" How the hell do you answer that question?

In fact, this sort of thought is still something that happens nowadays. There are plenty of cases where people have woken up from comas and experienced depression because they lived an entire life in that coma and lost it all when they found out that it wasn't real. To them, they've lost parents, family, spouses, friends, and children. I'm sure that all of you have experienced something similar where you have a dream where something happened and after you wake up, you're still feeling pissed off or sad because of it. I know that I have.

So then, this begs the question of whether or not the life you are living now is all a dream.

Maybe or maybe not. But let's move on to another possibility.

There's another line of thought that posits that we are all in fact computer simulations of life that were never alive in the first place. This is a more interesting one in that if you believe that it's possible then you'd believe that there's a 99.999999... percent chance that it's true.

Let's start with an assumption, as all of these things do, that given enough time our computer technology will be advanced enough to completely and one hundred percent accurately simulate all the laws of physics and reality a la The Matrix. If you take a look at the progress that we've been making in the videogame department, that seems entirely possible. So sometime in the next several decades or centuries, we may reach the point that we can create an entire universe in a computer simulation down to the smallest subatomic particle. If that happens, it's entirely possible then that artificial intelligent life will arise in the simulation, or that we might create them ourselves.

If the computer simulation with life in it is entirely accurate then it's possible that the living AI in the simulation will then develop its own technology to the point where it can create its own simulation of the universe that will then develop its own life which can then develop its own computer simulation. And then this goes on and on and on ad infinitum.

I think there was a Rick and Morty episode on this very topic but I don't think they did much to explore the nature of reality.

Now add to this train of though one more assumption: that there is only one real reality. If this is true, which is a big if, what are the chances that we exist in one of the infinite number if simulated realities versus being in the one true reality? That's right, there's a 99.99999... percent chance that we are a computer simulation.

Scary thought, right? But all of these theories are based on assumptions. If one of these assumptions is proven to be false somehow or someway, then the theory would go kaput.

Besides, there's no real reason to think to much about them as they certainly have no bearing on everyday life. Nonetheless they are still interesting thoughts that are fun.

Intro: the why and the how

So the question that everyone inevitably asks when something happens is "why?". It's not an unexpected question nor is it unreasonable. It's simply a part of human nature to seek out explanations and to make patterns out of the world around us and of ourselves as well. It's the reason we do a lot of stuff. Like the names we come up with for things, why we analyse dreams, make up with categories, do science, and even believe in things like religion, spirituality, magic, and so on. In fact, it's one of the defining characteristics that make us human. I read somewhere (see disclaimer at the bottom) that despite teaching apes sign language so that they can communicate with us, there's one thing that they never used it for: asking a question. Apparently, they never considered that we might know something that they don't. Which is an interesting thought if it's true. Is this propensity to wonder why then the one thing that separates us from animals? Some number of years ago, they (again see disclaimer) said that what made us human was the ability to use tools. Apparently, that turned out to be a bunch of bullshit. Just take a look at all the videos of birds, apes, and various other animals that use tools of some sort. And since that didn't make us human, we have been asking that question since... and probably some indeterminate amount of time even before then. But I digress.

To answer the question of why I'm even writing this in the first place... It's quite simple. I want to. That probably doesn't satiate your curiosity though. So to elaborate, I think a lot. Probably too much as you can see by that paragraph you just read. And I want to write it down. Having to keep these things in my head is somewhat annoying and just talking about it can't satisfy my need to introspect. So writing it down allows me to stop thinking about it so much and lets me criticism myself. How fun!

The other question then is how I came to decide to write a blog on it, which, now that I think about it, is just a roundabout way of asking why. Whatever. The reason for this is because I'm cheap. I'd rather not spend money if I don't have to. Just having to register an easy-to-remember web address had cost me more than I'd have liked. I had initially thought to actually create a website to go along with it but apparently that'd have cost even more. So this is my compromise. Now this reasoning only applies to the initial format of this thing, whatever it is, in its blog form. In the future, who knows what I might do with this. And then I'll have a different reason for it at which point I may or may not update this part. Who knows. I certainly can't predict the future.

As for some other things to keep in mind, you will, or may already have, noticed that my grammar is off or that what I write doesn't make a lot of sense. As I've hinted at before, I'm writing this to myself and I am writing it as if I were speaking to myself. Now whether or not the voice doing the speaking is or is not myself or who I think myself to be is a whole nother question. I don't want to get too much into that. Maybe later though.

The name. Why did I come up with that. As with any idea, this was not the initial iteration. I wanted it be unique and original and interesting and easily remembered and a lot of other things. Some of those did not pan out. The original and unique part being a few. If you search/Google/Bing/duckduckgo "house of thoughts", there's a lot of them. There's even a blog already with that name, though it's empty as I write this. So I resolved that issue by adding "a" in front of that. As for the "house of thoughts" part, my explanation for that only came about after I named it. I justified it after the fact because it sounds cool. This blog/whatever is a collection of ideas that generally has little practical use in everyday life. But thinking about some of them too much can actually be troubling, resulting in things such as depression, anxiety, existential dread, nihilism, or possibly unfettered curiosity that might lead to inappropriate and useless life choices. So compartmentalizing these ideas in a mental "house" where you can lock it up and have the choice of entering it or not, can be helpful in dealing with their implications. Sometimes the best way to not stress out about something is not to think about it. 

Now that's out of the way, it's time for the disclaimer.

Disclaimer:

What I write in here are my thoughts and opinions only. Even when I quote other people or experts, they are quotes of what I remember and how I interpret them to be. DON'T TAKE IT FOR GOSPEL. I cannot stress that enough. I am not an expert in any of this. Which is to say that I am making much of this up as I go along. In fact, I might be completely wrong about a lot of this stuff. If anyone wants to know more, look this up and do your own research and make up your mind. This is also part of the reason I'm not bothering to introduce myself. My history and identity do not matter and should not have any influence on what I write in here. If the only reason that you think about the ideas that I'm writing about is that I have a degree or certification or license or whatever, then you're doing it wrong. You should be considering the thoughts and ideas herein on their own merits. The other reason being that I don't like to talk about myself. I know that that's not exactly a satisfactory answer but I'm not budging on that. That's also a part of having good boundaries. If you're still not satisfied and it's annoying you, now's a good time to practice a skill that'll help you with all the weird things I'll write about: don't think about it.

You will notice that you cannot comment on here. The reason being that some of these ideas are confusing, distressing, and controversial. And I don't care to get into arguments about them. Again, if you have questions about them, do your own research and make up your own mind. I'm not here to tell you how to think. I can barely figure out how I should think.

Also, please note that this is always a work in progress. I will constantly update each and every idea as more things come to me, including this intro and disclaimer.

Now that that's out of the way, let's have some fun.