Is Reality... Real?

At 1:16, he says "the vast universe could be just a flat projection, and they would have no way to know". Wrong.

Simple parallax proves it is not a flat projection. I stopped watching after that....

I think it's an interesting idea, but one that ultimately doesn't change what reality actually is. I mean, if we assume we are in a simulation, that doesn't make our experience less "real". Clearly we have thoughts and feelings, and some sort of consciousness, and that alone makes what we experience real. An advanced computer running a reality simulation would have physical processes in the chips it's running on. These physical process themselves, for example electricity moving from place to place on the chip, would be active in the ultimate reality, so whether our thoughts are electrical firing in our heads, or on some future supercomputer, the result is the same. The computation in either case is running in the ultimate reality, even if we are, ourselves, in a simulation, or a simulation of a simulation. So what most people consider reality is still "real" just maybe not in the way they assume but real nonetheless.

Your thought processes are less tangible than the ether, but can be manifest by affecting reality.
It's not that reality isn't real, it's your perception that fails.

I listen to V-Sauce for my philosophy.

I don't consider 'reality' to even be a meaningful term.  How do you even define what 'real' is?  Perhaps it's just your current conscious experience.  For example when you are dreaming (non-lucid), you are effectively removed from your waking reality and inside a different one.  Without a conscious connection to your waking reality it no longer exists for you at that moment.

When you wake up, the reality then reverts back to your previous state.  When I'm in a non-lucid I dream I have no idea or connection to my normal waking life.  At that moment it doesn't even exist in my conscious mind.

Perhaps 'death' is us waking up again to a different state of consciousness.  Who knows, when this happens we may be like 'oh crap' I had totally forgotten I was plugged into this 'earthly life' experience (an example of total immersion).

In a nutshell I would say that 'reality' is defined by the current state of the individual's consciousness.  Given that assumption, reality is not really fixed at all and can be different for different individuals.

This stuff is pretty meta and virtual reality if nothing more can get you thinking about what the definition of 'real' is.

Matrix, Dark City, Inception come to mind as films explore this topic in interesting ways.

Rob_In_Phoenix said:

In a nutshell I would say that 'reality' is defined by the current state of the individual's consciousness.  Given that assumption, reality is not really fixed at all and can be different for different individuals.

The point is, if true, that reality is real quite aside from our existance, and only the perception of what's out there can be different between people. This makes more sense to me anyway.

@Roaster - It sounds like you are describing perception as our interpretation of the environment we are in.  If so, I would agree with that.  But it only applies to the current 'world' we are conscious in.  If we shift to another state (like dreaming) perception of the other 'world' no longer applies in our new state. 

For example, when I'm dreaming, 2+2=5, I can fly, and so on.  But you can't compare perceptions across states.  A person while dreaming about flying, says to themselves I can fly as a natural unaided ability anytime I want.  A person who is awake says to themselves 'nope, can't that do that here'.  Which one is right?  I would say that both are.

Comparison of perception must be made within the same conscious state like 2 people who are standing next to each other awake on Earth.  One says 'gravity doesn't effect my body', the other says 'yes it does'.  The one who thinks they are immune to gravity is wrong, the other is right.  I think that's what you're saying though.