And Reality, what is that at all?

Review of the book Reality: A Very Short Introduction by Jan Westerhoff, O.U.P., 2011.

I remember an old colleague once remarking that the Christian Brothers, who ran the schools we taught in, did not live in the real world.  That comment got me thinking.  Even 30 years ago I was interested in philosophy and questioned this very biased remark in my own mind. Everyone's life is equally real whether they are married, single, young, old or whatever.  It simply is not good enough - it's sheer bad logic for a start - to say X's life is more real than Y's.  Then when you come to think of it, what is reality anyway?  This is a big philosophical question, and indeed one worth asking and exploring.  This is a central question in that branch of philosophy called metaphysics.

The author Jan Christoph Westerhoff is erudite, to say the least, and can boast of two Ph.D.s.  His home page is here and he teaches at the University of Durham.  Like any good philosopher Westerhoff begins by asking questions. How do we know what is real?  How do we separate waking reality from dream reality?  How can we tell the difference?  In chapter one he treats of what's called "false awakenings" where the dreamer awakes only to find he is still in a dream.  Here, we can recall quite helpfully the Leonardo DiCaprio film Inception which deals with four or five levels within the dream world.  I point to this film for the questions it raises as well as its entertainment value.

My personal copy of the book reviewed

Westerhoff bombards our minds with questions.  He talks of running possible computer simulations of what could have happened if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not taken that fatal wrong turn on 28 June 1914.  If this field of science allowed it (my words) we could "run a large computer simulation of everything that happened on earth between 1875 and 1945, change one small detail in the actual course of events" and see what would ensue.  (See p. 22)  However, this is highly speculative, to say the least.  He might answer that all we should do is follow his thought experiment! How one might programme all the possible information that exists seems quite remote to this reader.  Yet the question is interesting.  

I found Chapter 2 way more rivetting than the first chapter as he presents the reader with five possible takes on reality which appealed to me: (i) The Matrix Definition of Reality: Real is anything that appears to us, that is through our senses, (ii) 1984 Definition (i.e., Orwellian definition) - real is what happens to most people, (iii) Dr. Johnstone's Definition (where he kicked the rock and declared after howling in pain - that's real and there can be no doubt about it!) - Real is what we don't make up. (iv) Apocalytic Definition: the understanding of what is Real as what is left in the world when every conscious human has been removed from it - "a world untouched by human minds" (p. 33) and (v) the Turtle Definition of Reality: the Real is where the book stops, - where the metaphysical book stops, the fundamental foundation on what all stands.

He then quotes the great philosopher-Archbishop of Dublin George Berkeley (1685-1753).  Berkeley underlined the fact that we never make any direct contact with matter, that is we only know of matter through our senses.  The orange only exists because I can feel, see and smell it.  My perceptions, or my perceptual apparatus merely communicate this fact to me.  He maintains, according to Westerhoff that "we can never step outside our own mind to check whether it (the object of our senses), is independent of all perceptions."  When I was at college, in the late 1970s we learned this as "esse est percipi," that is, that to be is to be perceived.  In this world of subjective idealism, nothing can exist unless there is a mind to perceive it.  Think about this, if there is absolutely no conscious mind anywhere in the universe, can we say then that the universe exists, after all, there is no one around to say that it exists.  Hence Berkeley could say yes the universe exists because God himself is aware of it.

Another question Westerhoff asks in this chapter is what is the fundamental thing or basic thing in the universe?  In striving to answer this question through the use of the philosophy of quantum physics he finds himself in a circular argument: "But this means that nothing is fundamental, in the same way as there is no first and no last stop on London's Circle Line." (p. 54)  He also gives us an interesting quotation from physicist Neils Bohr which somehow corroborates this circularity and loop nature of fundamental reality: "There is no quantum world.  There is only a quantum physical description."  (Quoted p. 55)  How alarmingly close this is to Berkeley's "esse est percipe!"

Another interesting chapter is "Are persons real?"  Indeed, in an age where self-help books have exploded exponentially in the publishing world, this is an interesting question to ask.  Most people think they are real, unless of course he or she is delusional or suffering from some major psychiatric illness.  Yet, when one really thinks about it there are many questions worth asking here, too.  Which mask or role is the real me?  Is there just one self or many?  Is anyone self more real than another?  What is identity?  Is there such a thing as the Self in pristine unity?  Is there a soul?  How is the body connected to the soul?  Is Cartesian dualism patently wrong?  What is real about me?  These are all big questions.

Where do the Real and the Imaginary worlds intersect?

Psychiatry tells us that schizophrenics do not know where the real world ends and the imaginary one starts.  There simply are no demarcation points between the two when they are delusional. I am taking the real here to mean the socially and culturally accepted world - with all its objects, people, events and, of course, its accepted moral conclusions and principles - as it appears to most people.  What is worrying for us in the twenty-first century, I believe, is a breakdown between the real world and the imaginary one in the minds of certain sensitive and disturbed individuals like James Holmes who seemed to think he was The Joker, an illusion or delusion which allowed him to murder 12 people and seriously wound many others just several months ago.

Working as a teacher I often feel that obsessions of young students with gaming can be harmful, with the emphasis on "can", given certain circumstances.  The parents of one of our autistic students had to be called into school recently as he told his Special Needs Assistant several times that he was going to take out all the people whom he dislikes at the end of the school year.  This same student has an obsession with weapons and violence, mostly due to his addiction to and obsession with violent computer games.  Luckily in Ireland, guns cannot be bought over the counter.

These are all big questions.  We must ask them and contemplate them deeply.  That's why philosophy can never be nonchalantly dismissed.