Reality Bites!
What I am referring to as a Thinker—with a capital T—makes a conscious effort to engage in open-minded critical thinking. The Thinker’s goal is to fill their mind with true beliefs, which raises the question of what truth is. To answer this question, we must first grapple with the concept of reality.
It is a concept I used to explore with my college students. When I told them that it’s important to stay grounded in reality, they would often respond by telling me that different people have different realities, and in particular, that their reality was different from mine. What these students were trying to say, I think, is that different people are in different circumstances, a claim that is indisputably true.
I would respond by telling them that by “reality,” I was referring not to their personal reality but to the objective reality that all people share, regardless of their circumstances. In this shared reality, some things—including stars, rocks, and trees—exist, while other things—including Bigfoot and Santa Claus—don’t exist. In this reality, the world works in a certain way: Gravity attracts objects with mass, but crystals lack “healing power.” And in this reality, some events have taken place while others haven’t: Astronauts landed on the moon, but alien beings haven’t landed on Earth.
Having made these claims, I would acknowledge the possibility that they are mistaken. It might be, in particular, that Bigfoot does exist, that crystals do have healing power, and that alien beings have landed on Earth. To determine whether this is the case, though, we will have to observe the world around us. We will have to assess the evidence available to us and draw reasonable conclusions from it.
But suppose that what I am calling reality is itself an illusion? Suppose, for example, that what we take to be the real world is a simulated reality and that we are in fact being kept in pods, like in the movie The Matrix.* Under these circumstances, there would still be a reality—namely the one just described. Of course, if that simulation is flawless, we will never be able to tell that it is a simulation. Such will be our fate. And who knows, maybe such is our fate.
Although I am willing to entertain the claims that Bigfoot exists, that crystals have healing power, and that aliens have landed on Earth, anyone making these claims had better be ready with evidence to support them, and that evidence had better be persuasive. Otherwise, our conversation is going to be short. I’ve got better things to think about!
Observing our world to determine the nature of reality will require thought and effort on our part, but our burden is lightened by reality’s inability to keep secrets. Indeed, it incessantly supplies us with clues about the world’s structure and workings. By paying attention to these clues, we can gain a better understanding of reality, which improves our ability to predict the future, which in turn allows us to shape that future. By studying and staying grounded in reality, then, we can increase our chances of flourishing in this, the one life we have to live.
So much for the nature of reality. Let’s turn our attention back to the nature of truth. Philosophers have long argued that truth is correspondence to reality, meaning that a statement is true if it describes the way the world actually is. This is why Thinkers seek to fill their mind with true beliefs. Doing this allows them to stay grounded in reality, which in turn allows them to shape that reality in a manner that will benefit them, and maybe others as well.
Those who misunderstand reality or, even worse, deny the existence of a shared reality, can pay a heavy price. This is because reality bites. It doesn’t care about us, and in particular doesn’t care about what we want and believe. It also doesn’t care about our mental and physical well-being. Stated bluntly, reality doesn’t care whether we live or die. Indeed, it can’t care about such things, for the simple reason that it isn’t an animate being.
Do you want to have a good life? Make it your business to discover, to the extent possible, the nature of reality, and then make a conscious effort to stay grounded in that reality.
*The movie The Truman Show does something similar, but instead of being kept in pods, people unknowingly inhabit an oversized TV studio.
I think your framework would benefit from incorporating Karl Popper’s views on reality and truth. In summary, while it is true that an objective reality exists we can only approximate it by conjecture and criticism (or trial and error) & the only thing we can be sure of is about what is false.
Moreover, it is much easier to make claims about reality in the natural world where reality does indeed bite. It is harder to make claims about reality in social sciences where multiple interpretations can be true at the same time b/c people have different intuitions about values & the weighting we should assign to those values depending on the situation.