Youre probably not reading this right now.
Thats not a philosophical statement about the number of non-readers a given news article has.
Its a declaration of the literal.
This article might not exist.
Or that they all exist but the reality they exist in doesnt.
But its not as counter-intuitive as it sounds.
What is real?
Reality is a lot like pornography in that people tend to know it when they see it.
Is the chair youre sitting on or the floor youre standing on real?
Intuitively, we think yes.
If it werent real, we assume, wed fall down.
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And as our technology improves, we know that seeing isnt good enough.
IveseenPokemon in the real world via augmented reality.
We know this because we can use microscopy to observe atomic structures.
Think about a banana.
You grab it off a tree, peel it, and eat it.
And in the right combinations they make water.
Dont we need reality to exist?
No, not really.Existence is its own measure of proof.
But reality, as we think we experience it, may beentirely subjective.
We too can be reduced to cells, atoms, and molecules.
So, sure, your desk exists.
And the floor it sits on exists.
Whats it all mean?
If we accept the idea of quantum relativity, it means we understand the banana analogy from above.
This version of reality would render the concepts of space and time pointless.
Time would only exist as a construct by which we give meaning to our own observations.
And those observations would merely be the classical side-effects of existing in a quantum universe.
Everything that encompasses our entire universe may be nothing more than a brief hallucination triggered by a quantum vibration.
Perhaps quantum relativity is a passing fancy for the field of theoretical physics.
But maybe, just maybe, it isnt.
One day our species may have to reckon with the ultimate truth that we exist in a reality thatdoesnt.
