Perception Of Reality

Perceptions of Reality

What is reality? Is reality what we're able to touch, feel and grasp? Or is reality just an illusion preparing ourselves for a spiritual journey? It's been a question asked numerous times throughout human history with numerous altercations. Reality has developed over the times, but it has forever been how the world is perceived. Since the early Greek philosopher Thales, who believed that the source of everything came from water, people have tried to seek the truth of what is real and how everything came to be. Many philosophers have tried to define what reality is, but as the philosophers from India concluded in their sacred text the "Rg Veda" nearly three thousand years ago, they had their own suspicions. What's been translated from this text is that reality as such was not or at the least not normally, known by us, and perhaps it could not be known at all (Solomon, C. Robert Introduction to Philosophy; pg. 45). We try to grasp reality and understand it, but in the end it is possible that we are on one, big, wild goose chase, not being able to distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction. Faith plays an important role in defining what reality is to people. For many people, having faith in a certain religion is reality. Other people put their faith in science to solve the pieces to the puzzle.

Whatever the conclusion might be, these ideas lead us closer to understanding ourselves and the environment around us. The basis of all these arguments of what reality really is begins with a foundation that builds into an idea. This foundation is called substance. Substance is the essential reality of a thing or things that underlies the various properties and changes of properties (Solomon; 120). Substance is all the individual parts of reality and when they all form together, they make the big picture, and they make the reality that we see in front of us.

According to seventeenth century philosopher, Rene Descartes, substance is a thing which exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist (Solomon; 120). Created substances need only the occurrence of God to exist. This idea relates to many religions as having one being, one form being the cause for everything that is happening around us. This being is the one that created life, created the land that we walk on, and created the bodies of water that we have set sail on numerous occasions. Many religions have their own representation of "The One", but all monotheistic religions are the same believing in a higher power. The only difference is how they worship this being. What is believed to be the basis of this monotheistic approach to reality is the works of a Persian reformer Zarathustra who founded the religion called Zoroastrianism (Solomon; 61). The Zoroastrian religion believed reality was split into two different columns. In one column, there was the reality of everything good, and in the other column, there was the reality of everything that is evil. Zarathrustra was the first to recognize and formulate a doctrine regarding the existence and origin of good and evil in the universe (Solomon; 62).

Another religious based example is looking at reality as a spirit which was practiced traditionally in both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In India, these two prominently known factions developed their own doctrines about the nature of reality which were essentially religious (Solomon; 58). In the sacred appendages called Upanishads, the concept of God as reality appeared. The Upanishads centers on the concept of the Brahman. The Brahman is considered to be the ultimate secret of both ourselves and of the universe (Solomon; 59). It is what every person seeks in their life and will hopefully obtain near the end of it. It is a seeking of a unity underlying all individual selves and things. Knowing that these religions are strictly a polytheistic view, the root of these polytheistic religions are actually spiritually monist (Solomon; 59). This is a view that finds the "self" as the key to life and reality. They are not talking about us as being one's "self", but rather reality being the "self", it is considered to be an all-encompassing spirit that includes us all. Whether one believes in a polytheistic or monotheistic religion, it gives reason of what reality really is.

Besides religion being a way to explain what reality is, science is also a prominent way of explaining the unknown. The term metaphysics is appropriate for explaining what many sciences are trying to figure out about our world. Metaphysics is the study of "the way the world really is" (Solomon; 57). The business of metaphysics is to ask and attempt to answer the most basic questions about the universe, its composition and the "stuff" of which it is composed, the rule of man and mind, and the nature of the immaterial aspects of the universe as well as its physical nature (Solomon; 57). Derived from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, it is the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with explaining the nature of the world.

A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what categories of things are in the world and what relation these thing bear to one another (Solomon; 57). It attempts to clarify notions by which people understand the world, including existence, property, space, time, causality, and possibility. This is different from the study of theology which involves the study of God or the gods and the idea of creation.

Metaphysics dealt with an array of topics. Most notably, the topic of mind over matter was an important discussion for a metaphysician. Two of the best known philosophers that dealt with metaphysics were Aristotle and Plato. Both of these philosophers had their own take on what they believed mind and matter really were.

Plato was an idealist, believing that the mind or form was the most important thing (Solomon; 69). "Beauty is within the form" he says, meaning that it is within only a part of it is in our nature to know the shapes and forms of things. We know the form of a horse and its essential parts. He makes this idea parallel to what he wrote in "The Republic" about the mythic cave people who saw only shadows in their life, and then they were unchained and saw forms and sunlight for the very first time (Solomon; 71).

On the other hand, there is Aristotle. He was a student of Plato and he argued with Plato on his point of view of mind and matter. He did not understand Plato's idea of participation. If something cannot be understood it means that an individual should be pushing for a better account for it (Solomon; 81). Aristotle agreed with Plato that the form or the mind were important in discussing reality.