What is Reality?
This is not a question that I ask from a strictly subjective point of view. We are talking about Reality from the ' observer's' point of view. The 'observer' here is a reasonable person who perceives reality through his/her five senses. Because our ultimate goal is to reproduce this perceivable environment inside the virtual space so we can safely omit the definition of reality from the relativistic point of view and can only consider the space-time as perceived by a normal person living in the reference frame of our Universe in the present broad slice of time.
So the basic question is how in the given conditions this person refers to something or some experience as real? The key to the answer, is in the very statement, that people observe their environment through their five senses. And what in turn tells their brain that the experience they are having, is a real experience? The answer is when the perceptions co-inside with the experiences they have from the very early stage of sense development and their logical follow-ups. So it is important, that we consider the point, that our observer is a 'reasonable person'- as stated earlier. If suddenly someday our observer, say Mr. X, sees a pig fly, he will know for certain that this thing is not for real, it's either an artificial pig, or a dream, or as a last resort he might consider seeing a shrink! Obviously, this kind of bizarre phenomenon can happen in some other Universe, situated at some other dimension, having entirely different laws of physics, but to eliminate that possibility, we have already limited our framework inside our Universe. So this is how Mr. X, is able to differentiate between reality and non-reality. So now the question is, how Mr.X ‘s perceived experiences, are proved to be in accordance with his past experiences?
Consider the five senses, through which Mr. X relates himself to his environment. Most important is the eye. Human beings have binocular colour vision. Through eyes this Mr. X can perceive the object flying as pig, and his past observations will tell him that he never saw a pig with a pair of wings. So the first doubt that will come through the visionary sensation is the mismatch of shape. The next will be the ears, which will receive the sound of the wings, and will try to relate them with the past experiences again, and the sound memory bank will return some data. For example the sound is like the fluttering of a butterfly wings? Or maybe flapping of bird wing, or buzzing of bee? etc. Immediately the brain will tell Mr. X that pigs don’t have wings those move making such noises. Eventually like this, each and every senses of Mr. X will separately, or in combination, will perceive data, but will constantly conflict and contradict with his existing experiences, in order to tell him that the experience he is having is unreal. So in order to prove something as real, the brain(as in combination of all the parts) will not only have to perceive convincing sensations, but will also have to match them with existing past experiences. It’s simply marvelous to realize and appreciate the beauty of human intelligence- such a long process of judgment happens almost immediately, with all the senses working more or less simultaneously and without giving it any ‘real thought’, to help the person arrive at the conclusion!
So if this is how strong the method of reality check is, how do we convince Mr. X, that the visual he is seeing is real (actually happening)?…simple: fool his senses through virtual reality!
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