We all assume that what we can see, hear, and feel is all real. The sky is blue, our friends laugh, and our phone is in our hand. But suppose everything were really just something our brains were making up. For centuries, philosophers have been asking the question: how do we know what is real?
The first person to actually get us to doubt our senses was 17th-century philosopher René Descartes. He proposed a thought experiment: what if there were an evil demon deceiving us, making everything we see seem real when it is not? This isn’t some demented imagination illusionism, it’s a way of questioning what we really do know. Descartes realized that maybe everything else was fake, but the one thing he could not doubt was that he was thinking. And so his celebrated conclusion: “I think, therefore I am.”
But if our own senses can’t be trusted, what does that say about the world? Consider modern technology: virtual reality (VR) makes it possible for us to see and experience things that are virtually indistinguishable from the real world. In a VR video game, you might climb mountains, swim oceans, or even fight dragons, and your mind might respond as if those things were occurring. Do they exist then? Or is reality merely what exists outside our minds?
Other thinkers believe that there is more to reality than we can see. Over 2,000 years ago, Plato believed in a world of perfect “forms” beyond the imperfect things we observe. A chair, for example, is just an imitation of the ideal “Chairness” out there independent of our senses. If all we observe are shadows of reality, how can we ever be certain that we know the truth?
Science undermines our conception of reality as well. Quantum mechanics informs us that particles may be in numerous states at once, only “choosing” a state when they are measured. Space and time are more relative than we had previously thought. If reality can be bent at this micro level, can we hold on to the solidity of the world that we experience on a daily basis?
But despite all these uncertainties, we live our lives as if it were real. We go to school, make friends, have birthday celebrations, and deal with troubles. And it leads to a rather interesting question: maybe reality isn’t just what exists regardless of us. Maybe reality is also the manner in which we feel it and live it. What matters, then, perhaps, is not some final objective reality, but the way in which we get around in the world and with each other.
It doesn’t make reality irrelevant or purely subjective. Think of consequences. Your body will still get harmed by gravity if you fall from a cliff believing it is not real. Reality in such a situation has laws which we can learn, experiment, and comprehend. But remembering that our own experience can be wrong encourages curiosity and humility. It puts us on our toes questioning assumptions, thinking about alternative interpretations, and critically thinking against whatever information comes our way.
For adolescents, this skepticism holds especially true. As you grow up, your brain, your identity, and your understanding of the world are all in transition. You might be suspicious that things or people are more than they seem, and you’re correct to question them. Living sanely with reality is suspending doubt while hanging on to commitment. You question things, yet you still make choices, take risks, and exist.
Finally, the answer to what is real is not simple. Reality perhaps a mix of objective facts and subjective experience, a union of what is and how we see it. Scientists, philosophers, and thinkers will continue debating this until the end of time, but challenging it is the process worth it. It makes us think, reflect, and observe the world and our place in it.
So the next time you look up into the sky, feel the wind, or hear a friend laugh, ask yourself: how much of this is real, and how much is constructed by my brain? Maybe reality isn’t always certainty, it’s curiosity. And that curiosity, more than any final answer, is maybe the most real thing of all.