THE NATURE OF REALITY IN THE REAL WORLD
What is reality?
Depends on who you ask. Scientists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, Elon Musks...they all have their own answers. Unfortunately, I do not have the mental capabilities to be any of those things. All I have is limited life experience, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I have formulated the beginnings of an answer to this very enigmatic existential question. So, here we go...
Question: What is reality?
Answer: It is the weighted average of what everybody wants.
Disappointed? I was too. I was hoping to find something more *ahem* Musk-ish, what with the allure of us living in a simulation and all. But unfortunately, in my current state, I have come to no such exciting conclusion, but can offer an explanation to the one I have derived.
So what do I mean when I say reality is the weighted average of what everybody wants? For starters, I'd like to clarify that I only meant to seek the nature of reality as it applies to most of us mere mortals in our everyday lives. I looked at reality not as objective conceptual truth but as an experience. What struck me with this method of approach was how universal it was in nature. You see, scientists, philosophers, linguists, Elon Musks all have their own answers but at the heart of all of those answers is the fact that they all think they are right, the others are wrong, and now, human beings in general should orient themselves based on that answer. Mind you, I understand that all of these great minds have very compelling arguments for their respective cases. But what is still universal is them thinking something and then somehow WANTING it.
We all want something, depending on where we are in life and what education we have received regarding what we should want. The problem is that no matter how inclusive and selfless we are, we are bad at this little thing called sacrifice, and thus we are locked in eternal battles between selfishness and selflessness, the individual and the community, personhood and family, yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine, and on and on it goes till we reach a weighted equilibrium. The reason I say it is 'weighted' is that your influence on the outcome is based on circumstance, power and privilege. One can conceptualize this as some sort of cosmic point system. Money, beauty, intelligence and high status will get you positive points, while poverty, disfiguration, disability and low status will take away some points. In a more intimate setting, things like family dynamics, age, and experience can be the parameters. This is actually not as hopeless as it sounds, because you can sway the equilibrium more to your side by being more in number than the contrasting side. And thus, when all is said and done, reality is, quite simply, the weighted average of what everybody wants.
And those are the two cents of this amateur.
Depends on who you ask. Scientists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, Elon Musks...they all have their own answers. Unfortunately, I do not have the mental capabilities to be any of those things. All I have is limited life experience, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I have formulated the beginnings of an answer to this very enigmatic existential question. So, here we go...
Question: What is reality?
Answer: It is the weighted average of what everybody wants.
Disappointed? I was too. I was hoping to find something more *ahem* Musk-ish, what with the allure of us living in a simulation and all. But unfortunately, in my current state, I have come to no such exciting conclusion, but can offer an explanation to the one I have derived.
So what do I mean when I say reality is the weighted average of what everybody wants? For starters, I'd like to clarify that I only meant to seek the nature of reality as it applies to most of us mere mortals in our everyday lives. I looked at reality not as objective conceptual truth but as an experience. What struck me with this method of approach was how universal it was in nature. You see, scientists, philosophers, linguists, Elon Musks all have their own answers but at the heart of all of those answers is the fact that they all think they are right, the others are wrong, and now, human beings in general should orient themselves based on that answer. Mind you, I understand that all of these great minds have very compelling arguments for their respective cases. But what is still universal is them thinking something and then somehow WANTING it.
We all want something, depending on where we are in life and what education we have received regarding what we should want. The problem is that no matter how inclusive and selfless we are, we are bad at this little thing called sacrifice, and thus we are locked in eternal battles between selfishness and selflessness, the individual and the community, personhood and family, yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine, and on and on it goes till we reach a weighted equilibrium. The reason I say it is 'weighted' is that your influence on the outcome is based on circumstance, power and privilege. One can conceptualize this as some sort of cosmic point system. Money, beauty, intelligence and high status will get you positive points, while poverty, disfiguration, disability and low status will take away some points. In a more intimate setting, things like family dynamics, age, and experience can be the parameters. This is actually not as hopeless as it sounds, because you can sway the equilibrium more to your side by being more in number than the contrasting side. And thus, when all is said and done, reality is, quite simply, the weighted average of what everybody wants.
And those are the two cents of this amateur.
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