What is Reality?

If you were to ask random people on the street, 'What is reality?', what answers might you expect?  It is instructive to mull over these expectations, to get your thoughts geared up for  the reality track.

Now, for some sort of baseline, let's go to the dictionary.  Dictionary.com defines reality, in its philosophical context, as:   

(Philosophy)   
a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.
b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.
6.   something that is real.
7.  something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent

Now it is likely that, if you actually were to follow through and do random street interviews, a high percentage of the responses would not be a, b or number 7.  Good chance that number 6, 'something that is real', could surface with some frequency.  Another possible frequent response might be, "does it matter?".  Time will tell.

For me, the real question seems to be, "Is reality real, or is it just a perception that has been formulated, predicted and subsequently projected for retrospective interpretation based upon the combination of inputs from our sensory and neuro-chemical apparati?"  Is Reality an objective or a subjective entity? My premise is that it cannot be both, or contradictions would arise.

In our everyday life, we tend to make use  of some common, generic parameters with which we triangulate a reality. For instance, someone might describe their immediate reality as:  "I am married, have 2 children, a career at Apex industries, college fund started, yearly family summer vacation, member of the garden club and actively engaged in a church family.  I am surrounded by a small  circle of close friends, which is ringed by a larger more distant  set of friendships. My spouse and I plan on raising our kids to become responsible citizens equipped to make good moral choices. They will probably attend college, get married, and at some point we will have some healthy grandchildren to spoil."  

Inherent and unstated elements of reality are, "I live on planet Earth, a small planet in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of several hundred billion galaxies known to exist in the universe. Earth is, so far, unique in its ability to support life, and as a higher life form, I am able to contemplate questions such as, 'What is reality?' "  

The scenario outlined above is sort of a middle class American template, and certainly the specifics will deviate from those named above, but probably some similar benchmarks will be entered into the equation defining  our construct of reality. 

When we scrutinize our reality construct, though, we notice some things.  What we attribute as framework in our reality are some very plastic, dynamic elements and characters. This reality is largely defined by and highly dependent upon, relationships.  There is nothing static or fixed about the reality matrix we grow attached to, and yet we begin to embrace it and meld with it as though it is overtly reliable.

And so we strive and labor and pour ourselves into creating a reality that we find decent and nice and secure. We start believing that we can, in fact, generate a reality for ourselves and our loved ones. 

And then we are totally, utterly shocked and derailed when the phone call comes. "Mr. Smith? County Sheriff's Department.... there's been an accident. Can you get to the hospital to identify the body?"  Or when the husband comes home from work one evening and announces to his wife, "I just don't love you anymore. I am moving out. I want a divorce."  Or when the once happy child enters the doldrums of adolescence and finds his salvation in drugs, alcohol, and dismally dark music, until finally he quits  school, happy to mooch off of his parents for food and shelter, but otherwise consumed with disdain for them while  simultaneously engrossed with his own,  rarefied view of reality, and his very significant role in it.  And of course there's always that ridiculous projection of the collective mood of human beings around the globe: the stock market. Who hasn't seen their college fund decimated lately?

So, is reality real? Shouldn't something with as grandiose sounding a name as REALITY be a little more reliable, a little more rock solid and enduring,  underpinned by something other than the capricious moods and whims of both chance and man?    

The first definition from Dictionary.com under the philosophy heading is "something that exists independently of ideas concerning it." So back to our example, the happy marriage, the two children, the college fund and the successful launching of the children into independence suddenly become mere myth, a simple projection of what we desire. Because as we've seen, the happy marriage was in transition, the happy children were in transition, the stock market was in transition. Even money is not real in the sense of possessing any inherent power implied by the number stamped on its face. The practical, inherent value of currency is better assessed by the heat it releases when burned on a cold winter's night.When our reality triangulations predict outcomes which then fail to materialize, disappointment ensues. We are very prone to living our whole lives in the future tense, as though all that we do is an investment in some future outcome which we can make into a reality if we practice due diligence. And yet every single element of what we tend to esteem as reality is hinged upon frail, finite carbon-based life forms possessed of limited knowledge and free will, and eager to execute the latter. 
To recap: Because we believe we can guide our ship toward the shores of particular outcomes, we tend to think of reality in terms of compass points, time and rate of travel. We believe that what we have constructed around us is real, firmly anchored to some unseen bedrock reality, existing with a high probability of persistence, owing in part to our own due diligence. As building blocks of this construct, we point to any of our collection of 'real' things and 'real' relationships, and deploy them into our reality equation.

We have only one assurance in life if this is our view of reality: we are assured of disappointment. We are guaranteed a good measure of dissatisfaction, a hearty meal of sadness, and a life lived in the future tense. We are certain to become entrenched in a lifestyle that precludes us from even inquiring about existential reality because we are laboring in vain to create one of our own design. We weave together a tapestry with threads of fragile hopes and ephemeral dreams, and determine to live our lives upon it. But we are completely unaware that our tapestry is but a flimsy mat of dried grasses and chopped straw, set adrift on the great expanse of sea that is the real Reality, the unchangeable and fixed Reality, whose powerful, unseen impulses and upheavals jar us from time to time, calling to us through the mists of our ignorance, imploring us to lift up our eyes from our frail and fading tapestry and behold the one true vibrant Reality, the Creator, who has said,

“For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s;
on them he has set the world. (1 Samuel 2:8)

And again,

"My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together." (Isaiah 48:13)

That same Creator, the  true Reality, has also said,  

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8) Further He declares:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”   Deut 31:6

Now there's a Reality to carry the ages. An eternal Reality, a guaranteed outcome, the product of the grace of the God of the universe, who has known those hundreds of billions of galaxies since their inception. And while God has known the galaxies since their inception, He has loved you since the beginning of time itself.

But God didn't stop at just making the promise. He guaranteed it, sealed it with the blood of Christ, who chose to serve humanity, to suffer and die for the sins that would otherwise separate us eternally from God's presence.  Christ's resurrection dealt an absolute defeat to Satan's unmitigated death pillaging.  

Christ says to us, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."  John 5:24

Reality 1.0.  The first, the last, the one true Reality.

And yes, Reality really does matter.