I was having a conversation with some students yesterday about possible future technologies, such as contact lenses that will allow everyone to see virtual objects floating in the air. One student took issue with this vision, because he thought that it would take people away from reality.
Not surprisingly, we then had a rousing discussion about what, exactly, constitutes “reality”. And eventually I realized that he and I were talking past each other in a very specific way.
“Reality” can be defined at least two different ways. One definition focuses on the physical: Reality is whatever physically exists, which I can therefore directly experience through my body’s senses. This was the definition the student was assuming.
According to this definition of reality, an experience of going to the theatre is real, in a way that watching a movie is not, because in the former case the actors and the audience physically share the same room.
The definition I was assuming is rather different. To me, the more important part of reality consists of our interaction with other minds. Most often these are human minds, but in some cases those minds can belong to individuals of other species.
According to this definition of reality, an experience of going to the theatre is real, in a way that watching a movie is not, because in the former case the actors and the audience are aware of each other, and therefore their minds have an opportunity to mutually influence each other.
Obviously what I am describing is a continuum. Physical reality and psychological reality are both extremely useful concepts. But which is the more essential?
in conversations I’ve had, there seems to be assumptions around reality being more immediate and directly accessible by multiple senses. there is a kind of truthiness that we ascribe to reality…something that could withstand scrutiny. I take the position that it’s all real. The discussion can then shift to what the fears are around more embedded information layers on our visual and / auditory field. The fears can be losing awareness of some important things, or of information being so prescriptive that we lose autonomy. That conversation is useful because it impacts design decisions.
Good point!
Ken,You should buy this DVD and play it for your students. The book is challenging, but the video is very useful:
http://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Mind-Narrated-Nora-Bateson/dp/B00CAUTPI6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442780502&sr=8-2&keywords=ecology+of+mind+bateson+dvd
Thanks Sally! I just ordered the video, and I look forward to watching it. 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is a bit sappy in places, but the core is good and the thinking is good. Bateson is just awful to read, but his ideas are interesting. Some disproved, some still sound. This video makes his systems thinking accessible in a very digestible way and he offers much to consider on the subject of reality — viewing things as not things, but relations between them. I did not know about him when creating PoSR, but there is some of his theory in our work. He was one of the early Cybernetics people… now of course called Cybernetics and Systems…