We can’t ask (or answer) true or false questions about something if it isn’t real to begin with. By that, I mean that reality and truth are not the same thing. I also mean that there’s a hierarchy in that we have to first determine the reality of something before we can entertain questions about its characteristics or the nature of it.
I may be able to imagine a moon made of green cheese (a notion deriving from a Slavic tale involving, of course, a trickster—in this case a fox), but since such a thing doesn’t exist, I can’t claim to be able to determine that the cheese in question is Swiss green cheese.
On the other hand Swiss green cheese does exist; it’s called Schabziger. So I can ask if Schabziger is a cow’s milk cheese or a goat’s milk cheese.
What Is Real?
Dictionary definitions of the word real leave much to be desired. For example, one definition says real means:
existing or occurring in the physical world; not imaginary, fictitious,
or theoretical; actual
Something that is real, we are told, must be:
- tangible: concrete; perceptible by the senses; not abstract or imaginary
- objective: existing independently of perception or an individual’s conceptions; non-subjective
- factual: accurate; true/truthful; conforming exactly or almost exactly to fact or to a standard
That would mean, among other things, that anything that is purely or primarily conceptual is not real. Hope, for example, or commitment or justice. What are we to make of the fact that people have apparently lived and died and killed for things—ideas, ideals, concepts, radical notions—that are, based on these definitions, not real?
Let’s put aside this characterization of real because it’s not useful—and it’s not based in neural reality. Neural correlates exist for every emotion we feel, every thought we have, and every sensation we experience. So there’s a physical basis for everything we’re aware of or even imagine. The specific thing or things we imagine may not be real, but neural activity related to our imagining can be tracked by an fMRI machine.
When I imagine a moon made of green cheese, the activity in my brain is real. The image in my mind is real, even though the image does not reflect physical reality. So I can imagine this moon to be made of Schabziger cheese—or any other kind of cheese: a different kind of cheese every day. Not only is my imagination not constrained by physical reality, it is also not constrained by a requirement for consistency. How cool is that?
What we seem to be asking when we ask whether or not something is real is does it exist, or in some cases, is it capable of existing. In fact, the definition of exist is to have being or reality; to be. Something can exist with or without being tangible. When I write fiction, I do a lot of mental pre-writing before I put words on paper or on a computer page. Those stories or story fragments are no less real when they exist only in my imagination. They don’t become real upon being written or typed. And whether or not a fictional story is transcribed, its characters and events (content) are not real, but the story is real. The story exists.
There are, of course, things we don’t know or don’t know about and things we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of. However, the idea that there are things that exist objectively, independent of our perception, is impossible to validate. Everything we perceive/experience has—necessarily—neural correlates.
What Is True (or Factual)?
The definitions of factual are even less helpful than the definitions of real, given that the words are often treated as synonyms. But as we all know, experience is real, and experience is not an accurate—or factual—reflection of reality. Our sense of self, of being a single self, is also real, but the single self we sense does not exist. It’s an illusion created by multiple processes in the brain. Our experience of it is real but it is not factual.
When we perceive a threat and experience fear, both the perception and the experience are real, but there may, in fact, be no actual threat. In order to define the nature (truth) of a perceived threat—and therefore the best response to it—we must first determine whether or not the threat is real.
Here are some things that are real, along with some facts about them that are true:
Three things that are real:
- Climate
- Humidity
- Hurricanes
Three things that are true:
- Average global temperature has increased by about 2° Fahrenheit since 1880.
- Both air temperature and relative humidity affect the heat index (how hot it feels).
- Since 1980, hurricanes have caused more damage in the U.S. than any other type of weather-related disaster.
Three more things that are real:
- The book Deviate: The Creative Power of Transforming Your Perception
- Beau Lotto
- Neuroscience
Three more things that are true:
- Deviate was written by Beau Lotto.
- Beau Lotto is a neuroscientist.
- Neuroscientists have identified patterns of brain activity that reveal how our expectations influence interpretation of sensory data.
The brain has to interpret sensory data in order to figure out what, if anything, we should do about it or in response to it. To do so, the brain constantly makes best guesses that are “good enough” for us to successfully navigate the world we live in: i.e., survive. Our brain did not evolve to interpret sensory data “factually”—meaning with complete accuracy. But we take our experience for granted—at face value—without much skepticism or even curiosity. As a result, we sometimes we get caught up in trying to determine the exact nature of the cheese constituting our imaginary moon without realizing the moon is not real.
