Reality

Reality versus the Appearance of Reality

This distinction between objective and subjective reality may seem straightforward; however, at least since Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason the distinction has turned out not to be as simple as it might appear. Kant showed the assumption of a reality existing independently of any ideas about it to be highly problematic. We do not possess direct, unmediated knowledge of a real (noumenal) world. The real world does not write its properties directly to our brains. Instead, we construct the world as it appears to us through complex, mainly unconscious, processes of selection, perception, and interpretation. We perceive only signals to which our sense organs are sensitive, or that are relayed to us by means of theory-laden instruments such as microscopes and Geiger counters. Without theoretical understanding of how the output of such instruments is supposedly linked to the real world, their output will be meaningless. What is a signal to some may be noise to others, depending on their respective preexisting [Page 782]theories, concepts, and levels of awareness. Things as they are in themselves (uninterpreted reality) are unknowable. For something to become an object of knowledge, it must be experienced, and experience is structured by our minds. Even apparently straightforward descriptions of physical reality must necessarily be in terms that are meaningful to human beings. What would a bat, which “sees” by a process similar to radar, think of an “objective” human description of a fog? In fact, common sense notwithstanding, there is no guarantee that a real world even exists.

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