Reality vs. Beliefs

What is reality?

re·al·i·ty:

1. The quality or state of being actual or true.

2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual: "the weight of history and political realities" Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.

3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence.

4. That which exists objectively and in fact: Your observations do not seem to be about reality.

Seems pretty simple, right.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Reality is anything but simple as your reality is dictated by your beliefs, beliefs that may or may not have been based on factual information.

Do you believe that the sun will rise tomorrow? If you answer yes, of course it will, just as it has for millenium. You are dead wrong. The sun has NOT ever rose NOR has it ever set. Just for the fact that you believe that it has shows how easily a Belief can create a false reality. It is the rotation of the Earth that makes it seem as though the sun rises and sets.

When you are looking at the sun, you are not really seeing an object above the Earth, you are looking at an object that is adjacent to the Earth, our perception of the sun being above is just that, a perception, it is not the reality of the relationship between the location of these two objects.

Here is some advice from the Greek philosopher Epictetus – according to whom - appearances are of 4 kinds –

• things either are as they appear to be or

• they neither are nor appear to be or

• they are but do not appear to be or

• they are not and yet appear to be.

In layman's terms, what he was saying was simply that, appearances can be deceiving in several ways.

In the coming weeks, I will be presenting in-depth analysis of the accepted Realities vs. Beliefs of
many specific events and the people involved in those events.


Thank you for your time spent here, PerpetualYnquisitive.