Warning: This is a messy subject, and I have no idea what the conclusion is going to be, or if there will be one. Continue reading at your own risk.
I generally find that the process of commenting helps clarify what I'm thinking. Sometimes it changes my mind in the middle, sometimes it produces a completely new take on the matter that I hadn't considered when I started typing. A couple of days ago I tried a comment about different views and definitions of reality, and by the time I'd gotten a couple of paragraphs into it, I was more confused than I'd been when I started. This is an attempt to see whether I can separate enough factors out of the original confusion to make a bit more sense of it.
What is reality, how many kinds are there, and how do we tell what's "reality based"?
Starting simply, external percipient reality is what we directly perceive through our senses. It is what can be weighed, and measured; where we can define standards of weights and measures; where we can be sure that other people, using the same standards, will get the same outcomes, time after time.
Then there is primary scientific reality, if you will, where guesses as to deeper patterns behind those sensory perceptions are made and tested, and can be modified or discarded as new information is found. The formula pv=nRt (truncated Gas law) is not percipient reality, but it can be used to predict some of the results of percipient reality very closely, over a wide range of conditions. First level of abstraction, but directly linked to external perception. Call it reality, and you're probably not too far off.
Statistics is a subset (loosely) of primary scientific reality, but tends to be a horse of an entirely different color. Because there is a history of people using pseudostatistics to bulwark a wide variety of claims, and because graphs and charts look scientific, and... Well, there are three major reactions to claims of reality made with statistics: 1. "Do you have a link to the original data?"; 2. "Oh, wow!"; 3. "That doesn't prove anything!"
Secondary scientific reality, then, would be guessing as to deeper patterns behind the primary patterns that have been found. What might the actual structure of a gas be in order to have it behave according to the guesses we've made? What exceptions are there and what does that imply? If we get results from experiments with light that suggest that it behaves both like a wave, and like a particle, how do we reconcile those results? Multiple levels of abstraction, not directly linked to perception. And it changes more often than at the primary level. Since reality itself is supposed to be stable (sorta), this is one level where there can seem to be a disconnect.
Then there's external consensual reality. It's about the basis for what works in human society, and why it works. Money is its showpiece, since money holds value only because of a consensus on the part of the vast majority of people that it actually represents the value of goods and services, both existing and potential. As long as that consensus holds, we can accumulate representative value without having to individually warehouse the tangible products we might need in the future. The definition is flawed to some extent because there is another consensus perception that money itself should have some inherent value. When the processes of both are aligned, no problem. When they differ, economists make a good living and economies wobble. (Sorry, this last is sarcasm, and way too simplified to boot, but I'm going to leave it there for now.) The higher the level of consensus, the more we tend to lump it in with what we generally consider "reality".
Limited consensual realities are background to a vast range of human behavior, and they generally work well as long as the majority of the participants agree, in general, with whatever the stated premises are. Into this category fall governments and financial, religious, and educational organizations, and many of the "soft" sciences. When there is major internal dispute about the consensus, things tend to fall apart. Disputes between organizations with conflicting consensual realities are a separate case entirely, and depend to a large extent on how much conflict there is in areas where they overlap and whether they are vying for the same resources. We count them as "reality" as long as they seem to work to do the things they set out to do, and generally give them a fair amount of leeway as far as actual results go. Until, of course, we don't. This is the point at which the words "cult" and "crackpot" (and "Republican") get thrown around.
## Two day break, when I realized I was totally confused about the next piece ##
And then there's internal reality. The basis for the dreams and fears, fantasies and nightmares, that shape our reactions to the present and determine what "problems" we will try hardest to find a solution to. Each of these is as "real" to the person holding it as any of the other realities I've separated out above. A new shape for a building; a new concept for human interaction; a different way to use symbols to describe something; an idea for gadgets or machines that will make life simpler or easier; a vision of star flight; a vision of a world where people will get along; a vision of incipient poverty or pain; a vision of personal honor, death, and glory; a vision of doom and destruction.
And these are all legitimate visions. Some portion of human history, or personal memory, or emotional revelation or trauma, empowers each of them. It does not justify them; dreams cannot, generally, be justified. Creativity is one of the few acceptable areas where we do not require that the process be logic based, and we do not (cannot!) require repeatability of results in order to accept it as a legitimate process. And, we sometimes forget it is as capable of producing negative visions as positive ones.
The critical point in the translation from internal to external reality for a vision/conception of the future comes when someone tries to communicate their vision to a second party, with the idea of beginning to build a consensus reality which can make it possible. At this point, what is offered needs to be based on a solid perception of current external reality, since that's what it must build on. If it is not, then it will be of interest only to those people who already hold their own version of that internal reality - and to those who are invested in manipulating those people. If it is, then you offer an argument, a model, a sample, a test case - and you wait for people to come in and say "why didn't I think of that"; or question, and possibly tear apart, everything you've tried to communicate. The more you trust your own internal reality, the more flexibly you can cope with negative input about the visions it throws up.
I offer a distinction between two types of vision; "open" and "closed". Both are capable of shaping the future; both are potentially "real" to the extent that they can build viable consensus communities to further their accomplishment; both hold one or more ideas about the future that are not susceptible of proof until after the fact. The significant difference, from my perspective, is that "closed" visions hold one or more statements about the present that are not provable, and that they require acceptance of those statements as a necessary prelude to further discussion.
If we're going to be a reality based community, we have to be able to make this sort of distinction. Martin Luther King's dream, the American Dream - they're not current reality, they're vision. And they're open vision, because we can look at the factors that are in play in the present and try to figure out how to deal with them in order to realize the vision. We're good as long as we understand they're visionary potential reality; it's only when we start thinking they ought to be inherent in human nature that we quit striving for them and start bitching about not having accomplished them.
Whew. It's not enough, but it's a beginning, maybe. Okay, how much sense did all this make to you?