The only time I question reality is when I’m sleep deprived and have to wake up in the middle of the night to go to work. 
When that happens,Pandora, and I know because I have been there as well, do you question reality as you have to live it, or the circumstances you find yourself in ,or is the YOU that has to go to work a problem for you? Or, at that early hour, are you able to tear apart those questions individually from the feeling of dread, or whatever which part takes you? Because reality is not so simple, at least for some.
Everything is energy, yet there are still plenty of solid objects. Think this not to be so, run face first into a brick wall believing that you’ll pass through it. With nose broken and face bloody, you would soon grasp reality and truth and the practicality beyond the vagueness; with a quickness.
It’s like trying to explain to a Christian fanatic that there is no such a thing as “outside of time”. The statement that “God exists outside of time” makes no sense whatsoever. But to some people it does “make sense” in the sense that if you accept that such a meaningless statement means something, simply because you do not want to admit to yourself and others that it means nothing, then it “makes sense” to you.
What we have are particular observations which may or may not be, partially or completely, sorted temporally in the sense that we may know or not know what observation precedes or succeeds what other observation. That’s all we can know. And that’s also how we construct our sense of reality. We have some finite set of observations and then we find patterns in these observations in order to form a model which we then call reality. Other than that, there is no “reality”.
If it’s outside of time, it still flows to a time all of its own and is therefore not outside of time, but outside of what we see and accept as our flow of time, which is still flowing with the same flow of time even if that flow is different, that could be claimed to house such a God.
It’s meaningless.
We model time, as in, we order observations sequentially.
Observation A is followed by observation B which is followed by observation C and so on.
For every observation X anyone can ask “well, does it come before or after observation Y?”
You either know the answer or you don’t.
You can say “it comes before Y” or you can say “it comes after Y”.
Or, if you don’t know, you can say “well, I don’t know”.
Why make things complicated by saying “it exists outside of time”?
If you want to say that your temporal ordering of observations is subject to change, in other words, that it may turn out to be wrong, well, you can express it like that, in simple terms, not make it complicated.
The problem with God is that they (Christian fanatics) don’t want to say what it is.
We know it’s some kind of alien but we don’t know where this alien exists.
To say it exists “outside of time” makes no sense. It is merely to deny that it is something observable which means it’s non-sense.
That’s what happens when you emotionally attach to some book you don’t even understand what its words mean.
You end up trying to defend something without knowing what the hell you’re defending.
You cannot even say “God exists outside of the universe”.
That makes no sense. The word “universe” is not well defined.
However, if we define the word “universe” to mean a category that includes everything we think existed in the past, exists in the present and will exist in the future, basically, if by “universe” we mean everything existent, then to say that God exists outside of the universe means to say that God is not among those things we consider to be existent which is a very convoluted way of saying that GOD DOES NOT EXIST.
The word “universe” is simply an all-encompassing category that includes everything we consider to be existent.
Whatever is outside of it is that which we consider to be non-existent.
Also, we cannot say “the universe began”.
That’s horse-shit.
These words only make sense in the context of a sequence which is an ordered set i.e. a set where each element has a position, an index, a number indicating its place in the set.
With sequences we have first element, second element, third element and so on until the last element.
The universe can be thought of as a set of everything we consider to be existent.
But not an ordered set. And even if it was made into an ordered set, say by ordering everything we consider to be existent based on the time it is supposed to exist in, its first element (beginning) and its last element (end) would only refer to the limits of our knowledge.
Our models can project as far as we want them to project into the past and into the future.
There are no limits.
What we can say is “the Earth began”.
Earth refers to an observable . . . something that has limits, and therefore, a beginning and an end.
You can ask “how did the first life on Earth come into existence?”
That’s a meaningful question.
You can’t ask “how did the first life in the universe come into existence?”
That’s meaningless.
If you say that life on Earth came into existence due to some intelligent force outside of the Earth, then you’re speaking of aliens.
Is God an alien?
Maybe he’s not an alien, maybe he’s some kind of “force”.
That makes far more sense than what Christians are trying to sell us.
People that trust themselves will believe in truth, which is reality.
People who cannot trust, due to an overgrowth of supposedly healthy skepticism:
will say that reality can’t be known or defined, because they don’t have professors baby feeding them.
What exactly is reality?
Define it.
(To define it means to describe the sequence of events it refers to.)
Infinite varieties of possible motion.
That’s not a sequence of events.
A sequence of events is a finite set.
The moment you said “infinite” you gave up on defining the word.
Semi immesurable may be a better word.
But a very finite range and array of possible choices by relativity factor of context of situation and likelihood of strongest possibilities and then if you get caught up only in the possibilities as pertaining to what you know of reality, you forget to account for even the impossibilities and forget that those are also a part of reality, possible in the spectrum you put it in or not. The infinite helps define the finite by putting a sharper contrast on the two.
Reality is the sum of all things that exist.
Most people live in “bubble realities” and not real-reality. I’d guess around 99.999% of people. That means, that most people call their subjective reality “reality” but it’s not really so. Instead, people live trapped in bubbles. You can call it “autism”. That’s a good word for it. People are trapped in their bubble realities, and they don’t want to leave. It can also be called “virtual reality”, simulations, “the American Dream”. It goes by many names.
People don’t want to address, give attention to, or confront “real reality” because it’s scary. It invokes fear, anger, rage, hatred, all the “negative” topics and taboos that people run away from or cower before.
Humanity revolves around “good feelings”, good vibes, and want to ignore the “negative”, dark, bad, evil aspects of life.
Do I need to babble onward, or have I made my point?
Your point is clear. However, it is not on-topic.
That’s a simple but imprecise definition that presumes God’s point of view.
If you want to be precise you have to say that reality is the sum of all things that you think exist.
Now, ask yourself: does reality exist?
What does that mean?
Let’s try to translate it.
Does “the sum of all things that exist” exists?
By language alone, it appears that it does.
That which exists . . . exists.
Why the question then?
The problematic term is existence.
Here, the concept of existence is understood ontologically rather than epistemologically which creates certain problems.
On the other hand, if in the first instance of the use of the word “exist” we refer to ontology and in the second to epistemology, then the answer is NO because I am not aware of any God’s point of view that allows me to observe “the sum of all things that exist”.
Does “the sum of all things that someone thinks exist” exists?
That’s a clear YES.
I believe that it does, because once we agree that 99.999% of “reality” is subjective, and different from person to person, then we can move onto the topic of existence. If people are defining existence from within autistic, subjective bubble-realities, then obviously what “exists” to one person, in their own sheltered reality, probably does not exist in another person’s reality.
However, existence is based upon real-reality, objectively, and is not subjective. Therefore, existence is not a matter of reality. Reality is the matter of existence.
What exists are methods/ways/patterns of reasoning.
This is why I place emphasis on epistemology rather than on ontology.
Ontological concept of existence is the mystical “existence that is independent from what one thinks or perceives”.
Which strictly speaking is a non-sensical statement the sole purpose of which is to hide the fact that every claim that something exists (or that it does not exist) is a product of personal judgment.
I understand that people who do not think but merely parrot will disagree with this.
This is natural considering the fact that their opinions are not a product of their own judgment.
They use NO judgment of their own. They merely parrot. They merely repeat other people’s conclusions.
But the opinions they parrot can be no other than a product of someone’s personal judgment.
And not only that, but parroting itself is a pattern of reasoning, a personal judgment, which has the form of “X is true because some authority A says that it is true”.
A very primitive pattern of reasoning but still a pattern of reasoning that many use, and in fact, most of us use in certain situations.
There is, quite simply, no such a thing as “what is true regardless of what one thinks is true”.
If you want to be better equipped when dealing with these people, at least in the defensive sense of the word, as in in order to become more resistant to their bullshit, then you need to have precision in your thoughts.
I understand that it’s nearly impossible to change their minds. The point is to make yourself resistant to their bullshit. The point is to protect yourself from being confused by their shenanigans.
And that means not engaging the question “does reality exist?” because the question is meaningless.
To engage would mean to accept its incorrect premises.
You go outside of it and you say “look, you are confused, you need to clarify your terms” and then if they reject to do so then you just disengage them.
Do not underestimate the power of subjective reasoning and the length people will go to protect their bubble-realities from popping. People do not want to live in the “real-reality”, which means definitively, stepping backward in time, back to the stone age, living in mud and straw huts, hunting with sticks and spears. Civilization and humanity have progressed a long way. Much of that “progression” of society and civilization means: building walled cities, endless protections and securities, police, hospitals, military, mass media propaganda, television, which all lead to the formulation of bubble-reality. People live entire lives within the walls, within the bubbles, since that is where the majority of human population congregates, and they do not “return to nature”. They don’t see, or acknowledge, where civilization came from, and thus cannot see where it’s going.
To talk about reality, while living “in your own”, confounds language and meaning. It’s a delusional tactic and represents sheltered minds. People who can only talk about reality, real-reality, existence, hypothetically and theoretically, not from experience, not practically, and not pragmatically.
Such people have no concept of “objectivity” or “existence”. To people living in bubble-realities, “objectivity” means “My bubble is realer, truer, better, superior than yours and therefore I deserve more attention”. And “Existence” means “the sum of all bubble-realities”. But neither of these are true. The bubbles have to be popped, in order for people to understand. What happens when you pop somebody’s bubble? The immediately start blowing another one.
How do bubble-realities come into existence?
We know it has to do with the difficulty of accepting real-reality.
But what exactly creates this difficulty?
And what exactly is bubble-reality?
Would you agree that bubble-reality refers to conclusions (regarding the unknown) that are a product of very specific pattern of reasoning?
A pattern of reasoning that starts with the conclusion and then looks for evidence that supports it while ignoring the evidence that contradicts it?
A pattern of reasoning, which strictly speaking is not a reasoning considering how unreasonable it is, where premises are dependent values and conclusions are independent values?
A pattern of reasoning often referred to as ad hoc rationalization and top-down thinking?
The question is: why do people “think” in this way?
What’s the reason?
You can say because their pattern of reasoning has degenerated . . . in other words, they no longer know – they forgot – how to think.
But is this a cause or a consequence?
I think that this kind of reasoning is a product of inertia.
It’s a product of habits that are too strong.
These habits then, due to their strength, lead to the degeneration of thought.
Let’s say you have some goal and you have some means you think would help you reach this goal.
Then one day you realize, thanks to your reason, that your means won’t work.
What do you do?
Do you accept this and then adjust accordingly?
Or do you deny it by ridiculing reality? by accusing it of being deceptive?
When you’re used to doing things certain way then it becomes difficult to break out of the pattern when it becomes necessary to do so.
Either way, this isn’t exactly the subject of the topic.
But I’m responding to your point because I want to show that it is the pattern of reasoning that is problematic and not whether you think there is reality or not.
That is a consequence.
Again, what there is are patterns of reasoning.
The concept of reality, in most cases, is meaningless.