If Logic Helps, Have Some.

The question for our Philosophy tutorial today was:

What is Reality?

Our lecturer had listed out a bunch of examples asking us whether we thought if each were Real, or not.

Our hand, for example, is tangible. Easy enough to believe its real. We can see it. We can feel it. We can calculate its measurements. It’s real to us.

What about the events that are taking place now. Well of course that’s real. It’s happening in the very moments as we speak. Whether here around us, or in another country where we aren’t. Things are happening now and its real. We’re experiencing it. They’re experiencing it.

How about an event that took place last week. Was that real? It’s not happening now. It’s not being experienced now. Your only proof of that reality is your memory of what happened really. Is memory real? A student argued that our present Being is the consequence of what took place in the past. So in a sense, our present is proof of the past, of that reality.

So we’re back to the present again.

Is reality really confined within time anyway?

Then he asked, what about an event that happens next week. The future. Is THAT real? It hasn’t happened yet. Another student argued that if one doesn’t believe the past is reality, then quite naturally, one wouldn’t believe the future is reality. Because just like the past, the future isn’t being experienced Now.

…

I woke up.

Hey I believe the past is a reality!

Because I know without a doubt,

That the things that took place around me, did.

I don’t care what the theorists say,

MY yesterdays were MY reality.

So that means I believe that reality is NOT confined to time.

That means I don’t have to experience it NOW for it to be real to me.

So does that mean I believe that tomorrow is a reality even though it hasn’t happened yet?

You might say that with the past being a reality, it helps that I have memories in the present.

But then with the future, doesn’t it help that I have imagination in the present?

Memories and imagination.

Aren’t they made of the same matter?

The thing is, honestly it is hard for me to accept that the future is a reality because it hasn’t

happened yet.

But logically, ever so logically, based on the arguments above,

if I can accept that the past is a reality,

I should be able to accept that the future is a reality too.

Whether or not is has taken place.

Whether or not I can feel it, see it, measure it, experience it.

Whether or not I think it exists or will exist. Whatever.

So my reality isn’t confined to time.

So therefore, as Neil Gaiman put it,

“Things need not have happened to be true”

That would make sense to me.

Isn’t that what Faith is?

Believing without seeing.

And so, logically speaking,

I actually have the capacity to have Faith.

Did I learn anything from class today?

Yeah I did.

I learned that my crooked spine is healed.

Whether or not I feel it now, or whether or not I can see it now.

The future is a reality to me.

Because I have Faith.

I get it now.