The question: ‘what is reality at all?’ — is a really tricky one. If I’d have to reply in three words, my short answer would be:
Perception is reality.
But as soon you challenge your perception, your understanding of reality becomes much more loose.
Deep Fakes
One current example of perception and reality are AI deep fakes, where AI technology can fake a person’s voice and appearance, as you can see in this video. The apparent deep fake is perceived from people as real, and therefore the deep fake, even though it is a fake, is reality.
Deep fakes are just one – and rather simple – example of how perception is reality.
The Metaverse
The metaverse will become a “reality” for everyone who uses it and therefore perceives it as a reality. However, this is not true for anyone who is looking from the outside in, as they don’t have any perception of the metaverse, and thus for them no reality can exist in the metaverse.
But again, what is reality at all? Are we living in the real reality? Or do we simply believe that we live in “reality” because we perceive what we sense as real?
Let’s dive deeper into this thought.
Simulation Hypothesis
Let’s assume there’s at least a possibility that computer games will one day be so realistic, that we cannot differentiate between “reality” and game anymore. Isn’t it possible that we live in a simulation – a simulated metaverse computer game? If so, is our reality still real or is there a realer reality out there?
The deeper we dig, the more fascinating it gets.
DMT
Let’s talk about psychedelics and in specific DMT.
Whether you call it a drug or not is up to you alone. The interesting point is that psychedelics – and DMT in specific – makes it abundantly clear that reality and consciousness is really a thick book we cannot yet grasp.
Are we experiencing the world as it really is; or as we need it to be?
Again, anyone who has not experienced DMT, is looking from the outside in and thus anything I write from hereon will – for this person – not be real. But again, nobody can judge what is real because apparently we don’t know what reality is.
Back to DMT. First, there is – I believe – a huge misconception as many people believe that DMT – or in their words “the drug” – is creating the experience. Yet isn’t your brain creating these experiences with these magical chemical substances which bizarrely fit perfectly to specific neuroreceptors in your brain?
Now it gets interesting. People on DMT see geometrical properties and shapes which are beyond (!) our 4-dimensional reality. On DMT, you can see colors and patterns which do not exist (!) in our reality. Still, while in this altered state of consciousness, these patterns, colors, and dimensions show up effortlessly. But it is not only these visuals which don’t exist in our reality. What is just as intriguing about DMT is how inherently meaningful everything you see is. This is even more fascinating, as many DMT trips of different people who have never met in their life have tremendous similarities between them.
Beyond DMT, there are other psychedelics where people claim to live entire lives within the span of 20 minutes.
This raises the question: How potent is our brain actually? Are we experiencing the world as it really is; or as we need it to be?
Ego as a Protector
The perception of reality we have of our world has – seemingly – very little to do with the true reality.
For me, the only plausible explanation I have is that we have evolved our ego to protect us from all the information our unfiltered consciousness – which is our unlimited consciousness on DMT – is giving us. Or in other words, we may live in one part of a realer reality in which our brain (ego) is just filtering things out. We are so to speak living in an unconscious reality of a larger real reality.
