REALITY: AN ILLUSION –

REALITY: AN ILLUSION –

“A photon is both a particle and a wave until you choose how to measure it” – Quantum Mechanics

Reality is the state of things as they actually exist (or) a thing that is expressed or seen {by Oxford Dictionary}. Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary {with respect to philosophy}. Reality is an undivided wholeness (or) reality is what you choose it to be {with respect to quantum mechanics}. All other definitions revolve around the given definitions.

However, most of the experiments conducted to understand reality prove that reality cannot exist/ it is only an illusion/ it is what you perceive. It depends on a person how he perceives its definition which is best suited for his purpose.

Is the Moon not present in the sky during daytime? Most of the people think that the Moon is only present at night because it is only visible during night. But in reality, it is not the case actually. The Moon orbits the sky even during the daytime, just we are not able to see it due to dominance of sunlight. Similarly, suppose that a tree falls in an island in the absence of an observer, will it make a sound? Philosophers would say that probably not as no one witnessed it, whereas, a quantum physicist would say that a sound would have propagated but  not surely due to the tree.

Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. We know that light is made up of photons, matter of atoms etc. but we cannot see them. Actually, whatever we perceive in reality are only symbols that our mind prepares against the interaction with those objects.

Suppose that a person has never gone through a headache and you tell him that you are suffering from headache. The person will probably question you, what is a headache? You would surely talk about the experience felt during a headache. That is reality, it is only an outcome of our consciousness and we frame it howsoever we want it to be.

In a fantasy, you feel that your body is working in reality, it remains a reality until you wake up. As soon as you wake up, you feel it was only an illusion. In short, our mind only presents the thing to such an extent which is required even though it may be false as in the case of existence of the Moon during day.

In the era of this modernity, it is obvious  that everyone would be acquainted with the apps, files, etc. present as an icon on the desktop and phones. Is it the actual existence of  that nasty rectangular box which you would have pressed millions of times for your utility? If you don’t know about the construction and working of the device you probably would think that their existence is in that rectangular box. But their actual identity is entrapped in the silicon circuits. So, in reality you find the reality of the apps and files on the screen. But it is only an illusion and their true identity remains unravelled in the construction of the device.

Thus, it can be concluded that reality is only what you think about it, if you go by the definition, you may face reality not more than an illusion.

 

-       RAHUL KUMAR

-       CLASS-XII