What's Real

I was in the shower where I get interesting ideas sometimes. I looked at the tiles on the wall and thought,"Are these tiles any more real than virtual reality?" My answer might surprise you. It is: "Not Really."

I came to the philosophic observation that what is real predates all language, all use of tools, all creation of tools, and anything we build with tools including homes and buildings and roads.

For example, to this way of thinking if you were naked standing in the rain in an unlogged forest that would be real. But if you were standing next to the tree with clothes on it would be real except for the clothes, your shoes, your language, your keys, your wallet and any concepts in your mind that sprang from language or anything you ever read or saw on TV.

So from this way of thinking your home and even the tiles in your shower or bathtub area would be defined as art and therefore not real in any original sense. So real would be where man was before all human civilization of any kind.

Would sex be real? Sex would be real if it made a baby but wouldn't be real if you wore clothes or makeup and were inside a house because then it would cease to be real and become art.

So by this definition 99% or more of what everyone does everyday physically, mentally and even spiritually or religiously would be art and not real.

Is God real. The answer could be "yes" or "no" depending upon whether God pre-exists the civilizations on earth and any and all tools including language and religion.

My wife insists that I use the word "original" and subsitute the word "artifice" instead of "real" and what is "art" then becomes "artifice". Though I don't entirely agree with that line of thinking I will use it so I don't lose you in this philosophic treatise on reality.

So, when man does genetic engineering upon embryos, eggs, and sperm is what results real? No. I would say that the result is art and ceases to be real in a classical sense.

So, the problem I'm getting to is if we completely redesign ourselves how many quirks and psychological problems that don't exist now will exist then. My answer is: a lot.

So even though as art forms we might last hundreds and thousands of years we still will have to develop a philosophy to cope with being artificial or works of art rather than just wild men and women living on earth without any tools or language.

We might be successful to just live as art forms completely but on the other hand just how far up our own asses do we want to go?