TFNR - The Principle of Reality
In this model of describing Reality, everything is real. There is nothing outside Reality—no beyond-Nature, no non-real, under-real, or super-real; nothing subnatural, or supernatural. Every Event, Relation, Process, every "thing", is real either in a physical sense or in a meta-real sense—real in a metaphysical or cognitive dimension. Nothing else, nothing more.
Thus, the question "what is real?" is, in my view, absolutely irrelevant—or better said, a non-sense.
Once we accept that everything that exists is real, we must reformulate the Principle of Reality. The relevant question becomes: what is physically real, and what is cognitively real? We must distinguish between physical Entities, Events, Relations, and Processes—and those that do not belong to the physical domain (commonly dismissed as merely imaginary, in contrast to what is considered "physically" real).
Often, and especially within the most rigorous or radical scientific domains, only what is physical is considered truly real. What belongs to the cognitive domain—particularly what is deemed fanciful, unreal, hypothetical, etc.—is not regarded as real, or, at best, is assigned a lesser, diminished, or uncertain category of realism. Essentially, in many scientific domains, the discriminant lies in what we call the "Principle of Reality": everything is physically real, except for the representations of Reality constructed by the cognitive systems of cognitive agents—living beings and automata.
The distinction between what is physically real and what is cognitively real is absolutely necessary. However, it is profoundly mistaken—and even dangerous—to consider the products of cognitive activity as not real (negatively labeled as imaginary). These products are so fundamentally real that, without them, a living being would be unable to live, to construct representations of Physical Reality, or to act based on those representations. Even studying physics, and formulating rigorous—and, to me, absurd—Principles of Reality.
To solve the problem, having a more robust, well-defined, and at the same time inclusive Principle of Reality would be enough to clearly distinguish what is physically real from what is cognitively real. Simple! This approach, which I propose and strongly advocate here, would restore rightful dignity (as reality) to an immense and vitally important set of immaterial Forms produced by the cognitive activity of living beings (and, more recently and increasingly so, by synthetic, artificial, automatic cognitive systems).
Why should we not consider a perception real? An emotion, a feeling, a hallucination? Try telling an AI expert that hallucinations aren’t real!
Yes, it’s true: hallucinations, emotions, thoughts, fantasies, dreams possess a "quality of Reality" and belong to different classes of realism. But they are real! No less important, no less relevant. How intense can the impact of an emotion be on Physical Reality—an emotion that drives a human being to press a button that detonates a charge and shatters a mountain? Not to mention far worse, terrible explosions I don’t even want to name. Perhaps even more real than the button itself—so physical.
Links to the tables of contents of TFNR Paper
