Rlyeh, on 17 November 2012 - 08:52 AM, said:
How cute, the dictionary defintion of reality. I think we all can agree on what reality is according to that.
The issue seems to be that some do not understand that when coupled with the notion of hyperreality that reality itself is no longer clearly demarcated. What reality is and isn't begins to breakdown once and only once hyperreality is introduced as a concept. The definition for reality then begins to get fuzzy.
Before that everything seems real!!! But the lines are actually blurry. Even your hamburger and hamburger bun from the local fast food place seem real until you realize much of it is not beef (patty) or flour (bun) at all but highfrutcose corn syrup. So it is a very "real" product. You can hold the hamburger in your hand. But you seem to get lost when understanding that it then becomes "hyperreal" when we consider is is mostly HFC and not authentic beef or flour so in this context the hamburger is no longer "real" as you would claim.
So I agree that a lawn is "real" according to your definition but you seem unable to understand how it no longer becomes real and becomes hyperreal instead once we add in a garden, hedgerows, plant a few trees to replace the ones we torn down before, and once a few birds return and insects we claim is is part of nature but nevermind that we destroyed the original habitat of the original birds and insects that belonged when we tore down all those trees and destroyed actual nature to make our existence.
Here is another simple example to illustrate because you seem to be having heaps of trouble:
You theoretically buy a copy of the video game Second Life. They send you the CD installer. It is real, the CD is real, the computer in front of you that will run the program is real, but the game itself is virtural reality. Now let us take it just one step further. Making a business and turning a profit, converting simoleans to real world dollar bills, becomes hyperreality when you are then spending time in the game world and fielding questions or complaints from your clients.
And an even more complex definition if you are up to it:
Quote
reality, hyperreality (1)
The Oxford English Dictionary defines reality foremost as "the quality of being real or having an actual existence" and supplements this with a definition of real as "having objective existence," and finally to exist as having "place in the domain of reality." These conventional definitions of reality represent a larger problem in the attempt to locate the real on the most basic level, for they are wholly circular, a set of signifiers reflecting back at each other lacking the grounding necessary to render meaning. This problem is not unique to the word ‘reality,’ indeed almost all words and signs are only able to refer back towards the internal exchange of other signs in order to produce a theoretical anchor. The slippage of reality, its elusiveness encountered even in a basic search for a definition, is an element of the hyperreal – a condition in which the distinction between the ‘real’ and the imaginary implodes. There is no static definition of hyperreality, and the interpretations employed by theorists vary on some of the most essential terms.
I bolded parts myself to emphasize.
Edited by Chasingtherabbit, 17 November 2012 - 09:23 AM.
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