What is Real?

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What is real, as an adjective, in opposition to what is unreal or non real, and what is real, as a noun, in opposition to what is not real? Are there things that are not real, or does every concept have some reality about it? How can you avoid making the word real into an unreal word, or a useless word, or both?
 
Well you can look at it in this way. If you believe reason reveals truth, then you can have true ideas.

Logical ideas might not really exist. For example a unicorn is arguably possible (just a horse and horn sort of thing), but I doubt we would say there are unicorns in reality. This would be of an ‘visible’ object though

However, some logical ideas go beyond those empirical concepts into a higher up metaphysical concept. Such as mathematical principles. We do not see math with our eyes, but the concepts are real, and are seen with the mind. Math seems more concretely real than anything you see with your eyes.

Still, I am not sure there is a logical proof for the idea of these principles to exist in reality as well (though it is more likely than what you see with your eyes). I am only aware of one concept where the existance as an idea necessitates the existance in reality. Well maybe your own existance as well.

Anyhow, I am no great philosopher myself, but a study of metaphysics might be something to look into.
 
Real is a audio/video media application whose native format is .ram, although it will play other media types as well. Yes, there are also things that are not Real, the best known of which are probably QuickTime and Windows Media Player.
 
Hi Truth,

Our philosophy teacher shot up to the ceiling when one of us said that God was not real. (Good old Bob called real only what he could see, hear, touch.) “God is the only being that is real”, the teacher said. “Every other being is only real by analogy, inasmuch as it ressembles God.”

Anything that has being is real. Thus a thought is real inasmuch as it is, but the substance of the thought can be unreal, inasmuch as it does not or cannot exist.

Verbum
 
Truthstalker said:
How can you avoid making the word real into an unreal word, or a useless word, or both?
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It’s like a snake eating its tail, isn’t it?

Apart from grace, man cannot help but become delusional. The powers arrayed against him are more than he can surmount.
 
From F. Paul Wilson’s Healer, reprinted in the 1-volume LaNugue Chronicles:
"Reality is what slams into your shins when insist on walking about with your eyes closed"
 
According to Mortimer Adler, anything is real if it possesses an independently existing quality capable of becoming known.

You’re welcome.
 
cpayne said:
According to Mortimer Adler, anything is real if it possesses an independently existing quality capable of becoming known.

You’re welcome.
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The thought crossed my mind that my mind is crossed by thought. I minded the thought that the thought was of the mind.

Likewise.
 
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Truthstalker:
What is real, as an adjective, in opposition to what is unreal or non real, and what is real, as a noun, in opposition to what is not real?
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Things that are real as adjectives… reminds me of Philip K ****'s novel Ubik. All the central characters are dead. They need to find a drugstore to pick up a can of ubik. Sprayed on, it keeps em real. (Something about you, Truthstalker, brings out the sci fi reader in me.)

I guess when folks tell me to ‘get real’ they must be saying ‘get some real’. Question is where does the original ‘real’ come from? Surely the original real must be a noun, not an adjective. The original real is real, in and of itself, not something which is rubbed on or rubbed off.

One could ask what was I before I rub on the real? If I was something, then surely I was either the original real or part of the original real. In which case why am I rubbing on superfluous real?

If I was nothing, then what is the point of rubbing on real? Will rubbed-on real penetrate far enough to transform me into real? Or will it be like alien takeover, the real gaining precedence over my nothingness? (Picture Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers)

Or we could ask, does real grow? If it does, then from what does it grow? Nothing? Something? If so what was the something? Is there a boundary condition across which something changes from unreal to real?
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Truthstalker:
Are there things that are not real, or does every concept have some reality about it?
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Well in theory we can say that things cannot be not real. They are either real or they are not things. Their thingness means that they also have a real (adjective) quality rubbed on. Or one could say that their realness has a thingness (adjective) quality which is rubbed on.

But in reality we know that faith is the realization of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.

btw is there a difference between being and becoming?
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Truthstalker:
How can you avoid making the word real into an unreal word, or a useless word, or both?
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Keep up your subscription to Real? Sorry you asked?

:rotfl:

Ha! Thought I was gone, didn’t ya? Nope. 😛 I’m baaaaack!

Actually I’m not. I have a lot on my plate right now and can’t spend a lot of time on the forums. Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in. Would appreciate everyone’s prayers. God bless.

PS: Wasn’t it you who were reading the Institutes last time we talked?
 
Verbum said:
Hi Truth,

Our philosophy teacher shot up to the ceiling when one of us said that God was not real. (Good old Bob called real only what he could see, hear, touch.) “God is the only being that is real”, the teacher said. “Every other being is only real by analogy, inasmuch as it ressembles God.”

Anything that has being is real. Thus a thought is real inasmuch as it is, but the substance of the thought can be unreal, inasmuch as it does not or cannot exist.

Verbum
Click to expand...
If you cannot see God, you must be looking in the wrong places!

One easy place, the Tabernacle… Adoration and all that…
 
REAL, either as an adjective or noun, bespeaks of concrete existence. Whatever object or concept, that has no practical determination can be said not to be real…
 
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