Humans have questioned their reality for a millennia. How do we keep ourselves feeling grounded?
What do a 16th century philosopher, the Matrix, and a symptom of anxiety have in common? If you’re like half of the general population, you may question reality at some point in your life¹.
I first went down the rabbit hole when I saw the cyberpunk movie, The Matrix, and then again when I saw Inception, the 2010 movie that, much to his fans’ dismay, didn’t earn Leo the long-awaited Oscar. What if everything around me was the work of an evil genius, like the automatons in the Matrix, or an inescapable dream, like in the Inception? Reading Descartes and Aristotle in my Philosophy courses this summer brought back a surge of familiar thoughts.
“I think, therefore I am”
The story goes that Descartes, a 16th century philosopher often recognized for Cartesian Mathematics, found himself in a state of despair when he realized he could not be sure that the world around him, including his own physical body, was real.
He doubted that it could be the work of an evil genius (like in the Matrix) or the result of a dreamlike state (like in the Inception). He concluded that the only thing he could be sure about was that he was experiencing the doubt.
Even if an evil genius placed the doubt in his head, there was an experiencer that was experiencing the doubt. Cue the famous statement, “I think, therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum in Latin),” that laid the foundation for certainty in Western Philosophy.
So maybe it is a dream or a simulation and “there is no spoon.” But there is an ‘I’ that is doing the experiencing.
Derealization — feeling of disconnection from reality
While studying Psychology this past year, I learned that there is a word to describe these transient feelings — derealization, a mental state where you feel detached from your surroundings and may question your reality¹.
Although jarring, especially after you’ve just watched Leo drift through multiple levels of dreaming in the Inception, it’s a surprisingly common experience that sometimes manifests as a symptom of anxiety.
If you find yourself distressed by these thoughts, some ways to ground yourself are to connect to the reality using your five senses (ex. touching a cold object, listening to loud music, tasting something sour) or to simply distract yourself until the feelings pass. It may help to remember that more than half of all people may have this disconnection from reality at least once in their lifetime¹.
Monism and other views
While Descartes’ grounded himself in reality using the dualism of mind and body, i.e., his mind could exist independently of his senses, other Western philosophers like Spinoza argued for substance monism, a view that there is only one substance in the universe.
Monists anchored themselves in reality with the argument that there is no real distinction between them and the world. On the other side of the world, Eastern texts like the Bhagavad Gita had promoted a realization of oneness with the universe in a similarly monist view (Advaita Vedanta) for centuries.
Regardless of the belief, questioning reality has led many philosophers to thought-provoking ideas and has inspired some mind-bending movies. Still others, like Kant, have remained critical of such inquires, arguing that the human mind is incapable of reaching metaphilosophical conclusions in a reliable way (i.e. such questions are impossible because their answers cannot be verified)².
Perhaps the takeaway is that such exploration can lead to valuable insights, while disregarding it can keep things simple. Your personal approach depends on whether you prefer to meditate on the mysteries of the universe or to simply enjoy your commute to work!
Geetika Kapoor is a Psychology postbaccalaureate student and researcher at UC Berkeley and an experienced Product Manager.