No, Virginia, Each Person Does Not Have His Own Reality

The most dangerous pandemic in our society isn’t transmitted between bodies, but between minds: A pandemic of lunacy. We are drowning in a flood of crazy ideas, and they aren’t just silly — they’re harmful.

Take the crazy idea that each person has his own reality, which is only one of 30 contagious delusions I discuss in a new book. A professor at the university where I teach preached this lunacy in his classroom.  Student A pushed back a little: “So if someone decides he’s a refrigerator, then he’s a refrigerator?” Student B defended the teacher’s claim: “It wouldn’t be like that. He would have been a refrigerator from birth.”

If we have different realities, then what happens if in my reality, we don’t have different realities? Someone might answer, “So what — we do in mine!” But if he thinks our realities are different, then how does he get the right to say that his view of things is true?

I chatted one day with a psychotherapist who explained that “everyone has his own reality” was one of her guiding axioms. The conversation went something like this.

Me: “Do you mean that each person has his own opinion about what is really real, even though he may be mistaken? For instance, you think Frances lives in San Antonio, but I think she lives in Austin?”

Her: “No, I mean a lot more than that.”

Me: “Then do you mean that certain facts may be true for everyone, but not true about everyone? For instance, for both of us it’s true that you’re married to John, and for both of us it’s true that I’m married to Sandra, but I’m not married to John, and you’re not married to Sandra?”

Her: “No, you’re not getting it.”

Me: “Then are you suggesting that reality seems different to different people? For example, Sam might have meant to pay Ann a compliment, but Ann took it as a slight?”

Her: “I’m afraid you’re still missing my point.”

Me (running out of ideas): “Are you pointing out to me that some aspects of reality may depend on what I think? For example, if I wish Sandra would kiss me, then it’s true for both of us that I have that wish?”

Her: “No, no. Each person has his own reality. Reality is not the same for you and me.”

Me: “Then it seems to me you’re saying that we live in different universes.”

Her: “Now you get it! We do!”

Me: “How could that be? In that case, we couldn’t even speak with each other, but here we are in conversation.”

Perhaps I was too persistent. By this time, she was quite irritated with me. We dropped the subject and spoke of other things. Not, I’m afraid, for very long.

Each of those four things I thought the lady might mean are true — but true, mind you, for everyone.  Yes, we have different opinions about what is real, but a true opinion corresponds with how things really are. Yes, some facts about different people are different, but they are different for both of us. Yes, some things may seem different to you and me, but that doesn’t make them so. And yes, my very thoughts may cause certain things to be true about me, but for you, they are true about me too.

These grains of truth may tempt us to believe we have different realities, but there is only one. This isn’t difficult.

Why do we give in so easily to the temptation to believe we have different realities?

One reason for giving in is to make excuses. If we have different realities, then perhaps we have different rights and wrongs. How convenient. Sleeping with my neighbor’s wife might be wrong for me, but right for you.

Another reason for giving in is that we may want to escape from the one we are in. Have I made a mess of things? Then I imagine a reality in which I haven’t. Am I unwilling to stop doing things that make me miserable? Then I imagine one in which I don’t have to. Am I unwilling to repent the wrong I did my former friend? Then I imagine one in which it was all his fault.

Still another reason is that if we live in different realities, then we don’t have to deal with each other. Ugh. How messy.

Different realities fit in very well with the view of so-called pragmatist philosophers that truth is “whatever works.” Presumably, if atheism “works” for Todd, but faith in God “works” for Anthony, then in Todd’s universe, there isn’t any God, but in Anthony’s, there is. Impossible. Todd and Anthony inhabit the same state of affairs. Either God is or He isn’t.

But wait.  Hasn’t the Great God Science now shown that we have different realities? Some people say so.  Not long ago, I read a Scientific American article on the so-called “neuroscience of reality.” Observing that our brains must process sensory perceptions to put together pictures of our surroundings, the author claimed that “if my brain is different from your brain, my reality may be different from yours, too.” This is more than misleading — it is absurd. How I picture our surroundings may be different than how you do, but we are in the same surroundings. Perceptions really do differ. Realities don’t. To say that just because we have different perceptions, we have different realities, is like saying that just because I am at peace, the world can be at peace. Peace in the sense that a given individual is calm and content is not the same as peace in the sense that no armies are shooting at each other. (RELATED: How Postmodern Relativism Broke Physics)

Or take the claim that the possibility of inconsistent realities is proven by quantum physics. The great physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a “thought experiment”  sometimes called “Schrödinger’s cat.”  Imagine that a cat is locked in a box with a tiny bit of radioactive matter, along with a vial of poison gas that is connected with a Geiger counter. If a radioactive nucleus decays, the vial of gas is shattered, and the cat dies. If it doesn’t decay, no gas is released, and the cat lives. Sometimes it is claimed that until the box is opened and the condition of the cat is observed, the cat is both dead and not dead. Not so. Until the box is opened and the condition of the cat is observed, we simply don’t know whether it is dead or not dead — just as we wouldn’t if it had depended on a coin toss. It turns out that this was Schrödinger’s own view as well!  The point of his thought experiment was merely to show that events in the “little” world (like the decay of a nucleus) can have effects in the “big” world (like the life or death of a cat).

Yes, our brains are somewhat different. Yes, our perceptions are somewhat different. Yes, our circumstances are somewhat different. Like it or not, though, we breathe the same air and inhabit the same world. The sooner we admit the fact, the sooner we can deal with it — and with each other.

J. Budziszewski is a professor of government, philosophy, and civic leadership at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the new book Pandemic of Lunacy: How to Think Clearly When Everyone Around You Seems Crazy (Creed and Culture).