Is awareness reality?

Question

‘Awareness always lags behind reality’ – Graffiti artist Rob Eliot aka Juice 126

If awareness is what always lags behind reality, then awareness is not reality, not even part of it, and if awareness is our current knowledge then we too lag behind reality – but what then is reality?

P.S: Rob Eliot is one-time curator of the legendary graffiti wall of Sally Oak in Birmingham, his latest works include: Faces of Good and Evil, Slice of Light and Dark – source Metro News

Answer 1

Awareness is our acceptance of reality, linking us mentally but not physically to it. Physically we are part of reality, we have to be. Reality moves with or without our acceptance, but always with our interaction. Our current knowledge cannot change what exists.

(or does not exist... this is all within the assumption that the material world we perceive IS reality.. though if we are a brain in a vat the same essentially stands..)

Answer 2

No, awareness is not necessarily reality in my opinion. You can still be aware of mythical things and dreams but not particularly be living in true reality. Reality is what is "real", not all are thoughts are real life, they could be wishes or desires only and never become reality. Do we lag behind reality?, maybe just a bit yes,,it depends what we want to believe...

Answer 3

Awareness is NOT reality. Awareness is our own view of a reality that once existed. There is also no reality that we can know. Since it is only our perception of reality that can be 'seen' on this plane, it is tainted immediately by our egos. There is no reality, only Awareness.

Blessings!

Answer 4

Our awareness is limited and we can only see a certain amount of what is.

Answer 5

Awareness is not reality because one's senses or perception can be out of whack. Someone who is color blind will see red instead of green and if somebody delusional might think he is Napoleon.

Answer 6

Awareness is reality.

Awareness does not exist at anytime in the absence of

being i.e reality,so awareness itself is is reality.

If awareness is other than reality it would not exist

and hence it could not know either itself or any other thing.

If reality is other than awareness,it could not know itself

and hence it would have to depend upon some

awareness other than itself in order to be known.

Hence in order to be absolutely real,reality must be

aware of itself.

Answer 7

No. You may see the glass half full; another may see it half empty = both see reality a glass with some water in it.

Perspective is very important; it's shouldn't be so important but, sad;y, it is.

So what one would deem to be "reality" the other will deem fantasy.

Remember Einstein's response to this:

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”  Albert Einstein

He realized that most people have little interest in actual facts or raw reality. IMO, he was correct.

His statement on 'common sense' went like this:

One's collection of prejudices by the age of 18 passes for common sense.

Answer 8

awareness is a representation of reality. the outcome of the portrayal is dependent on the artist. awareness is reality plus the artist's style, medium, tools, perspective. in a sense, one depends on the other much like in quantum physics how the act of observing changes reality.

Answer 9

I have been practising meta awareness in each moment - I am widening the gap - but I think even being able to do the trick for a second in time and space 'means 'always' could be revised especially as I doubt sincerely that I am the first or only person to want this as a life skill.

I think our awareness is our reality - it always was subject to time and space.

Answer 10

Reality is which is present in the same form for eternity.This is called the Self or God. Awareness of this reality is called 'Self Realisation.'

Answer 11

If we lag behind reality, like you suggest, then we could positively say that reality is in front (ahead) of us. That part makes sense.  So, in other words, reality could be our future: the realistic consequence of our actions. That would mean that we are responsible and in control of our 'individual' reality. Collective reality could also exist in such ways. For example - human stupidity as a 'collective' vice could lead to the realistic consequence of meltdown.

So, reality could be the future consequence of our current actions.

Answer 12

reality is perception. what you perceive is what makes up your reality. there is the common reality. that which most people in a given society agree to be reality. then there is individual reality, which for some may be outside the realm of the common reality.

Answer 13

Whatever we accept as reality must always be there. Realising aspects of it will always lag. Rob does tend to state the bleedin' obvious.

Answer 14

Awareness implies vigilance in observing some thing or experience and alertness in drawing inferences from what one observes.

Awareness in a personal development sense is a consciousness of who you are being and the impact that you are having on others. Heighten your awareness by imagining a small creature on your shoulder who watches over what you think and what you do and whispers what he observes in your ear.

WHAT do we understand by "reality"? For those of us who consider ourselves hard-headed realists, there is a kind of common-sense answer: "Reality consists of those things - tables, chairs, trees, houses, planets, animals, people and so on - which are actual things made of matter." We might tend to include some more abstract-seeming notions such as space and time, and the totality of all such "real" things would be referred to as "the universe".

Some might well consider that this is not the whole of reality, however. In particular, there is the question of the reality of our minds. Should we not include a conscious experience as something real? And what about concepts, such as truth, virtue or beauty?

Thus both are as similer as Mangoes and Oranges :-)

Answer 15

Interestingly, there is a theory out now (sort of like The Secret) that seems to challenge our understanding of reality.  I don't think awareness is reality, I think that which we focus on creates and shapes our reality.  Some of us like to focus on the problems of the world and say "that's reality man!" - but when you think about your own life (the reality of your day to day existence) you find that the world's problems seldom intrude unless you allow them to.

The statement that "awareness lags behind reality" seems to me to say we can not yet be aware of that which has not come into being yet.  You can not notice an action until it happens, right?

Peace!

Answer 16

awareness is the thought of what is real and what is not.

love

Pluto

Answer 17

It depends as to how you look at it, sometimes we, make our own reality, and other times reality is real.

Answer 18

"Awareness" is "cognizance." Cognizance is the result of the "interface" (same as a computer) between the "input" (5 senses) and the mind.

But the input of senses is not the same as perception. Perception is the MEMORY of sensations that happened perhaps only 1/10 of a second previously. (The "clock speed" of the human consciousness is said to be 1/10 of a second, so if something happens faster than that you might miss it.)

Cognizance lags behind reality because of that 1/10 second lapse. But "reality" is the cognoscenti of which your senses are aware.

Whether or not your faculty of cognition and reason accurately determines what that cognoscentum was is up to the cognitive skills you already have that allow you to determine new knowledge.

Awareness is part of reality, because it is the reality of consciousness conscious of something. A consciousness with nothing to be consious of is a contradiction in terms. But the cognoscentum is the object; the consciousness is the subject of the object.

Answer 19

Reality is what was there even when you didn't know it. Don't try to get too close to it; it's not interested in being up-to-date with you.

Answer 20

Light comes into the eye, is picked up by the retina, converted into nerve signals, and thus instantiates activity in the visual cortex, etc. This all takes time, which means what we experience is actually millisecond after the event that sent out the light. Thus, the statement  is simply true. This does not at all imply that awareness is not part of this reality. If I say the image on a movie screen is millisecond behind the light coming from the projector to make that image, does that mean the movie screen is not part of showing the movie?

Answer 21

Reality is a pie.  Awareness is the slice each of us enjoy.

Answer 22

Great question!

Awareness is a link to reality. It may be lagging behind but still it is the foremost factor to be part of reality. Reality is what we are aware of the things we observe and feel. It is the happening of an action in a given time and space.  

Thanks for asking. Have a great day!