The empiricist definition of reality is "what can be proven." The problem with   
   this definition is that by itself it leads to nihilism. If reality is what can   
   be proven, then if something cannot be proven to just one person, it is not   
   real. Not much can    
   be proven to a person with brain damage or to a person who believes that the   
   earth is flat. This leads, logically, to the conclusion that nothing is real.   
      
   I went through a nihilist stage when I was a teenager. Some people thought   
   that I was on drugs, and others thought that I was escaping reality. The real   
   reason was this cognition.   
      
   The nihilist conclusion is corrected through a better definition of reality.   
   This definition puts the cart before the horse. Proof does not pre-exist   
   reality; reality pre-exists proof. Reality does not exist in reference to a   
   method of discerning it.    
   Reality exists in its own right, and the method exists to discern it.   
      
   While not much can be said in favor of nihilism itself, it can however be a   
   useful pathway into other systems of learning. There are any number of   
   spiritual disciplines that claim that the true world is that of God, or that   
   of higher consciousness, or    
   that of perfect forms. Much can be learned from these spiritual disciplines,   
   practised as they have been for centuries to enhance wisdom and understanding.   
   The flaw with many of these systems is that, when left to their own devices,   
   they start to    
   militate against scientific fact and against "the world"; and that is not the   
   rightful path either.   
      
   I want to see people be able to have the benefits of both science and   
   spirituality. Both the material world and the spiritual world should be in the   
   best shape that they can be. People have both the physical and the spiritual   
   existence; and depriving    
   them of either impoverishes them.   
      
   The real reason for the conflict between the materialistic and the spiritual   
   worldviews is that they are describing two different things. When one blind   
   person holds the trunk of an elephant and the other its tail, they think that   
   they are describing two    
   different things; yet what both of them are describing are different aspects   
   of the same reality. Man the "rational animal" or "social animal" and man the   
   spirit are both man. They are just different aspects of man.   
      
   What is reality? Reality is what exists. This is the case for both the   
   material and the spiritual aspects. Any true system of learning will have to   
   be consistent with scientific knowledge, while also accounting for all the   
   spiritual experiences that    
   people have without branding them as mental illness or worse. The spiritually   
   inclined will have to acknowledge scientific fact, and the materially inclined   
   will have to acknowledge spiritual phenomena. And then people will be able to   
   have the benefits    
   of both approaches without killing one another over them.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)