Whish is most "real" the chair you are sitting on, the molecules that make up the chair?

Question

Whish is most "real" the chair you are sitting on, the molecules that make up the chair, or the sensations and images you have of the chair as you are sitting on it?

Answer 1

When people make statements like "atoms are mostly empty space, therefore things are mostly made of nothing", they are vastly oversimplifying the issue.

It is gravity and electromagnetism that give things their apparent solidity, so whether something is solid because it is made of dense atoms (lead) or solid because it is made of less dense molocules (carbon) it is still a real object to us. This is how our senses are adapted to experience reality. Drop a lead canon ball on your foot, and then debate the reality of the object.

If, on the other hand, you were to experience reality at a different frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum (lets say in the range of gamma radiation) most everything would seem porous to you. A chair wouldn't even exist because you'd walk right through it.

The reality in our heads is entirely based upon the energy frequencies our bodies have adapted to sensing. We hear sound energy in a certain range. We see light energy in a certain range. We feel physical objects in a certain range of electromagnetism & gravity.

Real objects are real whether we experience them as solid constructs with physical dimensions, charged particles, or sensory input translated into the firing of synapses. If our senses don't register the chair, that doesn't mean the chair ceases to exist.

This whole transient reality concept is a oft entertained subject in quantum physics... does reality exist only because their are observers observing it? My guess is that even though some tests indicate that subatomic particles can be affected by observing them, I think reality would go happily along its way regardless of whether there were life forms in the universe or not.

Answer 2

To me, the chair. If I'm sitting on it and it is serving its purpose, I do not think of the images of the chair as I am sitting on it. I also do not think of the molecules that make it up as I cannot control them nor do I have any need to. And "real" is all a frame of mind, after all.

Answer 3

To me the molecules are more real. It is only a chair because we made it and called it that. In actuality it is only a mass of molecules formed and pressed together to shape something. Therefor it can become something else, but it is still a mass of molecules.

Answer 4

Neither...

They are both merely names and forms!

The First Cardinal Discipline of Jnana Yoga is:

DISCRIMINATION -
Discrimination between the real and the unreal. This discrimination springs from the intuitive conviction that the eternal and unchanging Brahman (aka: "The Absolute") alone is real, and all other objects are transitory and unreal. The student is born, as it were, with this conviction on account of his having been previously disillusioned, by experiences in previous lives, about the reality of the happiness one may expect on earth and in the heavenly worlds. Discrimination is the first and the foremost discipline; without it the next discipline cannot be practiced.
.

Answer 5

You only think the chair is real based on the sensation and images you have of the chair.

Answer 6

A blind person can expericen a chair without seeing it, and I can't see the molecules that make up this chairm, so that fact that it hurts my back is more real to me.

Answer 7

Yeah I always sit at a certain chair but its not assigned it's just out of habit

Answer 8

Equally real to the sitter - else the chair.

Answer 9

One does not exist with out the other, One is not more real then the other. They are both very real.

Answer 10

Loaded question. You don't define "real" and you are obviously playing with definitions otherwise you wouldn't have put it in quotes.