Consensus reality refers to the generally agreed-upon version of

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...

within a community or

society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

, shaped by shared experiences and understandings. This understanding arises from the inherent differences in individual perspectives or subjectivities relating to

knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

, leading to uncertainties about what is real. While various viewpoints exist, people strive to establish a consensus, serving as a pragmatic guide for social norms. The term carries both positive and negative connotations, as it is viewed critically by anti-realist theorists but recognized for its practical benefits in fostering shared beliefs. Consensus reality differs from consensual reality, with the former representing mutual agreement about what is true. Artists and thinkers have challenged consensus reality, aiming to disrupt established norms and question the authenticity of the world's reality. Children have sometimes been described or viewed as "inexperience with consensus reality," though are described as such with the expectation that their perspective will progressively form closer to the consensus reality of their society as they age.

General discussion

In considering the nature of reality, two broad approaches exist: the realist approach, in which there is a single, objective, overall reality believed to exist irrespective of the

perceptions Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

of any given individual, and the idealistic approach, in which it is considered that an individual can verify nothing except their own ''

experience Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...

'' of the world, and can never directly know the truth of the world independent of that.

Berger Berger is a surname in both German language, German and French language, French, although there is no etymological connection between the names in the two languages. The French surname is an occupational name for a shepherd, from Old French ''bergi ...

and Luckmann argue that "reality is socially constructed and that the

sociology of knowledge The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals w ...

must analyze the process in which this occurs". Rather than being a purely philosophical topic, the question of reality includes, for them, the sociological study of consensus reality. Consider this example: consensus reality for people who follow a particular theocentric religion is different from consensus reality for those who follow another theocentric religion, or from those that eschew theocentric religions in favor of

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

alone, for explaining life and the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

. In societies where theocentric religions are dominant, the religious understanding of existence would be the consensus reality. In a predominantly

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

society, where the consensus reality is grounded in science alone, the religious worldview would be the non-consensus (or alternative) reality. In this way, different individuals and communities have fundamentally different

world view A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. However, when two parties view the s ...

s,According to philosopher

Ken Wilber Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949) is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience. Starting publishing ...

. See Ken Wilber's book ''A Brief History of Everything''. with fundamentally different comprehensions of the world around them, and of the constructs within which they live. Thus, a society that is, for example, completely secular and one which believes every eventuality to be subject to metaphysical influence will have very different consensus realities, and many of their beliefs on broad issues such as

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

, and

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...

may differ in direct consequence of the differences in the perceived nature of the world they live in. Charles Tart in his book "The Awakening" proposed an alternative term - "''conditioned reality''" (''conditioned'' or ''conditional reality''), pointing out the inaccuracy of the term "consensus reality", since no one asks an individual for consent whether he wants to live in a "generally accepted reality", because he is accustomed to it through "conditioning" - the development of conditioned reflexes in the process of education and socialization.

In science and philosophy

Idealists

Some

idealists Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is enti ...

( subjective idealists) hold the view that there isn't one particular way things are, but rather that each person's personal reality is unique. Such idealists have the

which says that we each create our own reality, and while most people may be in general agreement (consensus) about what reality is like, they might live in a different (or nonconsensus) reality.

Materialists

Materialists may not accept the idea of there being different possible realities for different people, rather than different beliefs about one

. So for them only the first usage of the term reality would make sense. To them, someone believing otherwise, where the facts have been properly established, might be considered

delusion A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other m ...

al.

Social consequences

Views on the term

The connotation of the term "consensus reality" is usually disparaging: it is usually employed by idealist,

surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

and other anti-realist theorists opposing or hostile to this "reality," with the implication that this consensus reality is, to a greater or lesser extent, created by those who experience it. (The phrase "consensus reality" may be used more loosely to refer to any generally accepted set of beliefs.) However, there are those who use the term approvingly for the practical benefits of all agreeing on a common set of assumptions or experiences.

Consensus vs. consensual reality

Consensus reality is related to, but distinct from, consensual reality. The difference between these terms is that whereas consensus reality describes a state of mutual agreement about what is true (consensus is a noun), consensual reality describes a type of agreement about what is true (consensual is an adjective). In other words, reality may also be non-consensual, as when one person's preferred version of reality conflicts with another person's preferred version of reality. Consensual reality is relevant to understanding a variety of social phenomena, such as deception.

Social aspects

Artists, writers, and theorists have attempted to oppose or undermine consensus reality while others have declared that they are "ignoring" it. For example,

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...

intended by his paranoiac-critical method to "systematize confusion thanks to a paranoia and active process of thought and so assist in discrediting completely the world of reality".

References

External links

{{Conformity Belief Community building Reality Perception Social constructionism Concepts in epistemology