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What is Real?

Look to the right. What do you see?

Choose one answer from the below list.

A: A pipe

B: An image of a pipe

C: A painting of a pipe

D: An image of a painting of a pipe

E: All of the above (A through D)

F: None of the above (A through E)

The correct answer is D: An image of a painting of a pipe. Do you know why it is option D and not any of the others? If you chose any of the other answers, you were deceived! Yes, deceived. This deception is a trap where you can not distinguish the difference between what is real and what is a simulation of something real. It also shows an inability (or perhaps a laziness) to accurately express the facts. (We have all done that!)

The most common answer someone chooses is probably A: A pipe. However, you can not physically hold this "pipe" nor can you use it. Therefore that answer is clearly wrong.

Answer C: A painting of a pipe is also wrong because you can not actually touch and hold this "painting".

Answer B: An image of a pipe is also wrong not because it is an image but because the image is not of an actual pipe but of a painted representation of a pipe!

And of course, options E: All of the above and F: None of the above are also wrong.

The writing on the actual painting is French and states,

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe."

This translates as "This is not a pipe.".

René Magritte painted the painting the image above represents. He recognized very early how people were being deceived into thinking that a representation of something was exactly the same as the real thing. And, of course, it most definitely is not!

For example, is eating an image of an apple or eating a plastic apple the same thing as eating a real apple? Well, of course it is not! So why would you refer to a plastic apple, as an example, as if it was a real apple?

Here is another example. If you go to the store to buy some new piece of furniture, and the label states that it is oak. Are you believing that the piece of furniture is made of actual oak wood? In the 21st Century, the furniture is most likely plastic laminate over plywood or pressed sawdust made to simulate an oak pattern. Is that the same thing as being constructed from real oak wood? Most definitely not! But yet, you still call it oak furniture, do you not, even though that is plainly wrong?

Sadly, humanity in the First World has long been brainwashed into believing lies as truth, even to the point of defending the misunderstanding with ignorance and blindness! Those same people will even argue and curse other people who try to correct the misunderstanding!