"if one lives in a world full of other people – not the appearance of other people, but real subjects with their own lives – where one can build rich relationships, cultivate emotional depth..."
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The label "real" is fuzzy. Is a socially and emotionally richer life more real?
I think someone can feel completely depressed and ambivalent, have no friends and yet be fully immersed in reality, with this being just as real as someone with a rich life.
If we split the label of "real" into "rich/independent", things become clearer.
There can be a sense that life is more more real by focusing our attention on the most independent level of reality available to us.
external reality > daydream
There is also the sense that life can be more real by engaging differently, regardless of the level of dependence we are focused on.
conversing with a friend > staring at the wall
For the daydream analogy, I could live an incredibly rich life within my head. My wife and kids love me, I'm a go-getter and a family man. Then my phone buzzes and I'm back to my droll, tasteless life; my daydream was completely dependent on my phone not ringing.
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Expanding the concept of "dependence", I think a reality becomes "realer" the more self-dependent it is.
A TV show is less of a reality than a minecraft server, because the agent immersed within them has less of an effect on the system as a whole. They're both equally dependent on the tech / external reality which house them, but they vary in their levels of internal mutability.
The dependence heuristic of reality would be a function of how externally dependent the reality is and how internally mutable it is.
"if one lives in a world full of other people – not the appearance of other people, but real subjects with their own lives – where one can build rich relationships, cultivate emotional depth..."
.
The label "real" is fuzzy. Is a socially and emotionally richer life more real?
I think someone can feel completely depressed and ambivalent, have no friends and yet be fully immersed in reality, with this being just as real as someone with a rich life.
If we split the label of "real" into "rich/independent", things become clearer.
There can be a sense that life is more more real by focusing our attention on the most independent level of reality available to us.
external reality > daydream
There is also the sense that life can be more real by engaging differently, regardless of the level of dependence we are focused on.
conversing with a friend > staring at the wall
For the daydream analogy, I could live an incredibly rich life within my head. My wife and kids love me, I'm a go-getter and a family man. Then my phone buzzes and I'm back to my droll, tasteless life; my daydream was completely dependent on my phone not ringing.
.
Expanding the concept of "dependence", I think a reality becomes "realer" the more self-dependent it is.
A TV show is less of a reality than a minecraft server, because the agent immersed within them has less of an effect on the system as a whole. They're both equally dependent on the tech / external reality which house them, but they vary in their levels of internal mutability.
The dependence heuristic of reality would be a function of how externally dependent the reality is and how internally mutable it is.