Just Finished Reading: A Beginner’s Guide to Reality by Jim Baggott

If you have ever wondered “Is that for Real?” then this is definitely the book for you. Asking questions like ‘Is money real’ and ‘What exactly are Space & Time’ the author slowly strips away any normal sense of what is and what is not actually real. After a little over 200 pages you will be convinced – as I was – that pretty much anything we thought of as reality actually turns out to be nothing more than a necessary illusion.

Baggott starts with the social fabric of everyday life and has the ostensible mission of looking for the foundations of our reality. Chapter after chapter he keeps digging to see how far the rabbit hole goes down. As he unwraps each argument to find nothing much inside he comes to the conclusion that the foundations we seek are not actually there, being, as much seems to be, no more than a convention we hold in common with others in order to get on with our lives.

It’s a sobering thought that not even the bricks and mortar around us are as certain as we would like them to be and that we largely create reality in our own heads never knowing what ‘real’ reality is actually like (if it even exists). I find it fun to play with ideas like this and try them out, to taste their flavours and ponder what, if anything, it all means. It is most certainly a head trip and after reading this book you will realise, if you haven’t already, that we’re not in Kansas any more.