Like movies. We react and get emotional and startled and stuff, but that’s totally fake and we know it.
And AI. I know it’s just a statistical illusion but I’ll still have a conversation with it. Sometimes I’ll even feel gratitude. So that’s nuts.
And then you have stories handed down by important authorities. Science and religion. The guy said it so I treat it as real. Is that good or bad?
Fact is, we as humans do this thing where we treat fantasy as reality. And sometimes that’s a good and useful and sometimes it’s bad. And sometimes it’s good for a while but then there’s a AHA moment and then you realize you’ve been fooled and it was all fake. And sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know. I’m getting confused here. You tell me.
The things that “look real but aren’t” are real. They’re real things that are not what you thought they were.
Well ya, you treated one thing as another. It was one thing but you pretended that it’s another.
Now maybe you committed that pretense intentionally, or maybe it was unintentional. Maybe you consciously decided to pretend or maybe it’s a habit or a convention that you just fell into.
And maybe that pretending is really important to you and you defend it and call it real. That happens. it might even happen a lot.