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Reality sense and reality testing
Author(s) -
Weisman Avery D.
Publication year - 1958
Publication title -
behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 0005-7940
DOI - 10.1002/bs.3830030120
Subject(s) - reality testing , meaning (existential) , perception , epistemology , value (mathematics) , reality check , psychology , consensus reality , virtual reality , philosophy , computer science , cognition , test (biology) , artificial intelligence , paleontology , neuroscience , machine learning , biology
This paper maintains that reality and unreality are not absolute properties of certain events, but that any experience is real or unreal depending upon its conceptual index and libidinal significance. The “genesis of the belief in reality” actually presupposes what it sets out to investigate, for it is based on the supposition that there is an absolute, indisputable distinction between reality and unreality. A more fundamental approach would be to determine how certain experiences acquire a high reality value. One component of this process is reality testing , which discovers the invariant properties of experience. Through perception, conception, symbolization , and logical systems , bare sensorimotor experience becomes highly structured, differentiated experience, capable of having its meaning rationally defined. The other component is reality sense , which intuitively appreciates the nature, direction, and purpose of events, in accordance with their libidinal claims.