It's a problematic word as it is honorific in English. Like you can say there is the real deal or the real truth or even the real news.

This doesn't mean there are two different kinds of deals, truths or news. We are emphasizing something in these cases.

Would you want to exclude fictional entities from reality? Why? Fictional entities play an important role for people all over the world, so they have a kind of reality to them. Also, nature is colourless, odorless and so forth. These aspects are things we add to the stuff of nature. Yet we would not want to say that a flower is a colourless, odorless thing. So, things quickly become insurmountable.

Given these considerations, I don't think you can give a definition of "reality". All you can do is to say which aspects of reality are those which you are interested in clarifying.

"Natura naturans ... is reality." ~Benny Spinoza

Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'? — Cidat

"Possible"? Yeah, there isn't a contradiction entailed in doing so, as I think my own (perhaps insufficiently rigorous) attempts show:

The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)).

Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)].  — 180 Proof

The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it, and is as unavoidable as it consists in whatever preceeds-resists-exceeds all (of our) rational categories and techniques of control (e.g. ambiguity, transfinitude, contingency, uncertainty, randomness). The real encompasses reason (Jaspers) and itself cannot be encompassed (Spinoza / Cantor) ... like that 'void within which all atoms swirl' (Epicurus). — 180 Proof

The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it, and is as unavoidable as it consists in whatever preceeds-resists-exceeds all (of our) rational categories and techniques of control (e.g. ambiguity, transfinitude, contingency, uncertainty, randomness). The real encompasses reason (Jaspers) and itself cannot be encompassed (Spinoza / Cantor) ... like that 'void within which all atoms swirl' (Epicurus). — 180 Proof

Awesome.

Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'? — Cidat

I think reality is circumstance. I think reality is nature. It brings to mind an Emerson quote, emphasis added:

"Here we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."

I once stood on a chair-shaped rock, high on a peak where a friend died in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. I looked out over what he looked out over as he died, and Emerson is all that came to mind.

"Here we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."

I once stood on a chair shaped rock where a friend died in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. I looked out over what he looked out as he died and Emerson is all that came to mind. — James Riley

:fire:

Reality? "The world in which we occur."

So, we give a “rigorous” definition of reality. Some things are excluded and some things included to our liking. I suppose someone can come along and say “but wait you don't want to exclude this or include that”. So, we modified the definition again. This can go on until when? Until we reach 100% agreement or enough agreement until we can call a small minority ,who disagrees, crazy.

What started out for the search for truth looks more like search for consensus and exclusion.

Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty.

Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty. — Tom Storm

Ineluctability.

That which I simply cannot be bothered to change.

Non-answer: Non-being. Chaos. The void.
The non/pre-conceptual answer: Being-ness
Idealist answer: Awareness and its ideas.
Materialist answer: That which can be observed and measured with the five senses
Pragmatic answer: Whatever has consequences

Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'? — Cidat

You don't try to define reality. You prove or justify it. That's why philosophy is well equipped when it comes to this topic.

You just did it yourself. It is silly to define what you mean then ask for a definition of what you mean.

ALL terms are context dependent. There is no ‘universal’ meaning that isn’t subject to differing interpretations due to differing subjective and contextual items.

I recommend putting a bit more thought into your OP’s or just reply to other threads instead for the time being.

There is no ‘universal’ meaning that isn’t subject to differing interpretations due to differing subjective and contextual items. — I like sushi

Ah, but now did you not just do the same? 'There is' harkens to the name of the biblical God of the Old Testament 'I Am', ala absolute facts even if stating that facts themselves are relative ie. subjectivity. You seem to know reality, at least more so than the next guy. How is that?

The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it — 180 Proof

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. — Philip K. Dick

In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept. You can complain of course, that's what morality boils down to, but don't expect reality to do anything about it.

However, nothing about reality seems logically necessary, that is to say, we maybe able to make some alterations, give it a makeover and that's exactly what humans have been doing ever since we could imagine and thereby conceive of, let's just say, a better deal in life.

Reality is what is the case.

Some may quibble as to the details.

Some may quibble as to the details. — Banno

"Some may"? More like "most will"

In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept. — TheMadFool

Yes.

Ah, but now did you not just do the same? — Outlander

Whatever you wish. Not interested thanks.

Reality (ground) =/= the real (horizon).

Reality (ground) =/= the real (horizon). — 180 Proof

Explain...please.

:flower:

Caveat: When you quote me, try not to conflate "reality" with "the real" because that is not how I use the terms. Of course, use them as you wish, Fool, and take issue with how I distinguish them from one another when you must, but don't just ignore (deliberately or not) my conceptual distinctions in your replies or else we can only talk past one another. NB: Terms are explained (sketched) beginning with the following post –
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/601278 – chew on that (with further links provided).

The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)).

Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)]. — 180 Proof

I'll work on that. Looks too complicated but I'll give it my best shot. Thanks.

As Spinoza does, think geometrically
(re: 'ground & horizon' ... encompassed & encompassing, respectively.)

You differentiate between the real, and reality. Does this mean reality is unreal?

You differentiate between the real, and reality. Does this mean reality is unreal? — Yohan

No. Only fictions (or mere possibilities) are "unreal". Reality – this or that reality (i.e. configuration of facts) – is contingent: necessarily change-able (or non-necessary, in the sense that it is (always at every moment) possible for 'a reality' to come-to-be or continue-to-be or cease-to-be); and this radical, inherently necessary contingency is (my conception of) the real. (E.g. vide classical atomists (re: void), Spinoza, Jaspers, Rosset, Meillassoux-Brassier.)

As Spinoza does, think geometrically
(re: 'ground & horizon' ... encompassed & encompassing, respectively.) — 180 Proof

Copy that!

The Real – the ineluctable, encompassing horizon (that exhausts – exceeds – categories, concepts, symbolic systems (e.g. randomness, void)). — 180 Proof

Per Wikipedia ""Supreme Brahman" that which is beyond all descriptions and conceptualisations. It is described as the formless (in the sense that it is devoid of Maya) that eternally pervades everything, everywhere in the universe and whatever is beyond."

Reality – the ground, including logical / phase-spaces (i.e. reason), encompassed [by the encompassing horizon (i.e. the real)]. — 180 Proof

Per Wikipedia: "For the Nondualists, maya is thus that cosmic force that presents the infinite brahman (the supreme being) as the finite phenomenal world. "

Sounds like you are contrasting the Infinite with the Finite?

Basically, that which you are forced to accept.