Read more: 鈥�Special issue: What is reality?鈥�
DO WE make reality, or does it make us? Probe the existence of the universe鈥檚 supposed building blocks 鈥� quarks, electrons, neutrinos and the rest 鈥� and you eventually end up back in your own mind. Alternatively, discount everything human and settle for 鈥渁 world without us鈥� 鈥� a reality that might also be unknowable by us (see 鈥�Reality: The bedrock of it all鈥�).
These options are as viscerally unsettling as they are intellectually challenging. Other possibilities 鈥� that we live inside a video game, say, or a hologram 鈥� are hardly any more comfortable.
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But forsaking the notion of reality is not an option, either. Quantum mechanics may be ineffable, but it still makes electronics work. Wars may not 鈥渆xist鈥�, but they still kill people. The wonder of the human condition is that to us, quarks are real. And so is compassion.