What is reality? Does it actually exist, or is it just something our brains make up to help us survive?

How we perceive reality is indeed a construct of our brain, but, you can prove experimentally that there is indeed a real, physical world, with its own properties. A rock is real. It’s still there even if there is no eyes and brain to see it, it has a size, a weight, a shape. A person exists, even if no eyes and brain see it, it has its physical properties too. If you roll a ball on the ground it will end up in different places depending if the rock is in its path or not. You don’t need to observe it to be real.

So, although I think this is not a controversial point, even if you still have doubts about it, let’s work with this basis: reality exists.

How do brains work? They work by creating a model of reality, to help us act on it. The closer that model is to the real world, the better we understand the world, the better we are equipped to survive. A dog doesn’t have a brain as sophisticated as ours, so its model or reality is not as precise as ours. This comes with many disadvantages. It can’t understand many things that for us are simple, say, how a door works.

This was our great evolutionary advantage, our brains can build models of reality that are more precise and complete than other Earthly creatures. Because of this advantage, we can understand things other animals can’t, we can build things, antecipate events, predict the future. It’s really great.

What happens when our brains don’t work so well? What happens when our models of reality become wrong? We call that a mental illness, also known as being crazy. What do we do with mentally disturbed persons, whose brains have created a wrong version of reality? We treat them, we help them, depending on the severity, they may need to be institutionalized their whole life. Without a proper functioning model of reality, you simply cannot survive, so those people need medical help, and compassion.

Depending on the severity of the case, it might not really need treatment. You can have major flaws in your model of reality and still be able to function. You may think that the Earth is flat. You may think that magic makes your TV work. You may think there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster that controls your destiny. However, some mental model discrepancies, are severe enough that people need to be removed from society and treated. If you believe you’re a dog, and defecate on the streets and bite people, you cannot function in society. That’s an error in you model that is severe enough that you simply cannot function.

For many cases though, it’s ok, you can still hold a job, have a successful life. Nobody cares, as long as you don’t bother other people. It’s fine. We all hold some beliefs that are probably wrong.

Mental health is a really complex issue. Unlike a broken leg, you can’t just fix it. For the most part, it’s quite impossible to change the broken mental model of an insane person. You can try to control it, medicate it, but ultimately, you cannot really change it. That person will fight, kicking and screaming, and will swear that what she thinks is in fact real. Because for any given individual, what is real, is what their brain has modeled as real. You can refine this model of course, you can question your beliefs. But, if you have a mental illness, some of those wildly wrong assumptions simply cannot be challenged.

Now, we come to the world of modern SJW politics. In particular around gender identity. In the SJW, progressive, liberal world, there is this idea that people can be a different gender than what they were born with. And notice that I use the word be, not feel. You can feel whatever you want, which is to say your mental model of reality can be whatever you want. However, if we continue to obey the premisse that “reality exists” and is not subjective, then what is, and what your brain is telling you, are not the same thing.

Now, you can use whatever model of reality you prefer, you were born John but want to be called Sally? Fine, no problem. You were born Maria, but want to be called Trevor? Whatever, no problem.

But, if you are born a man, and want to be called a woman (or vice versa), you’re trying to impose on others a model of reality that is not accurate. There is proof in the physical world, in the form of DNA, chromosomes, that can be used to see if you’re one of two human genders: male or female. You are free to behave, dress, change names, to whatever you want. But you cannot change what reality is. I can address you by name, and avoid gender pronouns, to not hurt your feelings. That’s ok, feelings are important, they are also real. There is no reason to gratuitously hurt someone’s feelings. But sometimes truth hurts, reality hurts. But reality cannot be changed, even if you say the rock is a turtle, it is not, it’s still a rock.

If someone has a mental issue with their gender, it’s fine. I’m happy to call them by whatever name they want. But, unfortunately your brain does have a model dissonance with reality. In this day and age, unlike with other mental model disorders, you won’t be put in a mental institution, you can function in society, it’s fine. That’s a good thing. You can live a successful life. I can’t promise you’ll be happy though, no one can.

However, as with any other case of insanity, it’s impossible to convince the person that their mental model is wrong. Of course not, it’s the others that are wrong, it’s the world that is wrong. This is a universal consequence of mental illness unfortunately.

It would all be fine, if not for the fact that now, these ideas about gender identity seem to have become so popular, that the broken mental model of people with a reality perception disturbance is being pushed as valid, despite not matching reality. Laws are being passed to enforce new pronouns, to make it a crime to not address people by their preferred form, and other such measures.

It is literally insanity being put into laws.

Throughout human history, our civilization has worked hard to form more accurate mental models of the universe, to better understand it, and manipulate it. Now, we are witnessing a civilizational regression, where some people actually want to enforce models of thinking that do not match physical reality.

Not only that, but actually demonizing and being hostile to people whose model of reality is accurate. Having a proper model of reality in your brain is also known as being a sane, healthy, intelligent, person. It’s what has kept us going as a species. But now, modern day SJW politics are actively attacking sanity to replace it with insanity. Let the insane out, and put the sane in the asylum.

If this is allowed to flourish, then we are witnessing the decay of modern civilization. It was surprisingly short lived.