When you argue about "real reality" versus our "mental
spreadsheet" you fight a very strange battle. People
in these kinds of situations tend to choose one side
or the other and stay with it.
Here's what I mean: suppose, for example, that there
is an infinite difference between our mental
spreadsheet and reality... this means that we would
have no way of telling what sort of reality we are
living in and therefore no mechanism with which to
determine our actions or their relevance to this
"real" reality.
Suppose the opposite: that our mental spreadsheet and
reality were a one-to-one match.In this case, somehow,
there would be no difference between what we believed
we saw and what was actually there.. in that case, we
would still be stuck with the possibility of as much
as infinite difference because of our own reasoning:
i.e., even though there is no significant effective
difference in the reality I have experienced so far
and the realities I have experienced in the past,
(their laws or properties appear to be static as far
as my memory *now* indicates*), it is reasonable to
assume that this instant or moment could be a pure
fantastical generation on the part of some other
agent, external or internal to myself.
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