The rest of the time

Abstract

There are generations of the real as there are demographic or cultural generations. Reality is never given beforehand, but acquired, generated by the development of societies. Even if the stone remains stone, even if the mountain continues in its place, the way of capturing reality varies with the evolution of knowledge. Here, as in other domains, we are no longer in the absolute space and time of Newton and some more, but in the space-time of general relativity. Incessantly our species derives from one generation of reality to another, through a movement of derealization that has two main phases: a phase of simulation of reality, relative to the field of philosophical, scientific or artistic representations; And a phase, usually not perceived, of substitution, in which the real of the preceding generation gives way to that of the new.