Originally posted by Daf Fernandez

"You really have to define it more to be able to answer it.

I would say that what we are talking about could be described as a psychological spectrum. If one was to listen to Dr. Paul in his self help program "deep inner game" you could say that one end of the spectrum is a realist and the other end is the idealist. The realist is one who uses observing ego and adapts his thinking to be as close to reality as his perception allows. At the other end of the spectrum is the idealist who either has no observing ego or chooses not to use it. He refers to his own internal beliefs (accurate or not) when perceiving his world.

The fact of the matter is that all things that enter our minds arrived by the vehicle of our senses (even genetic knowledge came from the senses of our forefathers). One who strives to be a realist can only use observing ego to constantly evaluate his internal beliefs compared to his perception of reality. Without omnipotence one can never truly be a realist.

So to say are you a realist or an idealist really depends on your use of observing ego. Let's take a controversial example. If you see a man who is well dressed and has effeminate gestures the idealist would say "that man is gay." you walk up to the man and ask if he is gay and he say's "no" the idealist would say "he's in the closet." There is no way a man communicates to the world that way unless he is gay. A realist can look past that to say that one can live a life in submission to a dominant who provokes such mannerisms. Or a man can be raised around all women and have no masculine models thus the mannerisms can be adopted as cultural norm. Which really proves that the realist is an advanced idealist because he had to reach to other perspectives internally known rather than the reality."

Originally posted by Daf Fernandez

"I started a different post to propose a different point of view.

On can say that the realist is one who is more logical and the idealist is more emotional. Thus the realist is prone to rules and the idealist is one to ignore the rules. For instance the realist drives between the lines on the road, while the idealist looks at it as paint and cares more about the car coming the other way.

This same scenario works the exact opposite. Would the idealist be prone to the idea that binds him to the rules where the realist is prone to the physical evidence that there is only a line on the road that can't really keep him there.

Is the realist the one who pays his bills, goes to work and organizes his life? He is realistic about his life as to avoid consequence. Or is the realist the one who knows that all this is subject to human perspective, bribes his way out of a speeding tickets, successfully blames someone else for his wrong doing escaping consequence, openly does illegal stuff (pick any, drugs, murder, theft, jaywalking), and rarely gets caught or punished. Should he get caught is he realistic that he deserves his consequences and still tries to get out of it or idealistic that he shouldn't have been punished.

Honestly you could argue they are both idealistic. You could argue that they are realistic about how they interact with their world. So with this point of view one could argue that the realist is the one in tune with his reality. An idealist is one oblivious to it. You could also argue that there is no such thing as a realist but that a realist is a specific kind of idealist. What is true for one man may be an idea or concept to another."

Originally posted by Stephen Tibbles.

"Nothing that is physical can be proven to be real. The only thing one can truly believe in is the aspects of your current thoughts. Memory and senses are all together unreliable. How does one know their senses are not flawed? Solipsism is the belief that the only thing that one knows for sure is that their own mind does exist. We can not however prove this belief to anybody else."

Originally posted by Rachel Doonar Nix

"I am a realist when things in life seem ideal and I am an idealist when life seems surreal. I suppose I sway more to idealism LOL"