"What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus.
Man's concept of reality is completely based on sensation. It is indeed true that our definition of reality is not entirely accurate. Our minds exist as it is, and it merely translates any electrical signals sent to it, in which the brain concludes that a certain sensation is real. If reality exists how our minds perceive it to be, then wouldn't it be conceivable that the world has been existing before the human eyes for thousands (or probably even billions) of years is not really "real"? How do we really say that the world that we live in is "real?" The possibility of unreality (which we shall refer to as the Hypothesis of Universal Unreality henceforth) would even be more credible if one learns that this universe of ours is run by rules - simple, but elegant mathematical rules, like how a programmer creates his own version of virtual reality. Just as Morpheus stated in the movie "The Matrix": "It [the sparring program] has some basic rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different that rules of a computer system.".
Normal everyday occurrences like pushing an object, an apple falling, or the orbit of the moon all follow certain mathematical guidelines set on this universe. What was thought to be as "magic" in the pre-technological era - gravity, magnetism, even flight, can now all be explained using mathematical equations. If this world has to follow certain universal rules, it could certainly be possible that someone had set these rules to keep this universe in order.
The civilization 300-400 years ago believed that anything could happen at any time, like the mystery of an erupting volcano. However, the Newtonian (or Mechanistic) Paradigm changed the view of the people.
