external world
What's out there
The external world is reality outside one's own mind—the physical universe of objects, other people, and events that exists independently of any individual's perception or thoughts.
The term appears most often in philosophy, where skeptics question whether we can truly know anything beyond our own mental experiences: How can we be certain the external world isn't an elaborate illusion?
- objective realityExistence independent of minds
- out thereStrangely unconventional or extreme
- thing-in-itselfReality apart from perception
- realityWhat actually exists
- bare factsUnembellished essential information
sensation · five senses · cosmos · phenomenology · solipsism · brain in vat · sensory experience · epistemology · metaphysics · empiricism · perception · dualism · mind body · idealism · materialism · tangible · observable · physical
external worldinner world
Personal psychological realm
inner life · inner experience · inner self · interior life · the self
external worldsubjective experience
First-person felt quality
subjective reality · inner reality · qualia · first-person perspective · lived experience
external worldmind
Seat of consciousness
inner reality · spiritual world · world of ideas · consciousness · imagination
world, external, extrinsic, externalize, externalized, externalization, externality, externals, externalizing