At some point in life, we humans indubitably accept things as facts. Believing is seeing, seeing is believing. Humans take many things we see for granted; the sky is blue, grass is green, kittens drink milk. Horses follow this. Throughout childhood, many children are exposed to countless tales of horses in literature and film and often in person on farms. While I unfortunately have to admit that horses do exist as a biological entity, our perception of them is generally far more shaped by culture, media and collective belief rather than direct first-hand experience. The belief in horses as a complete being that is “real” reveals limits of human perception, considering that what we experience is not reality itself but rather a constructed version shaped by the brain and culture.

After reading such an insane statement, you must be indubitably confused. To clarify, even though I am a self-proclaimed “horse denier" — as shown by the bumper sticker on my car — I do not completely deny the fact that horses exist. I am more so expressing a philosophical argument and truth that our ideas of reality are affected by our perceptions rather than first-hand experience. Objective truths gained through experience are paramount, especially in an age of social media where we spend more time gaining information from memes and funny TikToks than knowledge from reliable news sources.

To begin, if our ideas surrounding horses are shaped more from our perception than first-hand experience, this poses a question: How much of our perceived reality is real? Philosophers like René Descartes have grappled with this question for centuries. In “Meditations on First Philosophy,” Descartes argues that our senses cannot be trusted. This concept is evident in optical illusions, where human consciousness is deceived in a multitude of ways. This idea can be applied to my favorite nonexistent four-legged creature and maintain relevance. Most people have not spent extensive time interacting with horses. Instead, they rely on brief encounters, distant observations and secondhand knowledge. If our senses are limited and coupled with shallow experience, then our certainty about an animal as “real” as horses weakens. This truth does not completely deny their existence, but proves a limitation in human perception and consciousness, establishing the fact that our knowledge of them is inherently uncertain. Descartes’ argument proves that what we understand as real may stray further away from objective truth and rely significantly more on how convinced we are by their appearance.

A glimpse into Plato's philosophy, particularly his famous piece, “Allegory of the Cave,” clarifies this idea. In his allegory, there are prisoners who live in the cave. These prisoners experience their reality in utter darkness, and they mistake moving shadows which are cast along the wall as reality. These shadows are not reality itself, but rather representations of it. o the prisoners, it becomes their reality, while our perceptions mark it as false or illusory. In the same way, I argue that our own reality is not based upon true reality, but rather the repeated exposure to certain things over time. From our childhood, horses appear in books and stories, and we develop our own images about what a “horse” is before we have ever set our eyes on one. These images become the “shadow.” As a result, we do not recognize the animal itself but rather a simple, human-constructed iteration of horses. We have strayed further from the animalistic horse and have been brought closer to a mental image that possesses a mane and that Paul Revere allegedly rode on.

This idea is not just a remnant of ancient philosophy, but continues into modern thought as well. In “Simulacra and Simulation,” French philosopher Jean Baudrillard introduces the idea of hyperreality. Hyperreality is a concept in a postmodernist world where reality is blurred through technology and media. To be clear, this is a simplified version of this abstract idea. Nevertheless, applying hyperreality to horses, the horse is once again no longer just an animal, but an idea. It symbolizes freedom, power, beauty and propaganda, depending on who you ask. However, hyperreality suggests an extreme of this idea where the existence of a horse becomes irrelevant. Whether one has come to interact with a horse does not matter, but what matters is if it has become part of the system of the mind. In that way, the horse needs not to be understood, but rather become integrated into our perceived reality in our mind. In this way, the idea of a horse is less of a thing to be discovered and more of a thing to be decided.

Ultimately, everything loops back full circle to the same philosophical question: What does it actually mean for something to exist? Is existence about being physically and objectively present in the natural world, or does it require direct experience that is not shaped by the world around us? Once again, most of our primary perceptions come from secondhand interactions through social media, reputation, brief encounters and word of mouth. As human beings, we also follow this principle. From a distance, people appear a lot more put-together, attractive and “normal” than they actually are. However, as we get closer and closer to people, those walls break down. We get to see the ugly in people — wounds in people that were covered up, flaws, contradictions and previously hidden complexities. This process is not negative, but rather a beautifully-integrated human experience. To experience a person is to move past the filters and experience them in a raw, real and meaningful way. Imperfections are what shape personas into something authentic and real. It is in this way that we move past the illusion and closer to truth.

However, this is where horses differ. Unlike people, it is impossible for most people to maintain relationships with horses that have the same level of depth that human relationships do. Our interactions with horses remain distant, limited and closed off, which allows for our idealized versions of horses to remain unblemished and as smooth as the fur growing wildly on its mane. We never break the surface, and horses remain preserved. Horses exist biologically, but at the same time the version of horses that exist for us humans is shaped through perception, culture and human interpretation rather than an experience of the natural animal. Our experiences are more so a construction of the reality surrounding us than our own independent experiences. Our belief in horses’ existence reveals larger societal truths that show how the limits of human perception shape what we believe to exist. Reality is not what exists, but what we have agreed upon. Especially in a world where things move far quicker than the process of verifying their legitimacy, the strangest part of this process isn’t horses, but our own certainty. Horses aren't real.