Reality is merely a matter of perception
The most common definition for reality is “the state or quality of being real.” If something can be observed, then it therefore is real. Reality is purely subjective and if it appears real then therefore it can be deemed reality. However, if you were to use another very commonly used definition of reality, that reality is a “real thing or fact,” things become complicated. You can’t prove that anything is real yet you can prove that something has the state or quality of being real. Therefore my argument is highly dependent on the first definition of reality, and would crumble beneath the complicity of the second definition.
Quantum physicists have proven the fact that reality doesn’t exist if you aren’t observing it. Markus Aspelmyer, Anton Zeilinger, and colleagues from the University of Vienna have seemingly answered the age-old question of, “if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Their conclusive evidence points to the statement that if a tree falls and nobody is there to hear it, then perhaps the tree doesn’t exist at all.
The underlying theme of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave, and that the things we perceive as real are truly just shadows on the wall. Existence outside of the cave is unknown and represents the intangible, intellectual world. The story is about two radically different states of consciousnesses and awareness, or two radically different life perspectives. “Men would say of him (who has been enlightened) that up he went and down he came without his eyes.” Experiencing the unreal world is truly subjective.