社会实在与关系实在论
什么是红色？什么算作山，什么算作丘陵？什么是总统？总统拥有什么权力？所有这些都植根于社会实在。它们植根于一群人共同将某种意义赋予一组物理信号，而这些物理信号本身并不以任何其他方式拥有该意义。你做什么、不做什么，你说什么、不说什么：你的日常行动有助于构建现实，有助于显现现实。事实证明，我们想当然地认为是现实客观方面的所有特征，其实都植根于外在事物与内在事物之间的关系之中。
英文原文
What is the color red? What counts as a mountain versus a hill? What is a president? What powers does a president have? All of these things are rooted in social reality. They are rooted in a group of people collectively imposing a meaning on a set of physical signals that those signals don't have any other way. What you do, what you don't do, what you say, what you don't say: Your daily actions help to constitute reality, help to manifest reality. And it turns out that really all the features that we sort of assume are objective aspects of reality, those aspects are rooted in the relationship between what is out there and what is in here.关系实在论认为，颜色是照射到你视网膜的光线波长与你大脑中的信号之间关系的一种属性。你怎么知道把它们理解为红色？你必须学会那些信号意味着什么，而这意味着是别人教会你的。任何你学会将物理信号本身并不具备的意义赋予该物理信号的特征，都被称为文化继承。文化继承是指其他人凭借他们的行动和言语，用记忆中的过去来为你塑造大脑神经连接，而你现在正用这些连接来创造关系性的当下。文化继承是知识从一代人向另一代人传递的一种形式。它实际上构成了“感知盒”（Perception Box）的基础。
英文原文
Relational realism assumes that color is a property of the relationship between the wavelength of light that hits your retina and the signals in your brain. How do you know to make sense of them as red? You had to learn what those signals meant, and that means somebody else taught it to you. Any feature where you learn to impose meaning on the physical signal that the physical signal doesn't have on its own is called cultural inheritance. Cultural inheritance is how other people, by virtue of their actions and their words, wire your brain with the remembered past that you now use to create the relational present. Cultural inheritance is a form of passing knowledge from one generation to another. It's the foundation really of a Perception Box.文化继承与集体共识
所以事实证明，你可能视为现实客观特征的所有方面，实际上都是文化继承而来的。而任何通过文化继承而来的事物——一群人通过共识，将某种物理信号本身并不内在具备的意义赋予该信号——通常被称为社会实在。
英文原文
So it turns out that all of the aspects that you may take to be objective features of reality are actually culturally inherited. And anything which is culturally inherited, where a group of people, by consensus, impose a meaning on a physical signal that the physical signal doesn't have intrinsically on its own, is usually referred to as social reality.当我说现实的特征实际上是信号之间关系的特征或属性时——其中一些信号只存在于你的脑海中，对吧？——这意味着人们之间必须存在共识或默示的共识。因此，如果我看着这把椅子并体验它，酒红色——或者红色，取决于你先前的经验是怎样的——酒红色作为一种颜色的存在，取决于先前教会我那些模式的人，那些模式让我能够利用我对颜色的记忆过去、我的感知盒，不仅去体验它，而且能够将这些光线波长作为酒红色来创造并据此行动。因此在所有情况下，我们头脑之外的信号，都是通过共识、通过集体约定，藉由它们与我们头脑内部信号的关系而被赋予意义的，这意味着即使像颜色的存在这样的事情，也是社会实在的一种形式。
英文原文
When I say that features of reality are really features or properties of relationships between signals — some of which only exist in your head, right? — what this means is that there has to be a consensus amongst people or an implied consensus. So, if I'm looking at this chair and I experience it, the existence of burgundy — or red, depending on what your prior experience is like — the existence of burgundy as a color depends on prior instances of people who taught me the patterns that allowed me to use my remembered past, my Perception Box, for color, to not just experience it, but to create and act on the wavelengths of light as burgundy. So in all cases, the signals outside our heads are given meaning by their relation to the signals inside our heads by consensus, by collective agreement, which means that even something like the existence of color is a form of social reality.社会实在的典型例子与现实的边界
社会实在的例子，比如那种经典的例子，就是金钱。每次你用小纸片换取能吃或能用的东西时，你不仅是在认同金钱的存在，你更是在显现金钱的存在。同意的人越多，其价值就变得越牢固。如果一群人撤回其允许小纸片可以用来交换物质财富的同意，金钱还会存在吗？答案是否定的，它就不存在了。这就是2008年抵押贷款危机中发生的事情，一群穿西装的人撤回了他们对抵押贷款具有某种价值的认同，结果世界陷入了经济危机。
英文原文
Examples of social reality, like the kind of of classic example, is money. Every time you trade little pieces of paper for something that you can eat or that you can use, you are not just agreeing to the existence of money. You are manifesting the existence of money. And the more people who agree, the more solidified the value becomes. If a group of people withdraw their consent that little pieces of paper can be traded for material goods, does money still exist? And the answer is no, it doesn't. This is what happened in the mortgage crisis in 2008, where a group of guys in suits withdrew their consent that mortgages had a certain value and the world was plunged into an economic crisis as a consequence.我认为有一个非常重要的观点值得提及，那就是现实是依赖于视角的，且是灵活的。但它并不是无限灵活的。你不能随便捏造任何鬼话，为其达成共识，然后它就算作真理。我们可以让一群人同意玻璃、碎玻璃是食物。但这并不会让它成真，因为还有其他与我们大脑中的信号相关的信号也起作用。对于什么算作食物，存在着生物学上的限制。包含这些信号所产生的模式也非常重要。它们是至关重要的，对吧？所以有内在的信号，有外在的信号，也有内在的信号。
英文原文
There's a really important point that I think it bears mentioning, and that is that reality, it's perspective-dependent and flexible. But it's not infinitely flexible. You can't just make up any bullshit, get consensus for it, and then it counts as true. We could get a bunch of people to agree that glass, ground glass is food. But that would not make it true because there are other signals that are in relation to the signals in our brains that also count. There are biological constraints on what counts as food. And the patterns that emerge from including those signals also matter a great deal. They're crucial, right? So signals in here, signals out there, signals in here.对于许多你认为是客观现实的事物，凭借你所做的和你所不做的，你都在为现实的创造做出贡献。如果我们投票，如果我们不投票；如果我们决定关注这个网络红人而不是那个；如果我们决定吃这个，而不是吃那个。所有这些事情都在显现我们随后必须去面对的现实。因此，对于哪些信号模式算作现实、哪些不算，你拥有更大的力量。