By far the best explanation of cultural realism I have ever encountered

You can think of culturally decodable information as a potential form of experience, very much as you can think of a brick resting on a ledge as storing potential energy. When the brick is prodded to fall, the energy is revealed. That is only possible because it was lifted into place at some point in the past. In the same way, stored information might cause experience to be revealed if it is prodded in the right way.

Jaron Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget, Pg 28