THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY, ALTHOUGH THOUGHT BY MANY TO BE UNKNOWABLE, is a fascinating realm explored never-the-less by philosophers, chemists and physicists, religious scholars and interested laymen alike. In his book, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Joseph Pearce posits that reality is a construct of mind and that different realities may exist for isolated cultures and even for each of us as individuals - that that which we believe, and especially that which we can agree upon - the collective consensus - actually materializes as reality. IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, and our world view is said to largely be a language-made affair varying from culture to culture. Human beings use language in the shaping of their thoughts. It is hard to imagine how animals must think without language skills or how mankind ever managed without them. Some cultural ideas cannot be shared amongst different peoples because there are no words to adequately express their unique meanings. There is no escaping this rich web of language, according to Jerome Bruner, myth, history, ways of doing things, unconciously-accepted attitudes, notions, and so on, for these make up our only reality. WHY IS IT THAT THAT WHICH IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE CULTURE (vision quests, metaphysical enlightenments, unorthadox medical therapies, etc.) seem to be quite impossible for another? Why is it that one cannot point out what he considers the perfectly obvious to a skeptic? Why do some of us fail to see (or refuse to see) the obvious in a given subject or situation? All of us, in our impressionable formative years, have been indoctrinated by our respective cultures, ones parents, priests, pastors, peers, teachers, professors, the educational apparatus, press and electronic media and government. Therefore our beliefs are rarely our own formulations but are adopted from the compartmentalized social groups into which we were born and belong. COGNATIVE DISSONANCE IS THE CLINICAL TERM USED TO DESCRIBE THE PHENOMENA whereby we cannot easily accept new facts which contradict what we have previously been taught as truth. We certainly live in our own artificial constructs but do we by universal consensus actually create them? It seems farfetched to be sure but how does one otherwise explain the diversity of perceived reality that exists from person to person, culture to culture, past to present? Why do some of us see ghosts and apparitions, experience miracles or have religious experiences while others do not? Why do some see, and even capture on film, elusive creatures and manifestations that for practical, technical or logistical reasons simply cannot exist? Why do placebos often times work as well as prescribed medications? How did ancient and primitive cultures build megalythic structures that are deemed impossible for duplication by todays modern technological standards? Could it be that what is possible in one world, or deemed impossible in another, can actually shape the possibilities of reality? Can new realities be created by the suspension of disbelief? Do alternative metaphysical worlds, lying just beyond the veil, occaisionally waft through the woof and warp to distort or dislodge the established norm or occaisionally make what was formerly the impossible possible? After all, todays physicists propose that ours is a multi-dimensional universe with an infinite number of others coinciding with our own. Could these be projections of our individual minds? Do each of us live in our own individual universe? AM I A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION OR YOU MINE? Most definitely (metaphoricaly that is) as our perceptions are often misleading - but in reality? Why do some of us have impossible talents or the inate ability to see beyond the pale and perceive what others cannot? Small children, for example, often remember past lives, have invisible playmates or see and hear their deceased relatives - that is until they are old enough to understand that these things are impossible; Some people are endowed with extraordinary talents such as precognition and ESP; According to reputable witnesses some of the medieval saints could levitate and fly through the air; Hypnotic trance states are said to be temporary re-structurings of reality orientation; The same can be said for the effects induced through the use of psychedelics; There are instances whereby the hallucinations of schizophrenics were believed to have been the metaphysical manifestations of very real but invisible entities! Should these patients be considered mentally ill for their acute perceptions or are we the maladjusted for our failure to see the entire spectrum of reality? IT HAS BEEN PROPOSED THAT OUR MINDS SCREEN OUT FAR MORE THAN WE ACCEPT, SAVING US FROM OTHERWISE LIVING IN THE CHAOS of a world bombarded with too much input. The sea of stimuli all striving for dominance within us. This threat of chaos, according to Pearce, proves sufficient stimulus to insure a ready granting of validity to the current ideas. Our screening process may be essential, but it is also arbitrary and changeable. We pick and choose, ignore or magnify, illuminate or dampen, expand upon or obscure, affirm or deny, as our inheritance, adopted discipline or passionate pursuit dictate. The ambiguous person with a mind divided by choices and confused by alternatives is a mind robbed of power. Graduate students enter their chosen fields of endeavor, never attempting to create free energy for instance or artificial gravitational propulsion systems because they have been taught that these are impossibilities in that they defy the physical laws of nature - so our best and brightest spend the rest of their lives and professional careers fulfilling this dictum by not attempting the impossible. CONFORMITY IS THE NATURE OF THE BEAST. We tend to fall in line, marching lockstep with the prevailing concensus, only deviating from these according to societal pressure, fads or trends. But the question remains, do we merely conform, or, with our psyches, somehow unconsciously create and shape our own realities? If man does indeed possess the power to configure his own reality, as has been suggested, why does he so consistently fail to control his own destiny? And how did the universe come into being without man to dream it into existence? Or did it previously exist unencumbered with the arbitrary constructs of man? Those of a scientific bent conclude that all matter in existence is the result of natural processes, and biological lifeforms the result of accident and evolution. Others insist that living things - even simple cells - are much too complicated to have come about on their own and seem to exhibit clear signs of intelligent design. But this leads to a circular logic - who designed the infinitely more sophisticated designer? MANY WILL READILY AGREE THAT ALL REALITY IS THE CREATION OF MIND but insist that this power is reserved exclusively for the mind of God. Bertrand Russell once quipped that the world in which we live can best be understood as a result of muddle and accident but if it were the outcome of deliberate purpose then one must question the sanity of its creator. Consider the diabolical nature of His Creation: The flawed nature of man who consistently exploits, destroys or fouls all in his path: The whos who on the food chain with its dog-eat-dog barbarism and survival by claw, tooth and nail as imposed upon the animal kingdom; Hunger, illness, fear, pain, and mortality; Greed, narcism and immorality - a result of the gut-wrenching realization that one lives but once so he had better make the best of it. It seems as if the designer and creator of worlds could have come up with a better or more humane arrangement. Nay, if creation it is, says Russell - this flawed arrangement could only have come about through the mechanizations of a twisted mind! IT MUST BE REMEMBERED THAT ALL THAT SEEMS CONCRETE AND PHYSICAL IN THIS WORLD is made up of elemental spinning and orbiting particles that are in actuality - miniscule bundles of energy! Solid matter is therefore an illusion we perceive from our very limited perspective. It is much easier to fathom how energy might be manipulated rather than a mind-over-matter scenario. Indeed, the proponents of Quantum Theory have scientifically demonstrated (at least at the basic subatomic level) that the very act of observation changes the property of such exotic stuff, which can exhibit at various times either the properties of a wave or a particle. Which is it? How can it be both? And does the aether exist or does it not, fleshing out the vast void of infinite space? Unlike particles, electromagnetic waveforms cannot theoretically traverse a vacuum but they continue to do so never-the-less. The nature of time, space and matter is still in question. Maybe the aether is also a variable - an evolving reality even now in the process of coalescing from the formless void! Others have proposed a Holographic Universe whereby the miniscule is but a reflection of the macro and vice-versa. But all our musings are folly and but mere speculation. Silly really! As has occurred throughout history, that which we think we know today will no doubt be at some future point in time proven to be in error. Thus, to profess to know anything about these matters at all is but to profess ones ignorance and arrogance. The reality game is still up for grabs. And if what I have written seems like gobble-de-gook, read some scientific literature on the subject written by the physicists! When the scientific disciplines fail in their mission to measure the micro and macro of the universe and come to a dead end - as they seem to have; Or resort to the fantastic, bordering on the spiritual as an explanation - as they seem to have; When the worlds religions fail to adequately or scientifically explain our genesis - which it seems (to many) they have; When logic bankrupts, and empties the coffers of possibility, in the words of Pierce - perhaps it is an appropriate time for the philosophers and muses to intervene - the dreamers and poets, the smokers of opiates and admirers of the Lotus Flower. Perhaps truly, as the aboriginals down under so claim - it is all but a dream.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 07:16:30 +0000
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