Tag: Reality

You are Reality

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Recently I have started to dive into the teachings and philosophies of Buddhism (“Well, it looks like he’s going off the deep end after all”… just stay with me here). And a very interesting concept that I have been contemplating with this is that I am reality. Similar to the idea that I do not exist, this concept is that each and every one of us creates, and therefore are, our own realities.

In my opinion, the concept is interesting enough on its own, but then I took it one step further. Mashing this idea with my opinions on the subjective and objective world, which I later found out is defined as the critical realist approach, I wanted to see how these concepts could fit together. Whether they clashed or if they could work together as one finished puzzle.

So, as most people do who waste their time thinking about this stuff, I went on a walk and thought. And below is what I came up with:

We have the objective world full of wavelengths, mass, different forces, and energy (I’m sure there are some others that a physicist could list off but that’s all I got for now). These parts of our universe are very set in stone. They can be understood as the factors that determine the laws of our universe. And to my understanding, these are the only real things that exist within this universe. Now I would like for you to take a second to download what this means. This statement implies that there are no colors, no shapes, no noises, no thoughts, and no you or I.

Your reaction to that statement probably went something like this, “Um… yeah. Is he high?”. And at first glance, I certainly don’t blame you. Even for myself, this belief feels a bit paradoxical and impossible. Yet, I reassure you, there is a steady logic that arrives at this conclusion.

To begin this argument, I would like to point out the nonexistence of color. A wavelength of 700nm is very real, but it creating the color red is just due to the cones in our eyes being wired the way they are. For instance, when we lack the red receiving cone, as many color-blind people do, we cannot see red when a wavelength of 700nm is in our line of sight. Rather than transmitting the commonly seen color red, our eyes fail us and output nothing for us to recognize. 

This breaking down can be done with anything outside of the objective universe we live within. “Shapes” are only formed when the nerves in your somatic sensory system have registered contact. “Sound” is only created once your own eardrums start rattling and then you associate each noise with its origin. And thoughts are only the passive flow of consciousness as the rationalized portion of the brain makes the real decisions (this idea is written about in a creative writing piece of mine called, “The weight of thoughts”).

This reconstruction, or rather destruction, of our primary senses and forms of identity leaves us with an unnerving truth: If everything that makes us us is not in this universe, but instead in our own universe, then we ourselves are only within our own.

Now you may be thinking something like this, “But it’s real! You just don’t notice, but of course these things are still happening”. To answer this concern, I encourage you to think a little deeper. If there is nothing to transfer wavelengths into something that can be defined as a color, does the color actually exist at that moment in reality? Is sandpaper rough when there is nothing rubbing against it? And if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is no. Without an interpreter, the things defined by that interpreter will not exist.

Our humans are very real. The mass of atoms that make up our body, the gravity that pulls on this mass, the interatomic forces that repel or combine with other atoms, and the wavelengths that are constantly going through us are all very existent in the universe. But as for our perceptions, projections, and thoughts? Well, these are entirely built within our subjective, or personal, universe. And it is this universe that we call reality.

So, a possible question you may have is how can something objectively exist in this universe if it is not in reality? And my answer, reiterating from a new angle, is because there is no reality. “Reality” is just you. You are reality. It’s not around you. It’s not being perceived by you. It is simply you.

You are your reality, and I am mine. So, in other words, we are all our own gods of our little unique universes. And it is these little universes that I call subjective reality. This subjective reality is entirely created by yourself and is the only form of experience you have even had.

Continuing to play with this idea, you may notice that by being your own god would imply that you have complete control of reality. And so, if this were true then you should be able to experience anything you would like. Therefore, since we can’t, Jake is full of shit and this post is dumb.

Okay, this is a bit complicated, and I will probably not do the answer justice, but I suggest, if you haven’t already, to read my previous post Do we have free will? In that post I make the claim that we are ruled by ourselves, rather than us ruling ourselves. Therefore, unless we broke from our egos, our self-narratives, we will be trapped to perceive the world that our human makes for us. And how do you change that fact? Well, have you heard of enlightenment?

Another question you may have is why would our realities be so similar if they are in fact completely subjective? Well, although they are all subjective and personal, these unique realities are based on the same objective reality. And this may be a stretch, but don’t forget that human DNA is 99.9% similar to one another. Therefore, as different as you and I are, even being completely unrelated, we are still 99.9% the same generically. So as you can imagine, the realities our humans make are bound to be almost identical.

A final question that needs to be mentioned is how things can surprise us. If you determine your reality, then how are you ever surprised or experience something new that you did not expect? To answer this final question, I will put it bluntly: You still experience new and unexpected things because the you that you are thinking of right now is only a conscious illusion. The real you, the brain with its input and output, is registering everything it creates as you are consciously playing catch up.

In summary, you are reality. You are your reality. And I am mine. Our realities are external from the objective world and act as an illusion as we interpret and perceive the universe. Shifting and bending objective parts of this world, we make them fit in reality and understanding. Finally, it’s only once the ego has been erased that we can take control of what is already ours.

** Now that I have made my case, I would like to mention that I believe this may be false. By the time I finished this post, my views have gone even deeper into these Buddhist philosophies. Regardless, I encourage you to still consider this post to be a temporary truth, for it is needed as a stepping stone to continue closer to a possibly true interpretation of life. The more accurate post is hyperlinked here**

Nothing is Real

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I for one have heard dozens of people say, usually in frustration, that nothing is real. They exclaim that nothing matters and that everything is bullshit and fake. With my post today, I hope to explain this idea and show how fake or not, everything may matter after all.

After careful reverse engineering, I believe the statement, “nothing is real”, is better said as “nothing is natural”. I feel obligated to fix the statement because obviously… something must be “real”. We could go the skeptic route and question our very existence and senses, but without going too deep we can safely assume that we exist somewhere at some time in someplace. So, it is not that we are not real, but instead that everything is artificial.

An example of how everything is artificial is to point out that the only reason we find life worth living is because we have evolved to think in that way. Our brains, through years of natural selection and survival, learned that when we value life at a high standard we typically extend it. Alternatively, the brains of our species that did not value life so highly died off. Not suddenly, but instead very gradually. The people with ideas that life was nothing too valuable did not fear death as much, which led to shorter lives. With this shortened lifespan, came less time to reproduce and influence others with their views.

** That’s assuming that this was even something learned through nurture. I would make the gamble that life is just inherently brought about with the built neuro-networking that values life. I mean, it’s not like people just popped out of nowhere, they evolved from something else, and I’m sure that something else had learned to value life long before. **

The primal instinct within us to survive is within us all. But to show my point, just because something is within us now, doesn’t mean it has any more right as an alternative mindset. If we had evolved and developed differently than what we value as good and bad may very well be flipped. Yet regardless, even if they flipped we would feel just as emotionally attached to them.

To make this idea more concrete, I will create a hypothetical. Imagine a society like ours, that found suffering to be good (I personally define suffering as pain, mental or physical, that has no purpose or meaning behind it). As these members of society were brutally tortured on their days off from work, much like a spa day for us, their dopamine levels would skyrocket. As their nails were peeled from their fingertips, and their limbs were slowly pulled apart, these people would laugh or just feel relaxed.

This hypothetical seems a bit unrealistic, for we are a bit biased, but if we begin to see past our assumptions it may not seem so far-fetched. Referring to my hypothetical, what if that society felt joy from suffering because their atmosphere dissolves human tissue that isn’t actively working to repair a broken body part. As this society developed, it learned what it had to do in order to survive very quickly. Therefore, the people who discovered the way to live did what they had to do, and the ones who did not, died. As this process of natural selection continued, eventually the society was just left with people who felt safe and secure when their bodies were suffering.

Now earlier I defined suffering as pain with no greater purpose. Survival is in many ways a greater purpose, so let me finish my hypothetical. After twenty thousand years of this poisonous atmosphere, it eventually stabilizes, and people are no longer required to endure pain to survive. Yet, even with this shift, they continued to suffer optionally. Not because they must, but because they want to. They do this because that is what they have defined as good and happiness. This society would label an act that we call bad as good, and neither of which are any more true than the other.

A question you may be asking is how I can be so sure that this society would continue to suffer. How can I be certain that this society would choose to endure pain when they did not have to? My reasoning is because you can see a similar process going on in our society today.

Human beings enjoy sugar, not because it is just good, but instead because our bodies have learned that it is a high source of calories. And when we were scrapping for anything we could get our hands on; high-calorie meals were just about the only thing humanity needed. It was not until very recently that we developed the reverse issue of overeating in certain parts of the world. Hence why we see such high rates of obesity throughout the United States. We crave these foods even though we do not need them, and many people are unable to resist the temptation.

In numerous parts of our lives, we can point at the things we think and realize that they are completely constructed. Have you ever noticed that even before the “scary” music (what really makes music scary?) starts playing in a superhero movie you already know who the villain is? With seemingly every super villain’s costume, it appears to be pointy with dark colors. Have you ever wondered why that is? There is nothing truly scary about these shapes and colors, yet we seem to fear them. It seems even as a twenty-year-old I walk a little faster after I turn the lights off in my basement.

These things are simply what we have learned to stay away from. Pointy things can typically break through our outer layer, which we call skin, and cause our blood to leave our body in a non-ideal way. The dark is something that our subconscious tries to avoid because when things are dark we have trouble seeing them, which allows us to be vulnerable to a possible threat.

Nothing is natural. Our very definition of what is right and wrong is simply an artificial construct that has developed through natural selection and evolution.

Now, this idea may sound sad at first. It may be a little disappointing to believe that nothing is absolute and pure. But there is a silver lining to this mindset, and it’s an important one. Whether we understand pain is simply neurons firing off signals to inform our brain to avoid continued damage to the body or not, we still feel it. No matter how conscious you are of our artificial world, we still feel and experience these things as if they are natural and absolute.

At the end of the day, I really don’t want to be punched in the face. I would also prefer to not have my fingernails forcefully removed, even if that is my personal bias talking. Everything is artificial, but that does not mean it is not real. What I feel is a very real part of me. Whether it is physical or emotion, it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day my emotions are present, and I would prefer to please them. I want to please them because when they are happy, I feel happy.

I believe that we should attempt to understand our artificial world, but to also not feel bad because of it. By knowing that nothing is natural we can then begin to try to change the seemingly unavoidable issues in society. We can begin to look past our biological desires and attempt to find what those desires are truly looking for. And we can do all of this with our heads held high. Whether my happiness is a construct or not, I feel it. And to me, it feels very real. I believe that realness is worth fighting for.