Reality is Perception
From MidnightWiki
Reality is perception. I realize that this concept is a daunting one, but it is true. It you change perception, you change reality. If you change reality, you aren't doing a thing but changing your perception of the universe. It is a self-centrist veiw of the universe, but seriously, can any of you really be sure that reality is anything but the thoughts in your head? Can you be sure that everything in your life is anything but a massive psycological construct?
If you think about it, this is a very empowering veiw of existence, because everything is within you power to alter. Now it will probably take years of seamless dedication for you to learn how to do this, but when you do. There you are, master of your own destiny, master of your own reality. You become the master of all you survey.
Things happen without us knowing them. People suffer, galaxies are destroyed and the universe continues in a state of flux. However, none of it matters to you, if you are unaware of it. Now the argument moves to what you are aware of. And this matters because your awarenss inhabits conscious, subconscious, and perhaps even superconscious levels.
We will continue to debate the relationship between perception and reality, but you must admit that perception is linked completely to existence. Without one there is no other. You are the sum total of your perceptions.
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Reality and the Absense of Humanity
As to veiws on reality as it relates to the absense of humanity, I don't think it is really a question of great weight. The reason I say this is because there is a difference between the way you interpert reality and what reality is. But as it pertains to you, there is no difference between your reality and the manner in which you interpret it. As a human being, you can only speculate as to the human condition. It is preposterous to emphathize the life of a rock. It only makes you overspeculate.
Stimuli
Besides, the perceptions of other people are linked to your own. You have media altering your perception, as well as spooky stuff like collective knowledge and instincts. They say that they took a few people and gave them crossword puzzles that had been solved by the rest of civilization days earlier. These people completed the puzzles way faster and their scores shot up like 90%. That's pretty bitching evidence of collective knowledge.
Also, arguing about external stimuli is getting away from the point, which is, your personal reality is changed by your personal perception. As Wayne Dyer said, "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." The point isn't whether or not your reality is inclusive to all, or what the permanence of your reality is. The point is that you create your own reality. If you would however like to see the arguement about stimuli, please go to the disscussion.
Bhuddism and the Argument
The Meditation teacher Satya Narayan Goenka said, "We are all prisoners- of our minds."
Bhudda: "With our thoughts we make the world."
Bhuddism meshes with this argument reasonably well. Bhuddism, as well as Christianity and Judaism, tell us that our outlooks and attitudes alter our perceptions. However, Christianity and Judaism make the universe the plaything of a deity, thereby removing Humanity of its ability to deal with reality in a completely conclusive and pervasive way.
Support For The Arguement
The father of the modern conception of the interelation of between mass and energy, Albert Einstein, said, "Reality of only an illusion, albiet a very persistant one"
Evidence contradicting modern conceptions about the condition of the world, is the absence of a unified feild theory. If matter refuses to follow a general rule of law, then the very nature of how we understand the universe and science is in question. In fact, life at the quantum level is so removed from any reality we can relate to, that it is difficult to comprehend, and the normal laws of science often do not apply.
Vanderbuilt University's pyscology professor Anna Wang Roe said that "We think we know whats out there in the physical world, but it's all interpreted by our brains. Everything we sense is an illusoin to a degree."
Jack Kerouac and Reality
As quoted from The Dharma Bums, page 145: "'Look,' said my bother in law, 'if thinkgs were empty how could I feel this orange, in fact taste it and swallow it, answer me that one.' Your mind makes out the orage by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist! Don't you see that? By itself it's nothing, it's really mental, it's seen only of your mind.'"
Page 113 "Poor Rosie- she had been absolutley certain that the world was real..."
Plato and The Cave
Synopsis: Humans are place in a cave after birth, chained so they may only see the shadows on the cave wall. Puppeteers create shadowed objects for the people to behold and perceive. Once the people are freed from the cave they are shown the real objects.
"Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are shown to him?"
Synopsis of conclusion: His mind will refuse to aknowledge the "real" objects, establishing that his perception of the world encompases his reality.
That's all for now. More to come....
--Zarkov Atreas, 09 January 2006
