Reality

My thoughts about reality begin something like this warning. If I go back to what I said about consciousness, it's difficult to say or know much about reality. But let me try to explore it in any case, keeping in mind that pretty much everything rests on assumptions as I previously explained.

Is there an objective reality?

This is one of the first questions in philosophy, and perhaps a good starting point. I'll begin by saying this again, I'm not a professional philosopher, and I don't even care much for philosophy as a topic of study, debate or discussion. I'm not exploring these topics as a way to arrive at objective truth. I don't think it's possible. But it doesn't mean I can't take certain possibilities into consideration. So I will endeavor to probe at it a bit. In the end, I'm more interested in the question of how to live a fulfilling life. After all, that's why we're here, right?

With regard to the question of the existence of an objective reality, I don't believe in it. Why?

I've seen philosophical/logical arguments on both sides claiming that an objective reality either does or does not exist. Neither side makes a compelling argument in my opinion, because, as I have explained previously, any logical argument rests on certain critical assumptions. For example, consider time. All the conventional notions of time depend completely on the functioning of memory. Without memory, can any property of time be validated? No. But then memory is purely a function of consciousness. Similar logic applies to anything that can be associated with "objective reality".

When I question whether reality is objective, I mean to ask, does it exist independent of observation? I've already explained why this can't be verified without tautologically equivalent assumptions being made. Therefore, I choose not to believe in its existence. Nor do I believe in its non-existence. What?! Here's a simple way to explain: prior to writing this article, did I believe or disbelieve that there are purple-colored, orange-spotted, box-mouthed, giant winged tortoises living in the Amazon rainforest? Of course, neither! Why not? Because nothing in my experience has ever even suggested the question. The same is not true of the question of objective reality - the question has been asked. But the evidence doesn't add up in either direction. If we had been truly sensible about how we relate to our experiences, we would also never ask the question. But such is the way of humanity. Never making much sense. Or perhaps we just became a bit too enamored with science and other materialist contexts that love to go about classifying things.

But then what is real?

As I explained in the previous section, consciousness is most definitely real. Especially if you define reality as that which can be experienced. Then it's tautologically true that consciousness is real. So then is anything beyond consciousness real? I don't think so. Consider the following: in altered states of consciousness, such as dreams and hallucinations, we experience the "reality" there as being as real as the lucid waking state. At least that's what we believe right up until the moment we "wake up". Why is this true? The reason is that all of these states are equally real.

The only difference is in the apparent continuity of the waking state. But this is also misleading, because the waking state is not more continuous than the dream state. Yes, a lifetime is longer than a single dream, but it is still finite. And as I explained above about time, the waking state is also illusory in the sense that its apparent continuity depends upon memory, and thus layers of hidden assumptions. In fact, there is no essential difference between the waking and dream states. Anyone with experience of genuine lucid dreaming or astral projection knows this to be true. Those states are "more real" than being awake. Where "more" here is implied by the intensity of the experience of consciousness. Whereas a dream may often feel less intense, less clear, and less memorable than most waking experiences, the same is not true of lucid dreams or the astral. Other dimensions of reality (consciousness) are even more intense.

How does all this affect the way we function?

The key to the functioning of consciousness is context. Without context, nothing can function, other than naturally occurring phenomena. But when we interact in any meaningful way with these phenomena, context arises as a central governor of (most) human activity. I won't go into great detail about context here, as it will be covered in the next section, but the point is that context can exist independent of any (proposed) objective reality. Context is in its essence a bundle of linked assumptions that create the rule set(s) for how we react and interact. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that we ought to be more focused on understanding the contexts from which our realities arise than trying to locate, classify and explain a supposed baseline objective reality. Even the laws of physics come equipped with a bunch of hidden or ignored assumptions, and thus their own underlying context(s) from which said laws arise. Hence, the need for a dedicated section to inquire into the nature of context more deeply.