Reality is subjective

[BearBear]

This post may be contentious and your truth may vary.

In the past few years I have realized that not only is reality subjective but so is truth and even my own personality.

"Do you think that's air you're breathing now?"
- Morpheous

 Maybe it is, but what proof do we really have?

We are imperfect, erect, hairless apes that understand reality based on an incomplete picture through imperfect evolved sense organs that were developed mostly to keep lions from eating us and allow is to eat other animals, hence the stereoscopic forward facing vision and wide field of view. We sense what is "real" and our mind takes that raw data, compares it to what it thinks it knows and spits out a comparative study and best guess.

"The Ability To Speak Does Not Make You Intelligent” - Qui-Gon Jinn

In fact what we know as truth is more or less interpretation and imagination corroborated through other's similar interpretations through writings, tribal knowledge, and genetics passed down for generations.

More interestingly, your interpretation makes your reaction, and your reaction is entirely based on how you interpret "reality" now and in the past.

What if I told you that it's arbitrary?

If my interpretation can be affected willfully, and I'm here to say it can, then my understanding of reality and my experience of reality can be affected willfully. It can be seen through the manipulation of others and I can say from experience that you yourself are not immune from your own manipulation for good or ill.

Memories even can be changed and do drift over time. And we know throughout history what the mind can do to cope in dire situations. Such as Stockholm Syndrome.

If you awaken to the notion that you have more control than you've been told, that reality is based personally on how you take it, that being of one affiliation or another is nothing more than conditioning and you have the power to affect your own conditioning through shadow work, then you are the master of your own reality.

"... we are the dreamers of the dreams..." - Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

No two people experience the same event from exactly the same perspective and interpretation, nor do they react exactly the same.

That reaction is only partially the effect of that event, and if that reaction is arbitrary then the event is irrelevant. The only relevant piece is the reaction, the experience, and that can happen even without a real event, such as a hallucination or dream may inspire.

Young Monk: “Do not try and bend the spoon—that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.” Neo: “What truth?” Young Monk: “There is no spoon.”

Does that mean we're in the matrix? Are we all Neo? Are we all God? Not exactly, but how you interpret it, how you remember it and how you react to it is entirely within your power to affect. My reaction in not the same as yours, so your reality is not the same as mine.

Logical fallacies aside, I know from my experience that there is something to this.

What do you know?

 

[Queshire]

The French philosopher Renée Descartes once famously said, "I think, therefore I am." I'm sure we've all heard that saying before, yes? Or perhaps some humorous derivative? The story behind it is the interesting thing. See, Descartes was running a thought experiment. He wanted to find something that was 100% unequivocally true, but the senses can be tricked. Anyone fooled by a street magician can tell you that. So, our senses can't be 100% true. There is always that little tiny percentage chance that everything could be false. Our knowledge is built from our senses, emotions can be manipulated and memory can be faulty. Where does that leave us when all else is stripped away? Ultimately the answer Descartes found was that there was something there asking the question. He thinks and therefore his existence is proven; he is.

Or is it?

A thinking state is not a permanent one. Setting aside the matter of sleep for now there's no concrete evidence of thought existing either after death or before birth.

One of the primary aspects of Daoism is the idea of transformation. Day transforms into night. Life transforms into death. A corpse transforms into nourishment for all the worms and bacteria hanging around a graveyard. I'm sure we've all seen the afterschool specials. Of course such transformations are not limited to the physical. I don't think it's controversial to say that as one gains more knowledge and experiences more things their beliefs gradually change and evolve. It may not be as drastic a change as that between night and day, however that aspect of transformation is still there.

I have seen the Dao compared to a river before. Much like it is easier to sail a boat along with the current of a river living your life going along with the flow, to accept the inevitable transformations that make up life, leads to a more harmonious existence.

Buddhism as well emphasizes the idea of acceptance, but it is acceptance that we will face suffering in this life. Everyone has set backs. Everyone faces heart break or loss or tragedy. The form may differ from person to person, but each is as dear to its owner. Even the greatest of joys brings with it the promise of suffering because, in the end, it can not last. Whether by your own death, the vagaries of life or the constant hunger for more even the most positive of emotions brings with it the shadow of suffering. To move forward requires accepting this as a fact of life.

Where does that leave us at the end of the day? Does primacy lie in the self? In the thought of some greater reality? I for one favor embracing the contradictions.

 

[pmmg]

The answer is here. Or is it?

 

[BearBear]

The answer is here. Or is it?

It has and always will be here but three things: can we seek it, can we see it, and if we could, can we understand it?

Zen masters teach (in my own interpretation of that strange cult) that if we seek it then we're straying from truth. You can't escape it nor find it. They preach a sudden understanding of what it is a sudden enlightenment. As if it was always here in plain sight. (Or something, I'm just a Bear.)

If we could see it, then could we recognize it? Setting aside what it is, that's personal, arbitrary and possibly esoteric, the spiritual notion of third eye opening and awakening apply here in my reckoning. To open the third eye, in my interpretation, isn't to see fish bones in the clouds but instead to see yourself for who you really are and in most of not all cases, it's a painful and often devastating revelation. It's necessary though to understand yourself and the result is something you can't unsee. It's remarkable in that it will show you the interaction of your behavior and the reflection of that on everything. Awakening then is the broader perspective gained through further introspection of exactly what you are. It would then be the broader picture. From there, again, it's up to your interpretation asvit is my contention that truth is personal and local, not objective and universal.

Surely a tree exists and everyone is capable of perceiving it the same but they don't. To one it's a food source through its produce, to another it's fuel, to yet another it's beauty and to another it's building material.

How can it be all these things at the same time? Only through integration of a group experience. Is that truth then? Is there a local truth and a global truth? Is one a subset of the other? Then do we need an integration of experiences to know truth? I'm just a Bear asking questions.

I can say I understand it, and if I believe that then I'm certain that I'm miles away from truth.

 

[Queshire]

Please try to respect the site's guidelines for discussing religion. =_=

 

[pmmg]

If a zen master attempts to walk through the tree, he will learn that objective truth cannot so easily be discarded

I dont know. If the attempt is to show that one is a superior way of looking at things than another, I suspect you will have difficulty making that stick. I dont think it is ponderous that a tree can have many qualities at once, but might if those qualities was illogical, such as being blue and not blue at the same time. To say there is no possibility of objective truth seems to discount that things can be true beyond what can be fully understood. The blind men discovering an elephant is this way. All the blind people touch a different part, and think they know what an elephant is, but none has to ability to see it as a whole. Truth may also be elusive in that way.

But that is not the same as there not being truth.

But like a blind one touching the elephant, I just do the best I can. As a mere human type, I do think we have some tools to assist with this. Including the ability to question and observe. Logic, intuition, revelation, insight, experience, intelligence, interaction, and awareness of our limitations... If it turns out that these are all false tools, not much can help us otherwise.

I agree with Descartes. I think therefore, I am. It is certainly proof of something, and that at very least is existence.

I also agree with Plato (and others) in that I am wisest when I realize that I know nothing at all.


If it turns out it is all the matrix, and the tree could be walked through, I wish to have some words with the coders Though, that also does not remove truth. The truth would still be capable of being objectively true outside the matrix..

I think this can have no conclusion.

 

[BearBear]

Please try to respect the site's guidelines for discussing religion. =_=

I am notoriously bad for understanding guidelines. Can you please be more specific? I don't even recognize that I wrote anything religious here?

 

[Queshire]

Even if it's said in jest I rather think that calling Zen Buddhism a strange cult fails at treating all religions with respect.

 

[pmmg]

Yeah, I would avoid calling the religions' strange cults', (though I might argue they are all strange cults, even my own).

Still, it does not read well. Nuff said. moving on.

 

[BearBear]

Even if it's said in jest I rather think that calling Zen Buddhism a strange cult fails at treating all religions with respect.

Shame. I apologize and respect that I have said something offensive in jest. I'm afraid that I may not be capable of correcting such behavior. Not this specifically (zen is not a cult, it's not even a religion), once pointed out I can generally adapt, and not because I don't want to fix it, but I don't know how to apply a filter on myself in such a way so that I am unoffensive to everyone. I am unintentionally polarizing, definitely boisterous, prolific, opinionated, and egocentric. I've been working on this for four and a half years to seemingly no avail.

I could say it's akin to turrets of some kind as it's involuntary and not malicious, or I am yet incapable of determining the source of this aspect of dark humor I have. I can say that I don't like it. It's as if I have no clue whether what I say will be offensive or not.

Please report it and we will continue. When it becomes a deal-breaker I will move on.

 

[Queshire]

(zen is not a cult, it's not even a religion)

Eh? What do you mean by this?

 

[BearBear]

Eh? What do you mean by this?

I'm just a Bear, I repeat what was drilled into me on zen related forums when I was attempting to understand zen. As you might imagine, it didn't go well. They were dogmatic, heavily moderated, doctrinal to a fault all the while insistent that zen is not a religion, nor doctrinal. Call me a fox, I'll see you next lifetime.

 

[Queshire]

Ah.

Well I'm sorry that you had a bad experience.

I can imagine why they would more or less say that. Zen Buddhism strips out a lot of the scripture and other features from Buddhism for a focus on meditation and exploring the inner self. For an English language website I think that one must consider the impact that the Abrahamic faiths have had. With a new, potentially skittish guy poking around I could see how they might want to deemphasize the religious connection just to be safe. Or maybe you could have just wound up on a zen meditation based site instead of a zen buddhism site. Even without a religious connection meditation appeals to people.

All that said though, I imagine the monks living at a zen buddhist temple would disagree with saying it's not a religion.

 

[ThinkerX]

Gets into something that turns up in discussions of physics: the 'one step removed' issue. We do not perceive reality as it truly is, but rather as it appears to be through the filter of our senses. The implication being that our perception of reality is almost certainly flawed to at least some extent.