“Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
- Nietzche
In a Matrix-esque world, every person is under the illusion that what they are seeing is real, while oblivious to the fact that they are actually hooked up to machines. I would like to elaborate on this idea:
Instead of machines, consider that our brains are actually creating the illusion for ourselves. We all believe in a certain theme, a certain way of living, based on the experiences we’ve gone through and the objects we see, touch, hear, etc.
However, what if everything we experience is actually different from each person? Example: When I look at a human, I see a four-limbed creature with a head, adorned with facial features and hair. That is my concept of a human. But consider that perhaps the person next to me sees that human differently. What if that person views a human as… a slug (just go with me on this.) And the person next to him views a human as a robot. That is their reality; the four-limbed creature is mine.
Because our brains have a subconscious fear of change, and a highly-developed ability to adapt, my brain twists and re-shapes everything it takes in to become the world that I see - which could very well be different than the world that someone else experiences. If someone were to describe a human as a slug, my brain would immediately change that description into a human. Perhaps even the language that I speak is different than another English-speaking person, but my brain changes that which I hear into the language that I am used to.
This also relates to Plato’s theory of forms: A form is an abstract property or quality. Take any property of an object; separate it from that object and consider it by itself, and you are contemplating a form. For example, if you separate the roundness of a basketball from its color, its weight, etc. and consider just roundness by itself, you are thinking of the from of roundness. Plato held that this property existed apart from the basketball, in a different mode of existence than the basketball. The form is not just the idea of roundness you have in your mind. It exists independently of the basketball and independently of whether someone thinks of it. All round objects, not just this basketball, participate or copy this same form of roundness.
Therefore, my theory is this: All ideas, languages, objects, etc. are predetermined and created by the subconscious before birth. Every single person sees and experiences things differently. No one realizes this because of the adaptation occurring in their brains. We all have the illusion that we see things the same, but the reality is that each person’s world is completely different.
My idea of a basketball is that it is round in shape. Yours could be that it is rectangular. But I would never know!
…any thoughts?