Please everybody, one at a time! Don’t all post at once!
I plan to continue this thread by elaborating on Parts 1 and 2 of my OP. As I said, I wrote a 3 volume book on my theory so the OP is obviously a very abridged version of it. It needs much unpacking.
In volume 1, I basically introduce my theory in much the same way I did here (but not so concisely) and elaborate on the “Paradox of Individuality” as I call it (essentially the problem of how we all feel like individuals when we are in fact all one mind), which I also briefly went into here.
Volume 2 gets into some meta commentary about the theory and irons out all the wrinkles, essentially addressing all the pseudo-paradoxes one is bound to get wrapped up in when following my theory to its logical conclusions (I call them “pseudo”-paradoxes because they only appear to be paradoxes but in fact have logical solutions). I’m sure it wouldn’t take long for the reader to arrive at a few–for example, if we all live at the center of our own subjective realities, and these subjective realities are real, then contradictory statements about reality could be made and both would have to be true (a theist would say God exists while an atheist would say He doesn’t, and both statements would be true in each person’s subjective reality); for another example, what can be said about unconscious mental content? If we’re saying an experience must be felt in order to project and be real, then unconscious experiences would seem to lack this ability. But then aren’t we back to a Cartesian (or conventional) model of mind–a mind that consists of (unconscious) experiences devoid of reality? Questions like these and others are what I tackle in Volume 2.
Volume 3 takes a look at various aspects of science and nature through the lens of the theory, touching on questions of space and time, fundamental particles, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, and even God. It also addresses the question of determinism and free will. Finally, it considers some practical applications of the theory and introduces a vision of the future of mankind if these applications were developped as fervantly as our physical sciences and technology.
But for this follow up post, I think I’ll just focus on one of the pseudo-paradoxes I listed above–that of contradictory statements both being true in different subjective realities.
To resolve this pseudo-paradox, we must be relativists. To argue a case for relativism, I must convince the reader that any statement we make (any belief we hold) can only be true in relation to the reality we experience. That is to say, when we say something like “Father will be home by 6pm,” we mean to say “Father will be home by 6pm in reality,” and by “reality” we mean that which we identify as reality by virtue of our experiences (our subjective realities). But what else could our statements be true relative to? Well, take for example the statement “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father.” ← Is this statement true or false? Intuitively (to someone living in Western culture), it seems true. We all know Star Wars and we all know the big reveal at the end of Empire Strikes Back–namely that (spoiler alert!) Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. But how can this be? How can the statement be true when the world of Star Wars isn’t even real? It’s because the world of Star Wars is, for us, a “reality”. We are able to imagine it as a different world in which certain things are true which are not only untrue in the real world but may not even apply (I’m inclined to say that it is neither true nor false in the real world that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father because that would require at least that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker exist just so they can either have such a relation or not). So if a statement such as “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” can be true in relation to the world of Star Wars, surely we can say that “God is real” is true in relation to the subjective reality of a theist but false in relation to the subjective reality of an atheist.
But a few problems rear their ugly heads. For one, the world of Star Wars isn’t an actual “reality”. Likewise, subjective realities are not actual “realities”–not according to my theory–according to my theory, there’s only one ultimate reality and that’s the entire universe of all experiences, some of which constitute subjective realities, but as such they only count as parts of reality, as collections of real things in reality, not as “reality” proper. For another thing, if God is real in one subjective reality but not another, then what are we to say about God’s existence absolutely? That is, in relation to the universe of all experiences? Wouldn’t we have to say that if God exists in any subjective reality at all, then God exists period? And therefore, ultimately, the theist is correct and the atheist incorrect?
Let’s address the first problem. We have to be meticulous when it comes to terms like “reality”–we can’t just use the word willy-nilly, as in calling an imaginary world “reality”–typically, reality denotes the one ultimate realm of existence that everybody believes is out there and we reside in. Even if that which we take to be reality turns out to be only a subjective reality, the word “reality” is meant to denote that subjective reality and only that subjective reality (and if we become aware that it is only a subjective reality, our reality changes and we then call whatever lies beyond our subjective reality “reality”… and then that becomes our subjective reality (this, incidentally, is what I call the infinite regress problem–yet another pseudo-paradox–which requires a separate treatment)). Well, we have to understand that whatever the term “reality” denotes for one person or another, it too projects from the mind just as much as any thing in reality. We have a concept of reality. That concept projects onto the real things we experience and becomes the essence of the entire set of all real things (where even the abstract and the things we can’t sense are considered “real things” insofar as we experiences them cognitively). That is to say, it projects as the set of all real things. Reality, as such, is a set. (I will have to, at some point in this thread, get into how I think of concepts and the way they project as “essences”–briefly, our concept of something like a cat, say, projects as the essence of the cat, giving it an identity, making it into a “thing”, and raising it above just the sum of its parts/properties.) The concept of reality is one of the first to develop in an infant’s mind. I hesitate to say it is the first concept to form, but I maintain all abstractions depend on the concept of reality being formed first. The infant looks around at his or her world, taking in the myriad of experiences it unergoes and processing the many things around him/her–and it doesn’t take long before the infant’s brain brings all these things together and recognizes “the world”–all these things the infant experiences, all these objects and events around him or her, are the world. Once this concept is firmly established, any thoughts he/she has on the things he/she experiences, any utterances he/she manages to make about them, are meant to apply to “the world”–to this particular world, the one he/she finds him- or herself in and to which all things and events that happen belong, and that remains the same world no matter where he/she goes and no matter what happens to him/her. It is one, ultimate, singular, and constant reality. It is to that reality that all his or her statements and beliefs will, from here on in, refer, and be true relative to.
Now, this doesn’t quite resolve the problem fully. We still can’t say for sure that this infant’s world constitutes “reality” as the term utlimately is meant to be understood. We still have to say, after all, that even though this world is reality to the infant, we who believe it is just one subjective reality among the plethora of others in the universe of experiences, cannot apply that term the same way. We must apply the term to what we believe to be ultimate reality, to the universe of experiences. But here we see what is going on. Each individual has a concept of reality, which they project not only onto the world of things they experience, but to their abstract and philosophical musings about what each thinks is real. That is to say, while the concept of reality must project onto something, and only one thing, what that something turns out to be from one individual to another will vary. And so what reality turns out to be will also vary–or is relative–relative to the percipient whose concept thereof is projecting–and if there is any constancy or ultimacy about reality, it is just that it must be projected onto something, and only one thing, consistently. So while the infant can say that his or her world is reality relative to him or her, we are not bound to the same ascription. Because our world consists of something totally different–to the myriad of experiences constituting the whole of the universe–we must say that our world is reality relative to us. And if we commit to relativism, we don’t have to address the question of: what is the absolute reality relative to no one? because, as relativists, we dispense with such an idea–that is, reality to us is only relativistic and can only be put in terms of whom it is reality relative to. And so the statement that the infant’s world is reality relative to the infant is perfectly compatible with the statement that our world is reality relative to us, and there are no other (absolute) statements.
To bring in an analogy, consider the statement about how fast my car goes: it goes 100 miles… That’s right, 100 miles… period. But 100 miles per what? Per hour? Per minute? Per day? Without this crucial piece of information, the statement is meaningless. Speed is by definition a ratio of distance to time, and by omitting the time, one is not conveying any information about speed. What I’m proposing with my brand of relativism is that the same is true for statements and beliefs–they are meaningless when expressed without what I call a “reality qualifier”–i.e. a clause appended to the statement that specifies to which reality the statement is true or false. Of course, in normal parlance, I don’t expect everyone to make explicit this reality qualifier for every statement they make, nor do I think the statements ordinary folks (or objectivists) make are meaningless. I simply assume an implicit reality qualifier. So when Joe says “My stomach hurts,” I interpret him to mean “My stomach hurts in my reality.” Or when someone says “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father,” I interpret her to mean “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father in the world of Star Wars”. I assume there is always some implicit reality qualifier attached to any statement (since obviously the one uttering the statement means for it to be taken as true of reality).
Einstein understood this when he put together his theory of relativity. He understood that when someone says “the car is moving,” they mean “the car is moving relative to the reference frame of the Earth”–that is, relative to a reference frame which is considered, for all intents and purposes, to be still. But there are multiple reference frames. Relative to the reference frame of the car, for example, it is the Earth which is moving backwards. This doesn’t mean one can have a contradictory set of affairs–the car moving and not moving at the same time–but that since all motion is relative to a particular reference frame, the car can be moving relative to the reference frame of the Earth while at the same time remaining still relative to its own reference frame. And by similar reasoning, this does not mean that motion is not real but that motion is inherently relative. Likewise, the proposition that all statements and beliefs are relative to one or another person’s reality no more means there can exist contradictions between statements both being true at the same time than it does for statements about motion relative to different reference frames. And it no more means truth doesn’t exist than it does that motion doesn’t exist. Just as there can be multiple reference frames, there can be multiple subjective realities all projecting simultaneously as “reality”.
In fact, I go even further in my book and make room for talk about “multiple realities”. Even though each of us is limited to saying there is only one ultimately true reality, we can talk about multiple “designs” for a reality. Star Wars can be considered a “design” for a reality. This works because in all fields where designs come into play–engineering, architecture, software development, etc.–there can be multiple designs even though there may be only one end product. Look up the blue prints of a building in your local vissinity and you are likely to find multiple drafts, multiple designs, multiple attempts and returns to the drawing board. Now consider this–if all reality is based on experience and all experience is fundamentally meaning, then we are dealing with semantics (this was a principle I mentioned above–that the dynamics of experiences are semantic, not mechanical–thus entailment rather than cause). Experiences always tell us something, they communicate. This is precisely the function of a design–its purpose is to communicate the structure of the thing it represents–a building, a machine, a software program, etc.–conveying what it looks like, what it consists of, how it’s structured. It is information. So one’s subjective reality, being based on experience and meaning, is also communicating something–it is communicate the structure of a reality, what it looks like, what it is. It is also being, and so it also projects as the reality it describes, but this doesn’t take away from its role as a reality design–it just means that the material out of which this design is built happens to also be the material out of which the thing it represents is built–like coming up with a design for a build out of brick and mortar (who says it has to be on paper?). So while each person may have to settle on only one such design as the one to represent his or her reality, we are free to talk about multiple co-existing reality designs, some of which are written in the language of experience (of being) and thus project as the very reality of which they are designs.
This solution makes the second problem easy. The second problem–again, that of how something existing in, or being true of, one subjective reality but not another must be said to exist, or be true of, ultimate reality outside all subjective realities (thus making any subjective reality in which it exists or is true “right”)–can be resolved by bringing in this very concept of reality designs. If we are saying that God exists in the theist’s subjective reality but not the atheist’s, then we are saying God is an element in the theist’s reality design; that is to say, the reality in which God purportedly exists is specifically the design for reality as projected from the theist’s concept of reality, for it is that reality design that he intends to reference when he makes statements about God’s existence, not the reality design which we reserve for my theory of consciousness, the reality of the universe of experiences. And while we might say that God exists as an object in this universe of experiences (insofar as He projects as an object from the theist’s subjective reality), that is perfectly fine; it is really statements about God’s existence (or lack thereof) which are problematic, as statements are typically meant to be taken as true or false in an absolute sense. When the theist says “God is real,” he does not intend for that statement to be taken relativistically–that is, as true for him but maybe not for another–he means for it to be taken as true for everyone; in other words, if the statement (the belief) is to project as a truth (as it must since the believer believes it), then it just is true–even in the universe of all experiences. But if the statement could be said to apply only to the reality that is the theist’s design–and this must be the rule for everyone and all statements–we can say that its truth is relative while at the same time (because it is a design) honoring the theist’s intention of meaning it absolutely. That is to say, when the theist says “God is real, absolutely,” what he really means is “God is real relative to the one and only absolute reality I believe in,” which of course we recognize to be just his subjective reality (yes, I’m proposing that absolution is a special case of relativism, at least in this context).
In short, statements (or beliefs) are always true or false relative to a specific reality design, and the theist’s design is not only different from the atheist’s but from ours (i.e. the universe of all experiences). The theist’s God is real within the universe of all experiences only insofar as it is part of the theist’s design, but the theist’s design does not represent the universe of all experiences any more than an architectural design necessarily represents the building it is found in (and therefore the elements within it need not count as real objects in the building).
I might also note that if our subjective realities are “designs”, they are designs that are partly given (via the senses) and partly invented. The sensory world certainly gives us experiences–no question about it, no choice about it–and so that part of the design comes fully furnished–ready for us to take a seat in, so to speak–but it doesn’t give us everything–and that seems to be part and parcel of the experience–it has this “incompleteness” built into it–as in, whatever we’re given by the sensory world, we find we can, and for all intents and purposes do, project a 3D “beyond”–or a “behind”–a world that continues on beyond the sensory world–but we don’t know what lies therein–it’s mysterious–it’s unknown–the second half of reality, the second half of the design–this half is ours to do what we want with–to fill it with whatever content our imaginations and intellect can conjure up. This is the realm of thought, of cognition–and the entire human intellectual enterprise is to fill this void with our best knowledge and theories about existence to date. We’re given half the design–it’s up to us to fill the rest–but in the end, it is one whole design, and it is all real.
Finally, what about my subjective reality? Isn’t the universe of experiences just another subjective reality? And therefore, am I really referring to anything beyond my own consciousness? And if I try in vain to reach beyond my subjective reality, saying “Ah, but beyond my model of a universe of pure mind, there is the real universe of pure mind”, am I not just extending my subjective reality? Isn’t this “beyond” just again another mental model well within the confines of my subjective reality? This again is the infinite regress problem and perhaps I will get into it in the next post. Or perhaps not. For now, let me just address these questions by saying there is nothing wrong with applying my relativism to my own theory. In fact, given what I’ve said in this post, I must. I must admit that when I utter statements like “The universe consists of nothing more than a sea of experiences as defined in the OP,” there is an implicit reality qualifier attached to it such that what I’m really saying is “The universe consists of nothing more than a sea of experiences as defined in the OP… according to my theory,” … which is trivially true. Just because this universe of experiences consumes everyone else’s subjective realities (and thus everyone else’s theories, perceptions, and understandings of reality) does not mean that my subjective reality (my design) actually consists of everyone else’s experiences. I only have shoddy mental models of everyone else’s experiences, everyone else’s subjective realities; their actual realities and experiences can only exist in their minds, not mine, and so each one of our subjective realities remains separate islands strewn about in whatever reality turns out to be. It’s as if I have a design for reality that consists partly of little symbols representing other people’s designs, but these symbols hardly count as those actual designs (as much as they might represent those designs) and it certainly doesn’t mean that the actual designs, wherever they are, find themselves in a greater design which is mine. No one’s design resides in another’s, even though we all can (and do) have representations (symbols) of those designs in our own.