I tried to define it tonight, you know. I did. But every time I thought I’d closed all the loopholes another one opened up and eventually I stopped bothering. So let’s leave aside the inconvenient leaks in the logic and accept, for the sake of brevity, that we all know what reality is. We humans are real, right? So are trees, bombs, oceans, porridge, and Donald Trump’s ego. (I made a tentative connection between the last two but decided it was too inconsequential to pursue.)
But are we right? That’s the question. There are some people – and many of them are much cleverer than me – who say that none of the things we consider real actually are because what we perceive as reality is nothing more than a computer simulation. The real version of ‘real’ lies out there somewhere. And then there are the wise old Buddhist lamas who tell us that our reality – as most of us perceive it – really is real, but it’s only the lowest example of progressive levels of reality (or maybe there’s one below it, but my understanding of the hungry ghost realm lacks sufficient erudition to know where it fits into the scheme of things.)
So this is where I’ve got to so far:
Anything the consciousness can perceive and/or is empirically demonstrable is real in a manner of speaking.
But then I’m led to the suspicion that the key to everything is consciousness (or maybe it isn’t because a question presents itself: if all conscious life became extinct, would the earth still exist? Quantum physics might be getting close to answering that one, but for the time being I’m sticking with my suspicion.)
So what is consciousness? Big revelation coming up…
God Exists! To paraphrase: ‘It’s God, Jim, but not as we know it.’ (You may pretend I never said that if you wish, or at least forgive me if the eye rolls become painful.)
I suspect it’s a bit silly to accept the version of God promoted in all exoteric versions of the Judaic tradition. I think it highly likely that such a view was engineered by misogynistic patriarchs to lead the lower orders into the unquestioned belief that men were created to lead and instruct, while women were created to follow and obey.
My own suspicion is that God is consciousness itself, and that all our notions of individuality are ultimately false – in the higher scheme of things, you understand – because we’re incapable of understanding that our individualised perception is a tiny fragment of the Universal Consciousness.
(Ah, but now we have a problem. What about the bad things inherent in individual consciousness – the greed, the selfishness, the cruelty, the willingness to abuse for both gain and pleasure? Does the Universal Consciousness possess the same flaws? In which case, does God have a bad side? Tricky.)
Incidentally, when I started this blog 13½ years ago I placed at the bottom of it a line which reads:
When Everything That is Illusion is Removed, All That Remains is Consciousness.
Haven’t come very far, have I?
* * *
Meanwhile, I have a sudden yen to meet Riva-Melissa Tez. A woman possessed of fine physical features, a compelling voice, and a laudable way of applying anarchy to cultural convention. I gather she adheres to transhumanism, which I’m not sure that I do, and I’m curious to know whether transcendentalism finds even a tiny niche in her psyche.
(Transcendentalism is, I suppose, what the whole of this pointless post is based on.)
If you should want to hear her voice, by the way, nip onto YouTube and search Everything’s a Scam. It’s accompanied by a short and eminently watchable animated video.
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