The other day, I had a "vigorous" discussion with a hard core physical scientist friend of mine about my general assertion that we "create our own reality". He suggested that there was something fundamentally inconsistent about this view and my role as a research scientist. It got me thinking about what I really meant.
What about the physical world? I accept (and generally rely upon) the fact that gravity exists independent of me. The chemical structure of a the minerals in the pebble sitting on the ground in front of me is known (not by me, but someone probably knows). A complex process like evolution occurs over times scales that make my lifetime, and therefore my perceptions and experiences, insignficant. All of these observations are "facts" that a large number of people (if not everyone) agree upon. Starting with a minimal set of real things, most people would agree that if something can be measured, its real. (Note that this doesn't imply the reverse-Can everything real be measured?) So, with respect to physical reality, either there is an absolute objective physical reality or my subjective construct of the external world is so consistent with everyone else's that I can't distinguish between its "subjectiveness" and fixed external reality. Apparently, I took the blue pill.
Returning to my argument with my physical chemist friend, the difficulty with internal subjective reality is not whether it is malleable, but the extent to which it really qualifies as "reality". For the concept to be very useful, the subjective internal reality has to have a degree of permanence. It has to have anchor points. Without this permanence, for example, personality would not exist. This suggests that the quality of permanence might be a better characteristic of reality than the ability to be measured. Maybe "more useful" would be better than "better" in the last sentence.
So I would suggest there are at least two different levels of reality; an external physical reality and a personal subjective reality. Although this sounds like an oxymoron, everyone's experience tells them how real their internal experience is. Our general relationship with this type of reality is reactive; it exists-we deal with it. We find that we are happy or sad, energetic or tired, productive or in a rut. We find we are defined by specific boundaries that are determined by our capabilites. As I pointed out in the previous paragraph, these characteristics generally persist and have a degree of permanence.
One difference between the external objective reality and our personal subjective reality is that, despite the preceived permanence of subjective reality, we have the potential to adjust and mold it by "creating our own reality". Thus, as I had mentioned at some point in the past, we can choose not to be limited by specific boundaries. We can choose to control our moods; in other words, to be happy (or not). At first, this may seem a sort of new-age mumbo-jumbo, but I think its a very legitamate phenomenon. In fact, I think the ability to manipulate this form of reality depends recognizing this. What I wonder about now is what the extent and limitations of our ability to affect and transform this reality.
As an interesting momentary sidetrack from this discussion is that there is a fuzzy hinterground between external physical reality and internal perceptual reality. Consider the leaves on the tree across the field from where I'm sitting. If I were to examine them with an optical spectrometer, I would find the reflected light to be around 510nm. Almost everyone (>93% males and 98.6% females in the U.S.) would agree the color is called "green". However, when two people look at that leaf that they call green, do they actually "see" the same thing? Is their experience the same? How would we ever know? We don't have the language to communicate the experience. It is an easy answer for me, because I'm one of the 7% of US males that might sometimes call the leaf red and sometimes green-I'm color-blind.
What about the physical world? I accept (and generally rely upon) the fact that gravity exists independent of me. The chemical structure of a the minerals in the pebble sitting on the ground in front of me is known (not by me, but someone probably knows). A complex process like evolution occurs over times scales that make my lifetime, and therefore my perceptions and experiences, insignficant. All of these observations are "facts" that a large number of people (if not everyone) agree upon. Starting with a minimal set of real things, most people would agree that if something can be measured, its real. (Note that this doesn't imply the reverse-Can everything real be measured?) So, with respect to physical reality, either there is an absolute objective physical reality or my subjective construct of the external world is so consistent with everyone else's that I can't distinguish between its "subjectiveness" and fixed external reality. Apparently, I took the blue pill.
Returning to my argument with my physical chemist friend, the difficulty with internal subjective reality is not whether it is malleable, but the extent to which it really qualifies as "reality". For the concept to be very useful, the subjective internal reality has to have a degree of permanence. It has to have anchor points. Without this permanence, for example, personality would not exist. This suggests that the quality of permanence might be a better characteristic of reality than the ability to be measured. Maybe "more useful" would be better than "better" in the last sentence.
So I would suggest there are at least two different levels of reality; an external physical reality and a personal subjective reality. Although this sounds like an oxymoron, everyone's experience tells them how real their internal experience is. Our general relationship with this type of reality is reactive; it exists-we deal with it. We find that we are happy or sad, energetic or tired, productive or in a rut. We find we are defined by specific boundaries that are determined by our capabilites. As I pointed out in the previous paragraph, these characteristics generally persist and have a degree of permanence.
One difference between the external objective reality and our personal subjective reality is that, despite the preceived permanence of subjective reality, we have the potential to adjust and mold it by "creating our own reality". Thus, as I had mentioned at some point in the past, we can choose not to be limited by specific boundaries. We can choose to control our moods; in other words, to be happy (or not). At first, this may seem a sort of new-age mumbo-jumbo, but I think its a very legitamate phenomenon. In fact, I think the ability to manipulate this form of reality depends recognizing this. What I wonder about now is what the extent and limitations of our ability to affect and transform this reality.
As an interesting momentary sidetrack from this discussion is that there is a fuzzy hinterground between external physical reality and internal perceptual reality. Consider the leaves on the tree across the field from where I'm sitting. If I were to examine them with an optical spectrometer, I would find the reflected light to be around 510nm. Almost everyone (>93% males and 98.6% females in the U.S.) would agree the color is called "green". However, when two people look at that leaf that they call green, do they actually "see" the same thing? Is their experience the same? How would we ever know? We don't have the language to communicate the experience. It is an easy answer for me, because I'm one of the 7% of US males that might sometimes call the leaf red and sometimes green-I'm color-blind.
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