No Objective Reality ? 5

25 Jan 2020   | Consciousness

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Ah, now believe it or not, our Visual Reality is not as “concrete” or as “solid” as is commonly accepted eh ?

Below you “see” the circle of “dots” rotating in one direction yet there are ways of reversing the direction :

1. Blink
2. Using your finger point closely at them
3. Over the image direct the gaze of your eyes to the left or right
4. Merely “think it so”
5. Alter your breathing (deep, shallow, fast, slow etc)
6. Any more ?

Thus because ALL that is “seen” is always a Mind / Brain INTERPRETATION (based upon your Senses), the “almost impossible to believe” Inference is that so-called REALITY is in fact entirely Subjective eh ?

( N.B This is not to deny our everyday Consensual Reality )

5 thoughts on “No Objective Reality ?”

  2. Reply Simon Jan 25,2020 8:49 pm

    Ah, believe it or not, in this image, it’s the same shade of grey appearing in both squares A and B eh ?

    BEFORE

    But if you are doubtful about what I’m saying, here’s the exact same image again (after some very crude “block editing”) :

    AFTER

    Appearances truly can be Utterly Deceptive eh ? 😉

  3. Reply Simon Jan 25,2020 10:20 pm

    Ah, may I direct your attention to the following snippets regarding “Consensual Reality” (as distinct from “Consensus Reality”) because especially now on the “World Stage”, I’d say it does seem as if what is taking place is a sort of “Reality Warfare” eh ?

    The idea that consensual realities matter in social life is traceable to sociologist Émile Durkheim, who noted that societies are held together by their collective consciousness — that is, by “the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society”.

    However, consensual realities need not be common to society’s average members. Consensual realities become particularly relevant to deception when they are not shared, and when a person deliberately attempts to make another believe a particular reality. Consensual realities are often invisible, are embedded in social life, and provide a vehicle by which objective truth becomes less important than what appears to be true.

    [/snip]

    As Sun Tzu observed in the 4th century b.c.e., “All warfare is based on deception”, and in order to deceive, parties to a conflict attempt to make their adversary adopt erroneous beliefs about capabilities, strategies, and geographical location. A competitor may feign weakness when in a position of strength (a “slow play” in poker), or may feign strength when in a position of weakness (bluffing). Whether or not one is successful depends, in part, on the target “falling for” the desired reality. It also depends, in part, on not falling for the adversary’s desired reality.

    [/snip]

    Once in place, consensual realities can be perpetuated by confirmation bias. Confirmation bias occurs when people attend to and favor evidence that confirms their hypotheses.

    [/snip]

    Consensual realities are pervasive and play an integral role in both successful deception and in investigating and uncovering deceptive realities. Through sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and obfuscation, people attempting to deceive others succeed by convincing them that what appears to be true and consensual is actually false. Consensual realities frequently operate in the social background and go unnoticed, and people appear to be built to adopt and maintain them. However, once a consensual reality is recognized and deemed false, reality can be manipulated and vigorously contested in a quest to establish new realities.

    From : Timothy R. Levine’s “Encyclopedia of Deception” (Pages 198 – 200)

  4. Reply Simon Jan 25,2020 11:19 pm

    Oh, but such is the nature of saṃsāra (i.e. the Buddhist notion of the Eight Worldly Concerns) eh ? Indeed here’s a rather “cutting” delineation of it from Nagarjuna in his “In Praise of Dharmadhatu” :

    The afflicted mind — being always associated with a set of four afflictions (ignorance, the views about a real personality, self-conceit, and attachment to the self) — is what mistakes the empty aspect of the ālaya-consciousness as being a self and its lucid aspect as what is “other”. This is the starting point of fundamental subject-object duality, which then ramifies into the appearances of the remaining six consciousnesses and their objects, all of them being constantly filtered and afflicted through this basic self-concern. Thus, these consciousnesses are accompanied by the three primary mental afflictions — desire for what seems pleasurable, aversion toward what seems unpleasurable, and indifference toward what seems neither — as well as countless secondary mental disturbances based on these afflictions. Karmic actions — trying to obtain what seems desirable and get rid of what seems not — ensue, inevitably leading to various kinds of suffering sooner or later. Thus, the wheel of saṃsāra spins.

    So “I” ask : Can “you” deny the all pervasive reality of “Suffering” (even if no such inherent permanent “self”, see Anatta, actually pertains to it) ?

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