Reality

Nobody is directly in touch with reality. Every human digs his or her own ego tunnel through the experiential world. This is one of the central messages of Thomas Metzinger's fascinating book, "The Ego Tunnel." A blend of philosophy and neuroscience, I finished reading it a few days ago. Liked the book a lot. Haven't been able to blog much about anything else since I started it.Being a big Stephen Colbert fan, understanding how the ego tunnel works puts a new spin on "truthiness." Things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence,…

If you could be hooked up to an "Experience Machine" that keeps you in a state of permanent happiness (or take a drug with the same effect) would you do it?I came across this intriguing question in Thomas Metzinger's "The Ego Tunnel," a book that I've been blogging about recently. This thought experiment was suggested by Robert Nozick.Metzinger says:Interestingly, Nozick found that most people would not opt to spend the rest of their lives hooked up to such a machine. The reason is that most of us do not value bliss as such, but want it grounded in truth, virtue,…

Everybody has a different idea about what reality is really like. Religions, philosophies, mystical teachings, belief systems — the only thing universally agreed upon is that something is real.

Yet what if every experience of reality, including every conception of reality, leads us in a direction that isn't real?

Like many people, I have a fondness for "Holy fuck!!!" movies. (Example: The Sixth Sense)

I call them that because this is what I say when the ending is so shocking, so upside down from what has come before, so mind-blowing, that the cozy world of understanding that I've created inside my brain is blown to bits.

My bet — and naturally this is all it is, an intuitive hunch — is that if humans are capable of comprehending ultimate reality, the realization would turn out to be a lot more like a wild Holy fuck!!! than a calm As I suspected.

I termed this "something else entirely" in a "You're religious, but are you right?" post. Lots of belief systems assert that final truth is mysterious, ineffable, beyond words, incapable of being captured by human cognition.

Yet I don't get from them that disorienting, yet strangely exhilarating, feeling that a genuine something else entirely experience blasts into my psyche.

The following excerpt from Thomas Metzinger's "The Ego Tunnel" had that quality for me. Of course, I'm me and you're you. (Or so it seems…) So you might yawn at what elicits a Wow! from me.

This is good writing. And good philosophizing. Metzinger's eliminative phenomenalism seemingly is akin, if not identical, to other similar notions in Eastern and Western philosophies.

But the way he expressed himself here gave me a fresh Holy fuck!!! experience of the notion that pure consciousness is all there is.

Which means that Is could be what really is.

Read on.

Take a guess: was the following written by (A) a Zen master, or (B) a philosopher of neuroscience?In this book, I will try to convince you that there is no such thing as a self. Contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self.Here's the answer. Thomas Metzinger has a great title, "Director of the Theoretical Philosophy Group at the Department of Philosophy of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany." He's also head of a Neurophilosophy Section there.Not surprisingly, Metzinger is capable of writing some pretty involved stuff -- such as this summary of…

This is Skeptical Inquirer news from 2004, but it's still interesting: A former leader in the New Age culture - author of nine titles on auras, chakras, "energy," and so on - chronicles her difficult and painful transition to skepticism. She thanks the skeptical community and agonizes over how the messages of scientific and critical thinking could be made more effective in communicating with her former New Age colleagues.Karla McLaren, the convert to skepticism, rambles on a bit in her essay (a writing quality that I have considerable personal experience with myself), but ends on a clear and convincing note.One…

Reading a recent issue of New Scientist last night, I came across a brief mention of Bernard d'Espagnat winning this year's Templeton Prize for "arguing that quantum physics implies that reality must be partially unknowable, or 'veiled.'"Sounded intriguing. And right up my interest alley, since I've done a lot of reading and writing about how quantum physics relates to mysticism and spirituality.Here's a longer New Scientist piece about d'Espagnat's views (he's a physicist and philosopher of science). Excerpt:So what is it, really, that is veiled? At times d'Espagnat calls it a Being or Independent Reality or even "a great, hypercosmic…

I've been thinking about some of the changes that have happened in my life. Starting with marriage, since it's our anniversary today. (Laurel and I were smart to get married on St. Patrick's Day; when green beer starts to be mentioned, I'm reminded of what I shouldn't forget).After being married for eighteen years to one woman, now I've been married for nineteen years to a different woman. Good change.After getting a Master's Degree in Social Work, I realized that I wasn't cut out for counseling and worked on a Ph.D. in Systems Science. Good change.After buying a Ford Fairmont in…

I've pondered the nature of reality for about five decades. Specifics aren't becoming much clearer, but I feel like I'm making progress on three basic questions and general answers.(1) Is it possible to learn about the universe? Yes. (2) Is it possible to learn about the ultimate origin of the universe? No.(3) Is it possible to marvel at the mystery of the "Yes" and "No" above? Yes.The two affirmations in 1 and 3 lead me to embrace science and mysticism. The negative in 2 causes me to reject religion. Pretty damn simple. This makes so much sense to me, it's…

Here's a thoughtful, well-written essay that was emailed to me recently by W. Kelly Lundrigan. I'm pleased to post it, as I like Kelly's style. That said, I can't resist adding my own comments (in blue italics). I found myself agreeing with Kelly up to a point, then, not so much. Add your own ideas to our bloggish conversation if you like.----------------------------The wonderful thing about life to me, at this point when we know so much, is that we actually still know so little.  We are still, essentially, living a mystery.  At least as to the big questions such as…

While it might look like Taoists are big on black and white, this yin-yang symbol actually speaks otherwise.  Yes, there are dualities in the universe. Lots of them: male/female, positive/negative, wave/particle, good/bad ... and on and on and on.But it's those little circles that tell the most meaningful part of the story -- how there's yin within yang, and yang within yin. The farthest reach of black blends with the beginning of white, and vice versa.If we think in terms of this or that, we're not seeing reality rightly. The world appears in shades of gray to eyes attuned to…

Thanks to the always-interesting Pharyngula, this morning I spent an enjoyable ten minutes listening (and reading, because the poor audio requires a video'ized transcription) to Tim Minchin's marvelous "Storm."[Update: there's now a replacement "video" with clear audio and no transcription, which I've embedded below.]Here's the You Tube video description:Tim Minchin's stunning performance of his beat poem 'Storm' Eloquently and wittily honouring reason, science and life appreciation and debunking homeopathy, psychics, alternative medicine, religion etc. Live performance at the 9 carols for a Godless Christmas Show, 21st December 2008, Hammersmith Apollo. I related to Minchin's relating of his encounter with an…

I ponder death a lot. The notion of me not existing any more isn't appealing, to say the least. It isn't my body that I'm afraid of losing. It's my awareness, or consciousness. I'd be cool with living on as a disembodied soul, so long as I was aware of it.But ...being extinguished completely ...forever ...not a trace of consciousness left. Yikes! Some say that it isn't possible for us to contemplate death, not in a realistic fashion. We know what life is like because it's being experienced as we envision death. Yet non-existence obviously can't be imagined, since imagining…

I've got mixed feelings about Ken Wilber. Sometimes he strikes me as a self-absorbed guy who's fervently marketing his Integral Philosophy as the answer to every question, even though it strikes me as a conceptual exercise without much reality meat behind it. Then I read something Wilber has written and resonate with it. (A sampling of my divided opinions toward Wilber is here, here, and here.) I wasn't planning to renew my subscription to "What Is Enlightenment?" when the magazine changed it's question mark spots and became EnlightenNext, an even more brazen vanity massager for Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen…

Pretty obviously, I'm entering the simple phase of my philosophical trajectory. In my life I've thought a lot of complex thoughts. I've written some complex books. I've followed a complex spiritual path (Sant Mat, which has lots of rules and posits a dazzlingly involved cosmology). I've embraced the teachings of a guru, Charan Singh, who had advice on countless subjects associated with the inner and outer life of his disciples. Now, all this strikes me as way too much. As do the intricacies of every religion. Most scientists suspect that simplicity lies at the heart of reality, notwithstanding the seeming…

Most people don't like to be put in boxes. Meaning, categories. Hey, I'm an individual, unlike anyone else! we like to believe. Fair enough. But I see nothing wrong with putting how we believe into boxes. So I've done just that -- stimulated into belief-categorizing action by a question that's been running through my mind recently: Why do some people's proclamations irritate or please me more than other proclamations? I'm speaking generally here, about all sorts of utterances. Verbal sayings. Blog posts and comments. Books. Magazine articles. Any way that someone communicates a belief from their brain into mine. Sometimes…

Sometimes you hear people say, "He's off in his own private world." Now, this may not be such a bad thing. But few of us would want to be in a totally closed off fragment of reality, because that would be exceedingly lonely. Comments on a recent post got me thinking about shared (or "intersubjective," as one person put it) realities, versus private realities. In my experience, the most satisfying moments in life are when I feel connected with other people. Or with nature. Or with some other animate or inaminate entity, such as our dog -- or my newly…

It's baffling why people feel the need to fantasize about God and the supernatural when here-and-now reality is so full of bedazzlement. This is one of the reasons why I liked Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" so much. I resonated with her embracing science after discarding traditional religions and New Agey speculation. My morning meditation corner usually has a selection of books near at hand. I bounce back and forth between mystical/spiritual and scientific themes, because I find just as much inspiration in a down to earth discussion of material reality as in a soaring paean to soulful wonders.…

OK. Before getting into the meat (or tofu) of this Moses-like blog post, let's break down the title. Ten. Just seems the right number. The Ten Commandments should be cast aside in favor of my revelation. Plus, I haven't come up with my truths yet, but intuitively I'm pretty sure that, given the amount of red wine I just poured and my sipping speed, I can come up with ten before the glass is empty. Undeniable. Yeah, I wish. None of the brilliant stuff I write on this blog has received the unquestioning acceptance that it deserves, so I've got…

God is all there is. Nature is all there is.God is infinite. Nature is infinite.God works in mysterious ways. Nature works in mysterious ways.God is omnipresent. Nature is omnipresent. You get the idea. And that's the simple essence of Richard Carrier's "Sense and Goodness Without God," though he takes 424 pages to explicate it. I've read a bit over half of Carrier's book, which I was drawn to buy after reading (and writing about) his From Taoist to Infidel essay. I'm enjoying it. A lot. Probably because Carrier thinks much like me, aside from the fact that he's much more…

I keep thinking about John Shanley's lines from my previous post. Each of us is like a planet. There's the crust, which seems eternal. We are confident about who we are. If you ask, we can readily describe our current state…Your answers are your current topography, seemingly permanent, but deceptively so. Doubt is a recognition that personal earthquakes happen. Magma can erupt at any moment. Continents shift. Fast, not requiring eons to reshuffle the contours of our existence. Yet each of us erects belief structures upon this unstable ground. We're drawn to do so by the same natural forces that…