The Reality of Illusions

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Reality is what our conciseness tells us it is while at the same time reality defines our conciseness.  

In other words we assume we are conscience beings because we can perceive a world outside of ourselves however that world is created by our conscience ability to interpret it or as Friedrich Nietzsche put it “There are no facts, only interpretations”

This circular definition presents a very real problem for scientists because it is their task to objectively identifying the true nature of reality.
The problem arises because objectivity is based on analyzing observable phenomena that we become consciously aware of.  Therefore human beings are only indirectly connected to reality through their consciousness’s ability analyze it.

This means our understanding of objective reality is always clouded by our conscience perceptions, belief systems and the prevailing level of knowledge in the world because as just mentioned our conscience is an integral part of how science defines it.

Therefore, because of the circular nature of how science defines objective reality and conscience many feel it is an illusion that can never be fully grasped by any human being.

For example to the people of the middle ages, the fact that world was flat was an undisputed truth. If you traveled far enough, you would fall off. That perception or “knowledge” of reality was just as real to our predecessors as is the modern notion that the world is round.

Even so many feel that science has transformed the collective reality that most people experience.  Newton identified a whole range of laws that govern natural phenomena by observing the world.  These laws became the new reality for the people of his time although none of them actually exist in nature.  They were only human constructs developed by our conciseness to assist in understanding of the nature of the reality of the world we can see.

More recently Quantum mechanics defined the “reality” or state of a quantum system in terms of the mathematical probability function that can only exist or can be “seen” by the human conciseness.  However, it does not tell us anything about the state or “reality” of the world outside of our conciseness because it is based on abstract mathematical properties that only exist in the conciseness.

However due to circular nature of reality and conciseness the only thing that gives scientist’s the right to assume they understand its objective properties is to physically connect the worlds created by the intellect such as Isaac Newton to world through observing it.

Yet that same circular property gives some such as the proponents of quantum mechanics the right to say the only way to define objective reality is in terms of the ideas that exist in our conscience.

This means the best that science will ever be able to do is to define it based on the collective illusions of the reality that most of us believe in.

Latter Jeff

Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2011

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