Deconstructing "Reality"

"Do we collectively dwell in a kind of laser hologram, real creatures in a manufactured quasi-world, a stage set, within whose artifacts and creatures a mind moves that is determined to remain unknown?"

— Philip K. Dick

Throughout the ages, in all different cultures and societies, people have realized that things are simply not as they appear to be. They have sought to understand, perceive, or determine what lies beneath surface appearance. Long ago, Phaedrus declared, "Things are not always what they seem." Henri Bergson observed, "The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." Are these just social outcasts or misfits? Or are they truly the wise ones, those who know there is a Greater Reality?

Clearly, we live in a world of problems. And, a problem is, by definition, something which is not as it appears to be. Something is entirely different from what you think, believe, understand, or perceive. This world is built upon layer upon layer of illusions, untruths, lies, and deception. Many thousands of years ago, Hindus called it "maya," meaning "that which is not." We may have a more sophisticated language to describe this virtual world we live in, today, but the underlying principle remains the same. We are living in the world of the unreal. What you experience is no more real than watching television is "reality" — no matter how many "reality TV" programs they produce. You do not perceive Reality via the television any more than you can eat breakfast on Good Morning America. You may not have realized this, but what you perceive "out there" in the world is just as unreal. It is largely a matter of sensory impulses interpreted by your brain, filtered and shaped by your thinking. It is not Reality.

The movie The Thirteenth Floor, a science fiction account of virtual reality, is actually a very good approximation of life in this world of ours. We live in a virtual world, a virtual reality within a virtual reality. This view is found in so many, many forms, in cultures worldwide, that it should not be taken lightly.

"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream." — Edgar Allan Poe

"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." — Arthur Schopenhauer

"All that this world contains are but images and flourishes of fiction. Ill-advised is he who does not comprehend his place in the number of these images." — Omar Khayyam

"It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this." — Hagakure

"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." — Aldous Huxley

"Life is but a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream." — Mark Twain

"Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." — William Shakespeare

"All life is a struggle in the dark." — Lucretius

"As for all those torments that are said to take place in the depths of Hell; they are actually present here and now, in our own lives." — Lucretius

"The world is all a carcass, smoke and vanity,
The shadow of a shadow, a play,
And in one word, just Nothing." — Owen Felltham

"If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like?" — Voltaire

"Life is an unbroken succession of false situations." — Thornton Wilder

"What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos." — Kerry Thornley read more ...

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