Initially, it was Robert Peston's report from Athens that got me thinking about Greeks, Philosophy and the Meaning of Life. I thought, I'll post that essay on reality I've half done. It might cause me to finish the bloody thing.

Here it is:

Reality Part 1a: What is it?

The Greeks to their credit were the first society that realized the importance of thought. How we think can actually change the way we are. In fact, there is evidence that thinking not only causes physical changes in the brain as any particular thought races from synapse to synapse, it now seems likely that the brain and the mind evolve permanently as thoughts and memories are created, amended and in some cases dissolved.

The purpose of the following essay(s) is to exercise my own thinking on the nature of existence and how I believe these may affect the way we live, and, potentially, enhance our ability to lead a fulfilling, meaningful and consequently, a happy, life.

Initially in my own thinking process, I would like to devote some time to my consideration of philosophy in the context of the true meaning of reality, since it is my view that how we perceive reality is crucial to our way of being. In order to explain my thoughts on this, I have formulated a notion of what I have referred to throughout this essay as "personal reality".

At first, the idea of a personal reality, a reality which is unique to each of us as individuals, may seem contradictory, or counter intuitive, since we humans tend to think of their being just one absolute reality, one physical truth, which we as individuals might each observe and interpret in our own way. I would further suggest that we might routinely consider that these interpretations are all influenced by various factors, such as our inherent prejudices, our state of mind and the performance of our biological sensory devices (eyes, ears etc), which we have used to take in whatever it is we are observing or engaging in. As we continually assess our external realities, it seems accepted that we create a particular perception of reality which demonstrates some degree of deviation from what some might call the real truth, or the single absolute reality, depending on how imperfect our senses are, or how influential our prejudices may be. However, as I have ruminated on this further, I have considered the existence of an alternative perspective on reality, one which may initially seem strange, but upon deeper examination, an alternative which is nonetheless, in my opinion, perfectly plausible. Specifically, perhaps it is possible that there is no single "truth" or reality. Perhaps we each have the capacity for our minds to be the repository, as you might term it, of our own personal universe which has its own truth and its own reality which is every bit as valid as the concept of one truth, one reality. Indeed, perhaps the only realities which exist are those which are in our heads; i.e. there may be nothing else other than this cerebral universe. If so, how can we test this from a logical perspective? Does it matter? And what, if any, are the implications?

From the outset, I readily concede that this is not original thinking. In fact, the nature of reality and its relationship with our individual consciousness has been a perplexing question for philosophers since Aristotle and Plato and theories have abounded, including those concerning individual realities. However, since the world has now experienced the phenomenon of the internet, I am taking the opportunity to publish and thus share, a written explanation of my own variation (however minuscule) on the concept of reality and consciousness in the hope that it is of interest to someone. In any event, returning to those questions above, I believe I will be able to demonstrate how logic can support the notion of multiple realities created by and for each being and I believe I will be able to link this with an existential take on life which might offer benefits in terms of the way we live.

Although I've been thinking around this subject for years, my latest thoughts on the nature of consciousness and reality were initiated by some interesting takes on human memory which I recently came across in a book called "Stuff" by Martin Rowson, a cartoonist in the Independent newspaper. It's a great book, by the way, and a brilliant perspective on how the mundane nature of the "stuff" in one's daily life can be symbolic of the other metaphysical "stuff" of our minds. Being an autobiographical work, Rowson delves into his own memories of his life throughout his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, right up to the present day. In undertaking this memory analysis, he describes the "fallibility" or more accurately, the "flexibility" of memory. In particular, he notes that his memories of the events in his life can alter with time; they can take on a different feel, or a different significance, to how they once were. I use inverted commas for "fallibility" because this should not be confused with the traditional and simple idea that memories are not perfect, which we all accept, but more the idea that the memories which actually make us who we are, are dynamic and flexible and by virtue of that can literally change who we are, and even who we were, on an ongoing basis. That is to say, who we think we are today, may not be how we remember ourselves in the future. What's more, is our opinion of who we are today, more valid, more real or more accurate than our retrospective opinion of ourselves (or, of course, others) when we look back from some future date? Put another way, it is possible to conceive of history in its entirety as a nebulous idea, something which really can change with time.

These considerations coincided with my own ideas about memories, in two ways. First, I agree with Rowson, that the way we felt about a certain event can change with time. For example, I can even blush about how appallingly I behaved at a certain instant, but subsequently, I might be able to rationalize it in a different way without the same embarrassment. Or, conversely, there may be things which once didn't bother me at the time, but later, they did, because the structure of events in my own mind has shifted just enough to alter my emotional reaction to it. We're not talking here about subsequent information shedding a different light on an event, but the process of my own mind applying a different interpretation to "static" memories which have subtly evolved (i.e. they have never really been "static", as one would logically think they should be, but ever changing). Second, even if my own memories have been consistent, what if another's memory of the same event, people or places is simply not the same as my own? For example, I know that my two brothers' general analysis of my parents as parents differs from my own. My older brother thought my late mother was a bit distant, and yet I found her anything but distant; she was, to me, both warm and engaging, and that is my perception of how she was with others, including my older brother. In fact, I thought of her as a close and important supporter of me in times of even minor crisis, including in a simple physical way, like just putting her arm around me. It is possible, of course, that she discreetly treated my brother differently to me. It is also possible that we interpreted her in quite different ways; either way, our memories of the same person are at odds, and, what's more, in reference to the first point, my ideas about her have changed as I have thought about her and her role in my past. The upshot of all this is that we are all capable of, and do, reconstruct the past, based on memories which can shift with time. Therefore, my contention would be that the past is not a fixed series of people, actions and events. It is a moveable feast, based on multiple memories which exist in a dynamic psychic fluid in all our heads. And this, by the way, applies to all of us and all of history, so in this sense, the past itself is not fixed. Therefore, because a major element of who we are is derived state, first from experience and then from the constructed memory of that experience, which can change, we become an ever changing entity, because we are a direct function of those experiences and those memories.

Incidentally, another specific example worth mentioning of how the past can be variously represented, with simultaneous, but contradictory "truths", is the slightly peculiar effect which I have witnessed concerning home videos. My own wedding was brilliantly videoed by an artistically inclined friend. I remember the first time I saw the video, about a week or so after the wedding, being slightly disappointed that whilst it was superbly and artistically filmed, its atmosphere was somehow different to how I remembered the actual event, and my wife felt the same way. After watching it twice, I realized that my memory was being corrupted by the video, it was changing how I remembered the "real" event and I preferred my own memory, so I put the video away and never watched it again. Of course, whatever I personally saw and heard at the actual wedding event, was certainly the same that the video tape recorded, but, equally certainly, you cannot actually record a feeling on a machine, but actually, it was the feeling that I had recorded in my mind and that feeling which was critical to my memory, representing the true essence of the experience. However, let us not come to conclusions just yet. Let us hold the thought that reality is a slippery beast and I will come on to the consequences of this later when I discuss subjectivism.

Returning to the Rowson book, and how it stimulated my thoughts about memory and its part in our own mental constitution, I was certainly drawn to the idea of a dynamic self, derived from experiences and memories, but always evolving; it seemed to make sense. Also, as an admission, I have an inexplicable love of impermanence, or put another way, a natural rejection of conservatism (incidentally, even as a child, I always felt instinctively that the eminent cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle's assertion that the Universe was in a permanent "steady state" of equilibrium was somehow obviously wrong and, for me, an anathema). Anyway, after finishing Rowson's book and whilst I was idly considering these things, I dashed off a complimentary email to the author which included a comment on the memory observation, as follows: "The interesting thing about your theories on memory, of course, is that memories can change with time, so one day you might recall your grandma as the best grandma ever (although that might require the onset of Alzheimer's first) [for reference, in his book, Rowson didn't appear to like his grandmother, so although she was now dead, I was suggesting that this position might change].Therefore, there is effectively no single reality - just an infinite collection of individual realities which are born and die with all of us. In that sense, we are all the creators, owners and repositories of our own realities (I would guess this could logically be applied to religious belief too, meaning that believers and non-believers are both, simultaneously, absolutely correct in their beliefs).

Once I'd floated the idea that we are the creators, owners and repositories of our own realities, I wanted to explore that notion and see whether what I'd said possessed any merit, or whether it fitted with other philosophical thought. Just to re-iterate an earlier comment about originality, I appreciate that philosophers have repeatedly juggled with these specific ideas, however, the important thing for me was that it represented a starting point which I'd arrived at myself, based on personal experiences - a launching point for philosophical thought which I'd recommend because it is very real (no puns intended).

So far, I have simply supposed that we each have a unique "world in our head". I've also demonstrated how memory is fundamental to our mental constitution and how this appears to be a flexible factor, meaning that who we are might vary, as our memories vary. This is important enough, but what about realities of the here and now; can these be multifarious, simultaneous or simply different, depending on what ones perception might be, or who might be perceiving it? To examine this further, we can test it versus a well known, existing philosophical argument. Many will know of the old philosophical conundrum of whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there is no conscious being present to hear it. Laying my prejudices out immediately, my own personal view on this question, which, I have to say, seems to be generally philosophically concurred by many learned philosophers who have considered it, is that for a sound to be a sound, it requires a sound receptor to vibrate (commonly an ear drum in a mammal) and cause signals to be sent to a brain or, more specifically, a mind in a conscious being which is capable of recognizing it as a sound. Therefore, if there is no being present to hear it, there is logically no sound. Despite my prejudices, I am happy to accept that there are alternative views on this and some might employ semantic arguments. For instance, one could argue about what constitutes a "sound". If you decide that a sound is simply sound waves travelling through the air, without the requirement to stimulate a conscious receptor then you might submit that the event in the lonely forest is still a "sound", but one which is simply unheard. However, even this scenario constitutes a philosophical problem, because one could never be absolutely certain that there was a sound unless some being heard it. It may sound pedantic, but in the circumstances where no sound had been heard by anyone, but still claimed as being present by someone, one could simply say "prove it". In a case where someone might desire to counter that pedantic point with their own pedantry, let us say that same someone might remotely film the event, including both the sight and sound of the falling tree, in order to demonstrate that it is possible for there to be a sound when someone wasn't present. This could again be countered by saying that there was no actual sound until it had been converted into a "heard sound", by virtue of the act of someone actually viewing the film. However, there is an important variation on this theme which more elegantly illustrates the clear existence of two varying "universes", if I may call it that. These scenarios are created in the heads of two beings, present in the forest at the same time, but whose perception is quite different, based on their own physical attributes. Imagine the two people in the forest, but, in fact, one is stone deaf. Although this may be wholly theoretical, in the one person's universe, when the tree falls, there has been a sound, and in the other's there has not. My contention would be that there are actually two co-existing universes in this scenario because for any scenario to exist at all, it must be perceived. Indeed, it is only that perception which defines that universe. Further, that personal and individual perception exists specifically in the one mind, and if it exists in two minds, with a variation, then it truly exists twice, because for existence to be valid, just like a sound, it must be perceived in a mind; because, and this is a critical point, there is nowhere for anything to exist other than the mind of a conscious being and so, if something exists in ten minds, or a million minds, then it exists ten times over or a million times over. That is why I assert that there are billions of universes, there being billions of beings on Earth (and maybe beyond) who might perceive their "own" universe around them. Incidentally, it should be observed that "beings" includes not just human beings, but all conscious beings, which includes all animals, or indeed any organic being which in any way can respond to stimuli (an obvious example might be a flower which responds to sunlight - at some level, the plant, in its own way, is conscious of light and that consciousness can affirm the light's existence, but only in the specific way in which the plant recognises it).

I can, of course, understand why this may not only be counter intuitive, but dismissed as nonsense. To counter my own argument and illustrate the point, ad absurdum, let us imagine a universe which contains nothing organic (perhaps we can live with this contradiction in terms, for now). Without any organic matter, animal or plant, does the universe still exist? The logic of my argument would say no, because there would be no mind, no vehicle available to carry a conscious thought which conceives of its environment. Others may glibly say, it must still be there, for sure, even though it's not perceived by anything or anyone although this is certainly a state which my argument sees as the impossible contradiction, since in my argument, if it is not perceived, it does not exist. In any event, and in support of my argument, its presence could certainly not be proved, there being no conscious being there to either lay claim to its existence or witness a testimony of its presence, so it is literally an academic question either way, impossible to argue for, or against.

If any reader has managed to reach this point, they may well be now assuming at worst that I am deluded, or at best, my argument has become so theoretical as to have no bearing on anyone's reality, whether perceived, real or in some 10th, as yet undiscovered, dimension. All of these observations or criticisms may be valid, but what I would actually like to highlight is not only that realities, whether theoretical or otherwise, at the very least rely completely on an interaction between the conscious being and it's perceived environment, in order to really exist, but also, the characteristics of that existence are entirely dependent on the nature of the perception created by the individual, within whose mind that very perception exists. Therefore, in summary, the critical factor is not whether there is one physical reality, observed by billions of conscious beings, or whether there are billions of beings who carry around their own personal universes in their minds, but that both elements, an environment and a conscious mind, are entirely essential for anything to exist. If we accept this as a necessary and fundamental causal duality, then I would maintain that primacy remains with the perceiver, rather than their environment, precisely because as a conscious being, it is with the perceiver that subjectivity, via judgment, nuance, and all the many variations applicable to their sensual perception, reside. Based on this primacy, I will move forward still assuming that my argument for the "mind based universe" is valid.

When considering the above paragraph, it is evident that philosophy as a discipline has developed a tolerance to several conundrums, whereby varying answers to the great questions may not necessarily be compatible, so they must be left philosophically "open". As such, these situations often require a philosophical pragmatism in order to move things forward. Indeed, when talking about the example of the personal reality of my wedding experience being at odds with the apparently scientifically more reliable video evidence, I referred to the video failing to recreate the specific feeling I had experienced at the wedding. I would be confident that no observer of the whole wedding episode would claim that I was mistaken about the shortcomings of the video. Therefore, how do we reconcile this apparent discrepancy? The answer is that it is philosophically accepted that there is a place for subjectivity, or as it is sometimes referred to, an anti-realist, stance when it comes to the experience of the conscious mind. Of course, in regard to the wedding video example, one might note that a video is incomplete, even from a sensory perspective. For example, a video excludes smells and is not three dimensional and these may be cited as the reasons for any failure to recreate a feeling or any other subjective measure. However, there are broader subjective aspects to consider.

When a conscious being registers an image or an environment in its mind, it may frequently ascribe to it an aesthetic value. The philosophical thinker who subscribes to an anti-realist or subjectivist approach accepts that this valuation is inextricably tied to the judgment of the individual, and that judgment would clearly vary from individual to individual. To use the old fashioned phrase, this effectively says: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Therefore, returning for convenience to our earlier image, whether the forest where the tree falls is a beautiful sight, may be determined by any being capable of visualizing the scene in question (and that would even include a blind person, because they can still visualize an image). So, this place where several people have gathered, with various disabilities, which preclude them perceiving certain physically measurable sights and sounds, may also be subject to their opinion about its beauty, or aesthetic value. Since their views on the aesthetic value will vary, we can reasonably also conclude that not only have we created in our minds an environment which are simultaneously with and without sound, but they are also simultaneously of varying aesthetic value. Therefore, it can be demonstrated that to attempt a differentiation between an objective measure, such as sound, and a subjective measure, such as beauty, is in fact likely to be a spurious distinction. Both, are indeed equally subjective and, by the same token, equally real and equally valid.

To summarise, we may now assert that all things which exist, exist only for the particular individual who perceives them. If an individual does not perceive something, for whatever reason, then it does not exist for them. Therefore, there is no real space, or time, or objects, there is only a representation of space, time and objects which exist in the myriad of conscious minds which occupy the universe. Paradoxically, I must add that although I may refer to "the myriad of conscious minds", this is only a notion in the mind of me, as one individual. It is how I and I alone perceive the universe, for me, there is only one real conscious mind, and that is my own mind. I have only a notion that there are many others, which I can only infer exist.

Continued in next post