"There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
What is still needed is a moral code so that society shall not simply break down into anarchy.
What is needed is a non-specific reality morality that is capable of assuming nearly infinite variation. This new morality is quite simple but abstract and is in line with what has been stated before: Do not inflict your personal reality onto another individual. This is the mature awareness that each individual has their own personal reality that is equally as valid to them that yours is to you. Do not seek to change their personal reality by force unless their personal reality is inflicting serious damage to the personal realities of others. In this outlook, morality becomes transcending. Infinite variation is possible and the wars to define reality are ended because there is no need for them anymore. All that is needed is the knowledge that there can be no reality proven as the correct one. Any rhetoric that is claims to be the true reality is seen as silly. In an infinite universe, each specific reality system has a certain finite chance of being correct. Since there are an infinite number of possible realities, each of which has some change of being true, the possibility that one's own specific reality system being the exact true one is infinitely small (any finite number divided by infinitly equalling as close to zero as possible.) All perceptions of reality are equally valid and invalid; one must merely determine which one is the most useful for the time being. Periodic revision of one's perception of reality. morality, and meaning of life is necessary to prevent stagnation and keep from assuming a static perception of existence.
The change accomplished here is simple but profound.
The purpose of this page is to introduce the reader to a system of philosophy that I have developed called the Fluid Reality System. This philosophical system has been specifically designed to maximize individual ability to experience personal growth and self-actualization. It simultaneously allows the individual to function at the highest level of moral reasoning and the possibility to greatly reduce interpersonal and intersocietal conflicts. This philosophy requires a re-thinking of the conception of the very nature of reality and the foundations that our societies are based upon. Once certain assumed "truths" are revealed to be unfounded, this theory becomes easier to understand. The key here is to be able to make this conceptual leap.
We must all ask ourselves what exactly is the nature of reality. This is not as easy as it might seem. Our definitions of reality are derived from our senses, which are inherently subjective, not objective. Following this line of thought, we soon realize that our perception of a great number of things such as politics, religion, and virtually any other subject can differ vastly from other individuals. There are a great number of different perceptions of reality based on the individual's experiences and internal cognitions. One's point of view varies according to these factors. A dozen different individuals may come up with a dozen different interpretations of the same situation.
So, what is reality? It is the sum of our subjective perspectives. Reality, for all intents and purposes, is subjective since no one has the ability to get completely past their subjectivism. Our senses allow us some virtual cognition of that which we perceive as the "real world", but this is not the real world.
Still, we need to establish some commonalities among people so that communication and interrelationships are possible. Certain guidelines are established about what to call objects and actions. Naming these things allow us to mentally manipulate our internal conceptions of these things and allow us to convey some ideas to other individuals. Words make communication possible as well as abstract thought. In some sense, all thought is abstract because it describes our virtual perception of objects and assumes that events in reality correspond to our individual perception of reality. What I am trying to convey here is that all language and subsequent abstract conceptions are socially constructed according to subjective perceptions of reality. Communication and language would not likely have been constructed without the social group and other individuals to converse with. Commonalities needed to be established for the convenience of the existence of language and language allowed for more commonalities.
Naturally, this process happened in many different groups, all establishing their group perceptions on which their languages were based. The members of each group were trained in how to properly perceive a generalized group reality so that all of the members of the group could interact with one another. Social conventions became ritualized and institutionalized and formalized and the group reality became an unspoken and sometimes spoken law. Group members are required to be able to preceive and interact within a certain set of parameters set by the group in order to remain within that group.
Over time, many different groups evolved and interacted with one another. Many different groups has many different social realities, and even the individual members of each society each had a personal reality somewhat different than that of others within the same group. Each member of the group grew up differently and experienced different thoughts that set them all apart. Only a certain amount of diversity was tolerated because diversity reduced group solidarity. Naturally, when two groups with somewhat different social constructions of reality came together, there was usually conflict. Each group tried to convince the others that their way of interpreting reality was right, if they were able to converse at all due to their differences. Warfare designed to determine the correct definition of reality was usually decided by "might makes right".
Over time, the social systems grew larger and villages eventually gave way to nations and large organized societies. Naturally, as these larger societies developed, the need for social order and control increased. No longer did each individual know everyone else in the society and people stopped relying so much on the village unit for support. Since commonalities were still needed to maintain the society in the face of increasing diversity, new institutions such as churches, courthouses, civic pride programs, and nationalistic programs were designed to help maintain these commonalities. Those who violated the group reality too much were censured, killed, disenfranchised, or the like. Social rules and regulations based upon some agreed upon common reality were formalized into religious and governmental laws. Other societies that did not fit into the reality of one's own society were attacked, sanctioned, bribed, and subverted in an attempt to win the war to define one group's reality over another's. In today's world, there are millions of different groups, most of which are in the active struggle to perpetuate certain specific points of view. Many are convinced that their way is the one correct way and seeks, with varying degrees of desperation and aggression to bring the others around to their points of view. To think that another different perception of reality could possibly be as correct as one's own interpretation of reality is to deny that one knows the correct specific reality. Wars to define specific reality systems blaze across the globe. People forget that all perception of reality is merely a socially constructed, subjective perspective of an external construct. People define a morality system for a universe that inherently lacks this concept. The concept of morality itself is a human construct that changes over time depending on the individuals within the society. Societal values and ideas often change dramatically over time. However, it is not remembered that these are all socially-constructed intangible constructs made simply in the attempt to maintain communications and establish commonalities in an amoral universe. What morality does a rock or a hurricane or a tree have? There is none. These things exist in themselves. We imagine that social constructions such as morality and reality are things in themselves as well, but they are not. They are merely perceptions; phantasms created as a convenience. No definition of reality or morality is correct or incorrect; these are merely conveniences that we create and use. We do not know reality, only perceptions of reality. Many people mistake these two things.
Many people claim that the concepts listed above are false and that some supreme being created the human race and has guided it along at different points in human history through certain individuals such as Christ or Mohammed. Regardless of the validity or invalidity of this, it still does not affect the basic premise of what I am trying to convey because of the great number of different religions, all claiming to be the "true" religion. Even if one specific definition of reality were true, it would be impossible to convince other people of the validity of the true religion because they would tend to believe that which is in their past experiences and internal cognitions. The war to define reality would continue unabated. </P>
Now, what one needs to ask onself is that if there is no true human understanding of reality, then why do people continue to fight to try to prove a specific definition of reality? This comes from the human desire to have substantiality, or at least the perception of such in their lives. Humans seek meaning. Finding none in the universe, we invented it. Over time, the origin of the invention of meaning was lost. People began to believe that meaning exists in itself rather than as a subjective perception. Meaning is important, but it is important to realize that meaning is constructed by subjective minds.
So far, I have discussed how the human perception of reality, morality, and meaning in life is socially constructed and influenced by personal experience and internal cognitions. We have seen how the vast majority of interpersonal and intersocietal conflicts are created when different individuals or groups all seek to perpetuate their personal or group realities and the expense of the realities of others. There is a way to eliminate the war to define reality and thus prevent many of the interpersonal and inter-societal problems such as national imperialism, holy wars, and interperonal hatred. This is because many of these problems have as their root causee the need to inflict a certain perception of reality onto others who do not share this perception of reality.
What is needed to stop this war to define reality is to acknowledge that no specific reality is correct, or at least, cannot be proven correct. Once one realizes the nature of the creation of a personal reality, one is able to take matters into one's own hands and begin to consciously craft one's own reality, morality, and meaning of life. It is realized that this is consciously done and that this crafting is done to provide a reality that is expedient rather than an absolute. This allows one to have a fluid personal reality system that is extremely adaptable to whatever is necessary for personal growth and self-actualization, within reason.
I add the condition above "within reason" to indicate that certain commonalities must still be observed in order for a society to continue to exist. What is still needed is a moral code so that society shall not simply break down into anarchy. Before in this text, I mentioned that this philosophy is designed to allow the individual to function at the highest level of moral reasoning. I take this definition of moral reasoning to be that as defined by Laurence Kohlberg's sixth level of moral reasoning, that of autonomous morality. This is a form of reality that is more advanced and abstract than simple moralities such as "Thou shalt not kill" and other absolutist rhetoric. These traditional morality systems were designed for a simpler time and simpler societies and were based upon the notion of a singular, specific definition of reality that, as we can see, does not exist. Because of this, these traditional morality systems frequently have their tenets violated in the modern world in the attempt to wage the war to define reality. Nations sanction the mass murdering of individuals of other nations for political, economic and social ends and to impress certain ideologies onto others. Similar examples can be made for frequeny violations of most other traditional moral codes. These absolutist codes of morality tend to stagnate people in Kohlberg's levels three to five of moral reasoning. Morality of this sort tends to enforce a specific morality, reality, and purpose to life.
What is needed to break this cycle is a leap to the next level of morality. This is a level that the vast majority of people in this world have never even thought about because it involves such a dramatic change in the very nature in which humans perceive reality itself. It is a mature way of looking at existence that has not been tried before. What is needed is a non-specific reality morality thta is capable of assuming nearly infinite variation. This new morality is quite simple but abstract and is in line with what has been stated before: Do not inflict your personal reality onto another individual. This is the mature awareness that each individual has their own personal reality that is equally as valid to them that yours is to you. Do not seek to change their personal reality by force unless their personal reality is inflicting serious damage to the personal realities of others. In this outlook, morality becomes transcending. Infinite variation is possible and the wars to define reality are ended because there is no need for them anymore. All that is needed is the knowledge that there can be no reality proven as the correct one. Any rhetoric that is claims to be the true reality is seen as silly. In an infinite universe, each specific reality system has a certain finite chance of being correct. Since there are an infinite number of possible realities, each of which has some change of being true, the possibility that one's own specific reality system being the exact true one is infinitely small (any finite number divided by infinitly equalling as close to zero as possible.) All perceptions of reality are equally valid and invalid; one must merely determine which one is the most useful for the time being. Periodic revision of one's perception of reality. morality, and meaning of life is necessary to prevent stagnation and keep from assuming a static perception of existence.
The change accomplished here is simple but profound. It involves an alteration of most that one assumed he or she ever thought they knew about existence and the static order of things in an exchange for a fluid perception of reality tht is ultimately based on meaninglessness. However, this is the way that is has always been. We are simply cognizant of this fact now and can take an existential control of our lives as never before. This is the freedom to become that which we wish to become. This is conscious control over one's life. This is finally breaking out of our childish perceptions into true adulthood of our species, if we are willing to take that risk. This is what I call the attainment of the godself. This is autonomous control of our own destinies to the greatest degree possible. This is taking responsibility for who and what we are and is accomplished in such a manner that maximizes the potential for personal growth and self-actualization while minimizing the harmful effects inherent in static reality philosophical systems.
The basic tenets of the fluid reality system are as follows:
1: Reality cannot be accurately defined by any individual or group.
2: All experience is subjective.
3: There exists no inhernet morality or purpose to existence that can be accurately defined.
4: Each individual must devise one's own individual independent interpretation of reality and morality.
5: The interpretation of existence must be unique to each individual for optimal personal growth and self- actualization to occur.
6: One needs to periodically spend time re-evaluating one's own reality and morality in order to avoid stagnation.
7: Avoid imposing any specific reality system onto another individual.
Originally written in 1994. Updated to internet on 07/30/97
This can be distributed freely, as long as this paper is presented in its original form.
