It’s a leap of faith to take the world for real
If I really want to stick to the facts, I can only say, “I don’t know whether I exist.”
Is there really such a thing as a self? And even if there is, I don’t know whether there’s a real world outside my own mind.
I have no independent evidence for anything whatsoever. The claim of truth for physical reality is not accessible to verification by scientific methods since science itself is part of what has to be proven. All that so-called objectivity starts with an arbitrary choice.
Therefore it is a leap of faith to take the world for real.
The most simple explanation, then, is that it’s all a dream. We are all familiar with the dream experience and its overpowering impression of reality.
We think we wake up from all dreams in the morning but have we ever witnessed ourselves getting involved in a dream? How do we know we’re not living a dream life every day? Has anybody ever experienced such a thing as real reality? How can you tell the difference?
That is why it makes sense to consider ourselves true believers, rather than rigorous fact finders. Fact is, I don’t know anything for sure, and fact is, I want to believe the world is real and don’t really care about the evidence.
Now, what if I choose to believe true reality is not of this world? That the world with all its beauty and insanity is only a projection of our own mind? A projection that includes our own body, the brain that comes with it, and the whole evolution and cosmogony that are supposed to be the cause of it.
How well do we know the mind? Have we ever seen the edge of consciousness? Do we know where it has its abode? Does it have one, actually? Does that uncertainty make it less real? It still seems to work, doesn’t it?
If there ever was a fact it would be that consciousness is totally unknown and that we can somehow live with it. Perhaps even be at peace with it sometimes, in spite of everything we think we know, expect and remember.
This means we can take the unknown for real just as easily as the known as long as we do not take the little that we seem to know too seriously.
Stan