“The Relativity of ‘Reality’”
by Robert Anton Wilson
[From Neurolog #4, 1978, p.9]
From the viewpoint of semantics, "reality"
is a multi-ordinal concept, having different meanings on different
levels of abstraction. On the lowest level of abstraction "reality"
refers to immediate sensory consistency. "Is there really a
kangaroo in that chair?" can be answered by obtaining the consensus of the
group; or, if everybody is stoned, by bringing in some objective observers with
objective instruments, etc. On the highest level of abstraction,
"reality" refers to logical consistency with a body of established
scientific fact and theory. "Is entropy real?" can be answered
by consulting a reliable textbook on thermodynamics. Between the level of
kangaroo and the level of entropy, there are many other levels of abstraction
and, hence, many kinds of "reality."
For instance, "Is the Gross National Product
real?" is a question on a certain level of abstraction; and if equally
intelligent people can, and do, argue about this it is because they are talking
on different levels of abstraction and are not aware of the fact that there are
different levels of abstraction and different kinds of "reality."
This is the semantic relativity of "reality."
2. Every tribe has its own "reality-map,"
or worldview, or weltanschauung. What is "real" to the
Eskimo is not what is "real" to the Zuni Indian or the Congolese or
the Japanese Buddhist or the German businessman or the Russian commissar, etc.
If you travel around the world with the naive assumption that everybody is
living in the same "reality," you will make numerous embarrassing
mistakes, insult countless people unintentionally, make a splendid ass
of yourself and generally contribute to the worldwide belief that tourists are
a Curse of God sent to punish peole for their sins. To recognize that every
culture, and sub-culture, has its own "reality" is the prerequisite
of sophistication, tact, and true tolerance. Otherwise you come on like the
Englishman who claimed all Chinese understand English if you just shout loud
enough.
This is the anthropological, or cultural, relativism
of "reality."
3. Every nervous system creates its own
"reality." Out of the billions, or billions of billions, of energies
intersecting the room in which you read this, your brain, performing
100,000,000 processes per minute (almost all of them unconscious to
those circuits called the ego and recognized as "me") arranges a few
hundred or thousand into the Gestalt which you experience as the
"reality" of the room. To demonstrate this, in my Exo-psychology
classes, I will have the students describe the hall outside the lecture room;
no two will describe exactly the same hall. Or, I will have everybody write
down what they hear in the room during a minute of clock-time; no two lists of
these sounds will be identical. A variety of chemicals introduced into the
nervous system, or direct brain stimulation with electrical impulses, or yoga,
etc., will create an entirely different neurological "reality" while
you are still sitting in the "same" room."
This is neurological relativism, or the relativity of
perceived "reality."
4. Two scientists moving at different accelerations
can measure the same phenomenon with equally accurate instruments and obtain
totally different readings of it extensions in the space and time dimensions.
(Einstein, General Relativity.) On the quantum level, a variety of different
philosophical reality-maps, or "models," describe equally well both
the experimental data and the mathematical equations that are
known to "fit" the data. Any attempt to get around this by adding
more sophisticated instruments leads to adding still more sophisticated
instruments to monitor the first set, and so on, forever. (Von Neumann's
"catastrophe of the infinite regress.")
This is physical Relativity, or the relativity of
instrumental "reality."
In conclusion, "reality" is a concept
borrowed from the theologians who, being bankrupt, are in no position to loan
anything to anybody. We would do better to restrict ourselves to questions that
can be answered. Such questions will take the form, "At this date, with
the knowledge presently possessed by humanity, which model best accords with
the facts?" When it turns out, as it usually does these days, that several
models work equally well, we might then ask: which models are most amusing?
most optimistic? most worthy of our time and energy? most elegant and esthetic?
And we can keep in mind, too, biologist JBS Haldane's warning, "The
universe may be not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can
think."
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Mr. Wilson is the author of the Illuminatus! trilogy, Cosmic
Trigger, and diverse other works.
(submitted to rawilsonfans by RMJon23)