Duality

Epistemology: what is reality?

Is there an objective reality, a collective consciousness, the amalgamation of all individual living consciousnesses, or are each of our minds what reality is and because all consciousnesses can't be observed altogether at one time and place there is no one objective reality, only subjective reality?

Having done the 50-day Waking Up course on Sam Harris' mobile app, among taking philosophy courses, reading about this kind of thing on the internet, and contemplating my own experiences, has made me consider questions like this.

People who tend to be "extraverted" would more likely be of the school of thought that the physical world around them is what is real and our minds are simply there to observe. 

People who tend to be "introverted" would more likely be of the school of thought that what we observe, touch, feel, hear, smell, taste - the different manifestations of our own mind - is what constitutes what reality is. Is reality objective or subjective?

If you don't understand what I'm saying here, play around with the common thought experiment: "if a tree falls down and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

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As I described in ​Worlds, to me it feels like there's so many worlds within this one world, within this one life of mine. 

Everything's changing, everything's moving, everything's being disrupted, there's always new things to learn, new perspectives to see. In principle and in practice I like this idea. 

I get bored when I'm forced to do repetitive tasks, or be in groups of people that do or talk about the same things ever time we get together, or when I'm living in the same setting or situation for a long period of time.

Maybe this is just a phase I'm in right now. Maybe it isn't even true that I like constant change. I do like some stability, I do like some tradition, I do like some routines, I do like seeing familiar people, doing some familiar activities, etc, it's safe, it's comfortable. But it can also be boring and lifeless to constantly live like this.

Is the purpose of life to preserve life, to keep things the same, or is the purpose of life to create new life, to create new ideas, physical objects, worlds?

This seems to be the heart of the question of politics and religion and societal structure - "liberal" vs. "conservative": do we let people be free to explore, do what they want, believe what they want, or do we constrain people to follow established rules and traditions and roles to preserve the status quo - assuming the status quo is what is best and any deviation from it is what causes trouble? 

Do we stand up for our country, our religion, and our way of life, and try to make things like they were in the "good old days" or do we let ourselves change, evolve, be influenced by other cultures, other ways of thinking, other ways of living life, and be focused on innovation, a utopian future, a "new creation"?

This seems to be at the heart of the question of the function of sexuality and gender: is the purpose of sexuality about creating new life or enjoying the physical pleasure of life? 

Are we to take on specific gender roles to best reproduce and preserve our genes and family heritage or are we meant to not conform to one gender role because we get to experience more of life this way and fully express ourselves more and experience more pleasure when we don't have to worry about conforming to certain ways of using our bodies and expressing our emotions? 

Is gender needed for love and joy and life to exist, is sexuality needed for love and joy and life to exist?

Does enjoyment or fulfillment of life matter more or does safety and preservation of life matter more?

This seems to be at the heart of the question of economics: the production and trade of physical resources (but also now services and non-physical resources in this period of time). 

Should we set up our economy so people can create whatever the want, consume whatever they want, obtain as much wealth as they can - is that what is best for everyone? 

Or do we set things up so that everyone gets their basic needs met: all life is preserved and cared for but the quality of life and the amount of consumption cannot increase?

This seems to be at the heart of the question of education: do we learn for the sake of learning, for the joy of discovering and contemplating different ideas and ways of doing things, do we read and write and create so we can receive a mark or a diploma or a credential or some sort of recognition - is learning an accomplishment in itself? Or do we learn for the sake of doing things, for taking action, for using the knowledge and thinking skills to make changes and improve the external world. 

It’s “perceiving vs. judging” if you know the Myers-Briggs system. Really the Myers-Briggs personality typing system with it’s four binary variables is fundamentally about asking these kinds of questions too and labelling people based on the answers they give.

This seems to be at the heart of questions about the nature of the physical world, the heart of the most fundamental questions of science and physics: what is matter? 

Quantum physics has shown that light is both a wave and a particle: it depends on whether it's being observed. Is that true for all matter, all reality? Are all things more than one thing at the same time?  Is life about being one thing (i.e. a particle) and working together and moving and changing and relating and being shaped by other things too (i.e. a wave)?

Is life about preservation or creation? Or is it both simultaneously?

Life just doesn't make sense to me. I don't know what to think or believe or how to live. 

What do you do when so many opposite realities seem to be true at the same time?

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Why wasn't the Gospel of Thomas, among other early Christian writings, included in the canonical Bible? Would it have been too hard for people to understand? Would it have made it hard for people to live functional, orderly lives if people started reading these writings? Would it be too revolutionary and dangerous for people in power?

Here are a few of Jesus' sayings from the Gospel of Thomas (discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of other writings historians date back to between 60 and 140 BCE - learn more here), related to the dualistic sorts of questions I've asked in this post:

• Thomas 3:1-5 "'If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you and outside of you.' 'When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty.'"

• Thomas 22:1-6 "Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: “These little ones being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.”
  They said to him: “Then will we enter the kingdom as little ones?”
  Jesus said to them: “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below — that is, to make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female — and when you make eyes instead of an eye and a hand instead of a hand and a foot instead of a foot, an image instead of an image, then you will enter.”

• Thomas 89:1-2 “Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not understand that the one who created the inside is also the one who created the outside?”