Reality

I have written quite a bit now on how the language we choose to use shapes our lives. This being the week sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick was born I thought I try to go deeper into neuro-linguistic word magic.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it doesn’t go away”

These words were how sci-fi mystic and writer Philip K Dick succinctly defined what reality is. In my estimates an elegant way to express such a conceptually sprawling idea as to what is a reality. Even more impressive is that by most accounts he struggled with what reality was on the experiential level. His personal life was plagued by delusions, paranoia, and addiction. Despite whatever personal difficulties he experienced he was quite the prolific writer. Even if you are unfamiliar with his books you are familiar with his work. And I am not talking about Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, A Man in a High Castle or any of the other movies that have been based on his writings. I mean you are familiar with his works as we are all in a world that he co-wrote.

Let me explain.

I’ve talked about language and how cursing and shaming are action verbs. How our words and intents can have tangible physical effects. Here I want to make a case that words can have tangible effects in creating novelty in the physical world. The logic in this essay can apply to any writer or speaker. I chose PKD because to me no other person I’m aware of pushed the boundaries as to what is reality further to the infinite than he did. He explored whether our consciousness can be hacked. He asked how can we be sure we aren’t mistaken in who we think we are. Are we avatars in a grand simulation? These questions were quite beyond what most people were thinking in the 70s. I’m sure there were some people conjuring such thoughts, but how many of them could successfully express these ideas to other people. Woe to those who were not linguistic black belts who tried to broach such topics. I’m willing to bet many people were medicated for trying unsuccessfully to show glimpses of the realities PHK and a few other successful writers unveiled.

We far the most part like to think of ourselves as a rationalist, people who have access to the truth. But the truth is, the truth is too big of a concept to fit into any of our brains. We can't know the truth in a real sense to anything because we can never understand anything from all possible perspectives which are infinite. We have some ideas that seem to be extremely dependable where there are no recorded inconsistencies such as gravity. It feels like we know the truth when it comes to gravity, It's a benchmark for truth as we know of nothing more reliable, but even here to be truly intellectually vigilant we must be willing to be open to new data that can potentially overthrow our current understanding of gravity.

No, we are not rationalist, our brains do not process data as a computer does. We need a reason to remember information. We attached meaning to what we learn. We tell stories of how the world works that reference the information we need to go about our life. These stories are not without cost though. Sometimes our stories will blind us to realities that are right in front of us. Politics is an obnoxious example of this. Two groups of people shouting at each other's blind spots both side to afraid of the other to learn anything from them. There are plenty of personal examples as well. How many opportunities do we miss because we can’t figure out the value in something?

Often we get these stories when we are young and impressionable. As life goes on we may add to our stories, spicing it with facts, and hard-earned lessons. Some of us have the burden of editing our story, rewriting damaging a narrative that was passed on for who knows how many generations. We are not aware when we are receiving our stories that they are stories. We are giving cartoons of reality because that is all our still-developing brains can grasp. As life goes on we, of course, have to intellectually molt all our ideas so we can think like adults, but if this process is successful ((some people get stuck here) our new stories will mirror our old stories. Maybe these stories won't be similar superficially, and maybe we may not always see the connection, but in our wiser moments, we will understand how we still understand the world the same way we did when we were 5.

Our stories are based on many things. family, religion, geography, economics, all of which are pretty fixed. There is a wildcard in this though. Art. Anyone can be an artist and put their ideas out into the world where they will be sponged up by hungry minds. There a lot of predation with this freedom. Corporations attempt to create neural associations with their products and our more pleasant emotions, effectively branding our minds. False leaders will tell you the stories that they have the one true way of thinking. Of course, we will never be as good as thinking like they do as they do so we will forever be subservient to them. There are those who will use their creative courage to add levity, hope, and optimism to our stories. Those that try to ethically add to our stories.

And then there are the Mad. There are those who smash our story and put them back together in unrecognizable ways. Ways that require us to let go of our understanding of the world before we can have the most basic understanding of these new ideas. PKD was such a writer. No doubt it took a toll on his well being. He suffered addiction and mental illness. But he also provides many of us with mind-expanding stories at a time when our minds where more supple. Whether his ideas were true didn't matter as his stories could be true. He planted seeds of doubt among the most trusted “truths”. Can we be robots? Can our memories be implanted? Can we forget who we are? Perhaps these are not questions we should not ponder a lot as they can lead to dangerous places. But having the ability to ponder them give us the freedom to ponder so many other ideas.

We live in a world unrecognizable to most people of PKD generation. He was born in 1928. Long before this digital world, he described so well. Describe as in to write. He helped write this word into existence in a way. He provided ideas that people were inspired to create. Through his words, he was able to attune the consciousness of countless people who forever after encountering his art were able to perceive the world through a different lens. How many people were able to spy something culturally undiscovered out of the infinite data points we call reality because they picked up one of his books at one time or another? How many people had a wider imaginations? How many of these readers were inspired to devote some portion of their life into the labor needed of bringing these ideas into the world? Literally inventing and programming ideas in the real world they first encountered while exploring his imaginary words

He said that really does not need us to believe in it to exist. I agree. But I don’t think the reality is static, either. I can see how in time our beliefs become our reality. To (probably a lesser) an extent we are all bringing stuff from our imagination into what we call reality. Over the course of our lives, the words we choose to use may be the most important choices we will ever make, and the choice is %100 our own. We just need to discipline our consciousness, but no one else can make us use or not use any words. We are free to choose words that empower us or victimize us. We can use words that alienate people or bring people together. We are not just characters in this world but also authors of it.

Anthony Bruni