The idea of reality as illusion started in Eastern religions and
became popularized in the West with Einstein. When Einstein showed that
time is exprienced differently in systems running at different speeds,
he brought to bear the idea that time and space are not absolute, but
relative to the speed at which an object travels. All kinds of
philosophers - and ultimately hucksters - picked up on this notion to
claim that life is an illusion; that all things, from experience to
morals, are relative; and that, based on these conclusions, any lie and
any sin and any depredation is to be excused as part of the way of
life.
This idea was combined with quantum mechanics - the fact that the very
act of measuring an electron's motion involved sending a photon, which
bumped the electron and changed its position and momentum - to claim
something still more atrocious: That it is our act of observing the
world that creates our reality, and that anything in our lives - the
reality that supposedly we create - is something we bring about with
our conscious and unconscious minds.
It needs little clarification to recognize what a monstrosity is this
notion. What it means - and what many in the New Age claimed
explicitly - is that anything that happens to a person, is something
they have thought up. Which means that any crime against another person
is something the other person has manifested. Which of course could be
used to excuse every genocide, barbarism and deception in the history
of the world, and gives the person who believes such a thing a green
light to do horrible things to others.
It is not hard to see the poisonous, and indeed criminal, effect that
such attitudes have on people's behavior and the civilization. And to
the people who claim that resistance to that ideology is based on
desire for control, or power, or for seeing oneself as a victim, the
correct response is: It has nothing to do with any of these things, and
everything to do with ethics. It has to do with intelligence and
discernment. It has to do with seeing things to their logical
consummation and realizing the utter horror that such an ideology can
lead as fruition of the beliefs of which it is composed.
When I was in high school, I used to say things like "The world does
not exist" and "you are an illusion." Having lived for a while, and
having a certain amount of experience and cogitation, I have found with
a conclusive refutation to that idea - refutation that does not involve
some smarmy "growing out" of that belief, but rather confronting it
directly at its own level. The argument: "If the world was an illusion,
or if this was a dream, then you would not be able to hear things you
have not heard before, get information you have not had before, or see
what you have not previously seen." The reason: In a dream, such things
are impossible.
What is a conclusive refutation of the idea that you are alone in the
world? Events you could not have foreseen - knowledge and information
you could not have acquired by building on your previous experience and
notions - ideas, arguments and understanding that in no way builds on
the substance of your mind or experience, but comes, as far as your
experience is concerned, utterly out of the blue.
Yes, you can make an argument that when someone hits you, it is a
sensory illusion. Yes, you can make an argument that most (if not all)
beliefs that people have had contradict each other. But the single
absolute - the single absolute, that is, that is necessary to refute
nihilism - is, "You can't dream up something that does not build on
your previous experience and ideas." And any idea that does not build
on or contradicts your previous ideas - any experience that does not
build on your experiences and ideas - anything truly novel to your
experience and worldview, cannot come from within, or the dreaming
mind. It can only come from without the mind. As such, it is a single
absolute that refutes nihilism.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Ilya Shambat.
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