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July 5, 2003
Figment of my imagination
I spent the morning working in the garden, and it was pretty hot. Probably shouldn't blog about things I think about while getting sun-stroke.
The Matrix has gotten everyone thinking about whether their world is just imagined: are you, the reader--and everyone else--only figments of my imagination? I was introduced to this concept in a philosophy class years ago, and I have thought about it from time to time since. I've heard stories of people who actually live under this pretense (and surprisingly still function).
I don't know if I support the concept. Frankly, I place my bet on it not being the case, and act accordingly. If it is the case, I've just wasted a lot of time not doing whatever I wanted in my imaginary world. But I feel better about myself not indulging every whim, and if it's not imaginary, it will be worth my while.
But to my point: whether or not our existance is imaginary, there are certainly plenty of things in this life that are self-created. I think we would do well to understand where we do imagine and where we don't, and realize that we do have the ability to control our actions and responses.
Our emotions, perceptions, motivations, inhibitions, etc are what makes an environment that it otherwise ... just an environment, into a sustaining, motivating, beautiful (or ugly) world. It's what makes a bunch of heat, dust, moisture and piles of dirt and stone into an incredible and inspiring sunset. It makes a structure of calcium, water, and various types of cells into a fellow human being that we want to associate with, might even find attractive enough to propagate the human race (if our subconcious makes us feel that way).
We do live in something of a virtual reality, but it's not the obvious things that are virtual (at least, that's my opinion): it's the subconcious, the subtle, the unobvious. We are generally unaware of the "virtual reality" we create that helps us understand and interact with and act upon what happens in the reality around us.
The virtual reality of The Matrix is interesting. But the really compelling virtual reality we--I--need to discover, uncover, understand and maybe break free from, is the figment of my imagination that I usually don't realize exists.
Posted by pete at July 5, 2003 2:26 PM