this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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Oh but it is.
One's reality is entirely constructed from their interpretations.
The problem is that it's a difficult state to remain in due to the ensnarement which comes from sharing reality with others. There's a reason why 'enlightened' folk live on mountain tops.
Gravity applies no matter how far away you are.
Reality might be completely constructed from interpretation if there were no outside forces in play. But if your atoms are interacting with other atoms, you're beholden to their rules.
yes, but you can't convince people of that if they deny gravity is real.
the issue we have these days is gravity deniers get together and egg each other on in their delusions and create ever more elaborate theories to defend their denial of reality.
hell, many lemmy instances are created specifically for that purpose... because their theories often put that at odds with the general public.
"gravity doesn't exist, we're pulled down because the earth sucks"
You are referring to some overarching reality, with a capital R, which is unknowable in its entirety. Contrast that to one's own reality, which is both more and less real than the 'outside world'. There are physical and social forces acting upon us all the time, but how we feel about them, when we even notice them, is what creates our internal reality. Which is vastly more important to our quality of life.
The rules can be bent.
It feels like you're using the word reality as a duplicate of the phrase personal experience. In that case I would agree. You can absolutely choose how you feel about the things you perceive.
But no amount of choosing how you feel gets you to fly. And no amount of thinking you can fly will ever prove you to be right when you try and fail.
Though you can certainly feel like it's worth trying again if you're so choose.
Sorry, looking over my usage today I just realized I didn't really address your statement at all, except to hand-wave it away. That seems to be happening more as I get older, sort of lose the thread and meander off to continue insisting on points nobody is really refuting. Probably just dementia or something.
But, yes, I certainly agree. There are some hard facts about the world that impress themselves upon us. Like there's no amount of mentalizing that's going to change physics. Hell, most spiritual traditions are largely about understanding and effectively coping with the things we can't change.
I have read some interesting proposals by legit philosophers that argue the entire world is in fact created by the mind. Post doctorates and well learned spiritualists are often as equally skilled in logical arguments as they are in sophistry so many of their points can be hard to refute. Not necessarily convincing, but certainly compelling in a way that makes you reconsider the nature of reality.
Still, if someone is convinced they can fly, they might better try taking off from the ground first.
It's a deliberate use of the word. Because people's personal experience is their reality. Even among scientists, objective truth isn't necessarily agreed upon, so aside from specific cases, it's hard to use it as a guide post towards navigating life. Like you said, there are certainly hard facts in the world which impact us, but how we perceive and interpret these phenomena, how we grapple with theory of mind, creates our reality.
If that sounds a little too woo-woo then how about a more practical and fun example.
Your nose takes up 10 to 15% of your vision.
The capital R reality is that photons are bouncing off of your nose and entering your eye. Your eyes are seeing your nose. And yet, unless pointed out most of the time you don't even notice that your vision is nose-less when, in fact, a nose is constantly in your field of vision.
Your mind has edited out the existence of your nose.
That's not woo, that's neurobiology. But so is the conscious construction of your reality. If you think about getting into a fight, your heart races, despite there being no real threat.
Now if a baseball suddenly hit you on the nose, you would be quite aware of capital R reality making it's presence known upon you. But how you perceive why that happened and what it means determines the rest of your reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ynMtsbKH0
is there a written version of it? i really don't like getting news/explanations of things through videos
It's not news. And arguably this is the type of thing where you benefit from seeing the actual person talking because they have personal experience of what they are talking about. It's more than just conveying words.
What a great video so far. I'm on break so I could only catch half of it but I am excited to see the rest when I get home.
Reminds me of the Buddhist practice of negating every label one has for themselves. What's left? The ineffable.
Glad you like it! He's from a related system (advaita/tantra) so if you know anything of Buddhism, he would sound familiar. He just has stripped away pretty much all of the cultural trappings and focuses purely on the core nondual philosophy and practice.
Also he's what's called a "householder", tantra being primarily a "householder" tradition. Meaning, no sitting alone on mountaintops, it's realization while engaged with the world.