Monday 22 July 2019

Virtuality versus Reality

We need a single world for the fake, virtual reality which The System of totalitarian media-bureaucracy is imposing and enforcing on us - and virtuality seems like a good word to hijack for the purpose, since it explains itself - being a condensation of virtual-reality: that manufactured and illusory world that is passively accepted by our senses as reality, familiar from the modern mass media.

The nature of our modern spiritual war is therefore one of Virtuality versus Reality. Our task in life is to distinguish the dominant, official, fashionable, and increasingly compulsory Virtuality which is lived-in by all institutions; from the eternal and universal reality that we can access as individuals who are each potentially in touch with the divine.

Reality is, in other words, nowadays only accessible by the individual prepared to stand apart, and prepared to acknowledge the reality of a divine and spiritual world. Whereas Virtuality is what modern Western people will passively absorb simply by being raised and working and functioning in society.

The great advantage of reality is that it only requires a minority of one, because each may know it directly and for himself; its great disadvantage that under current conditions it must be held despite being a minority of one, and in the teeth of universal worldly denial and condemnation - since so few are choosing it, so many and so powerful opposing it.

And the word 'choose' is accurate, because under current conditions and with Man's mind as it is; choice is mandatory - even when choice is denied. On the one hand passivity and unconsciousness lead to Virtuality, on the other hand reality is the spontaneous product of conscious and active living from one's true self - but both are chosen.

It is a feature of the modern condition that every possibility presents itself as a choice - matters that used to be regarded as brute facts - such as psychological and physical differences between men and women, or the impossibility of changing from one to the other - are now matters of choice. Matters of survival and sustained life were once regarded as fundamental, now a manufactured ephemeral virtuality of fake news, fake fashions and fake morality occupies the centre stage in the world and in most private lives.

Modern Man chooses; and has-chosen to reject facts and live by his choices: and this, multipled millionfold, is the basis of virtuality.

Anyone can choose reality at any time; but to do this he must recognise the basis and possibility of choice; and he must choose to stand alone in a very basic sense; alone in 'the world' of senses and publicly shared concepts; but in reality (which is spiritual) he is with God, and with all those who have also made the choice against virtuality and for reality.

10 comments:

whitestone said...

Eternal universal reality. Has anyone ever attempted to map it out. Any literature where the question of what mechanisms constitute eternal, universal reality has been thoroughly addressed? Any recommendations.

Bruce Charlton said...

It is definitive of this era that each of us must discover eternal universal reality each for ourselves.

Indeed, in a sense, I believe that this specific aspect of the situation is the divine intent; we are supposed to do this; it is the test that we need to pass to move on.

whitestone said...

Yes I would agree. That certainly seems to be the case and that’s fine by me. Yet it surprises me that it appears that no one has attempted to map out what’s actually right and wrong. What always has been and always will be, put simply. A few pointers wouldn’t go amiss. Of course it would be an enormous, almost impossible undertaking, but maybe worth a bash.

Bruce Charlton said...

I don't think it is possible, because such things are not really abstractions. They are not laws or facts. Reality is beings in relationships in a developing dynamic 'process '. So a list or map is not possible.

whitestone said...

I see your point, but isn’t it contradictory to to on the one hand state that things are eternal and universal while on the other suggesting that things are developing and dynamic? Of course it isn’t, that is clearly the case, but some things are constant, woven into the fabric of creation. PC would have us believe that truth is purely developing and dynamic and subject to arbitrary change at the drop of a hat, yet there are rules. Dictates of divine nature that I don’t believe are subject to change. Not easy this.

Bruce Charlton said...

@w - I think it's a matter of a different metaphor than we are used to - representing that we have been ultimately mistaken through most of history (although it was expedient and probably necessary) to abandon the way of thinking of hunter gatherers and young children. This 'animistic' thinking is natural and coherent - but does indeed seem contradictory to our usual way of reasoning - which essentially assumes that time is an illusion, and the 'real' world made of abstract entities in a spatial relationship.

whitestone said...

That and the idolatry of subjective truth. A world where we are forced to believe an individuals subjective experiences are true. I.e men can have vaginas too. We need to get eternal, universal reality and morality nailed down. In simple concrete terms. A practical working model. For me its about sailing our ships in harmony with divine nature. Winds and currents change, but there are always winds and currents. Some things never change.

Bruce Charlton said...

@w - "We need to get eternal, universal reality and morality nailed down. In simple concrete terms. A practical working model."

I don't agree, it would either be so banal as to be worthless - or more likely would lead to interminable semantic wranglings about gray areas and exceptions and evidence.

I think I understand why you want this; but this kind of plain, simple, 'true' model is exactly what we cannot now have. We either go beyond that craving, or we go nowhere.

whitestone said...

Of course that’s right. The Ten Commandments will have to do for now.

Bruce Charlton said...

@w - As Jesus probably said: the first and second commandments In That Order - will suffice.