Multisense Realism

 I wondered about what anyone/everyone thought about the notion of ‘chosenness’ as a way to understand where we are here in the world.

What I propose is that a complete description of the universe must include:

1. The experience of significance.

This speaks to the idea of chosen-ness, of choice, of free will, of improbability as a quality as the subject of appreciation.

2. The experience of the significance of the idea of insignificance.

I word “the significance of the idea of insignificance” in this convoluted way to reflect the natural sequence in which the revelation of objectivity has occurred across all human societies. As far as I know:

a.  *all* cultures begin their history steeped in animistic shamanism, divination, creation myths and charismatic deities and
b.  *no* cultures develop eliminative materialism, mathematics, and mechanism earlier than philosophy or religion, and
c.   *all* individuals experience the development of their own psyche through imaginative, emotional, and irrational or superstitious thought
d.   *no* individuals are born with a worldview based only on generic facts and objectivity. Healthy children do not experience their lives in an indifferent and detached mode of observation but rather grow into analytical modes of thought through experience of the public world.

We are so convinced by the sophisticated realism of objective insignificance that we tend to project it into a default position, when in fact, it does not occur naturally that way. It is we who choose subjectively whether or not to project objectivity beneath our own ability to choose it.

The fact is, if were it that simple; were objectivity the final word, then we should have had no reason to be separated from it in the first place. The whole notion of illusion depends on the non-illusory capacity of our own reason to deduce and discern illusion from reality, so that to question our own ability to freely choose, to some extent, how we reason, gives us no possibility of ever contacting any truth to deny.

Looking at 1. and 2. more scientifically, I would link significance with teleology (choice) and insignificance with teleonomy (chance). I have proposed that while these two opposite potentials seem mutually exclusive to us from our subjective experience, that from an absolute perspective, they are in adjacent ranges of the same continuum. I suggest that the subjective experience of sensation, and nested layers of meta-sensation constitute significance, and that this significance is what allows the possibility of choice based on personal preference. It is the choice capacity itself which divides the sense of the world for the chooser between the chosen and the unchosen. This ontological fracture is what gives the impression that there is a difference between chance and choice and creates the possibility of feedback loops in which we can question both:

a.  the reality of choice by choosing to adopt the perspective of impersonal chance, as well as
b.  the reality of chance by choosing to adopt the perspective of super-personal choice.

In both cases we cannot arrive at a perspective without exercising our will to choose one over the other, even for hypothetical consideration. There is no ontological possibility of our abdicating our choice altogether, although the position which elevates insignificance compels through an appeal to do just that. This is true of contemporary forms of science in general, as the outside-in bias inherently demands compulsory and involuntary acceptance of facts and unambiguous inferences between them rather than recognizing the self-same subjective autonomy which drives the scientific consideration from beginning to end. Science relies on peer-review to enforce the belief in disbelief – the faith that peer-review itself is an unexplained artifact of human weakness, and that the rest of the universe has no need for such deliberations, nor could it generate them even if it were useful.

In practical terms, what this means is that

a.  you can choose to pursue the chosen-feeling significance of your experience, but you risk increasing possibility of delusion and conflicting intuitions.

b.  you can choose to pursue the unchosen analytical feeling of the significance of insignificance, but you risk cutting yourself off from the most unbelievable experiences of personal truth and participation.

In both cases the potential rewards are equally intense. If you open the door, you open the door to Heaven and Hell. If you close the door, you can be more effective as a practical agent on Earth. Sometimes the choice seems to be coerced by circumstance. Sometimes we open the door in some contexts more often and close it more in others. Our choices can change and evolve. Sometimes it doesn’t matter either way.

The universe that we find ourselves in is chosen on the inside, chance on the outside, but it is only because we are inside that we can discern the difference. Without an inside, nothing can choose to recognize a difference.