What is reality?
“Cogito ergo sum”…”I think (or I reflect) therefore I am,” is a universally celebrated statement made by the 17th century French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes. The folks at allaboutphilosophy.org have this to say about the man who is credited with canonizing the philosophy of dualism:
“Descartes held that the immaterial mind and the material body are two completely different types of substances and that they interact with each other. He reasoned that the body could be divided up by removing a leg or arm, but the mind or soul were indivisible. This concept is difficult to accept for those with a secular humanist, materialist, and evolutionist worldview because accepting it is accepting supernaturalism. Consequently, Bible believers accept dualism and people with the opposite worldview find themselves obligated to reject it.”
Those of a social-philosophical bent might say that reality is a function of agreement among two or more people; and might focus on our political side (speaking in a broad sense). In agreement with the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle, they might insist that since humans are overwhelmingly social creatures, the meaning of our lives is best expressed in our many ways of living, working and believing together.
Declaring that “the real is rational and the rational is real,” the German enlightenment philosopher Hegel, on the other hand, emphasized the role of reason as a vital element of reality co-creation.
Then, of course there are the many mystics who have graced us with imaginatively expressed views about the nature of reality. Hammurabi, Moses, Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Akhenaten, Jesus..the list is almost endless and does not include the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people whose insight into the nature of reality was of great importance to their fellows.
Who are Reality Engineers?
Anyone who sees existence as something to be understood and worked with, as well as a thing of incredible and mind-boggling wonder. For after all,
“…for all that we have is our perception, and whatever we perceive to be reality is in fact our reality. You want to get into quantum physics and all that business where we start talking about the fact that we as observers in fact actually manipulate and manifest reality. We are intricately and subconsciously involved with the reality process. Once we know this, we can start to see what’s happening all around us. Those who are in control are using this information to manifest a reality that is most advantageous to them. They introduce a point of view which may or may not have anything to do with what is actually happening in the world and they reinforce it with a growing opinion through media. And what’s interesting, is that the more people who believe these lies, the more real these lies become…”