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Reality as Meaning
Earlier today, I started toying around with some ideas about how we define reality. Here’s a little diagram that I cooked up to help me further articulate this idea. I’ll try to illustrate it with examples in order to flesh the whole thing out. (Bear in mind, this is once again something I’m evaluating the merits of, rather than attempting to adhere to)
There’s two central ideas at play here. One is that there’s a spectrum of potential experience. This is indicated by the bands of color. The spectrum includes any and every potential experience, including but not limited to: everyday reality, dreams, psychedelic states, astral travel, alien/entity encounters, etc. Important at this point is that we’re not deciding what’s real and what’s not.
It’s culture that comes in and draws the box around what’s real and excludes what’s not. And each culture recognizes different borders. “In your dreams you travel to other universes” / “UFO’s are real” / “Angels and demons exist” / “Mankind is alone in the universe.” Individual experience doesn’t seem to really support arbitrary limits like this. People can and do experience all types of things that the culture at large doesn’t recognize as existing. In other words, they perceive things from other bands in the spectrum.
What mechanism does culture use to draw boundary lines between what’s real and what’s not real? It seems like it has to do with meaning. I remember asking my parents once (who are Charismatic Catholics) what the Church teaches about Jesus’s descent into Hell. They basically replied that the Church doesn’t focus on this question, because what’s important is the Redemption he brought. In other words, the question is meaningless to that worldview. It’s not so much (nowadays) that it’s not recognized as a valid question or is taboo or anything. It’s just understood that asking about it, probing it isn’t going to take you anywhere useful.
I don’t know if this is accurate or not, but at the moment, I rather like this idea that cultural reality is constructed out of meaning. And that there’s only a certain amount of meaning which is allowed. If you add more meaning, or don’t recognize all the meaning, then you run into trouble - you start to not fit into the culture anymore. The two poles I chose to represent that with are the Schizophrenic and the Sociopathic. I don’t totally agree with psychiatric models in general, but I find these might be useful terms to operate within our model. Take them or leave them as you see fit. You could also use the word “occultist” or “conspiracy theorist” in place of schizophrenic, and maybe something like “criminal” in place of sociopathic (although I don’t like that one as much). In any event, I only use these terms very loosely, and partly because they are so culturally-loaded already.
In any event, the schizophrenic experience seems to be one where meaning is completely overloaded. From a description of schizophrenia:
It seems that the whole world and every tiniest instance of anything within it is speaking to the schizophrenic of his/her singular destiny. Every utterance, whether by friends or the TV, every reported news item, every passing vehicle or fluttering leaf provides the schizophrenic with another piece in the jigsaw of the design that destiny has decreed for them.
And from the personal account of a schizophrenic:
[…] words held too much meaning. I would listen to something as banal as a football match commentary, and to me it would be the story of the last battle of the gods. Everything was so vast, so deeply mythological. I’d see the arcane history of the world in everything, every little detail would hold another clue […]
Sounds a lot like the occult, or like taking psychedelics, doesn’t it? Robert Anton Wilson says that to think like a Kabbalist, you must move down a similar path:
All that seems “accidental,” “meaningless,” “chaotic,” “weird,” “nonsensical;’ et cetera is as significant as what seems lawful, orderly and comprehensible.
Compare this to the description of people who are termed sociopathic (called “Anti-Social Personality Disorder” officially). For them, they do not seem to ’suffer’ from an excess of meaning, but from a lack of it. I’ll put areas in bold which seem to reference this:
- failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
- deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
- impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
- irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
- reckless disregard for safety of self or others
- consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
- lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
Anyway, it’s sort of an interesting hypothesis… although really it just opens up new questions rather than answering any old ones. But maybe that’s really the best kind of hypothesis.
UPDATE!
I meant to add the following: we see an interesting interplay between the “schizophrenic” and “sociopathic” approaches to culture in the realm of conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theorist by definition is looking for or inventing additional levels of meaning. Interestingly, their object of study (through politics, military/industrial complex, etc) happens to be the sociopathic personality, which reduces or doesn’t recognize meaning. Seems like there is a fundamental disconnect between these two personality types. Can one really ever understand the other? The conspiracy theorist is like to read too deeply into the actions of the sociopath (perhaps assuming occult motivations for things like ritual abuse, etc). Meanwhile the endless levels of meaning which the schizophrenic probes are meaningless to the sociopath. They likely either ignore them altogether or make use of them only when it’s expedient to do so (think: politicians who will promise anything to anyone). Maybe this is why we see conspiracy theorists always accusing one another of being “disinformation agents” because they have a basic weakness in that they seek meaning in everything.
Another question this raises, which I touched on earlier: does this model then imply that the person who doesn’t recognize meaning is closer to “direct” child-like experience? How does this also fit into Wilber’s idea of the pre/trans fallacy?
- Prev: The Pre/Trans Fallacy
- Next: Intentional Burnout
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:49 am
Tim, http://www.majikthise.typepad.com has a link to the latest personality test that someone is doing for research on bloggers. I thought you might like it. It is in her archive for June 30, 2005.
The link to the test is http://www.personal.psu.edu/fauclty/j/5/j55/ipip/, if I have not missed a letter. It fits in with what you are saying here and generates alot of questions.
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:11 am
Tim, I like where you’ve been going with this and previous posts on good/evil, pre/transrational, etc. I like it that you’re staying fluid around the boundaries.
May I suggest that you explore your model along multidimensional lines? Maybe think in terms of the chakras or some similar set of modes of being. Let’s call them mode A, B, C, etc. Now, in mode A, I might be a good conventional person, never thinking, experiencing or even imagining myself outside the square (I always use correct spelling and grammar). However, in mode B, I experiment with thoughts and behaviour that are deemed “evil” (I’m an Anna Karenina in a society that condemns adultery or gay in a fundamentalist Christian or Islamic circle). And when it comes to mode C, I’m a little crazy and see patterns in places you’d least expect them (like Einstein, I imagine riding on a light ray).
I’m suggesting these modes because I don’t think you can classify a person or even an experience precisely. The person, even the experience, will be pre/plain/post-rational depending on the circumstances/culture and the mode. This might make it less likely that we’ll dump whole people into one bucket or another.
I also have misgivings over the suggestion that transrational is good while prerational is bad. There is huge creative potential in regression, depression, dark nights of the soul, etc. These experiences drag us back down into the pre-rational. They also seem to drag us back down to earth and to everyday reality, they bring us back down from the lofty mountain of transcendental bliss.
Of course, there are extremes like Charles Manson who are creepy, both muddled and muddling. It’s right that they pay the proper price for their actions but a generous heart can still see them as having a place in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to pardon (release from physical prison) but to forgive (understand how he might be free after all, as he claims, and like you and me, just doing his best to fulfill his god-given vocation).
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:51 am
rhondda, that link is wrong, it should be:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/5/j5j/IPIP/
July 3rd, 2005 at 10:40 am
The true doctrine is ineffable, as I think all non-fraud occultists and traditionalists would agree. In the face of the transcendent, all symbolic representation falls equally short.
And yet, paradoxically, language is one of the manifestations of the spirit. “In the beginning was the Logos, the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.”
Following your division here:
The schizophrenic sees the superabundance of significance in all forms. He sees the froth on the wave and the thought of the ocean overflows his mind. The sociopath knows that all symbols are equally inapt and draws the conclusion that there is no meaning or significance to anything. “Nothing is real, everything is permitted.” In one sense this is true, in another sense the opposite is true. We continually find the coincidence of opposite interpretations in the face of the infinite. It’s black-hole “gravity” bends our conceptual space. Our day-to-day thoughts can only “move in relation to it.”
Sorry for all the scare-quotes, but when you start with the assumption that all words are inadequate to the task, you notice how misleading and connotation-laden language is.
Have you seen Dark City yet?
July 3rd, 2005 at 11:07 am
Arizona, thanks for the correction. I am trying to be computer literate. Interesting test no?
July 3rd, 2005 at 11:11 am
I like Arizona’s and prunesquallori’s quotes. I think they show more understanding of the pre/trans issue than splitting hairs about what is “pre” and what is “trans”.
I personally feel that what was missing from the previous thread was the moral dimension. I’m not talking about scripted morality like the 10 Commandments or even something that can be defined even in terms of abstract principles; and I am well aware that blunt concepts such as “good” and “evil” do not easily apply when talking about absolute being. But I would propose that at any moment in time and space, a being that has freewill can be in “right relationship” or “wrong relationship” with the cosmos, and that there is a difference between a spirituality that tends towards one state from one that tends towards the other state. Naturally, even this concept (linguistic as it is) breaks down. But if you’re going to exclude from consideration anything that doesn’t hold up in the blinding light of the Absolute, then why bother having this discussion at all?
For me, I guess it boils down to a question of relationship. I can’t really talk about spirituality in absence of its consequences for how you relate to other beings. And, in my view, these relationships are deeper, in the sense that their boundaries are erased at a level closer to the Godhead, than dry linguistic concepts that attempt to separate experiences and ultimately people into categories of “good” and “bad”.
July 3rd, 2005 at 11:32 am
you know, it’s interesting.. it seems there’s actually an entire kind of new agey “school of thought” arising out of this meaning thing. the first place i ever encountered it was when i read cosmic trigger when i was 15.. it seems to have snowballed into something much broader and less “fringey” over the years. if you take the conversations with god series, which are incredibly hokey, yes, they’re all about synchronicity and blah blah. i mean there are all these books and workshops and stuff now that just tell you about how EVERYTHING you experience is god talking to you, and how you should always follow the little breadcrumb trails of synchronicity. when i took an abnormal psych class a couple years ago and we did a unit on schizophrenia it was weird for me because i’d already spent so much time actively contemplating and even consciously cultivating that type of thought within myself.
i mean yes, synchronicity and intention has always been an element of occult practice, but now it’s being marketed to EVERYONE with these like “create your own universe” weekend retreats that seem to postulate that all you have to do to find god is view EVERYTHING as an oracle.
all the new age billionaires are selling it — deepak chopra, eckhart tolle, neale donald walsch. it really skeevs me for some reason.. maybe because a lot of the people i know who go for this stuff have this like inherently slimy energy about them.. like they’re all about love and god, but you get the feeling what they REALLY want is just to “manifest” a winning lottery ticket.
July 3rd, 2005 at 11:48 am
Well, there is a vested interest in making sure people stay tuned into their own personal vanity and greed. Meanwhile, while we’re all down here decoding our personal oracles to unscramble the numbers of that winning lottery ticket, the powers-that-be up there are busy manifesting their much more powerful and all-encompassing reality.
We should all take care not to get too distracted, or else we’ll find God much more quickly than any of us intend.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:12 pm
oh absolutely, there is definitely a vested interest in keeping us self-obsessed.
if you look at all the spiritual self-help propaganda, most of it essentially tells us that we should be spending all this time meditating and doing guided imagery and keeping journals… so that maybe one day we’ll become enlightened and THEN we’ll be able to start DOING stuff to help other people.
is it me, or is there something a little backwards about this philosophy? shouldn’t it be the other way around?.. shouldn’t we be speaking out and supporting each other and feeding the poor which will THEN, i suspect, cause an organic heightening of consciousness?
how can selflessness follow selfishness?
it keeps us chasing our tails for years on end and yes, we see little else of what’s going on around us.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Yeah I like where you guys are going with this. In another post, I started thinking that maybe the occult/conspiracy/schizophrenic vibe is actually not anti-culture at all, but sort of a suped-up version, culture operating to the extreme. Trying to colonize everything with meaning, but doing so in the name of mystery. I’m not sure where I’m going with all this…
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:18 pm
A lot of what everyone’s talking about sort of typifies the sort of ’spirituality’ that Ben Creme is proposing as the teachings of ‘Maitreya’. It really is quite chilling when you consider that this is what is being prepped for the big roll-out at some point in the future, when people have been softened by enough new age piffle and kabbalah water….
http://www.shareintl.org/
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:25 pm
Arizona: thanks for bringing that up about multiple modes. I meant to address that but forgot, that it seems pointless to try to peg somebody into a strict fixed role according to this or any other system. Everyone seems to have many facets to who they are which are not always consistent.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Not, it’s not you. It should be the other way around. Nirvana is an illusion. Every day you’re either connecting with other beings, or you’re not. Everything else is just the story you tell.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Zac, at some point you either talked about (or linked to) a criticism of Creme/Maitreya by one Sean David Morton. (Google creme maitreya tentacles) Do you know anything about how credible Morton is? His critique is the most damning, but something doesn’t sit right with me about it. Every other critique I’ve heard has been from the uber-Christian camp.
I actually attended one of Creme’s talks in the mid/late 80s, and even though I was young and naive at the time I was not very impressed. Still, I’d like to make sure that we’re not really dealing with some New Age turf war.
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:05 pm
this maitreya thing is news to me. i’m going to have to read up on it. i just glanced at the shareintl.org thing and it seems creepy as hell.
i especially don’t like the sound of this:
“Maitreya, the World Teacher, has not come alone, but with a group of wise Teachers who have long guided humanity from behind the scenes.”
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Yeah… Like, if those “Ascended Masters” were so fucking wise, how did we get into the mess we’re in today?
The Maitreya thing is definitely creepy, but I can’t figure out whether Creme/Maitreya is just another charlatan, or whether he/it is hooked into the larger negative political/occult drama.
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:40 pm
what scares me is where it talks about all the tv networks in the world being linked together. i don’t even want to go near the idea that they could bust out with some new mind control technology to “supplement” this global take-over. i would write it off as a lunatic charlatan thing, but they’re making such ABSURDLY grandiose claims.. it at least suggests that they have some pretty impressive resources.
does it strike anyone else as really corny that this guy is depicted wearing white robes? … i mean, come on. white robes? are they for real? if they’re gonna do it up, they should at least do it right. their creative team clearly isn’t very talented.
July 3rd, 2005 at 3:48 pm
laura jane, if you haven’t read this creepy take on Creme/Maitreya, you might be interested. I’m not totally sure I believe it, but if it’s true there definitely is some bad shit coming down.
July 3rd, 2005 at 4:59 pm
well goodness, yes that certainly does fall into the creepy category. the thing about the tentacles is disgusting. it’s really hard to know what to make of stuff like that. i tend to give people the benefit of the doubt because i myself have experienced some weird shit and so i know that weird shit can and does happen.
i think it’s pretty swell that these enlightened masters intend to take us by force.
July 3rd, 2005 at 7:00 pm
[…] f it’s going, but I’m definitely into it. I got a couple comments on my “reality as meaning” post that I’d like to promote to the big leagues […]
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:59 pm
my orignal link was to jeff wells take on maitreya, and he refrenced that other guy. I don’t really need anyone elses second hand stories to get as far away from ben creme as possible. his own writing does that already.
July 3rd, 2005 at 9:22 pm
This isn’t totally related to any of the above comments, but I was just wondering if Rudolf Steiner’s idea of Lucifer and Ahriman might be good connections to the whole Schizo/Socio dichotomy I’m trying to outline above?
August 1st, 2006 at 1:42 pm
[…] Interestingly, marijuana has recently been connected by dubious scientific studies to triggering schizophrenia. But schizophrenia is only one paradigm from which we could look at a phenomenon of rich meaning such as this. I personally prefer that of the Gift of Tongues, which Jesus disciples are said to have received at Pentecost in the form of a small tongue of fire which came down and rested upon their heads. […]