Crystals IV

Zeus’ final trial-5

Mitis: Indeed! Those were very good and necessary explanations. But I am very much looking forward to hearing about reality from you. Does it or does it not exist?

Zeus: Reality refers to whatever the brain has captured and thought about, either individually or collectively. It includes whatever the thought has created, that is, the way we perceive of it – and to the degree we perceive of the ‘Being’, the what ‘truly is’. It is everyone’s conscience. It is the degree of capability the ‘true being’ can be perceived by the intelligent beings. But, this might include – and usually does include – some degree of unconscious slipping into untruth, fallacies and delusions. But despite all that, usually, the content of reality is directly linked to the content of the ‘true being’. In this sense, I would say that each one’s reality should not be confused with the unique reality and the universal true being, but take into consideration their interrelation and the extent the two might overlap to a great degree. The individual consciousness of each one represents his individual reality and the collective conscience is the collective reality. In the end, reality exists for each and every one, but it is his only, regardless the degree of conceptual overlap it shares with the ‘true being’. Even if that overlap approaches 99%, there would always remain a subjective element. What is important for us is to try and approach the concept of the ‘true being’ in good will and in a veritable search for ‘truth’, so that the individual unique realities of human beings overlap as much as possible, decreasing the degree of subjectivity as much as possible. Only in that way, families, groups, small and large societies and in the end, a global society, can be formed.

Mitis: You referred to reality in relation to the groups and societies. In what respect does individual reality differ from the group/socially-constructed reality?

Zeus: Individual reality captures the reality of a single individual. This is what determines and showcases the uniqueness of a particular intelligent being. When many such uniquenesses (individuals) come together to achieve common goals and purposes, a fact that means that their realities overlap to a great extent, they would come up with a group or an extended society. The smaller that group / society is, the greater the chances for a high degree of overlap of individual realities. The more the group / society extends, the lower the degree of overlap becomes and the communicative problems and misunderstandings begin. That is, there are many individual realities emanating from separate uniquenesses (individuals), who would create the sense of collective reality, i.e., social reality, which can be seen as the average degree of overlap of the each participant’s individual reality. The greater the degree of overlap, the greater the average of collective reality, and the greater the likelihood of prosperity in that society.

Mitis: So, collective reality approaches or proves ‘truth’ and the ‘truly being’?

Zeus: It approaches it; it does not prove it. Let us not forget that this average collective overlap is only indicative but not corroborative evidence. That is, the collective reality of a society does not corroborate truth or the ‘truly being’, but simply demonstrates the degree of those things that that particular society can perceive. For example, in societies where there are cases of collective self-hypnosis, spiritual manipulation, religious escape into myth, and many other things, which are typically collective and guild-based, and to which intelligent beings ‘slip into’ or become complacent with every sort of ideational games, they may come to believe that they know the absolute truth and the absolute ‘true being’, something that is quite risky and dangerous and creates conflicts among societies. In those cases, phenomenality becomes dominant! So, the common collective idea of the truth does not automatically refer to the truth per se. It certainly demonstrates ‘truth’, when the search for the truth is attempted in good will and does not include issues of desire or preference, but it does not prove it. Indubitably, under no circumstances must this demonstration be accepted as proof of the absolute ‘truth’. It is just the degree of overlap of reality with truth. So, reality exists for each one separately, it might even exist on a collective basis, it might overlap in some cases with ‘truth’ to a great extent, but it must be stressed that it cannot be confused with the ‘truth’ and the ‘true being’.

Gaia: Indeed, each one must carefully make use of reality, except when truth has been shown to exist by science, which mainly is knowledge and as such, it also runs the risk of slipping into untruths. In any case, and at all times, something would always be missing from ‘truth’, by splitting clearly into ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ or the ‘true being’.

Mitis:…if I understood well from your introductory explanations, reality can easily slip into phenomenality. So, what can you tell us about phenomenality?

Zeus: Phenomenality may include part of reality but it represents the fake, the virtual, and the apparently and superficially true. It captures whatever the thought has created, the way we all perceive the ‘True being’, but mixed with delusions, untruths and virtual realities. So, phenomenality refers to the twisted and fallacious reality. That is, consciousness again. To that concept, desires, preferences, needs and other-identification of the intelligent being dominate, rather than what the intelligent being truly knows or feels about reality. Sometimes, the intelligent being does not care about reality regardless of whether he knows it or not. Then ‘reality’ is fashioned by his ‘other-identification’. In that respect, desires, wishes, needs and manipulation may distance the intelligent being from the ‘truth’ and the ‘true being’ and guide him into phenomenality. In phenomenality, ‘reality’ is individualistic and is full of ideologies, ideations, untruths, hypocrisies and subjectivity. The individual is not a ‘uniqueness’ but an ‘individuality’. This is self-evident since phenomenality captures what we wish to project, the image we wish to build and show, regardless of what we are in reality and what our degree of perceiving reality is. It projects, in other words, a beautified but perverted image, a fake reality and not the truth that remains well-hidden under the surface.

Mitis: So, is phenomenality the destructive poison, wherever it dominates?

Zeus: Much worse than that. Phenomenality guides the individual and his society to misery and destruction. When phenomenality dominates in a society, it has stopped being a society long ago and has turned into a manipulated pack. For example, the adherence of the intelligent being to the phenomenal poses an obstacle to his effort to recognize truth. And when he becomes habituated into this, he would be obstructed in his educational process and that of his extended society, which would be ruled by such phenomenality. There confusion will ensue and the political hacks and demagogues of all sorts would dominate the scene. The overwhelming majority would easily and unthinkingly perceive and adopt whatever it would be fed to them as real. This is the case because the phenomenal is easier and more plausible to perceive. It does not require deep thought, and as a result, intelligent beings would easily slip into faiths and convictions, bypassing true knowledge that requires toil and effort. A good example here is the bipolarity between religion and philosophy, with the first requiring only faith and leading to a spiritual manipulation, and so it easily attracts followers, while philosophy requires study and search done under unceasing toil and effort, attracting severely few minds each time.

Mitis: Isn’t Reality and Phenomenality quite similar?

Zeus: Not precisely! Whether it is reality or phenomenality, both comprise the consciousness of the mortals; this is their common ground. But in the first case, consciousness is clear, immune, secure and safe from slipping while in the second case, it is opaque, unwholesome, insecure and prone to slipping.

Mitis: But then, they are truly similar! They are precisely the same but this differs from mortal to mortal to the extent it slips into the metaphysical and crosses over into the fake phenomenality!

Zeus: Yes! In other words, when we are referring to a particular living species, man for example, reality and phenomenality together is ‘the phenomenality of man’. The more a man seeks answers in science and logic, the more reality would dominate his consciousness. The more a man slips into fantasy, escapes and virtual realities, the more phenomenality would dominate. The smaller the proportion of phenomenality, the greater the proportion of reality.

Mitis: I believe it became clear that phenomenality is quite risky. So, reality and phenomenality are not secure steps on which one could step with certainty. Except if they are proven to be ‘truth’. Now about truth, tell us in a few and simple words. Is there such a thing as truth and what is it finally?

Zeus: Truth is only one! Truth is a non-entity, it is a void, it is timeless in a ‘vacuous’ mind; in there, the unique truth resides for sure. There are no different truths. Regardless of whether one knows it or not, truth is there, no matter what. Undoubtedly, one integrated truth contains many smaller truths. One may know many while another only few of them. In any case, the greatest integrated truth would hardly be perceived by the mortals, and for that reason, each would have access to it to the extent he is able and puts up an effort to. For example, knowledge that is systematically recorded by science is a fragmentary truth that has been proven. But, and this is quite important, knowledge becomes truth only when it is embedded by learning. Accumulated unproductive knowledge that has been saved is just superficial knowledge and nothing more than that. Since unknown parts of the true being are going to exist in science, it means that there will always be truth that remains unproven. But this does not mean that it does not exist or that this fact should upset us. Truth exists in the existing ‘Being’, the ‘true being’.

Mitis: Are there untruths, or hypothetical or mythical ‘truths’ which typically originate from dogmatism?

Zeus: Indeed, there are certain cases that quite a few lies, untruths and generally twisted truths get disseminated either with or without an ulterior motive. Then all those become ‘dogmatic’ truths; but they have nothing to do with the unique truth. But, simple or simplistic ‘truths’ become easily perceived, trigger ‘pleasure’ and are immediately disseminated in that society everywhere. And then, they are transferred to the next generations as dogmatic ‘truths’. In that way, societies of the mortals are filled with lies and myths that destroy the mind.

Mitis: How can those dogmatic ‘truths’ be distinguished from the unique truth?

Zeus: Since we are referring to some intelligent living mortal species, and therefore, marginal beings, then their science will be their ‘truth’, under the control of the philosophy and rules of logic that it studies. A few mistakes can be forgiven, of course. But care is needed so that imagination and supersession would not be compromised. Arbitrary, transcendental truth, usually followed by an illogical, risky morality originating from some absolute religious / dogmatic morality which has been decided by others in the past, will accumulate many evils in the society of the mortals and should not be regarded under any circumstances as common ‘Truth’. But since we are ideally referring to the universe, the ‘true being’ is truth at every moment, even if that fact is not perceived, even if it cannot be understood or proven. It is the existing, the integrated ‘Being’, the real one. Regarding the extent of the truly being that the intelligent beings can perceive, it will be mainly up to science to answer that, without of any risk of slipping into painful untruths, as well as to the revered philosophy, but with great care.

Mitis: So, when we are talking about the ‘truth’, we are referring to the percentage of truth of the true being that some particular kind of the mortals may perceive or has been proven?