In a discussion with two of my senior friends (Abdullah Bhai and Haider Bhai), Abdullah Bhai and I challenged everything that people consider REAL. Haider Bhai was annoyed. Abdullah Bhai and I were the Radical Liberals while Haider Bhai was the Strict Conservative. The following is my ideology regarding REALITY and our LIFE. Do not get me wrong, I am still a staunch Muslim and even according to this ideology, God does exist as you will see in the end! This may seem very wierd and complicated to you. Later I found out that this ideology is partially or mostly similar to the philosophy of SUBJECTIVISM.
What is “Reality?'”
My definition is that ‘Reality is everything that our mind perceives.’
Another definition could be that ‘Reality is everything that the majority agrees upon.’ This I believe is wrong.
According to my definition, Reality is ‘created’ by our mind. Our mind decides how and what we perceive. Does that mean whatever we perceive could be wrong? An example of this is that our mind actually decides how we perceive the color YELLOW. How do you prove that the color YELLOW is actually yellow? How do you PROVE that in reality it is exactly like the way we perceive it? This means that every proof we have for things that exist around us is actually SUBJECTIVE. How do you remove the “MIND’S SUBJECTIVITY” when trying to prove the existence of something that you see, feel, hear or sense? I AM THE SUBJECT OF MY MIND AND MY MIND CREATED THE WHOLE OBJECT UNIVERSE AROUND ME. Nothing actually exists, it is all fabricated by the mind!Everything is subjective! Only I exist. For me, you don’t exist. Its like a film being played before my eyes. This ultimately leads to the phrase: “The mind is the god (with a small ‘g’).”
Now, if you argue back by saying that the color red exists because we SEE it and you agree with the second definition of reality, then how would you explain what a color-blind person sees? This is where I see the “flaw” in the second definition of reality which says that reality is what majority decides on. What if the color-blind person is actually seeing the real color and the whole of majority is in truth color-blind? The first definition of reality can also be explained and proved by the fact that a schizophrenic’s reality is what he perceives and what his mind shows him/her even though it is not real. Thus, there is a possibility of my ideology being correct! There is a possibility that whatever I am seeing is wrong and unreal. What if I am a schizophrenic and whatever I see is just a fabrication of my mind? THE MIND IS THE CREATOR?? CREATING AN ILLUSION?? For all it is, I could be just sitting in a dark void of nothingness or I may not have a body at all!
How do I prove that YOU exist? How can I do that in a way which does not involve my mind meddling or tampering with the actual reality? How do I know that whatever I am sensing and seeing and feeling and hearing is actually REAL and not just a fabrication of my mind? If I am alone, then does that mean everything around me is an illusion like that of a schizophrenic? Does this mean there is no such thing as religion and family and love and God and hunger and happiness and disaster and history and science?? Is it all made a part of my APPARENT REALITY just to keep myself occupied?? Just to give my mind something to play with? Does this mean I can change my reality if I truly and deeply believe in something and learn to control or force my mind into superficially making it real for me? How did I come into existence then or do I even exist?
After coming up with these series of questions, I reached a conclusion. The conclusion justified the existence of God to me…
When I sit down and think that since my mind is the master and creator of everything, then why can’t I answer some really serious questions like the ones mentioned above? Why is it not possible to come up with the true REALITY? That is where my ‘brain lamp’ lit up. This is where I realized that we are just too imperfect and insignificant to know the answers to such questions. THE MIND’S INABILITY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IS THE PROOF OF GOD’S EXISTENCE AND A PROOF THAT THERE MUST BE SOME BEING ABOVE ME! This shows that there must be a Higher Being with much more knowledge than my mind to actually know the answers and to have created something as illiterate and imperfect as my mind. A being that gave my mind a BEGINNING but not enough power to come up with these answers. God hid the answers and solutions for this very reason; to prove His own existence without ever manifesting Himself. The following is how I imagine a Higher Being reacting to my questions and my inability to answer them:
God: HAHA, see! You can’t come up with the answers! You are too insignificant! Too dumb! The reason why I never made you that smart was so that one day you realize this! I AM YOUR BOSS YOU LITTLE DUMBSHIT! You will never understand such matters. YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU ARE INFERIOR! YOU ARE MY CREATION! AND I AM YOUR “GOD!”
Totally disagreeing with this crude philosophy..
ReplyDeleteYour conviction that God does exist, and ur belief that God has created such insignificant beings like us, defies all you said in the earlier paragraphs about "are things around us real". here's how.
so when u have realised that God exists. Then u also realise that HE revealed the Koran. that Koran is HIS word. And Koran is something about which the great Omar khayyam once said "Burn all the libraries, for their value lies in this Book"
Then in this book, God very openly declared "O my people, I've made this universe and everything inside it in six days". hence proving that what we see around us is all real....
Then at another instance God says in HIS book "I have made you (insaan/bashar) out of earth, and sent u in this world as MY messenger and gave you the option to choose between the right and wrong, as this world is a test for u".so if things are not real and constant ? why would our Lord ask us to differentiate between the right and wrong. He could have simply said ("O people ! do things as u perceive them, because for you, they might be real and right, but for some other person, they might be artificial and wrong"haha...as this was the concept of reality put forward by shehroz). So anyways what God said in the Koran about the creation of human beings is a very simple proof that We exist ! the love between us exist .
What a pity would that be, if one still remains confused and think that it's just that we fabricate stuff in our mind, and things could be different.
For me, by askin such questions bout "Reality". you are rather denying the existence of some GREATER BEING, because ur not reflecting on the knowledge HE has provided u in HIS Book. God dint hide the answers, and made us insignificant and dumb. Infact HE gave us all the answers, and elevated our ranks both spiritually and morally (Not dumbshits) .....
I SOmewhat agree with Obaid ..!
ReplyDeleteGod did not create us a DumbShit !
Secondly
The Existence of Allah is not just based on the Questions You elucidated ..!
If You say that ?
Does that mean ,if you get the answers of those questions .. You start denying the Existence of Allah ??
One More thing I would Like to add here ..!
ReplyDeleteIf You have a Cake infront of You ..And You assume that it exists because you can see it ...
The Light on the Candy Bar reflects back and then some waves give signals to the Brain where an image of a candy bar is created ..Ok Again here it's the brain ...
You taste the Cake ..Again that's Brain that Elaborates what You'r actually Tasting ..
And so is same with all the senses ..That directly or indirectly relate the significance of things with the brain.
But The Mind does not CREATE the Object of Reality [i.e Cake etc] ..the mind creates a mental image where the object and the mind unite to form a dialectic electro-chemical wavefunction within neurons.
In this philosophy (called Objectivism) both pure and mental are real, that is they exist as things independent until united via observation (e.g., perception). Thus we can never know pure as reality, but the pure reality of both pure and the other as objects that exists holds true.
Mind is the Only Creator of the Image but not the things ..
so " Existence exists "
So Your statement i.e
"MY MIND CREATED THE WHOLE OBJECT UNIVERSE AROUND ME" Goes false and needs to be edited ..
The mind just made you feel the whole object universe around You .It did not create it !
And yea ...
ReplyDeleteDo see My Blog :_)
http://taurish.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-reality-only-in-mind.html
The mind is not the "Creator" but the "Perceiver"..created BY THE CREATOR...
ReplyDeleteBut yes ofc...these (and many other similar notions) are the very ambiguities that were kept hidden by God...I mean what if we knew everything? Wouldn't that be antagonizing to the system of the creator and the creator?
For some people these ambiguities are way too much to handle... there humanly curiosity gets the best of them and in turn prevents faith in Religion...yes, i consider them partly incompetent...
Dumbshit? perhaps...some of us :p
many of us ;)
but again better than the rest of the living creations...
Indeed, the brain is the best thing ever...
but it doesn't fabricate matter...the universe..
it fabricates perceptions...but not existence :P
hope that makes some sense...
And just like a human, there's gotta be a shitload of stuff that i missed or something even in this short text...who the fuck am i, a human, to know the fuckin answer to every doubt or question?
Nope... *shakes head* :p
At first, it was gibberish to me. But now when I've got what point you tried to make, I tend to disagree. Mind cannot create...it can only perceive and respond.
ReplyDeleteIf it were to CREATE then I could eat pizza any time of the day or night, you see :P
On a much serious note, Shaan's comment explains a lot of it.
God: HAHA, see! You can’t come up with the answers! You are too insignificant! Too dumb! The reason why I never made you that smart was so that one day you realize this! I AM YOUR BOSS YOU LITTLE DUMBSHIT! You will never understand such matters. YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU ARE INFERIOR! YOU ARE MY CREATION! AND I AM YOUR “GOD!”
ReplyDeletejust one very humble request..can u plz plzz plz remove this? it is BLASPHEMY. u can't say what GOD does when all has been written in HOLY QURAN -not even for ur blog post. esp. the way u hav used harsh words and relating them to ALLAH PAK.
remove it plz. this is Gunah-bil-lufz. !
p.s. and no am not an extremist. this post won't stop me from touching ur blog. don't worry!
@Cat Girl
ReplyDeleteHey Do Check My Blog Post ... I have Posted somehting about this :_)
@Cat Girl and Ozzy
I agree ...
I was just reciting Quran ..And Fortunately i found something that fits inn here !
In Surah Bakara Allah Says that Shetaan will compel you to forward Sayings Saying that they are said By Allah Himself [While in actual they won't be] ..This is not the actual Words but A Comprehensive View Point !
So better to edit it !
cake* [Candy bar]
ReplyDeleteThese are not *
ReplyDeleteI don't completely agree with your philosophy. But I know If I read it a few more times It might change the way i think :P ... Loved readin it.. :D
ReplyDeleteReality is a slap on our face, Life is an imperfectly scrabbled note pasted on a perfectly designed door.
Thanks Sid,
ReplyDeleteShaan, the philosophy you explained is called Objectivism and is opposite to what I wrote here which is called Subjectivism. So whatever you said is not a counter-argument since it is just an opposing philosophy with no proof too like mine up here.
As for the Quranic Ayat, it is wrong to interpret it like that. That Ayat was actually referring to all the false prophets that have sprung up. SO it does not apply here.
BUT thank you very much for your valuable response and criticism. I appreciate that.
And I am quite disappointed that no one actually understood my true intention and concealed message behind my this post. I would again say, read the whole post again and specially the last paragraph!
Thank you all for your valuable criticism and objections. I appreciate that!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteloved reading your blog :)... i dunno whether i agree with ur philosophy or not... but i think the world, universe is some what between subjectivism and objectivism. n there comes the personal prospective of looking at the things. it can be illusion for someone and can be the biggest reality for other. and the game is to ride on the both boats, n most of us suck at this game.
ReplyDeleteohhhh i like this post.. very.. nicely put :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Firasat for dropping by!
ReplyDeleteThanks Al :-)
Dear Friend
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting quest you are on. Many will make fun of you and discourage you, because u r thinking outside the box and shaking regular understanding of the way things are. But let me assure u that u r not alone and there is a lump of scattered knowledge out there...u just have to be a seeker :)
peace