NATURE OF REALITY

The great Ontological riddle concerning what is the true
Nature of Reality is solved by the ultimate truth that a
persons real identity is God. Together with some recent
discoveries from the world of mathematics, namely the
Mandelbrot set, we can finally make the case for
Idealism or the idea that all existence is consciousness.
In this section we discuss what is the nature of reality.
Essentially what we'll be doing is showing how it is
that Idealism or the idea that existence is really
subjective, can work in practice. Or to put it another
way I am going to show how it is that all existence is
really consciousness.
This point of view stands in opposition against the
alternative and more widely held view concerning the
nature of reality which is called Materialism. This is the
belief that existence consists of physical matter. It
supposes a material reality and a physical universe
upon which the subjective world of consciousness is
based. The belief in Materialism is presently the
dominant view of reality in the World today. However
there are good reasons to suppose that the idea of
Materialism may be inherently flawed. These reasons
derive from lines of inquiry within philosophy and also
some results obtained from the field of quantum physics
within science, which studies the sub-atomic basis of
material existence. For instance, some of the greatest
philosophers of all time namely Descartes, Berkeley and
Kant have all come to the same conclusion that we can
never have certain knowledge of the physical World and
that we can only really know the subjective world i.e.
our consciousness. Therefore the idea of Materialism is
flawed from the outset, for it tries to reduce something
that we do have certain knowledge of, namely our
conscious subjective states, into something we can
never really know with any certainty as being truly
existent, i.e. the physical world. Moving along to the
world of science, one of the great physicists of the 20th
century namely John Wheeler, who worked with Albert
Einstein, summed up what quantum mechanics was
telling us about the nature of reality in one sentence, he
said 'There's no out there, out there.' This statement is
meant to suggest that our belief in an external and
independently existing physical reality is one which is
being undermined by results from quantum physics.
So having outlined some of the problems inherent with
idea of Materialism, what I'll do here is to take Idealism
as our starting assumption and show how it is that
existence is really consciousness. In so doing we'll be
describing an alternative view of reality that also
provides answers to some of the biggest puzzles in
science and philosophy today. It is also a way of
looking at the nature of existence that confirms what
the founders of the World's great religions and the great
mystics have been telling us all along. That indeed
there is an existence above and beyond the physical and
temporal. Also that it is this higher super reality which
generates the appearance of an external world and the
illusion we call physical reality. I shall explain how this
illusion works so that it can clearly be seen that indeed
all existence is consciousness and furthermore that all
consciousness is really one consciousness. This one
consciousness can rightly be called God, the ultimate
source and ground of all being. So even though this
section is called 'The nature of reality', it can just as
easily be called 'The nature of God'. This is because
God is the ground of all reality, and all the reality that
we perceive and are aware of, is really a series of
manifestations of the ultimate reality that is God. When
we consider reality in its completeness then inevitably
we arrive at the divine. Total reality is God and to truly
understand the nature of reality as we know it is also to
understand the nature of God.
Idealism or the idea that the nature of existence is really
consciousness, has always had its adherents throughout
the course of human history. However all the while, the
trouble with the idea of Idealism has been that it has
been impossible to argue convincingly and compelling
the case for it. The reason why this is so is because in
the past, the difficulty with the idea of Idealism has
been how to explain the nature of the material world.
It's all very well to say that all existence is really
subjective or is made up of consciousness, but the
problem then is to provide an explanation for the
objective world and the external physical universe. In
response to this question, in the past, the only answer
that Idealists have been able to come up with is to say
that the physical world of matter is somehow illusory
without any further explanation of why the illusion of
physical reality is so convincing. Obviously there is
'something' behind the appearance of the external
physical world, but there has been an explanatory gap
as to what this 'something' is. However the situation
has changed and this has been brought about by a
recent discovery in mathematics and also an invention
from the world of computer science. What these
discoveries or inventions give us are the necessary
conceptual stepping stones and metaphors, which
enable us to finally explain the truth behind Idealism.
They provide us with insight into what is behind the
exquisite beauty, detail and complexity that we find in
the universe and also allow us to grasp the role of
consciousness in the overall scheme of things.
So what are these new additions to humankind's
knowledge that better allow us to understand the nature
of existence. The first of these is the discovery of fractal
mathematics and in particular the Mandelbrot set. The
second is the invention and widespread use of virtual
reality computer environments. I discuss both of these
things in turn and relate how they enable use to
understand the nature of reality and the relationship
between consciousness and the external physical world.