The idea that “what a person believes to be true is built on their own subjective assumptions” is correct. So, to an extent, we all experience the world in our own way, and each person has a different collection of experiences that form their picture of the world (worldview).
But to take this fact, and extrapolate it into a reality where there is ONLY each person’s subjective truth, and no outside objective reality, is not a legitimate assumption. Many folks have now been taught this type of pseudo science, and their view of themselves and their relationship in the world is being affected greatly by it.
It is true that human beings live in a completely contextual truth framework. There is ONLY truth, when it is put in context with its circumstances. There is no absolute truth outside of a facts context that humans can understand.
But possibly the main underlying problem here, is the idea that “because we live in a quantum environment, we somehow “create” our own reality. That cup isn’t a cup, its just a massive swarm of molecules… so… it’s not “real.”
i hear this being parroted very often on the streets.
Just a side note, if we create our own reality, why is the world so messed up? Do we wish it to be this way? (I often suggest hitting oneself in the head with a rock and seeing if it bleeds… because if it bleeds, that is nature showing us how the physical world outside of our skin works).
The other thing i hear being parroted often is “Well, we live in the matrix,” a reality made entirely by some sort of highly intelligent computer program.
But excuse me, since when did we start using the crazed ideas of Hollywood to build the worldview that we live by? On the one hand, we reject the wisdom of the ancient world scriptural teachings, but on the other hand, we swallow “Matrix theology” hook line and sinker. But it is a definite road that this thinking follows and we will just have to wait and see where it all ends up.
It is true that there IS an underlying deeper world of nature called quantum, that we cannot see with the naked eye (perhaps this is what the ancients referred to as the spirit world), and it is also true that this quantum world does not operate on quite the same principles as we understand at our level in the universe. But then the ant world also does not operate quite like ours, yet the fundamental mathematical and scientific principles are the same. The ants’ world and our world differ in the ratio of size to gravity, so they are able to carry things far heavier compared to their body size and weight. Likely the quantum world operates in much the same way, but freed from the impact of gravity and other forces which operate at our level of existence.
We have discovered things like worm holes and black holes, where distance and speed do not hold together, and we have dabbled in the concept of super-positioning where small particles seem to be able to be in more than one place at one time. These are all science discovering things about an objective reality.
It is when we confuse what we are learning about quantum, with our own level of existence in the universe, that suddenly folks start to think that people being able to fly is simply something we haven’t discovered how to do yet. (That particular concept can end up with a caved in roof of a car below a tall building.)
But this is not the case: we cannot fly. At the level of reality we live and breathe in, there are natural laws at work, and these are NOT subjective concepts, other than it was humans who gave names to them.
As long as humans are on the face of the earth, dealing with the forces of gravity, we will physically not be able to fly.
Humans have an imagination that also is not controlled by the physical world, so there is almost no limit to what we can imagine.
There are many new ideas that arise from the mistaken idea that we are masters of our reality. Most all of them are just fairytale thinking, but when they extend to “my reality is that i am a cat,” or “i identify as a dog,” when those folks try to practice them out into our level of the world, the result can be very dangerous.
The concept that we create our own reality is the root of this type of wrong thinking, and it is the outgrowth of that idea that is behind much of the problems of knowing “who am I?”, and until we realize that we are physical beings, with the ability to imagine, but that our whole existence is rooted in an objective real phsycial world, we will see a lot of suffering and pain.
Reality is Dharma 