My last ended with these words:
We make ourselves blind to the fact that our lives are not actually ruled by reason. They are ruled by pursuing whatever makes us feel all right. We then apply reason to tell ourselves that what makes us feel all right is “the truth”.
This thought needs full explanation. All I can do here now is promise to provide one, some time, some place, & meanwhile assign it a simple label: “universal life-illusion”.
Look up “life-illusion” in Google and the first two pages are mostly about a couple of bands, one from Sweden in the genre “Metal / Black Metal / Funeral Doom”, and another from Ukraine, which describes itself as a “Depressive Black Metal project”. Perhaps one is a tribute band of the other. An investigator from another planet, equally perfunctory in his research, might deduce that illusion is a deadly disease. (I’m also told about an album called “Traitor Life Illusion/Hatred Cumshot” by a band called Zarach ‘Baal’ Tarach/Karbonized. Enough already.)
Actually I got the term “life-illusion” from John Cowper Powys. Adding his name to the search, Google yields another author who’s fond of the term: Amber Paulen, who had a website DescriptedLines ,see also here. Life-illusion is a category she applies to some of her essays / blog posts. Working through them, I soon come to the conclusion that their common theme is self-definition. To be human, in the imago or adult form, is to define yourself. The larva of the species perforce accepts the definition thrust upon it by others. Like clothes. In pathological cases, the adult fails to develop a suitably protective and nourishing self-definition, or more accurately life-illusion. It’s a figment and a garment, inconstant, varying with the conditions we find ourselves in, affecting how I see myself, how I see the world, and how the world sees me. A million self-help books have been published on the premiss that I can choose my own life-illusion. Except they don’t talk much about illusion. It’s a bad word. They are more likely to talk about “turning your dreams into reality”. Reality, you see, is a good word.
But it’s not as simple as that. And there’s lots more to say, both on life-illusion and the notion of pursuing whatever makes us feel all right.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Hi Vincent, Thanks for this investigation, of sorts, into life-illusion, as a term and as a concept. Once I read of it in John Cowper Powys, I was stuck. I also love the blurriness between what we think of as reality and illusion, sometimes not so far off from each other, especially after an event where memory changes. Anyway, thanks for finding my site!
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It would be premature for me to argue the point, as you've yet to make your case. However, I will briefly say that as it stands now, I disagree. I don't believe that being reasonable means living in lies and illusions and just telling ourselves what we want to hear. In fact, I think that being reasonable by definition is the exact opposite of that. I think that being reasonable means facing the truth with open eyes and a sober mind, not letting emotional considerations, preconceptions, and personal vanity cloud our judgement and keep us from making an honest appraisal of the facts. It doesn't mean to be cold & emotionless, however. It means submitting to reality to achieve what we desire in fact, not distorting reality into an illusion that satisfies our wishes. You seem to imply that rational or irrational it's all the same lies and illusions. If that were the case, the human race would have died off thousands of years ago, vacant eyed, leaning again the wall of the cave in a daze, and lost in a dream world as scavenging animals of reality tore away at our flesh. Even if we did survive, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation over this astounding world wide testament to reason's fidelity to reality. Apparently, the ideas, the programming, the plans, and the mathematics that went into all this were just some naive human folly that had no bearing on reality whatsoever. When they stood back and considered the idea with reason and said, “this will work”, it was just an illusion that had nothing to do with the truth? They were just lying to themselves because the wanted to believe there could be such a thing as the internet? Just telling themselves what felt good, right? The internet…pffft… impossible. Silly humans. My point is. You came reason has nothing to do with the truth, and yet mankind has used their reason to great effect to achieve wonders in reality. All accidents, I suppose, as we stumble around in the dark?
Okay, so maybe this wasn't so brief. It's hard to stop when I get on a role. At any rate, I'll hear you out, but I think these are things you need to consider before embarking on your project. At the very least, I'm trying to help.
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Brief response (Sunday lunch is about to hit the table):
Glad you came, Amber! Next on my list was to notify you of my link to your site and check it was all right with you.
Bryan, you are the perfect antagonist / sparring partner in this endeavour. I agree with you in the main thrust of what you say. It helps enormously in refining the points I need to make, but I hope you will forgive me for not making them here.
In any case I'm shortly leaving for a campsite in Wales, without internet access (unless there's some wifi there which I could reach via Kindle reader – I don't have the 3g model)
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Well, that's idea. 🙂
To put the above rambling more concisely: Reason is the means; desires are the ends. To be irrational is to treat desires and “wishful thinking” as means, and yet this seems to be what you're accusing reason of.
Enjoy your camping!
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If you look around you will notice a myriad of people living in what appears to be separate worlds from the one you live in. Completely different realities. Take a close look, you'll see them. To get right down to the nuts and bolts of the thing, for centuries after Aristotle defined the cosmos we lived in an Aristotelian Universe. Then Newton came along and it was all redefined as a Newtonian Universe. Then Einstein, of course. Thought we had that sucker pinned down pretty good. But it only last fifty or sixty years. Now they are chiseling away at the cracks in Einstein and we are about to make another shift. Who will be next? Weil? Hawking? Riemann? Some autistic ten year old we haven't heard of yet? Keep your hands and feet inside until the ride comes to a complete stop, please!
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Epicurus makes me feel “all right.”
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Thanks again, Bryan. I'll try and avoid being drawn further into debate on this, at this stage. But I value your input always. (That's not meant to sound like a recorded telephone message, honestly!)
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Rev, most of the people in my street live in an utterly separate world from mine. They speak no English and they attend prayers at a building at the other end of the street belonging to a religion that makes no sense to me (said he, carefully avoiding details. You'll have to guess).
The view I represent is pretty eclectic all the same: to keep away from hand-me-down ideas, and be sceptical about all of them, especially my own.
Then I can live in a world which isn't defined by any of those people you mention. It's a world which everyone else lives in, with a sky, clouds, trees etc. Having purged myself of cultural conditioning in terms of belief, I can look dispassionately at the human animal and see that he has to have something to help make sense of things, whether it is demonstrably true or not. If he doesn't have the education to know who Riemann is (I'm one of those!) then he just has to improvise.
I just like to play with all this stuff.
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Charles, welcome. Perhaps I ought to read Epicurus too, what do you think? I tend to go by recommendations.
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No problem. If you're ever interested in making this project of yours a joint endeavor, you know like a point/counter point type of thing, I'd be more than happy to provide the counter point. It would be a fascinating experience, following your line of exploration and providing a different perspective. I'd even take the time to calmly think out my arguments and check my typos. 😉
Of course, only you know what you have in mind for this; I'm just throwing the offer out there.
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That's a wonderful offer, Bryan and I accept instantly.
In fact I don't know what I have in mind for it, beyond a few initial steps, which also may change. So it can be interactive and open-ended. The outcome is not fixed, so either you or I might change our views as we go along.
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Awesome. Keep me posted as you figure it out more. If it's a book you have in mind, and you were planning a certain kind of exploration, I was thinking of like alternating chapters where I would either follow a parallel exploration of the same subject or provide a counter point to your own exploration. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, and I'm not sure how you'd feel about someone trying to take the wind out of your sails chapter after chapter. But I'll follow your lead on this, and leave it up to you to decide on the overall scheme and plan and the just the whole idea in general (obviously you have something in mind already), as well as what format you'd like to use.
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Diverse perspectives from which we all see the same reality, present very different impressions of the same events. This does not mean that we do not see the true reality of the situation. Rather, we see what we choose to see, and ignore the rest. When our eyes are opened to different perspectives, we see more of the true reality, and yet still have failed to see it all. I would alter the statement slightly by saying that “we are ruled by pursuing whatever feels right to us”. It may not make me feel alright at all, but it feels correct, according to my perspective.
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Reason, as it relates to this statement seems to me to be our method of digesting what we have been exposed to. Evaluating the evidence we are presented with, using whatever related knowledge we have acquired to come to some conclusion. The the way each of us apply reason to examine reality from our own perspective, can be drastically different. The difference between rational and irrational responses to input. Of course, we can differ on what is a rational response or evaluation of reality. And this may be the crux of the problem. How do we judge what is rational and what is not? Do you understand another persons perspective well enough to judge?
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You and Bryan writing a book together. Sign me up for a copy. I won't pretend I'll understand it, but I'll have fun trying to.
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I am in 100% agreement with Vincent's article, and I totally concur with Bryan's opposing view.
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“It doesn't mean to be cold & emotionless, however. It means submitting to reality to achieve what we desire in fact, not distorting reality into an illusion that satisfies our wishes.”
Reality? What is that, exactly? I don't have good answers like Bryan M. White does. 😉
You made me chuckle when you listed the “life-illusion” bands…
I hope you are well.
Gina
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There's clearly an abusive overuse of the slash “/” in the world of heavy metal. I think we can agree on that.
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Just a note to remind your readers. We live within the dimension we see. It does not mean it is the only dimension, just that it is the one we see. Hence the Illusion?
Very good to find you today, Vincent. Thank you for keeping my work in your link section.
Life is good, I hope you are feeling the same. Always, Nancy McEldowney
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The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.
Salvador Dali
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PS to Amber: apologies for previous mis-spelling of your surname. Now corrected.
Re Bryan's 4th comment above. Bryan and I are in email correspondence about this. Will share with all readers when we have reached an agreed plan.
Charles: your two comments contain a great deal of wisdom! I take them as a guide, almost a shopping-list for further investigation.
DaRev: Noted. A special signed copy with dedication is reserved for you. And you might be mentioned in the acknowledgements, text & Appendix too. Or you might want to take a more active part.
Thanks, John. Have been missing your posts. Do you have time to write anything these days?
Gina, I share your questions about reality. I don't think there is such a thing. I don't see some pure island of Reality surrounded by an ocean of Illusion. I see reality as a word, a versatile tool which the craftsman (any user of language) wields for a specific task. Its meaning varies with the context. We all know this except when we are playing philosophers. Two office workers will speak of the “real world” as being everything except the specialised world of their company's horizon.
Bryan & heavy metal: I had a brief image of the world of heavy metal, with its slashes made of braided steel, used for abusive purposes. Life-illusion indeed.
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Nancy, I feel privileged for your visit. Yes, I think that the dimension we see is not quite the dimension that others may see. But in order to meet, we must inhabit a common dimension.
Yes, life is good, I am feeling it. I would like everyone to feel it. You and I, each in our own ways, feel that obligation, that life-purpose, to help others feel it.
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Charles, thanks for that Dali quote. It's a wonderful simile, to compare the vividness of false memory with fake jewellery. Taking it a step further, I like to blur the distinction and equate false memory with Art: in the sense that art creates something that never was, something more vivid than ordinary reality. And perhaps more true, in a special sense of true.
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I could always provide comic relief. Like the deranged cousin on the porch with a banjo saying “Ah don't git it!”
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@Vincent
Thanks, John. Have been missing your posts. Do you have time to write anything these days?
Vincent, I have been very busy lately. Additionally, I write for four different blogs. One of them, you know, my literary blog: Mysterious Things.
I also have another blog, one that almost no one knows about. On it, I write articles targeted at a single individual (different ones at different times). It is called, appropriately, John Myste Responds, and it is purely political. I only have a slight interest in politics, so I tend not to mention that blog.
I also write both literary and political articles for a news site called Mad Mikes America.
I also get rebuttals routinely published at Fair and Unbalanced, which is a political site.
My enthusiasm is only for literary writing, not political writing, where I have only a very small interest.
Unfortunately, with all that is been happening in America of late, what little time I have has ended up being political.
I go weeks at a time not having time to blog much at all and then when I do, I am behind on political observations, leaving no time for what I truly love.
This is why you have not seen me, but I will be around and Mysterious Things is not dead, even though I suspect people have forgotten that it existed.
I still remember.
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ooooo, so tired. I'm sorry, my friend. I genuinely love to follow the intricacies of your thoughts, but have just been too tired, too distracted lately. Will you forgive me? Winter will be different…
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I think the important thing is that we as reasoning beings understand we must ask the right questions in order to obtain suitable answers to our mutual dilemmas. We certainly don't all see the world in the same way but we do share common understandings about what is required to live a decent life. It's wonderful we have access to the philosophies of so many great minds. We know that even though no such thing as a Utopia logically posited by any one person would satisfy all, it's essential we keep up the discourse.
In other words, I'd be happy to buy a book written by both of you.
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Susan: it's a relief to think there will be one reader at least.
Hayden: I get a sense of your pressing list of urgent tasks when I check your occasional posts. It's cheering to think you'll be free for more contemplation and so forth as winter approaches.
John: I had a look at John Myste Responds. I'll be very glad when you extricate yourself and devote more to literary matters!
Rev: I know you could provide comic relief. To my surprise the collaboration so far is quite a lively circus, but what kind of a circus has no clowns?
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Vincent,
I'll be very glad when you extricate yourself and devote more to literary matters!
I will also. John Myste Responds is no place for a gentlemen, or even someone who claims a measure of sanity.
My heart lives on Mysterious Things.
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Yes, John. God tells me to hate homosexuals as well, but I tell him to shut up, especially since I realized that we his children are much kinder than our Heavenly Father.
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I should have started “Referring to the title of your latest post on Mysterious Things, …”
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As my mom said when I, a little boy then, asked how she knows there is a God:
“Oh! I wouldn't let Him hear you say that.”
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