Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00796)

Jerry Schueler wrote:

>	Of course perception is involved here.  Nothing at all is true
>or false but what we perceive.  Perception is everything.  I do not
>believe that "objective truth" exists per se, except in a relative
>sense.  

I am not clear what you mean by "except in a relative sense," but this
seems like pure subjectivism, or what some people call the primacy of
consciousness over reality, to me.  I infer that you mean that we create
our own reality and that there is no reality but what we perceive.  Given
time and effort, we can change ourselves and our circumstances, but only to
a certain extent.  If we went to the Super Bowl today and asked all 70,000
people in the stands whether or not they were watching a football game, and
all 70,000 said they were, pure subjectivism, since it does not believe in
the existence of an objective football game, would have to consider that to
be an amazing coincidence.  It may take some element of faith either way,
but I would consider that to be powerful evidence of an objective football
game.  If I habitually lied, and people learned not to trust me, I would be
objectively wrong to believe that people really trusted me.  If I jumped
into the Grand Canyon and crashed to the bottom, pure subjectivism would
ask me why I created the reality of crashing to the bottom if it hurt.
Objectivism would say that the reality of my crashing to the bottom trumps
any perception of mine to the contrary.  In the Mahatma letter that Doss
recently posted, K. H. talked about how paranormal powers were just as
subject to law as the simplest physical processes were.  When I think of
objective reality, it is these universal laws that I think of first.
Assuming they exist, there is nothing anyone can do about them.  Perceiving
them differently cannot change them in the least.  


>For example, pink elephants seen by a drunk have
>objective reality for the drunk.  

His perception would be real, but the pink elephants would not be.


>Dreams seem real and have objective
>reality to us while we are dreaming.  

There is a significant difference between seeming to be real and being
real.


>Perception changes over time
>because our objective reality itself changes.  

My perception of the law of karma constantly changes, but I do not believe
it is because the law itself changes.  My perception of what happened last
year changes, but that does not mean that what happened last year changes. 


>Our objective reality
>always tends to express our subjective reality, and vice versa.

Perception cannot take place unless there is something objective to
perceive.