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So why does the title of my story suggest that we are hiking toward reality??  Isn’t reality all around us already??

To discover the answer to that more easily, let us examine a few things that might make us question the basis of that opinion.  There are many ways this might be accomplished – from pointing out the existence of illusary perceptions, to mystical visions that leave one with an innate feeling there is more, to unexplained occult and psychic phenomenon, or perhaps to the consciousness-expanding drug-induced rituals of many of the early cultures which were used for that purpose.  But my favorite approach is to use what I know best…science.  And I always thought that was an argument that was unique to me, until I also saw it outlined in a 1963 book entitled General Philosophy by David Elton Trueblood.

Think back to high school science class where we learned that the entire world is made up of atoms.  Particles so tiny they can’t even be seen with a normal microscope.  These are composed of positively charged protons and neutral neutrons packed together in a nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons.  Quantum physicists today tell us that these electrons randomly and unpredictably (we can know either their location or velocity at any given time, but not both) fly around the nucleus at some distance, but the original model by Neils Bohr where they simply orbit like the planets around the sun is much easier to picture in our minds, and makes no difference to our discussion here, so that is what we’ll use going forward in this paper.

The most amazing thing about this is that if we were small enough that the atom was the size of a circular Olympic-sized swimming pool to us, the nucleus would only be the size of a pencil eraser floating in the middle of it.  In other words, objects that seem so solid to us are comprised mostly of empty space!!  The solid nature of physical objects is thus an illusion of the mind (I know…try telling that to someone who has just run into a brick wall)!!

Another interesting aspect of atoms is the fact that everything in the entire universe is made up of only three particles.  There are other particles to be sure, but only the proton, neutron, and electron are directly involved in creating the immense variety of elements and compounds and living beings that are known to us (keep this in mind when we reach the Gnostics’ diagram of the universe in a later chapter).  Only the number of protons and electrons in each element differentiates it from another element, and again we rely on the mind to sort out what it is we are looking at.  If we were to travel through matter at a microscopic level, we would not be able to tell one element we were passing through from another without counting, as the protons themselves are absolutely identical within each of them.

As a last example, consider that red object nearby.  The truth is that it is not red.  Colorless photons of light are impinging on it, increasing the energy of its electrons and causing them to shift to a higher energy level, or shell.  When it has collected enough energy to reach the maximum it can absorb, this energy is released in the form of heat and new light waves.  This repeats on a periodic basis, so that the object has a unique frequency of radiation.  Light waves are simply alternating electric and magnetic fields, and have no color of their own, but our eyes pick these up and signal the brain that the object is emitting them at a frequency of, say, 462 trillion vibrations per second - which is interpreted by the mind as red.  If the light waves were to occur at 516 trillion times per second, we would see yellow.

The same thing goes for sound.  If a tree falls in the forest…it causes vibrations in the air and its surroundings, but it only becomes sound when an animal or human ear is present to pick these up so that the brain can identify the sound, whether it is a gunshot or a horse whinny or a bell, based on its timbre, attack/decay times, overall envelope, and such.

It is only natural then, that some believe this entire universe is an illusion…a product of the mind.  But if this were true, then the world would stop when one goes to sleep, picking up where it left off when the alarm rings.  This is not the case, as we all know, because events that occur during our respite can be relayed to us by others.  The most obvious conclusion to be drawn then is that our surroundings are real enough, but that our senses distort them for our comprehension.  It is as if we are looking at the world through colored glasses, so to speak.

This begs the question: if we can’t trust our senses to provide an accurate picture of reality, then how DO we learn what is the true nature of this universe??  Many philosophers have tackled this subject over the years, but the thinking that meant the most to me at the time was expounded by Plato, the Gnostics, and other Hermetic thinkers.

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This page was last updated on February 12, 2023

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General Philosophy by David Trueblood     (back to text)

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