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The cruel truth is that you have been taken in by a lie of convenience. The map of reality that your nervous system creates is not a complete and accurate depiction of the territory it is attempting to represent. The world is more complex and fine-grained than your nervous system can process entirely, so it summarizes all the raw data it receives into an interpretation to which it can respond.

The lie without which you could not survive

The Soul Illusion—the conviction that you see things as they are—enables you to react rapidly to a complex and ever-changing environment. If you had to vet every perception before you reacted to it, you could not survive. Nevertheless, your interpretation of the things that happen is incomplete and may include distortions that evoke regrettable reactions.

Photography metaphor

When you create a photograph, you have to place the camera somewhere, and the resulting photo shows how the subject looked from that camera angle. There is no such thing as a single, complete photo of a subject or a photo of how the subject looks from no particular vantage point. No one photo is the valid one; no camera angle is more valid than the others.

True, some photos are more useful than others. Perhaps one is most attractive or best at revealing a particular aspect of the subject. One element of the photographer's skill is choosing from among the many candidates and selecting the one that best achieves the intended outcome.

To extend this metaphor to the interpretation of events, I interpret the things that happen from my particular perspective. Someone else would see it from a different perspective and perhaps come up with a different interpretation. There is no way to interpret an event from no particular perspective or to arrive at a single, valid and complete interpretation of an event.

The assumption that your particular interpretation is the valid one—the lie without which you could not survive—is the ultimate cause of avoidable suffering. However, the appreciation that you are interpreting the things that happen through the filter of your current perspective will help you curb your dogma and enable you to shift to a more helpful way of looking at things.

The Truth Will Make You Free

The personal research you are about to undertake will enable you to take advantage of the expensive education you have already paid for. You will explore some critical moments in retrospect to solve the puzzle of why you intentionally followed a path that your rational mind knows will end badly [the video below describes the rationale for personal research].

 

 

A Collaborative Research Project

The wisdom of ancient philosophers and contemporary neural scientists will help you solve your puzzle, but only you have access to the critical data [your personal experience].

 

Perceptions of Your Soul > >

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