One of the things I find myself noticing in Curtis' descriptions of David Eagleman's findings and opinions is that Eagleman seems to make the same assumption that religious people make. That is, that there is something called Reality.
For him, as a scientist (not having read this book), Reality might be defined as that which can be observed repeatedly by objective viewers or using instruments invented by them (and thus sharing their human assumptions about what can be perceived and measured and what cannot). This objective Reality trumps any subjective notion of reality. Meanwhile, the religionists or spiritual folks might argue that their subjective experience of reality, especially if they're enlightened, trumps any objective view of reality. Some of these folks believe that the real world doesn't even exist, and all that does IS a subjective presence. They call *that* Reality. Or God. Or Self. Whatever. Me, I'm noticing that both sets of people seem to be thinking hierarchically, as if reality were a pyramid of realities, at the top of which was one big one called Reality, which supercedes any of the lower realities. I'm not sure I buy this. I'm still enough of a Castaneda fan to be able to swing behind the idea of separate realities. They're all real. And because I don't view the world hierarchically, I don't assume that any of these separate realities are "higher" than others or "trump" them. For me the separate realities coexist relationally, not hierarchically. None of them is Reality. Does any of this strike a resonance with anyone else here, or did the delivery guy put funny mushrooms on my pizza again? You never can tell here in the Netherlands.
