Title ideas — Preface + Introduction

Hey guys- I need to finalize my title and I could use some help. In order to give you context (and to beg you for proofreading of course!) here is the preface and introduction to the book (I also have a brief "How to use this book" but I didn't want to make this post toooo long)

The very first page will be this quote from R. Buckminster Fuller:

"I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe" - R. Buckminster Fuller

Preface -

In August of 2010 I was charged with the task of finding a topic which I could devote a year researching and finding a graphic application for in order to complete my Bachelor’s of Arts in Graphic Design at Ohio Dominican University. I was given free range, the only condition was that it had to be something I would not get bored with.

So, in what I fully realized as an exercise in overconfidence, I threw caution to the wind decided to and attempt to find the line between objective and subjective reality. I joked that the graphic design project that it would result in would be a tracing of that line. Though it is in no way a straight or unbroken line, this book is that tracing.

I have been passionate about the subject and nature of reality since early in my high school years, watching documentaries and trading books with friends on everything from quantum physics to politics and trying to piece it all together. Over those years a semblance my a picture of reality began to build, though it has always remained in flux, growing and changing, dissolving and reforming with new information. Being some form of “relativist,” I found the idea of trying to define reality in a form so that others may see it seemed completely arrogant at first. However, as I went on I saw this project as an opportunity to solidify my current views on the subject into some form that I would be accountable for. By going through this process, I knew I would have to not only truly define my own worldview and account for it to myself, but also put it out there for an audience to see, judge and refute. I must admit something about that excited me to no end.

Underlying this book is a genuine hope for humanity. I have found through my attempts to solidify my views on the subject of reality, a certain foundation for my own personal morals which I must admit I have never felt so confident in. The idea that the human race can not only get along, but work together to achieve things so unimaginably great has driven this work and I hope that comes across.

In my personal search to find the line between objective and subjective reality, I have found the largest portion of it, though not all of it, lies within myself. This book represents my attempt to trace that line by sharing my findings. I determined the best way to do that was through a mix of short somewhat disjointed chapters, many of them lifting heavily from my favorite writers on the subject and dealing with the topics of modern physics, linguistics, philosophy and even art forgery. In an effort to include parts of the line that do not reside within me (I’m not a complete relativist you see), I chose to include exercises which the reader can engage in order to better understand where that line exists for them.

I hope that the views I present here will not be disregarded as narcissistic solipsism and may be seen as positive slant on level of indeterminacy which exists in our world. As one of my main influences in this work, Robert Anton Wilson, stated in the concluding chapters of his book Cosmic Trigger Volume II: Down to Earth,

“Once the fiction of one “reality” dies as a concept, and the operational fact of “realities” (plural) becomes generally recognized, we might all discover that human beings can actually live together without constantly making war over who has the “real” “reality.”

Introduction -

We live in a crazy mixed up world as I’m sure you are aware. Though our species posses the ability to overcome any obstacle through its capacity for learning and ingenuity, it gets caught up along the way, involving itself in struggles over territory both physical and mental. I happen to believe that many of our struggles stem from our inability to declare solid common ground on what “is really going on,” making it difficult to have a sane, peaceful and beneficial discourse.

Modern science, from physics to psychology, has painted a picture of what “is really going on” in which we are the subject matter. Much like the an image M.C. Escher’s “Hands Drawing Hands” the universe seems to to a great extent be a product of itself, and our view of it a product of us. It may seem surprising but then again, perhaps it was only that it was so obvious that we had forgotten. Religions, mystic traditions and philosophy have long held that the world around us that we perceive on a day to day basis is an illusion, a mask, created by our senses. Science in the 20th century came to a definitive conclusion that, more than metaphor, this is true on many levels: from the realization that colors are not inherent in the objects we see, but exist only in our interactions with different wavelengths of light, to the fact that the solid objects we can see, touch, and manipulate are very much not solid, consisting of countless atoms which themselves are mostly empty space. In psychology we have learned that much of what occurs around us is projections, our experience being flavored by what we expect to happen. There is not much evidence to support the idea that we exist in an objective world, void of our own influence.

Of course, we do not live in an entirely subjective one either. All members of the human species are imbued with the same faculties of perception: our nervous systems. There are varying degrees of course, levels of blindness, paralysis, hearing from the musically gifted ear to the deaf, but we are all alike in the fact that our nervous systems seem to operate in the same ways, taking in signals from the various forms of energy around us and translating them into the senses.

Through our nervous systems we are able to build models of our world, and through the similarities in our nervous systems we are able agree (and disagree) on what we are experiencing. We show our agreement in many ways, the most prominent of them being language. For you and I, I suspect, the English language.

Through the use of language, we are able to communicate about our experiences and opinions. But language also influences these, packaging our experiences into concepts which we each feel one way or another about. As we will see, our use of language may have much more affect on our actions and interactions that we would like to imagine.

The parable of the finger and the moon - a warning

In an effort to not get off on the wrong foot, I present to you a famous Zen kōan:

“The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, “I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas I do not quite understand. Please enlighten me.”

The patriarch responded, “I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning.”

Said the nun, “You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?”

“Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?”

And also a story by Jorge Luis Borges:

On Exactitude in Science

Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley.

...In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda,Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

In looking at language as a major influence on our perceptions, we will have to remember that we are using language to talk about it. To at once use language in order to say that language may be the root of many of our problems will present some difficulties. You may feel that much of what you soon read will be contradictory or just plain nonsensical. That is normal, do not be alarmed. Just breath and try to keep it all in context.

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OK so I know I am going with the VERBage part of the title, but I want to add a secondary title that gives a better overview of what it is about- here is what I have so far, what do you guys think?

_{-a user’s guide to reality}

_{-a working definition of reality}

_{-a user’s guide to users}

_{-a user’s guide to you the user}

_{-a user’s guide to getting along in the 21st Century.}

_{-a user's guide to the outside world}

_{-a user's guide to Generalizing}

_{-a guide to rational thinking}

_{-a guide to rational thinking in the 21st century}

-A user's guide to thinking about thinking

-What are your thoughts telling you?

-What are your thoughts doing to you

-From Thought to Action

-an introduction to process centered mentality

-The End of "Things"

_{-Exercises in getting along with others.}

_{-Exercises in Surviving in the 21st Century}

_{-Exercises in Getting Along in the 21st Century}

_{-Exercises in Humanity}

_{-Manual for Not Killing Others}

_{-(How to Not Kill Eachother)}

_{-(How to Avoid Angry Thoughts)}

_{-(How to keep your Opinions Opinions)}

_{-How Identification Could be our Worst Enemy}

_{-How To Lose Your Dogmas}

_{-How to Generalize Better}

_{-one guy's picture of reality}

_{-how to change your mind}

_{-How language can make or break us}

_{-A view on reality}

This list could keep going, but that's a good start I think.

Thanks guys! Good luck on your work, can't wait to see it all!