Reality denial – an introduction

It seems that I am constantly meeting people who live in their own reality bubble, not really paying attention to pesky things like facts.  Their own little bubble of reality will gloss over facts and other opinions or interpretations of said facts, replacing them with something completely different.  The subjects range from conspiracy theories (like the moon hoax crowd, the 9/11 truthers, or the free energy people), scientific ideas (Evolution denial, global warming denial, the anti vaccine groups), Political movements (the birthers, nearly every chain E-mail about politics).

Although students of philosophy (and those smoking the good stuff) might argue that reality is as we perceive it, I don’ think reality is subjective.  I believe that reality is something that is immutable and unchanging, regardless of our views on it.  To quote a poem I read once in school “Truth does not grind away like a stone”, I don’t remember the rest of the poem or the author but that line stuck with me.  We cannot change the truth, only our perception of it.  It is that perception that I wish to write about.  Polls like this one show something is fundamentally off with peoples perception of facts here in America.  It really isn’t just here though, Homeopathy and other equally crap based medicines are big in Europe and even have Prince Charles rallying to promote them.

That is why I am making this blog, it might not get even a single person to ever read it but I feel like just sitting at home wasn’t really a good use of my free time if there was something I could be saying about this.  Besides, I need a skeptical outlet besides the stern looks I give my co-worker who is always toting around books telling him how to unlock his sixth sense or how to become an astrologer.

As an ending note to this first entry, I truly believe that there is nothing more amazing than how the universe works.  From the tiniest Planck length particle (or string) to the Vastness of the cosmos as a whole.  The way everything interacts with everything else is, in my opinion, more than we will ever need to keep us forever learning.  So we don’t need things like astrology or bigfoot to make the world an interesting place.  We can find enough to do in reality without their help.

- Ian