Illusion of delusion

The Consensus Delusion (Part #12)

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A delightful paradox in any appreciation of Dawkins' The God Delusion derives from those religions which explicitly emphasize the essentially illusory nature of reality as conventionally conceived -- and consequently of any conceptual formulation of "God". In this sense the title of his book is more than appropriate. "God", as so inadequately conceived, is indeed a delusion and the book could be classified as a theologically valuable critique of that inadequacy -- as some religious writers have acknowledged. This is in accordance with the via negativa of "unsaying" of apophatic discourse (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008).

The irony goes further in that Hinduism in particular has a major deity, Maya, intimately associated with "illusion". Maya is the deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal universe -- a duality so intrinsic to Dawkins' preferred methodology. A commentary on this illusion in relation to Dawkins' argument is provided by M. D. Kini (The God Delusion or The World is an Illusion ? : a common Hindu's perspective, 19 May 2009). Curiously the illusion is in accordance with the arguments of fundamental physics to the effect that objects (as conventionally perceived and defined by humans) are particular, and temporary, manifestations of waveforms in a spacetime within which no viewpoint is privileged.

In terms of understanding the fundamental illusion to which Maya alludes, this does not mean the world is not real, rather it is only real as a form of reflection -- as with the image of a person in a mirror. The world is not real/true when compared to the reality. But the world is also not false. This understanding is consistent with participatory cognition (Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979; Henryk Skolimowski, The Participatory Mind: a new theory of knowledge and of the universe, 1994; Stephanie Sorrell, Nature as Mirror: an ecology of body, mind and soul, 2011).

As with both the goal of enlightenment and an appropriately enlightened understanding of physics, the challenge is to experience and transcend this false dichotomy -- between the perceiving self and the "external" universe. The difficulty, even for physicists of high degree, is achieving this understanding, whether or not it can be communicated. Potentially even more challenging, therefore, is the delusion associated with the nature and propagation of any "consensus" with "others" on this understanding, as with any scientific consensus. The image of a dog chasing its tail comes to mind.

Other Eastern religions, notably Zen, play with the sense in which the illusion is itself a delusion (Removing the delusion of non-enlightenment, The Zennist, 4 March 2010). In this sense, both consensus and non-consensus are delusions inappropriate to action in response to the challenges of humanity. Curiously the sense of "play" features in the etymology of both "illusion" and "delusion" -- deriving as they do from the Latin ludere -- but implying also a degree of deceptive, jesting mockery. The "humour of the gods"?

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