Meaning
Stories of constructed worlds aren’t as new as we might think. The Matrix was released in 1999. The Truman Show in 1998. But the 1981 Doctor Who story, Castrovalva, covered similar ground. Half of the story was set in a town called Castrovalva, populated by characters that weren't merely real but overly real. Too characterful to be characters. Sure enough, Castrovalva turns out to be a construct. The story was born from the writer's childhood fear that he wasn't real. This ontological doubt might have troubled the young Christopher H Bidmead, but it gave great fuel to the adult writer he grew into.
Why are stories of living in simulations or constructs so powerful and persistent? What's behind them? One possibility is that the real world doesn't make sense. Either we struggle to make sense of something or we're expected to live by rules that don't make sense.
Perhaps the world is changing so much around us that we no longer recognise what we're a part of.
For the sake of complete honesty, perhaps we should allow for the possibility that we really are living in a construct. Perhaps it's unreal in a very real way. I don't believe that and if anyone believes that, then they also have to wrestle with how they, a tiny piece of the construct, should be able to think outside the bounds of the construct.
So it's easy to see that there's a range of possibilities, but I'd like to add one interpretation of my own.
If we're going to ask whether something is real, it's worth also asking, ‘what do you mean by real?’ Is a law real? We'll never touch it and yet we'll behave as if it's as real as the chair we're sitting on. Are ethics real? We can't touch them, but we're surrounded by them every day. So does something need to be physical to be real or can it be real if you or others behave as if it's real?
In his 2018 appearance at the Oxford Union, the psychologist, Jordan Peterson, was asked, “what is the source of meaning?” His response included the phrase, “your brain actually operates as if the most real thing is the meaning of something“.
In a recent holiday to Paris, I had a couple of very powerful experiences. One of them led to keeping a diary, something I've never done before. Another led to the creation of this site with a complete open willingness to share my art regardless of form or skill without being concerned by the appearance of professionalism. Instead, it's more important to unify what I'd previously kept separate: the creative me and the DAM me.
As always, whenever we have a powerful experience it changes us and how we view what's around us. It provides such meaning that we cannot be the same again. Similarly, the removal of meaning can be shocking. When I finished my MA dissertation I was shaken. It'd been the source of so much meaning that the removal of that meaning was an immense shock.
Ever since I returned from holiday in Paris, I’ve been experiencing ontological doubts, just as Christopher H Bidmead did. I'll pass through a doorway and be tempted to reach out to touch the frame, only not to, fearing that my hand might pass through it. That isn't because I really believe that it will. I've come to the conclusion that it's because my experiences in Paris filled me with such a monumental sense of meaning that, in comparison, nothing else can be as real.
Meaning is the most real thing that we can experience. The removal of it can be devastating, as any examination of mental health issues amongst the recently unemployed reveals.
But the discovery of meaning transforms us profoundly.