Category Archives: Evidentialism

The Subjective Reality Hypothesis


What we believe shapes our reality.

The Subjective Reality Hypothesis asserts: Your truth is what you sincerely believe, until you believe otherwise. This concept challenges our understanding of proof, perception, and the nature of existence itself.

A drunk man believes he can fly. He leaps from a window. In his mind, he soars—until the human jelly that is his remains believe in the physics the man did not.

But here’s the head-scratcher: What was the man’s reality? Did he truly fly in those moments before impact, his consciousness creating a reality of flight, however fleeting? What can exist beyond our perception of its existence?

Now, imagine you’re invited to a party. If you genuinely believe you’re funny, engaging, and worth inviting, you become the living embodiment of that belief. Your confidence radiates, your jokes land, and your presence becomes magnetic. You’ve transformed into the person you believed yourself to be, not through deception, but through the sheer power of conviction.

This concept extends beyond individuals. When groups hold conflicting beliefs, each sees their version as absolute truth. To them, it’s as real as gravity, persisting until challenged by undeniable evidence.

But here’s where our digital age complicates matters: Social media has made “undeniable evidence” increasingly problematic, if not impossible. Echo chambers, algorithmic feeds, and the ease of finding like-minded communities online have created parallel realities. What’s undeniable to one group is easily dismissed by another. The drunk man’s fall is now up for debate, with some arguing he actually flew.

This fracturing of shared reality pushes us to consider: What if consciousness itself is fundamental to reality?

Imagine a color that no human has ever seen. Can it exist if it’s never been perceived? Or consider the countless radio waves passing through us at this moment, invisible and unfelt. Do they exist in our reality before we build a device to detect them? Perhaps our reality is not a fixed stage, but a dynamic interplay between consciousness and potential, constantly evolving as our ability to perceive and believe expands.

This line of thinking suggests that consciousness might be the bedrock of existence. Our beliefs and perceptions don’t just interpret reality—they create it. The universe might be a vast field of potential, collapsing into definite states only when observed or believed in.

If consciousness is fundamental, the Subjective Reality Hypothesis has profound implications for religion, politics, and economics:

  1. Religion: Your spiritual beliefs don’t just guide your actions—they shape your actual reality. If you sincerely believe in a higher power, that entity becomes real in your experience. Heaven, hell, karma, or reincarnation aren’t just concepts, but tangible aspects of existence for those who truly believe. This explains why religious experiences feel so real to believers, yet remain inaccessible to skeptics.
  2. Politics: Political ideologies aren’t just sets of ideas—they’re reality-creating forces. If you genuinely believe in a political system, you start to see evidence of its effectiveness everywhere. This is why two people can look at crime rate and see radically different realities: a utopia for one, a dystopia for another. Your political beliefs don’t just influence your vote; they shape the very world you inhabit.
  3. Economics: Your economic beliefs don’t just affect your financial decisions—they mold your economic reality. If you believe deeply in a particular economic theory — say, Effective Altruism or Universal Basic Income — you’ll see proof of its validity in every transaction, every market shift. This is why economists can look at the same data and draw wildly different conclusions. Your economic worldview doesn’t just interpret the market; it actively participates in creating it.

This view doesn’t negate external reality, or exonerate a Trumpian leader’s delusions. Instead, it suggests a deeper, more complex interplay between belief, consciousness, and the nature of existence itself—one that’s increasingly mediated by our digital landscape.

In this light, challenging our beliefs isn’t just personal growth—it’s an act of reality creation. If our beliefs shape our reality, then we have the power to create a better one — not just metaphorically, but literally. By choosing to believe in human potential, we may actually bring these realities into existence.

The Subjective Reality Hypothesis doesn’t trap us in isolated bubbles of belief; rather, it empowers us to collectively see a better world into being.

Are we passive observers, or active creators of our existence? Particularly here, particularly now, the answer just might lie in what we choose to believe.

The Trouble with Lucidity


I’m an awful sleeper. I stir easily, dream vividly, and wake from nausea a few times a night that only a shower will quell.

Yet sleep fascinates me. What does it do for the body? What does it do for the mind? Why do naps come so much easier than bedtimes? Why do we not start awake every time we begin dreaming with the realization that, suddenly, we are flying? Or pantless?

It’s that last part that’s intrigued me of late (the dreaming, not the pants). Did you know that when we dream, our brain paralyzes us from the neck down so that don’t run into walls while dreaming we’re fleeing a predator, or choking out our partner in bed as we dream of, say, meeting Trump?

Specifically, the notion of lucid dreaming — being aware that you’re in a dream while you’re dreaming — has preoccupied me. Perhaps it’s from the unpleasant dreams I’ve been having recently that I’m back at work, but no editor will assign me a story. Or I’m in a mall with no exit.

A recent night was a typically rough one, and at 3:30 am, drying out of the shower, I told myself I would have a lucid dream. I dreamt I was back at The Post, storyless. Lucidity failed.

I awoke at 5 am, showered again, pledged I wasn’t going to be ignored by imagined editors anymore, and tried to sleep. Without swiftness or segue, I was in a mall with plenty of shops, but no doors out.

It took a couple minutes, but eventually, I knew I was in a dream. Lucidity!

Problem was, I hadn’t really thought through what I’d do if I reached lucid dreaming; my brushes with it previously were to snap out of bad dreams, and I’d succeeded only twice.

But this was at the start of the dream. What an empowering feeling, knowing the dream cannot hurt you. Empowering — for a time.

I walked up to the REM sales cashier and asked where the exit was. He gave me the same blank, wordless gaze. Where normally I leave the store and begin the sprint-search through the mall for a way out, this time I went on the offensive: How did YOU get here? Where will YOU walk at the end of your shift?

Again, nothing.

”You’re a dumbass,” I proclaim as I march into an adjacent shop, an earring store for some reason.

But when I walk through the door, I am instantly back at the Post without an assignment.

I’m at my desk, and a message is scrolling across my screen: “Where’s the story?!”

I am typing back “What story?” when the editor is suddenly over my shoulder, glowering. Unafraid and unhinged, I stand to punch him in the face. I got your story right here, pal. I clock him. But it lands with all the force of a butterfly fart.

Swing again. Pfffft. A shot to the gut. Tssst. I try to shove him back, but he’s heavy as wet sand. An immovable, impatient dune. Dream Scenario nailed it.

Now I want out of the dream. I begin to pace the newsroom, trying to remember how to awaken. The previous lucid dreams were momentary, slivers of awareness that I could drop a great height, let go a precarious ledge, because it was only a dream. But there’s no danger here. Just frustration.

Finally, opening my eyes wide in the dream forces my lids up into the greeting morning sun. The lucid dream, conquered. Yes!

What followed was the most fatigued day since retirement. My circadian rhythms were utterly shot. I dragged my ass to the park well after 11, and collapsed in a nap minutes after returning home. I did not attempt to lucid dream then.

And I may not again. The great thing about lucid dreaming is you can interact with people exactly as your id and ego fantasize.

The bad thing is that people you interact with in a lucid dream know you’re lucid dreaming. Or don’t give a shit, which might be worse. Plus the whole circadian thing.

Alan Watts had it right. If we really could determine our dreams, wouldn’t we want slightly dangerous, slightly vulnerable, slightly unpredictable? Kind of like real life?

Something to sleep on.