You Are Being Lied To

What do you actually hear right now and

see? This page. The walls and furnishings

of the room in which you sit.

Perhaps some music or some background

noise. Yet you know as sure as

you were born that out of sight there are

other rooms mere steps away—perhaps

the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and a

hall. What makes you so sure that they

exist? Nothing but your memory.

Nothing else at all. You’re also reasonably certain there’s a broader

world outside. You know that your office, if you are away from it, still

awaits your entry. You can picture the roads you use to get to it, visualize

the public foyer and the conference rooms, see in your mind’s

eye the path to your own workspace, and know where most of the

things in your desk are placed. Then there are the companions who

enrich your life—family, workmates, neighbors, friends, a husband or

a wife, and even people you are fond of to whom you haven’t spoken

in a year or two—few of whom, if any, are currently in the room with

you. You also know we sit on a planet called the earth, circling an

incandescent ball of sun, buried in one of many galaxies. At this

instant, reading by yourself, where do the realities of galaxies and

friends reside? Only in the chambers of your mind. Almost every reality

you “know”