Every one of us inhabits two universes. There is the universe we share with everyone else, the one we refer to as “objective reality”.
Then there is that other universe, the one inside our own mind. This rather vast second universe is filled with its own miracles, its secret passageways and cabinets of wonder.
Somehow we each manage to negotiate this double reality. To most of the world we reveal only a small portion of our inner universe, one which fits within the limited framework of culturally acknowledged understanding.
But to those we are close to, the ones we truly trust, we reveal far more. A deep relationship between two people is a window into each others’ miracles, their secret passageways and cabinets of wonder.
Third kind of universe/reality.
These days I think about Harari’s third reality. Most of us (including me) think there are only two kind of truth: Objective reality/truth and Subjective reality/truth. An objective one is like the gravity, it doesn’t matter I exists or not. A subjective one is like I love something, it needs my existence. But, there seems to exist the third one, intersubjective reality/truth. This is based on subjective reality, but some amount of people believe it. For example, money or stock price, they have some real value (or equivalent/exchangeable) for believers.
In this sense, a nation also exists only in our head, not objective real, but it is shared among many. Thus sometimes a nation just disappears, since not enough people stopped believing it (e.g., U.S.S.R). A company exists and can open a bank account and it can buy things and it can hire the real people. We treat it as a non nature human by our law. But, it is also not objective, not like the gravity.
Harari said, a subjective lie, can be an intersubjective reality. Especially if it is more ridiculous and unbelievable ones. People just repeat them all the time, then some of the people start believing it. It is called sometimes fake news. It is better if it is completely subjective. People believe it, no objective truth included. He mentioned one of the oldest fake news example is called the bible and so on.
Most of the people think there are only two realities, thus, if many believe a subjective truth, they think that should not be subjective. Because not only me believing. Therefore it must be objective. It is how the religion or fake news becomes objective reality. But according to Harari, there are third reality. We first need to recognize there is this third reality, intersubjective reality. This is a clue to start working together… Otherwise everyone believes they are in objective universe, because it is not subjective universe. But we seems to live in not binary world. For me, money and stock is still quite real, well, stock is a bit less real, even money, a bitcoin?… I just started to think about intersubjective reality. Am I living in an intersubjective reality or in an objective reality?
Hitoshi