Professor Massimo Pigliucci asks: “What Hard Problem?”

I also published this at medium.com, July 2, 2025

Recently I published a short article at Medium.org questioning David Chalmers’ so-called hard problem of consciousness and a commenter took me to task.

Unfortunately he chose not to engage with my response, which is what usually happens. The heart of his complaint reads:

HS commented: “…But an organism still has to utilize the equipment available in its universe and how molecules or physical forces create consciousness is not explained just because, for example, a neuron has come to be.

Get it? It is still a hard problem. There has to be something inherent to that universe with the potential to create consciousness. …”

No. I don’t get it.

The universe is about as distal from down to Earth reality, as we can get. For me, the really hard problem is why does this sort of philosophizing get away with ignoring the realities of our evolutionary biological origins down here on Earth?

So, in an attempt to better clarify my previous article. I want to share from Professor Massimo Pigliucci’s short essay (©2013) in philosophynow.org. The essay asks: “What Hard Problem?” — and I believe it provides a perfect vehicle for constructively pushing back.

Free Will in terms of tiny daily decisions. (forum.centerforinquiry.org)

 I participate at Center of Inquiry Forum.  It's small, only a few of us old guys/gals, I keep hoping others would discover us, but I'm told: discussion isn't a "thing" anymore.  Maybe that helps explain the mess our society is in.  Some new voices on the platform would be fun.  Recently a member shared a few paragraphs about his experience and I felt like following up and sharing from my experience.  For this blog I'll single out a few sentence, visit the CFI forum for the discussion:

"...  First needed item to change it to really need and want to change. And you need help, And you need to have the will to pay the price.

At 30 I was in a dead end, I needed to change, 2 years of psychotherapy. It was hard. I finished some sessions crying."

I've developed a well defined perspective, a specific frame of reference I hope is worth sharing  An evolution respecting Earth Centrist perspective.  Something I'd love to discuss with anyone who 'gets it' - or at least is curious.  Thus I share.  The following was my follow on, (though it is going to go through some changes as I clean and rewrite for this blog).

Thanks for sharing that. I hope it’s okay to extent it into a bit of a dialogue, because thinking of what you’ve gone through, of course makes me think of what I’ve been through. We’ve had different journeys, but we’re healthy humans and it seems to me key events are similar, such as needs for partners/friends, careers, community, etc.  We go through the same emotional roller coasters, have similar needs, our challenges are relatable.  Though I was very lucky and my twenties were '75 to '85 and the road was welcoming for this clean cut nice guy.  Jobs were plenty for those who showed up, and cared, and were reasonable competent, along with being enthusiastic students.

Earth Centrism - A Student's Bibliographic Resource - (2/2)

Appreciating Earth’s Evolutionary Pageant and Our Animal Nature

Students Resource Bibliography

The previous post is my summary of an “Earth Centrist” outlook on life and our human condition, a perspective that acknowledges Earth as our fundamental touchstone with reality.  

This Earth Centrist's perspective can’t be attained by reading a description of it - unless it already resonates within you thanks to your own previous inquiry and inclination.  That's because each of us must engage in our own learning effort.  

That is, living your moment and doing the homework and drawing your own conclusions from the evidence you’ve been able to gather.  Your deeper understanding emerges out of your own efforts. 

Since I’m no scholar, I’ve done my learning by way of some wonderful science communicators, mostly real scientists giving lectures via YouTube along with writing articles and books, with a few talented writers and science documentarians in the mix.   

I’ve put together a bibliographic list of my favorites, and of course, it's geared to the intelligent high schooler or early college student, and for other informed enthusiasts such as myself.  It follows a natural progression from matter forming followed by mineral evolution & our planet evolving a "global heat and moisture distribution engine," to geology and biology combining forces, on to the mysteries of complex dynamic living creatures.  Then on to the greatest show on Earth with life's collective consciousness spectrum.  

Since my bandwidth is limited by my crowded day to days filled with other obligations, I'm sure I’m missing many awesome gems.  So please do share should you believe you know of some presentations worth adding to this collection.

Featuring:  Sean Carrol, NOVA/NASA, Robert Hazen, Robert Rohde, Richard Alley, Nick Lane, David Qualmen, Carl Woese, Lynn Margulis, Tsutomu Wantanabe, Angela Hessler, Svante Pääbo, Mark Solms, Antonio Damasio, Susan Greenfield, Jim Al-Khalili.  Finishing with introductions to David Attenborough’s incomparable tour of the evolution of Earth’s living creatures: "Life on Earth", and James L. Sadd’s wonderful introduction to the fundamentals of geology: "Earth Revealed."

I've found my first addition to this list in an amazing lecture by Mike Levin: "Non-neural, developmental bio-electricity as a precursor for cognition" it adds a new dimension of insights into the evolution of consciousness and mind, that fits right into my overall theme of Earth's pageant of evolution. 

Another must addition to this list, was written by professor and historian of science and technology James Poskett: "Horizons: The Origins of Modern Science.  In it Poskett "recasts the history of science, uncovering the vital contributions of scientists the world over to what is truly a global story."  The first couple chapters are down right thrilling, with the book then settling into an enthralling exposition of facts and enlightening surprises.  A must read, if the history of human curiosity and development of science is your thing.

Introducing A New Philosophical Perspective: Earth Centrism (1/2)

 Inviting Intelligent Critique & Constructive Challenges:

Introducing a New Philosophical Perspective.

Peter Miesler, September 2022

Founded on a life time of learning through the findings of scientists.

Earth Centrism

Because Earth is our ultimate touchstone with reality and ourselves.

This insight leads to a realization that, for this complex living Earth that we experience, to exist at all, is proof positive that our Earth evolved down one particular pathway, no matter what we people imagine one way or the other. 

Ours is to figure it out and appreciate - not to presume to define it!

We appreciate that we are evolved biological creatures born of Earth’s processes, as expressed through its singular Evolutionary Pageant.

We appreciate the profound divide between physical reality, that is matter, biology, laws of nature, on the one hand, and on the other, our thoughts unfolding within our amazing minds, (or more descriptively, within the realm of our “human mindscape").  

We appreciate that fundamentally, awareness and life’s “consciousness spectrum” started over a couple billion years ago with the invention, then prospering, of the unbelievably complex organization of Eukaryote cells (some suggest guided by microtubules).  

Consider that in due time these cells created colonies of cells that demonstrated a sense of place and order and purpose or the organism would have dissolved into a chaotic blob.  Increasingly complex creatures depended, at every step, on increasing awareness, sensing, data processing, physical systems growth & maintenance, internal communication along with improving and refining manipulatory abilities.   

By and by, along came one particular clade the eutherians, small nocturnal insect eaters who gave birth to the class of mammalian animals, which begat the primates, which begat hominids, which begat our modern humankind species. 

Every stage required new refinements and developments within the complex sensing/body/brain system and the mind they collectively produce - refinements that are dependent on previous refinements and lessons.  Your Being is the sum total of all the days of Evolution that went into producing the human form you possess and live through, while your mind reflects the sum total of all the days you’ve lived and experienced.

I believe a genuine understanding of oneself starts with the realization that we are an evolved biological sensing creature, and that our consciousness is fundamentally the inside reflection of your body/brain dealing with itself and the environment/circumstance it is embedded within.  

This understanding leads to another inevitable realization, namely that our “Gods” are in truth creations of our minds, tailored by our self-serving egos. Which is okay, if one doesn’t take their God, or themselves, too seriously. 

 

“I Am, therefore I Think”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diary: Is anybody out there? (what is Earth Centrism?)

Should you care?  Do you care?

What is Earth Centrism anyways?

Earth Centrism is an Emergent Appreciation, when all those insights one’s collected come together into a tapestry, a pageant of life and circumstance so harmonic and graspable that it blossoms into a visceral feeling that infuses one’s body.

That’s when Earth Centrism begins to mean something.

I am an element in the flow of creation and it is good.

Earth Centrism, is a perspective on our human condition that’s based on the understanding that Earth is our fundamental touchstone with Physical Reality and that we are creatures of Earth’s own natural processes.

Earth Centrism comes from appreciating the “Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide” and getting a handle on how the three Abrahamic traditions, that are fundamentally self-serving and self-obsessed, continues dominating philosophical though to this day. The Mind/Brain conundrum, the Hard Problem of Consciousness, are ancient arguments dressed up in modern language.

Earth Centrism is founded on the understanding that scientific study of the material world is our best window into understanding physical reality, because Science is, at it’s core, a set of rules for observing and recording and learning about our natural world that strives as much as possible to eliminate the human ego from its deliberations.

Science is founded on an unspoken understanding that we need each other to keep ourselves honest. It’s a community of educated, competitive, skeptical, experts who are constantly looking over each other’s shoulders. With fidelity to honesty being their Golden Rule.

I also contend that science, at its core, offers spiritual/mystical challenges, experiences and resolutions, well beyond the traditions of our human made, ego straddled, religions with their tunnel vision and that resentment towards Earth and learning.

Further reading for the curious:

You are the eyes of the world. (workbook #e)

An exploration into a different sort of perspective on the god ~ human relationship, one that starts with a mind experiment and ends in a beautiful mythical suggestion.

 

“Humanity is the most exquisite example of God’s need and desire to know itself.”

It begins with imagining creation from a god’s eye view.  If a god there be, what would, what could that god actually know about the universe? 

There was nothing to sense in the beginning.  Besides how could a substance-less God sense anything?

Seems to me, only by creating something, was there anything for god to observe.  But what would god observe with? 

It occurred to me that god could only experience its own creation, through the structures of that creation.  

Starting right at the 'big bang' along side energy, gravity, time and the ever evolving complexity of interactions in a growing cosmos.  

Evolution Flips Abrahamic God Outside In. (workbook #d)

One of the things I've gotten out of my life long enthusiasm for learning about my human body, my mind/spirit, other people, other creatures and landscapes, Earth and her Evolution, is that my understanding of the traditional Abrahamic God has been flipped outside in.

I came to realize “God” isn’t to be found out there in the heavens. Our “Gods” are to be found deep within ourselves and our evolutionary roots, our DNA being testament to the existence of these roots.  As is our human ego, with its origins going way back into our mammalian heritage.

This evolutionary ground up perspective has instilled an Earth Centrist attitude because this living planet is my touch stone with reality and her evolutionary history informs my day in every way.

Take a moment to consider that we humans, you, me, are actually born out of a parade of generations, before generations.  The number of our grandparents is inconceivable. Try imagining where it all began, from where we are today.  Humanity is a fulfillment of life’s ageless way of striving to improve perceptual, manipulatory and processing abilities, in order to better live a better day.

On a personal level a couple months back I hit upon words that helped me grasp specifically what it was in me that made me such a unique individual. I possess a genuine visceral awareness for being an element in the flow of Earth’s Evolution - and that changes everything about how I perceive today and tomorrow.  Whether by a Creator, or by loaded dice, is irrelevant, either way we are the product of deep time moving ever forward with determination.

I am deeply grateful for being the eyes of the universe - a creature that can reflect on the wonder that is Earth and my own spark of being here within all that majesty. An appreciation for the Pageant of Evolution that goes well beyond the typical mental post card most possess.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  

Earth Centrism ~ Geocentrism. Seriously ?  March 14, 2020

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Considering God as a creation of our own human minds. (workbook #c)

This comes from a conversation over at CenterForInquiry discussion forum under the far ranging thread headed: Why Did You Choose Atheism?  It’s part of my workshop.

post #117 - Sep 4, 8:33 PM

Write4u comments: “Evolution is established science.”

I offered a slight adjustment.

Citizenschallenge:  Evolution is established by scientific evidence.    : -)

Now if only we really let that lesson soak in, as we think about who and what we are.

As for God, I would suggest that the evidence points to God being the product of our minds. And where did that come from you ask?

Responding to a Christian's missive. (workbook #b)

Unknown commented on "An Honest Look at The Limits To Growth (Ugo Bardi)" 

 Awaiting moderation.

Comment Rejected… on the grounds that I won’t be a billboard, I’m looking for serious dialogue!

but I will build a response post around it.

Since Mr. Unknown’s missive comes at a good time and I’m in this ‘workshop mode’  I’m going to dissect his allegations as an exercise in explaining my ideas.  He and others are invited to share responses, here or at the CFI Forum.

Aug 25, 2021:  Unknown commented on "An Honest Look at The Limits To Growth (Ugo Bardi)"

Mr Unknown writes:  Citizenschallenge, you have been tricked into believing the creator of this earth has limits to what he can and will do. 

___________

The “creator” of this Earth is star dust and the work of billions of years worth of physics, geology, biology and cumulative change over time, that is Evolution.

___________

Cc, I used to believe as you do and so started a recycling center in 1974 in N. Calif in southern Humboldt County. I wanted to save the planet but i had much much more to learn and i did. 

___________

Yes we certainly have plenty to learn when we’re still green behind the ears - oh but what fun years those are.  Fortunately, usually I took grandpa's advice: “Listen!  Even if you already know it all.  Shut up and listen, you just might learn something.”

You have created your own version of who I am, it does not fit the reality.  

Although I’ll admit I know about Humboldt county back in da day: “sinsemilla, send some to me-ia”    ;-). 

And okay it would have been nice to be part of helping save our biosphere, the planet will get by.  The global support systems we depend on, not so much.  It’s truly heartbreaking witnessing how horribly self-centered and greedy and self-destructive our generation wound up being.  Even after all we had learned about the ways of Earth.  

But, that’s another story.

___________

It took total surrender to the only one who rules heaven and earth. 

___________

What’s that even mean “taking total surrender”?  

Total surrender to the Bible?  Total surrender to a slick talking preacher who got his hooks into ya?

I didn’t need to surrender to anything, all I needed was to open my eyes and senses to observing, honest curiosity, learning and contemplating nature and Mother Earth.  

Observing, acting, thinking, learning, loving it and so on.   

It’s amazing how much mother nature can teach those who pay attention, sort of like the Bible told me: “Seek and ye shall find.”  Scientist sure have learned a great deal, we should pay attention to them.

It’s Not A “Body-Mind Problem” - It’s An “Ego-God Problem.”

(updated January 1, 2022)

Among the lessons I’ve taken away from my Hoffman adventure is that as I’ve followed the philosophical roots of “dualism” back through Descartes (1600s) and on past Anselm (1000s), one thing has become clear. the entire philosophical edifice of this Mind-Body “Problem” was formed from within that Abrahamic God-fearing mindset that gave us the three major religions, with their self-serving patriarchal mentality, heaven and hell, along with branding dualism’s hard boundaries and need for a sense of certitude into our imagination and onto our expectations.

The Abrahamic worldview perceives people as isolated objects, not only from this planet, but each other, even from ourselves.  The creatures we live with and the landscapes we exist within are treated with contempt and wanton waste.

Regarding the “Mind-Body Problem.”  

Dr. Solms makes a wonderful analogy that highlights the error being made:

Question:  Was it lightning or thunder that killed the man?

It’s a meaningless question.

Lightning and thunder are simply different aspects of the same phenomena.

Our Mind and consciousness is the interior reflection of our living body (both its interior housekeeping and external interaction with the environment).  We simply cannot have one without the other.

We are embedded within an interconnected web of life and are the direct products of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.

Why isn’t that reflected in modern philosophical discourse? 

Learning to appreciate the deep-time pageant of Evolution puts an entirely different richer light upon our interior existence.  An awareness that encompasses the whole of time and this planet that created us.

It also gives us a deep appreciation for the continuity of life.  Life is good, life is precious, but death is no enemy, painful though it may be.  Death is part of the cycle that brings forth new life.  Revel in the pageant you are blessed enough to be witnessing.  While you can. 

As for God?  

Who is “God,” but a creation of our unique complex human minds dealing with our day to days?   

Where did God come from?  

Being an Element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution

edited November 5, 2021

Although I’m a family man, with my share of friends, along with being community-minded, there’s a part of me that rarely fully connects with people, leaving me with an impression of being on the outside looking in and trying to make sense of the self-destructive direction people are driving our future towards.

Over the decades I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what makes my fundamental outlook and instincts so foreign to the general mindset.  It’s only recently, with the hindsight of 65 (now 66) years, and coming off of this “Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-gravity Project” with all it’s side trips and then discovering the light at the end of the tunnel and Dr. Mark Solms enunciating the substance of Neuropsychology.  

A body of work which convincingly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” (and all the distracting intellectual mischief that gave birth to).   Neuropsychology brings us face to face with the reality that our consciousness is basically the inside reflection of our body/brain interacting with its environment.  

Now there’s something worth chewing on, if your looking for intellectual challenge, or simply want to understand how things work.  

Back to my struggle to make sense out of myself.  So, a year ago I was able to enunciate what made me so different.  Basically, I possessed a visceral awareness of, and appreciation for, being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.  

What was it that opened that potential up for me?

How was it that the Abrahamic Mindset always felt foreign to me, if not plain wrong, (even if it wins all the battles).

I think I also finally nailed that one.  It goes back to my early childhood, even before starting kindergarten at John J. Audubon Elementary school in Chicago.  I’d been playing in the pool of warming sunlight streaming through the window onto our living room carpet, lighting up dust motes like fireflies.  I remember focusing on watching the dust motes floating around and then rushing after my mom, when she’d pass by.  I was already fascinated by the night sky full of sparkles and these motes seemed like little universes to me.  

Who knows, except I really was fascinated by the scene.

Then I hear myself asking mom: “What is god?"

I like to think she took a few beats before answering:  “A speck of dust that wanted to be more”.

I must have been primed because it really blew my mind in a way that literally permeated by entire being.  After the initial shock wore off, it didn’t provide any sort of insight, it was simply the suggestion, the question, the challenge.  God as a speck that simply wanted to be more.  It was beautiful and awesome to this little boy and I carried that conception with me for the rest of my life.

It’s take over 60 years for me to fully appreciate it’s impact and now to understand the why of, what happened that set me on my singular path.

I believe what happened was that, that notion of a little speck of dust wanting to be more, wound up filling and satisfying that little niche' of my brain, the "god" niche' where our human longing for the ultimate answers originates.  

So when the Abrahamic self-serving image of an egotistical God was presented to me, there was no place for it to take hold in my brain or heart, so I was free of its shackles and free to find my own way through what life served up for me.

This sense of self and spiritual solidity emerged out of a lifetime of curiosity and learning about myself (though that's another story) Earth, deep-time, her amazing evolutionary story and the development of life and creatures and ourselves.  Appreciating why we can’t understand an organism, without also understanding it’s environment - all of that offers insights we can apply to our day to days.  (How does endlessly pondering outside sources of consciousness inform one’s actual living life?)

Especially realizing how the components of my own physical body had their origins eons ago.  The visceral awareness that for the most part mammals have the same skeleton and parts I do, except that are in different proportions - that's amazingly deep for a meat eater.  Even before that, if you consider how Earth herself had to go through intense processing before promising molecular tricks and biological solutions to life’s challenges would have the material resources at hand to allow them to be put to the test and prosper.

It’s a long, amazingly complex story that keeps evolving as more evidence gets collected and processed into shared scientific knowledge.  Folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complexity flowing down the cascade of time.  Considering I’ve been paying attention to it since my grade school days, it’s inevitable that I’ve achieved some insights along the way.

In the end, the thought of being an intelligent self-aware element of creation, one who is capable of savoring the pageant of Earth’s amazing Evolution is more than comforting.  It provides me with a spiritual foundation and solidity in the face of challenges, inevitable failings and my coming death, that possess a depth of peace and security no Holy Book, or fast-talking pick-pocket preachers can get close to offering.  It's good news worth passing around to the few who are honestly curious.   ✌️

     

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regarding Deep-time

Evolution is not a process. Evolution is a result.

 Looking at it from a slightly different perspective:

Evolution is Time driving Matter forward.

From the cosmic perspective of some 14 billions years,

Evolution has no intent, it has matter, time, motion, outcomes.

An under appreciated analogy for “Evolution,” is to recognize that “Evolution” is a result of time’s relentless forward momentum.

Time is motion.

The sum total of human knowledge shows us with overwhelming consilience that our “Reality” started at what’s been coined the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago, when massive pure energy was released to create our Universe.

It’s time/motion that pushed this primal energy to coalesce into bundles such as quarks, and it’s time that drove the universe to expand and cool.  It’s time/motion that saw atoms and molecules form.

Time/motion/gravity is what brought vast clouds of atomic, molecular dust together into swirling nurseries for stars to be formed, only to run through their life cycles.  Some dying stars exploded and producing all the elements heavier than iron.  Time/motion/gravity is what sweeps together those remnants into new stars and planets.

Here in our corner of the Universe, conditions were promising for something special to happen and it did.  It’s time/motion/gravity with sunshine and radioactivity that created Earth’s geological turmoil which is the source of life

Time married Earth’s geology with biology and it has driven all the changes since.  One second, minute, day, season at a time.  Resulting in folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complexity flowing down the cascade of time.

Scientism: On getting lost within the Mindscape.

It’s an odd sensation, periodically rediscovering how some things that I find self-evident, seem absolutely foreign (if not invisible) to most others.  When I embraced the term “Mindscape” a couple years back, I thought I did a good job of capturing a metaphor for those universes of thoughts that we possess just beyond our physical brain with its neurons, synapses and electro-chemical cascades.  The seat of ego, emotions, thought, reflection, god seeking, knowledge seeking, love seeking, success thirsting, the sense of self, our life’s spirit, our soul, whatever labels you want to tag onto it.  

The world flowing through our physical senses and then getting sorted through our genetic and environmental filters before being reflected against the metaphorical retina of our brain and infusing through our body.  The thing that thinks it’s telling our body what to do, when most the time it’s the other way around.  The thing that believes it’s in control of us, or out of control, as the case may be.  The thing that is us, but has yet to be found by scientist or philosopher.  

I’ve discovered that suggesting we should categorize it differently than the stuff of atoms and the laws of physics invites the wildest mental gymnastics intent on drawing the discussion away from the essence of acknowledging the ephemeral nature of our human mind, that thing that animates our bodies during our short dance across physical reality’s stage, or more specifically, Earth - and then disappears when we die.

Debating the Mindscape

One of my frustrations is the intellectual isolation, so it’s always refreshing getting a little serious pushback and challenges.  This past week at the Center For Inquiry's Forum, my virtual corner pub so to speak, my term “Mindscape” along with my contention of a fundamental divide between Mindscape and Physical Reality has received a thrashing.  In particular, D.R.Hansen thinks "Mindscape" is an awful term, though he bases that on some misconceptions that I'm happy to clarify.

Since I’ve been wanting to better enunciate those conceptions anyways, I'm taking the opportunity to share highlights from our discussion at “So, what the heck is Scientism?.”  A title meant to entice visits and discussion regarding "scientism", but that was detoured into a discussion about the validity of coining the term "Mindscape."   Enjoy.  Visit CFI to join the discussion.

July 27, 2020 at 10:14 pm

@drhansenjr

RANT WARNING!

On the concept of “mindscape”:

I have serious issues with the concept of “mindscape” that are both linguistic and conceptual.

Some definitions describe it as referring to (if you will pardon my oversimplifying paraphrasing) “stuff that goes on in the mind.” 

Yes, the “stuff that goes on in the mind” please refer to appendix 1 for more technical descriptions.

I would regard such definitions as including this “stuff” as a elements of physical reality, products of the neurological structures and activity of the brain. 

They may feel like something different than physical reality since we can’t touch or see them, and since we have a very limited knowledge of how the brain manifests them, but it does not follow that because those feelings seem mysterious and because there are gaps in our understanding of them that they exist as things outside physical reality, … any more than our distant ancestors’ sense that meteorological phenomena or the presence of stars in the sky were the work of some being or force outside their physical reality.

Yes, I agreed.  *I can also see where my clumsy wording, and in particular employing “vs” was a counter-productive choice in my original essay. (also see TimB at the bottom of this page)

It was a mistake, I wanted to be provocative but instead was misleading.

I will point out that I’ve never written that the “Mindscape” is outside of reality or that it’s part of a separate metaphysical reality.  Though I can now see how others could have misunderstand. 

I have always spoken about recognizing the profound boundary between Physical Reality and our individual and collective Mindscapes.  This is about psychology, this is about us recognizing personal limitations and gaining a better perspective for the grand stage of reality that we exist within.