The Value of Objective Reality:
As I think I made abundantly clear in the introduction, we keep finding newer and better ways to kill each other and otherwise f*ck things up, faster than we find ways to resolve our differences. Six billion people, one planet, limited resources, lots of weapons. One way or another, we’re quickly running out of options.
Regardless of how individual people want to interpret the world or feel people should interpret the world, the world is full of people who all have their own opinions, and a lot of those opinions disagree. We all live in the same physical universe, and the properties of that universe are equally measurable by everyone. By definition, any form of subjective reality is not measurable by anyone other than the individual perceiving that version of reality. This one scientifically measurable objective universe is the common ground that we all share. What’s more, all the components of our brains that shape our subjective interpretations of objective reality exist within the objective universe, which means we can objectively study the sources of our subjectivity. To ignore that opportunity would be a mistake. This looks like it should be pretty obvious, but as you will see throughout the course of this book, people constantly have trouble distinguishing subjectivity from objectivity.









