A Philosophical and Spiritual Conversation with Betty part two

 Betty: So all of my real experiences in combination became an unreal ghost?

The Philosopher: Right. But you called the combination a ghost which means you were trying to make it real.

Betty: But the combination although real was not real?

The Philosopher: The combination itself was not real. All of the elements of the false combination were real.

Betty: But if all of the elements of the false combination were real, then the ghost itself was really nothing.

The Philosopher: That is right. But the nothingness which was the ghost is also real.

Betty: How so?

The Philosopher: The idea of nothing in your mind happens to be very useful in your life, and therefore, it has to be real. You use the real idea and experiences of nothing to separate every individual object and idea in your mind from every other individual object and idea. Unreality is always useless.

Betty: How so?

The Philosopher: That chair you are sitting on is no other chair in the world but that chair. Take yourself for example. You are conscious of yourself as being no other individual in the world but yourself. The word no means nothing. You know by experience that every person in the world is something not nothing, and yet, in order to identify yourself as a separate individual person from all other persons, you have to use the idea of nothing to consider all of the other persons to be in the category of nothing so that you can identify yourself as a separate, individual person. In other words, you know by the use of the idea of nothing that you are not any other person but yourself.

Betty: But could you not use that idea of nothing to consider yourself the only real person?

The Philosopher: You could. That is the philosophy of solipsism. But you use the idea of nothing only as a means to identify yourself as being separate from all other persons. At the same time, you recognize by your real experiences that all other persons are real.

Betty: So your experiences are the same as your reality?

The Philosopher: Right.

Betty: Then if all false combinations of real experiences, such as ghosts or unicorns, only appear as combinations of real experiences then where is the unreality of false combinations if they all equal the real and useful idea of nothing?

The Philosopher: Unreality never appears to consciousness because consciousness can only experience that which is real.

Betty: But if all experiences are real, including the idea of nothing, then how did we ever get the idea that false combinations are not real?

The Philosopher: We try to make all false combinations real, but when we realize by logic that they cannot be real, then we equate them with the idea of nothing which is real. In other words, we can only experience reality. We never directly experience unreality.

Betty: But if we can experience only reality, how did we ever get the idea that a false combination must be unreal? I experienced a false combination of real experiences that I called a ghost. Yet, the ghost was not real. How is that possible?

The Philosopher: You were trying to make the ghost real even though you knew it could not be real. You used the real idea of nothing to indirectly identify its unreality.

Betty: But if everything that I saw in combination was real, including the idea of nothing, then how was I able to say that the ghost was not real?

The Philosopher: The false combination of real experiences was not real. You used the real idea of nothing to indirectly identify the false combination as being nonexistent.

Betty: So even though I experienced a false combination of real experiences, that false combination in reality cannot exist.

The Philosopher: No human consciousness ever directly experiences nonexistence. Humans must always use real experiences and ideas to construct false combinations which always equals the idea of nothing which, in turn, human consciousness uses to indirectly obtain the idea of nonexistence which humans never directly experience.