Nihilism: Signs & Symptoms

When subjective, emotional, criteria have dominated rational, falsifiable, criteria, the slippery slide down moralizing discourse reaches its inevitable destination within herd psychology.
An end, a finality, an absoluteness, is declared as the desirable by-product of a perceived median, which continues to decline as the motive of all-incusive uniformity must accommodate the lowest-common-denominator.
A form of self-deciet, and a concealment strategy.
Within a herd the individual feels safe from an indifferent world beyond its inter-subjectivity - full of unforeseen adversities and unknown predators.
A strategy that fertilizes the ground of its own infestation, when in the struggle to protect itself from the outside it cultivates the conditions for an internal weakness to increase - becoming vulnerable to diseases and parasites it has welcomed into its midst.

Sheltering makes the herd feeble...unable to cope with any hint of a world beyond its fabricated and willfully controlled environments.
Given enough time a prisoner cannot function outside incarceration - it becomes accustomed, intimate, addicted to a walled, esoteric, order - controlled by an external will, acting as its god.
The addict loses all ability to survive, or to cope outside predictable authoritarianism - like a parental entity, intervening to permit the mind to revert to a state of prepubescent immaturity, offering the opportunity of carefree play as compensation for the loss of freedom.

When Max Planck began University at the age of 16 to study Physics he was told by his professor, Philipp von Jolly: "In this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes." [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So when you hear someone declare a final end, know that you are before a nihilist who has found in the absolute nil a method of coping with his own personal mental and physical limitations - similar to someone declaring an absolute beginning; something out of nothingness, so to speak - where the nil is presumed to pre-exist all and everything that exists.
The nil either precedes or proceeds in the psychopathy of the mediocre masses that crave certainty and finality - an end to their existential anxieties, their incomprehensible and insatiable needs and sufferings - they need someone, something, to blame.

As noted - nihilism is a defensive ideological mechanism helping organic life cope with its developing self-awareness, exposing it to how it relates and compares with otherness.
Man suffers from what no other species on earth can ever suffer from, due to his emerging self-awarness, filling him with mental anxieties and insecurities, his brain is then tasked to deal with.
Nihilism is how the mind attempts to deal with these anxieties, realizing and taking advantage of the psychological power of semiotics - words and symbols, i.e., the power of language over the minds state of well-being, subsequently affecting the body.

In this case the mind of man can use language to construct alternate realities to the experienced one - absolute states of being, with ends & beginnings - with finality, completion and wholeness; language representing the absent absolute, offers an immutable, indivisible, singularity the mind can imagine but can never experience - can think but can never show, can name but can never produce.
All it can do is convince and gather around it those who suffer from the same psychopathy, finding a solution to its anxieties in multiplicity, i.e., hiding within the herd; immersing itself in otherness to escape itself, and the responsibilities of remaining distinct; disappearing within its uniformity, hoping the world will not see him and recognize him, as what he is, as what he sees himself as being, relative to others.

The gradual development of consciousness of self traps the individual in subjective confusions - beginning with the inner voice - conscience - being mistaken for external agencies - e.g., gods, spirits etc. - and now trapping the modern mind in its own abstractions - within its own subjectivity - confusing its own interpretations of reality for an alternate reality it can create and shape at will, with minimal effort, and with no discernable severe risks and costs.

Perhaps the entire process is not entirely unintentional - at least for a small minority - but is guided by motives other than the desire to engage the world and to clarify reality; guided by a desperate need to flee inward, hoping to escape an indifferent and mostly unknown - unknowable - state of fluctuating interactivities we experience as existence.
Language serves as a medium for encasing the mind within itself, hoping that the same semiotic codes will encompass and encase the "whole" of reality, in a self-referential universe, imagined as a cocoon perceived from an imaginary external point, "outside" existence.
It begins by detaching words from their utility as mediators between mind and world and convert them into seductive means to assimilate and indoctrinate multitudes of minds so as to construct an inter-subjective world comprised entirely of like-minded individuals - world redefined as humanity, or any organism that can be affected by semiotics.
Language - including mathematics - cease being representations, but become divine codes exposing god's mind; laws cease to be manmade perceptions of patterns, and become divine in origin, exposing sacred rules of conduct; semiotics become magical forces that can now affect everything, even that which remains indifferent to vocal or written commands.

When empires fall they leave behind primordial superstitions; all reverts to a state preceding its emergence, before a new Empire - with its own ideals, methods and goals - reorganizes what is deteriorating towards disorganized turmoil.
All cultures lead to civilization - imposing rules/laws over naturally evolved impulses and processes.
Genes to Memes.

A symptom of nihilistic infection is the amount of conventional thinkers it manufactures.
Pseudo-intelelctuals who are chained by word to convectional modes of thinking - imprisoned mentally by semiotics.

Some icons/idols invent their own terminology to reflect their novel ideas, e.g., Heidegger and Dasein, in which case appropriating the term would necessitate an adherence to its original application, but when it comes to everyday terms, like 'love', or 'will' or 'ego, then any adherence to an iconic figurehead exposes a mind submitting to religious thinking, e.g., to use the term 'ego' does not necessarily require an adoption of Freud's definitions and applications, nor does using the term 'will' mean I have to adopt Nieatzchean thinking, nor the use of the term 'love' require of me to also accept Christianity's mystifications of the term....therefore my use of the term 'meme' would not necessitate my acceptance of Dawkins use of it.
My only limit is the world and how the words I use refer to a world all conscious beings can witness, experience, and relate to.

But this is the seductive power of the nil. It intentionally detaches words from all external, empirical, references so as to redefine then as entirely idealistic, abstract, and subjective - some going as far as "defining words out of existence" so as to deny all challengers the pleasure of ridiculing and exposing the underlying errors and motives.

Consider the word 'morality' and how it is placed within nihilistic either/or absolute binaries.
Morality, in the minds of such degenerates, is either of divine origin, cosmic meaning, binding existence to its ethical codes, or it is non-existent -= either absolute universal morality or amorality....or morality is a power game, in Marxist contexts.
The third alternative is never even considered....returning 'morality' to tis earthly origins....as a utility, a survival behaviour that increases the probability of survival successfully; neither divine nor non-existent.
Morality "brought down to earth" from where all are to be held accountable, not by a conscious being but by causality - the consequences of interactivity, i.e., existence as it is expressed through natural selection agencies.


A confusing break occurred when Moses brought us the Ten Commandments, as God's will, imposing man-made caveats to pree-existing, naturally evolved, moral behaviours _ethical codes) - an example of memes intervening upon genes to make civilizations possible - add to this nihilistic memes that invert genetics, contradicting natural impulses...and you sense the motive behind it.

Just posted in Hyperborea by...

Kvasir wrote:

Replied to by...

Satyr wrote:

Christianity is spiritual nihilism that sees in secular nihilism an existential threat.
secular takes spiritual nihilistic ideas and renames them, replacing the absolutism ideal of a one-god with tis own secular variants, e.g., state, humanity, ego, order, and even the chaos itself.

Nihilism is binary, so it creates dualities, being the product of an organic mind that has evolved binary thinking to deal with fluctuating existence.
Nihilism is entirely linguistic, existing only as abstraction, in organic brains, and represented, externalized, semiotically, via words/numbers.

Any return to health - if it is at all possible at this stage - will have to revert back to previous phases of the development of the disease.
A return to Christianity, as Putin and many conservatives are attempting, is a return to the point of infection, i.e., when Judaism corrupted, i.e., infected, Indo-Euroepan, i.e., Hellenic, spiritualism, corrupting it into the form we've named Christianity, when it is more a product of Paul's mind.
If the return to health were to proceed uninterrupted then a return to heathenism would be the next step towards our liberation form an alien infestation, an alien spiritual disease, i.e., mental virus...
Victimhood reflects its defensive essence.

Skepticism is a cope-out for the post-modern hypocrite.
It implies reasoning but is, in effect, anti-reasoning.
Its movement is towards arbitrarily negating what causes it turmoil and distress, whereas healthy skepticism is ingrained in every hypothesis and is characterized by a movement towards an objective affirmation, unaffected by personal feelings and preferences.

Just as free-will of a master is defined by a "freedom to", and the free-will of a salve is defined by a "freedom from" so too is skepticism founded on integrity defined as a movement towards affirmations, and the movement/motive of a hypocrite lacking all integrity, is a selective, self-serving movement away from affirmation and a movement towards selective negation.

The natural state of suffering and the need for conflict go hand in hand. Suffering and need drive the individual toward a means to an end of suffering, or to an abatement of it. In other words, the need for a purpose, meaning or value which acts as the equilibrium of suffering. There is great meaning in war and conflict because it challenges the individual in real and tangible ways, ways that test real abilities. Kaczynski referred to this as the “Power Process” and looked at things exactly like video games as “surrogate activities”; artificial activities which substitute the need for a purpose in nature and a life of goal-oriented striving, that has been otherwise devalued or demoralized in modernity and sheltered environments. A domesticated animal will develop dysfunctions of aggression and anxiety because its instincts are subverted and will manifest a self-destructive impulse because it has no connection to any objectives distinct to its abilities; humans go through the same problem only with different symptoms. Kaczynski observed this subject rather clearly and so I reference him, because the need for purpose/power is what drives the impulse toward conflict, or the “death instinct”, because war will determine an outcome of something real, it leaves nothing to speculation, or subjective illusions, it is raw, and that has a galvanizing effect on the mind, it is exciting. Culture reflects the psycho-spiritual state of a civilization. The degeneracy of Hollywood and the violent imagery of video games all speak to the derangement of instinctual drives reduced to addictions and hedonism used as outlets for purpose.

McGilchrist, Iain wrote:

Magic is the way that the left hemisphere sees powers over which it has no control. This is similar to the paranoia which the left hemisphere displays in schizophrenia, in relation to the intuitive actions and thought processes stemming from the right hemisphere, ascribing them to alien forces, or malicious influence.

[The Master and His Emissary - The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World]

Magic, in its most conventional definition and understanding is entirely logocentric. Its psychosomatic effects have no effect on anything beyond minds that can be affected by semiotics – symbols/words triggering psychological anxieties, and the hopes used to deal with them, can then affect the body via the nervous system, viz., the brain being the hum where all external and internal data converge and are assimilated into mental models.
Seemingly magical effects are always based on superstitions that have become popular, or remain human expressions of vulnerability and existential angst; a fact exploited by charlatans who, in some cases, must believe in their own powers to make them seem effective, e.g., astrology has no discernible effect on any other organism other than Homo sapiens who have been thoroughly assimilate into a particular cultural paradigm, and remains unable to create any effect in species with no nervous system, or none that can be affected via symbols/words.
Such arbitrary effects expose the true source of power and the underlying motive.
Ironically, race is denied, on the ground that it is a “social construct,” – not environmentally determined over multiple regenerations – but astrological categories constitute an acceptable human categorization, implying astrological sub-species of man. Factually, astrology like many other ancient forms of extraordinary convictions, e.g., alchemy, transmutation etc. are a simplification and primitive form of recognizing environmental conditions in determining the range of effect of naturally inherited potentials – i.e., probabilities. We can speculate that seasonal effects do influence the development of an fœtus, in utero, but only within the limits imposed by its genotype; it isn’t the stars, nor the position of the planets, but the time of year, in conjunction with the location of the birth, affected by the earth’s magnetic field and climate, to position the potential within a genetically determined range of effect.

What's left to the modern man who has little chance of passing on his genes other than to seek refuge in some form of chemical or technological escapism, or to strive to become a father figure through his ideas, and/or his art.
Genetic fatherhood has been priced out of the average man's income range, leaving him with alternatives, such as to become a memetic father - as Nieatzchean has become the stepfather to millions of modern orphans - or to wallow away in destitution, distracting oneself to keep afloat upon tides of despair.

Modernity made male free-radicals impotent and harmless through advanced husbandry techniques and technological placations. Postmodernism is advanced modernity, leading the way to the retraining of man, social engineering the last man who will be nothing other than a lobotomized, castrated male - a surrogate female; a spirit that is ready and willing to submit to an absolutist, masculine, dogma/ideal, and is easily seduced by flattering, promising, semiotics.

Personalization/individualism are refined modes of conformity. This is what Orwellian psychology conditions; the inversion of reality and of self. Freedom is made freer by more enslavement, under the illusion that one feels more free, not that they are. A point that was made in the Matrix Trilogy in regard to this subject, 'One is more willing to accept the system as long as they were given a choice". The nature of this choice, of course, is that it was given to them.

Nihilism - both religious and specular - doesn't reinvent reality, it appropriates and semantically corrupts all relationships with it.
It, therefore, takes on the appearances of the traditions it appropriates from and then warps them.
This makes them insidious memetic viruses.

A sign and/or symptom of nihilistic infection - disease, mental disorder - is when a mind defers/refers exclusively to iconic experts rather than deferring/referring primarily to the experienced world.
When, for example, you believe you are making a "good point" by quoting another's words, uttered by some other mind, then you are truly trapped in semiotic self-referentiality - you are referring words to other words because you cannot refer your words to deeds, or to experienced interactions.
This is what I've described as minds of the book, for the book, by the book.
Minds connecting words to other words which connect to yet more words, and then discovering that it's all meaningless.
Well, yeah, you moron, your method and motive made it so.
You are intentionally, or by sheer stupidity, encasing yourself in the safety of circular reasoning, or word-salads that appear to be saying something profound when they are saying nothing, or you are simply using words to negate everything, even what you know is true...or what you fear is so.
There are plenty of "experts" or "intellectual" out there to offer you all kinds of quotes and snippets that negate almost anything you can imagine....because nihilism is word dependent.
It uses semiology - words and symbols - to create and to destroy arbitrarily, by making it all ideological and a power ploy - and then they denounce the concept of free-will, using words, ignoring actions, such as choices, intentionally defining concepts out of existence to either make them unfalsifiable, and therefore not requiring validation, or to make them incomprehensible and nonsensical, so that they need not offer superior, better, alternatives.

In brief...just because someone said so, does not make it so, no matter who this someone is.
Someone else also said so, only offers an additional validation to what can be shown to be so.
The action, interaction, takes precedence over the words, because words do not refer and defer to other words, but must refer and defer to deeds - unless you are a crypto-nihilsit, pretending to be a stringent skeptic or a profound mystic.

Nihilism begin with the ideal, and works backward - start way on top, and works its way downward - Top<>Down emoting.
The higher up it starts the more difficulty it finds its way back to a grounding - in fact it never does.
It's method attempts to integrate as much empirical, experienced, phenomena as possible, and if it cannot it simply redefines them, or constructs excuses or simply declares that it has accomplished what it cannot, concealing its failure in prose and mysticism - claiming that somewhere in the occult it has integrated it all into a concise singularity.

Realism works the other way - Bottom<>Up. It begins with the perceived and works its way upward, towards the ideal, and downward into the subterranean, metaphysical, without ever losing contact with its starting foundations in the real.
The real keeps it disciplined, limiting the mind to not go off into the surreal, or upwards into the supernatural, where all contact with the real is lost - they excuse themselves by calling this "salvation" or "freedom" in modern secular lingo.  What is another word form  "freedom"?
Yes, power.
So, you see how "power" is the carrot and the stick in nihilism.
A simulation - according to Baudrillard - of what is absent.
Simulated power by the powerless who then acquire power - ironically - via those that buy into the simulation.
Parasitism, in the memetic context.

When I speak of nihilistic memes - divided into two major categories: pure and positive - I am speaking of ideologies/dogmas - secular and religious - that determine the minds evaluating standard, expressed as a world-view, an attitude, relationship, with reality.

Nihilism attempts to detach mind from body - the noetic from the phenomenal - so it is essentially a defensive, feminine strategy - victim.
The meme protects the individual - particularly its ego = ludic consciousness - by encasing it in a self-referential, linguistic, cocoon.
This is why it refuses to clarify or to connect words with experienced phenomena; refuses to "bring them down to earth," or to connect them with what is aesthetically percentile, viz., it flourishes when concepts are left ambiguous, vague, obscure, mystical.

For example their conception of "god" is disconnected from the perceptible world and becomes a projection of abstractions that idealize itself or otherness.
Free-Will is disconnected from the activity, the act of choosing, the experience of wilfully intending, and is ascribed to a occult agency, a Deus ex Machina, an imperceptible, incomprehensible authoritarian power.

Since existence is experienced as need/suffering such semiotic detachments are experienced as pleasing - a partial and momentary relief from existence

Anti-Empirical.
What appears to be so, is actually not so.
Therefore, what appears different and multiple, is actually the same, and a singularity.
What appears to be acting on tis own volition is actually acting on behalf of another's or coerced by an external force.
The cause of this appearance can never be conclusive, ergo, for the nihilist, this is evidence enough to dismiss it completely. See...absence of completion , as an absolute one - is reason for complete negation.
The absence of absolutes is the reason why absolute nil is formidable in these psychotics.
That which is apparent, and known, can be rejected on the grounds of what is not apparent and unknown - everything.
The subjective becomes the fall-back position, e.g., since nothing can ever be absolutely certain then whatever I choose to believe - whether it is of my free volition or part of universal volition - is just as valid.
Though I profess to be rational, when it is convenient I can defer to the unreasonable; though I profess to be evidence based in my thinking, when it is convenient I will defer to what lacks evidence, given that evidence can never be absolutely conclusive.
So, I see someone making a choice, I experience this in myself,, but I must evoke an occult source for my experience.

This is arbitrarily applied....because nihilists are hypocrites, hiding behind skepticism when they never apply it when it does not suit them.
So, I may see the clouds moving in the sky but I cannot trust my senses, having lost faith in my experiences and my mind's judgments, so I assume there is something else occurring.
I see two organisms differently but I cannot trust my senses, having lost all faith in my experiences and my mind's ability to judge, so I must assume that they are not actually different...if I am not a hypocrite and am able to apply my own "logic" uniformly and not arbitrarily.
I perceive someone acting but I must assume that there is no one actually acting - because....well, because I want to conceal myself from being perceived as an active agency.

Because nihilism is now becoming a very popular ideology ewe are forced to lower ourselves to their level where they have an advantage, or risk the consequences of letting them be.
So, we must combat their absolutism with absolutes....creating paradoxes of their making.

Christians, for example, demand that their conception of a one-god, absolute totalitarian authority, ought to be disproven....turning the tables- in their minds, upon infidels.
Another tactic of "exposing their enemies", very popular among nit-wits, is claiming that the negation of an absolute is itself an absolute.
This shows the level of their comprehension.
They often use the example "The truth is there is no truth"...and they have no clue why this linguistic paradox merges.
The level of IQ is sub-stadard and if not for their numbers intelligent men should ignore them.
But if they are ignored the multiply and gain power because they are so easily exploited and manipulated with the clever use and abuse of words by all kinds of degenerate charlatans.
Their naiveite, and idiocy, makes them dangerous in large numbers.

Beauty is nature’s establishment of fitness and symmetry; moreover, it is a hierarchical standard situating an inferior/superior distinction. The attack on beauty/order/symmetry, is the attack on nature itself and its cruelty against those it does not flatter, those filled with self-hatred or resentment, the hatred against this natural standard which acts as selective determinism for what is considered healthy, strong. To a culture of envious self-hating degenerates, looking at something beautiful is a reflection of their ugliness and so it must either be destroyed or corrupted. Modern art corrupts beauty to invert this natural hierarchy standard; they ascribe to it reasons of “uniqueness” or “rebelliousness” whatever, to conceal this motive. Beauty also acts as a pressure to succeed. The nature of an ideal is to influence a will to strive towards a higher and more superior self. The degenerate cannot overcome its inferiorities and so the only other option is to eliminate what threatens them.

Nihilism - no matter what kind; no matter if it is spiritual or secular - is linguistic idealistic inversion of the real.
Partially or totally, it always tries to flip the world upside down and inside out.

I am no performer...I am a diagnostician.

My diagnosis for how nihilism emerges is given in this thread and all over this forum.

Definition
Nihilism
Any ideology/dogma which contradicts sensually experienced reality, replacing it with abstractions - ideas, ideals, concepts - with no external referents, entirely founded on semiotics, i.e., words, numbers, symbols.

Source
Emerging self-awareness exposing mind to itself and how it is perceived by others - objective view of oneself, sense of being exposed to the world, increasing insecurity and sense of vulnerability.

Effect
Defensiveness. A need to conceal oneself. A desire to control and shape another's perception. A desire to impose oneself upon other. A desire to eliminate judgment and juxtapositions of oneself with another. A desire to negate self or to immerse self in another. A desire to make oneself incomprehensible to another. A desire to erase or redefine competition or the standards used to evaluate self and another.
Flight/Fight.

The beauty of nihilistic dogmas, whether they be secular or spiritual, is their inapplicability.
They are always misinterpreted or misunderstood. Nobody, until the latest demagogue, truly understands them and will apply them properly.
Often using ambiguous language, they remain perfect in theory to the degree that they remain unrealistic and forever impotent and inapplicable.
Every time they are applied, by some daring naïve idealist, they fail, suffer a decline and then someone else discovers their "true meaning", someone finally get it and know how to apply them properly, having learned from all the previous failures.

But they can never succeed.
Their perfection is of the mind, and if they are brought out into the physical, where the body exists, they fail to produce what they promised in theory.
The larger the claim the more certain its failure.

Nihilistic dogmas and ideologies always propose the possibility that it is misunderstood and misinterpreted, and if only it were properly understood and interpreted it could be properly applied and its perfection appreciated.
Well, all inapplicable, unrealistic, theories can claim the same.
The idea is always perfect, always well-meaning, in the mind, and it always fails, or produces atrocities and monstrosities when applied in a world indifferent to human intentions.
It's always the case that when such dogmas are exposed they always claim to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, and there's always a charlatan around that understands it better than it has before, and so its promise can finally be fulfilled if it is, once more, applied under the guidance of this new messiah.

World is where ideas go to die.
But they never do as long as one or more of you come together in its name...
It is continuously reincarnated and adjusted to the prevailing circumstances.
The language remaining malleable enough to be continuously reinterpreted and resurrected, and there will be fools across generations and borders for them to take advantage.
Anchoring language to the earth, the tangible, the experienced, limits their options for exploitation; asking for a definition that renders the concept a word represent falsifiable, testable, independently validated, takes away their nihilistic advantage.

Social media is exemplar of this. A transhuman digital "Borg" collective mind; individuals unable to think without comparing one's thoughts with the multitude of inane voices on a screen, regurgitating the same talking points. A total detachment with reality, where only what ideas trend, become popular, or are considered the most important, are part of the real world. The influence of this artificial group think is so powerful that it doesn't just shape opinions of the world, but it will affect emotions and the very personal identity of those are part of it. It becomes their identity. Satyr made a point recently about the diseases of urban cities compared to rural environments. When the mind becomes separated from nature, from the real world, and immersed in a man-made setting crammed in with others who are also separated, than what remains is an ideological superstructure where ideas become purely subjective; ideas then, just as the individual does, also becomes detached from reality and must compensate for the absence of physical and spiritual connection to the world by creating psychological dependencies, anxieties, mental disorders, delusions etc.

This inter-subjectivity.
Minds referring to other minds, via texts; words referring to more words.
The icon/idol being a conduit towards reality, when reality is all around them.

If you notice, on ILP, all they discuss is what someone else said about something or about the world they occupy.
Reality is engaged through proxies, mediating minds they hide behind....like Nietzsche, or Jesus, or their preferred idol.
This is cult of personality in real time.
the idol's words are held to be infallible, sacred....used to validate their opinions.

Krypsis is often used to evade detection.
Motive concealed beneath prose to imply depths of meaning where there is only vacuousness. the motive is what is being concealed.
The interlocutor can evade being perceived. He states nothing clearly, pretending that to understand you must be an initiate or part of the gifted, when, in fact, the motive is to remain concealed - occult - gaining the advantage of "plausible deniability" but denial, as well - power of nil.
The speaker can claim to be misunderstood, or to claim to be understood in accordance with a desired objective - e.g., sometimes he is this, then he is that, then another.
The words are used in as way so as to remain flexible to opportunistic motives.

Dare I call it a feminine tactic?

The method is similar to that used to sell abstract art to the hapless.
If you do not see the meaning of the work you cannot appreciate it. To appreciate it proves you understood - appreciation via the monetary exchange of salvation.
Money is Messiah.
The purchaser is saved from his dullness, his impoverished inheritance.
Most pretend to understand so as to be included among those few who "get it" - are sophisticated, cultured, cultivated, chosen, worthy.
The work itself is, of course, entirely void of meaning. It is a clever tapestry of triggering symbols producing a state of mind.
The potential buyer participates in the creation of meaning; he purchases the right to impose meaning upon its meaninglessness.

Nonsense heals those that have become ill through sensual exposure.
Nonsense comforts the world weary, and heals those traumatized by reality.