Introduction to Figmentalism

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Do you really want to live in an imaginary world? The answer is probably "no" but the idea that everything could be a figment of your imagination is an interesting concept. Actually after much deliberation on the subject, it seems difficult to think otherwise. The "Real" world concept is rife with theories such as String, Big Bang, Evolution and Creation. None have ever come close to being proven so it might seem prudent to step back a bit and examine our method of explaining and dealing with existence.

We exist. The mere fact that we can question our origin means we are fully self-realized entities. We did not experience any creation except the daily development into our own mental maturity. We live within what we know as our "brain". We and the world we occupy are completely recorded within our memory and that can be accepted whether we believe in a real world or not. Every thing and every concept has a mental counterpart but which came first?

Dreaming gives us the clue that it is possible to imagine reality without it actually being there. In a dream we are still composed as a human and still rely on our senses to feel, hear and see etc. Things can seem very real or perhaps dreamlike, or we may even realize that we are dreaming but our brain acts as the sole engine of the experience without any assistance whatsoever. It isn’t a very large leap to postulate that the same might be true when we waken.

The idea of Figmentalism has probably been around for as long as the question of existence itself. Any broad discussion of life will prompt at least one person to query "Maybe it’s all imaginary" and there may even be some consensus but that is as far as the offering will go. Perhaps if we provide a scientific study to the figmentalist approach we might be tempted to consider this an alternative to realism.

For thousands of years a philosophical / metaphysical battle has been fought between Idealists and Realists. Aristotle was the most famous Realist - Plato, Berkeley and Kant the most famous Idealists. Ultimately you realize that the only definitive outcome can occur if Reality is actually discovered, as this would end all speculation and doubt by finding in favor of the Realists. The important point here is that realism has yet to be confirmed.

The concept of realism has some major problems. The main shortcoming is that after long years of attempting to verify reality by finding the building blocks of matter, we have failed bitterly. All the cyclotrons in our world have come up with nothing more than decaying particle traces and the most complex math and theory ever devised.

Why physicists are unable to realize that the reason that they can’t find matter is simply because it may not exist in the first place, could be explained in a variety of ways. Humans have a natural gravity toward realism. The tangible, aural and optical world that exists beyond us is thought of as our Mother, hence Mother Earth. What would our lives be like if we collectively create the very environ in which we exist. Could scientific study continue if physicists actualized the very molecules under their microscopes?

If Figmentalism were proven to be true then there would be some very new fundamental laws to what we know as "Our Universe". Scientific study could continue in this vein. Since we would realize that there really is no matter or energy as we previously knew it, there must be some way that memory is stored so we are still left with a studyable enigma. Existence on the basis of "what you see is what you get" means that everything is constructed of nothing and conforms to a so-called Figmentalist Fundamental Paradox Law: Existence requires a balance with non-existence.

Namron Soar

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