The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins

The Fourth Principle: Each Person Has A Genuine Identity

By “genuine identity,” we mean something that is undeniable and yet ultimately
indefinable. We know we exist, and when we “look at the looker,” we experience a peculiar sensation of presence without articulation. What is true of ourselves individually must be true of all human beings, for surely our experience of self-existence is not unique. Let that person who denies his or her own existence demonstrate their non-existence by some proof. Little more need be said.

The Fifth Principle: The World Genuinely Exists

There may appear to be a vast gulf between our genuine identity and the world around us, but without mind we would know as little about the world as a rock, and be equally unable to formulate ideas about it. Mind reflects the light, sound, and other stimuli arising outside and within our body, and creates an image of the world in our mind that we call the world.

The reflective capacity of the mind is its “tautological nature.” The “tautological nature of the mind” is a term derived from the language of logic, that defines a tautology as a statement that is always true, like “A=A.” Similarly, the mind reflects what is delivered to the senses and recomposes an image of the world inside our awareness. Our senses are portals into this inner theatre, and our experience of the world is a marvelous composition, an intricate reflection, of our surroundings.

Because the mind creates a reflection, and this is our only contact with the world around us, some people question whether the world is not in fact an illusion that arises from the mind itself. Often called “solipsism,” this notion is rejected by the Oestian Path, because it requires belief in something for which there is no evidence – a mind separate from the world itself, in which the “illusion of the world” could appear.

The Oestian Path takes a common-sense approach to the world – we all see it, therefore, it exists. The world is reflected in our mind with variable accuracy, and subject to our experience. Infants, for example, are unaware of the existence of separate objects. When an object is removed from an infant’s field of vision, she does not seek to discover its whereabouts – she accepts its disappearance as a natural process in a world of changing shapes and colors.

Once a child conceives of the world as a gathering of separate objects, she will identify and give them names. She sees a silvery disk high in the sky and learns it is called the moon. As the years pass, she adds concepts to that name as we learn why it changes from a crescent to a circle and back again, and then we learn about the solar system and so forth and so on, until gradually, a whole system of astronomical concepts comes to envelop us, and we can speak of galaxies, metagalaxies, black holes, and the Big Bang. Our knowledge expands exponentially, and yet it is a type of knowledge of which Chuang Tzu said, “Great knowledge makes all into one. Small knowledge breaks things into parts. When there are parts, they must have names. There are enough names. One must know when to stop.”

It is not difficult to take a rest from the activity of naming, the endless pairing of perceptions with concepts, and the interactions of concepts with each other. There are many practices for loosening the net of conceptual thinking, and a practitioner can find lots of help and advice in developing this ability. What is most helpful, however, is to remember that the pre-verbal, pre-conceptual awareness is present at all times, a few moments of mental activity before the arising of names and notions. By remaining at the level of pre-verbal awareness, and watching as names and notions arise and dissolve, one will lose the sense of separation from genuine identity and taste direct knowledge.

We must, of course, allow ourselves to use names and notions to describe our world to ourselves and each other. A world of speechless beings is not our goal, but the experience of wordless awareness is necessary to self-knowledge and seeing the world and other people in true perspective. With an understanding of the distinction between objects and the names we associate with them, and the distinction between our genuine identity and the self-description we call our self-image, we are prepared to use the tautological nature of the conceptual mind creatively. We can understand that what we call things, and how we describe ourselves and other people determines how we experience life and choose to act. The tautological nature of conceptual mind dictates that things become more like what we think and say they are.

Because things come to resemble what we say they are, we must be attentive to the names we give things, and be certain those names are accurate. We are all prophets of our own destiny in a very substantial degree. Thus, in order to keep a firm ground for wholesome growth under our own feet, we must affirm, first, last and always, that we possess genuine identity. The source of this affirmation is as near as your own existence. No one can deny his or her own existence, and the very expression of the idea, “I do not exist,” negates its truth. If you do not exist, who is making the statement?

The tautological functioning of our minds makes us vulnerable to believing lies, accepting superstitions, and granting superior status to those who wear badges of authority. A considerable volume of speech and imagery is directed at us daily, directed at destroying our belief in our genuine identity. Appeals to nihilistic sentiment abound, in high-flown, scientific, philosophical and artistic forms, and in crude, depressing expressions common in popular culture. Thus, we must actively repel self-denying, nihilistic beliefs, and like removing poison darts that would leak toxins into our bloodstream, discard these bad ideas before they take root tautologically in our own thinking. We should clear the mirror of the mind so it reflects the genuine existence of the world and the genuine identity of our fellow living beings.