1984

In the novel “1984,” the lead character O'Brien stubbornly holds onto his perception and his personal "memories" as objective reality in spite of the opposition of those who control him. He ultimately fails, as I guess would happen if brainwashing is persistent enough and has the technology needed.

O'Brien thinks there is an objective reality "out there." Big Brother asserts that what is in O'Brien's head as objective reality is an illusion -- and, indeed, a counter-revolutionary and therefore intolerable illusion. We cannot be allowed to remember as history what we experienced but only what the authorities have decided what history was.

Maybe the authorities are right; that there is no objective reality. Memories can be manipulated: we cannot trues even the evidence of our senses to not be fooled by some illusion or trick. Of course to function we assume there really is an objective reality, and I think there probably is one, but as physics pushes on we come to realize that whatever it is it is a lot further away from our personal existence than we even begin to imagine.

All illusions necessarily have something under them that generates the illusion. When someone asserts something is an illusion, one excellent refutation is to ask for the underlying reality. It may be that the reality is itself just a deeper illusion, one wonders how far that might go.

There are several things that I wonder maybe are illusions, as I can see underlying things that could underly them as causes. Causation is one, another of course is space and time. Then there is mind and there is free will: the modern mechanistic materialist is I think forced to assert that these too are illusions, but what could be the underlying reality? Brain neurons firing away do not demonstrate any way to generate such an illusion.