"If everything is illusory then all observations are also illusory. You can't tell when you are stuck in the illusion.
This is almost a separate topic. Your statement could lead someone to believe that nothing is real and it is impossible to make any sense of our existence in a practical and reality based manner. Philosophically people fall into all kinds of traps like that, Zeno's paradoxes for example. We are able, however, to filter and synthesise experience to combine the ideas formed in our imagination with our perception of experience.
Usually we use the word 'deluded' when we think someone is stuck in an illusion of their own making. Otherwise we consider illusions to be tricks played on the senses. It might be a natural illusion like the optical illusion of water on the desert or it could be man made. We filter them that way and are even entertained by them. When we are deceived by a trick that is meant to harm us or benefit someone else at our expense we consider that a crime against humanity.
We know the magician is using slight of hand, magnetism, smoke and mirrors or some other form of illusion. But we know it is an illusion.
We willingly open ourselves to other types of illusions, like literature, story telling, or movies where we temporarily suspend reality to imagine an experience. But we know we aren't actually having the experience.
When being creative we deliberately alter our perception of reality in order to find inspiration for some productive thought or work. Some people even go to extremes like using hallucinogenic drugs.
We engage in ceremony to form mental images, understand concepts, and attribute particular meanings to the fabric of society. But we know it is ceremonial.
So in these cases and others the mind invents some ideas that aren't necessarily represented by objective experience. Philosophy, religion, tradition, culture, and individual experience all play a part in clarifying what is illusory and what is not.
My application of the term was a little more abstract but also self explanatory. So it shouldn't be too confusing. If it is, I would be happy to clarify.
"They are illusory divisions of people into ideological groupings which inevitably betray their own ideological foundations in corruption of core principle to cleanse ‘evil’ from their midst, paradoxically committing the most heinously brutal crimes in recorded history, over and over again. This predictable outcome never fails." |
