The crisis of illusion defines the paradoxical human condition: our profound yearning for objective truth is perpetually undermined by our inherent subjectivity, a remarkable capacity for self-deception, and a unique vulnerability to manipulation. This essay argues that these fundamental aspects of human nature not only preclude a purely scientific understanding of human behavior but actively enable the construction of manufactured realities, both within the individual mind and across society. This work will trace how this crisis manifests from philosophical concepts and personal trauma to the insidious art of propaganda, culminating in a call to critical understanding and the relentless pursuit of genuine truth.
From my earliest memories, I’ve been captivated by the ambition to forge a scientific understanding of human behavior. It’s a pursuit that has spanned centuries, often dismissed as a fool's errand – a quest inherently flawed, doomed by the very nature of human perception. Consider Marx, whose grand vision of societal evolution, as Stalin later described in his writings on dialectical materialism, ultimately failed. His deterministic predictions foundered not merely on abstract theory, but on the unpredictable, non-mechanistic nature of human belief and action. The human element, it seems, defied his neat equations, a clear early sign of this pervasive crisis.
Marxist philosophical materialism posits that the world and its laws are fully knowable. Our understanding of natural laws, rigorously tested by experiment and practice, yields authentic knowledge with the validity of objective truth. It asserts that nothing in the world is inherently unknowable; rather, there are only phenomena not yet understood, awaiting discovery through diligent scientific effort and practical application. This objective ideal stands in stark contrast to idealism, which denies the possibility of knowing the world and its laws, distrusts the authenticity of human knowledge, rejects objective truth, and claims the world is filled with inscrutable "things-in-themselves." But what if these "things-in-themselves"—the truly unknowable, the source of our deepest illusions—are, in fact, us?
Paradoxically, in one of modern history's greatest ironies, a potent counter-argument to Stalin's rigid thesis emerged from an unexpected source: George Soros. In his Budapest Lectures, Soros delivered what he suggested Freud might term "physics envy," challenging the very foundations of scientific certainty when applied to human systems. These are systems where the observer is inextricably part of the observed, influencing the very reality they attempt to understand. This is precisely where the crisis of illusion takes root: in our inability to objectively separate ourselves from the reality we perceive and, crucially, influence.
Soros's critique draws heavily from Karl Popper, who argued that scientific laws are fundamentally hypothetical. They cannot be definitively verified but can be falsified through rigorous testing. The power of the scientific method, Popper emphasized, lies in its ability to test universal generalizations using singular observations. A single failed test is enough to falsify a theory, yet no amount of confirming instances can ever definitively verify it. Popper thus championed critical thinking, asserting that scientific laws are provisionally valid and perpetually open to reexamination. He championed the dismantling of false certainties—a crucial step in addressing the crisis of illusion.
While Popper’s framework excels in the study of natural phenomena, the "human uncertainty principle" introduces a profound complication that directly contributes to our crisis of illusion. This principle disrupts the supreme simplicity and elegance of Popper’s scheme, undermining the symmetry between prediction and explanation due to an inherent element of uncertainty in human-related predictions. Consequently, the central role of testing, so crucial to Popper, is jeopardized. How can we truly test human behavior when the act of observation might alter it, or when our understanding is always subjective, filtered through our own inherently fallible perceptions? The very consciousness, free will (or the illusion of it), and constantly evolving nature of human thought and belief make definitive prediction and stable "laws" incredibly difficult, if not impossible. This complexity also introduces us to the realm of chaos theory, where small, unpredictable inputs yield vastly different outcomes, mirroring the unpredictable patterns of human society.
The core dilemma arises when considering the initial and final conditions of an experiment involving human participants: Should their thinking be included or excluded? If included, observing these conditions becomes difficult, as participants' views can only be inferred from their statements or actions. If excluded, the conditions cease to be singular observations, because identical objective circumstances can be associated with vastly different views held by individuals. In either scenario, generalizations about human behavior cannot be properly tested, leaving us with an inherent illusion of absolute predictability.
This inherent limitation leads Soros to his concept of reflexivity, a cornerstone of his understanding of social and economic systems. His core idea rests on two relatively simple propositions that lay bare the mechanisms of this illusion, particularly in markets and, as I would tragically discover, in the very fabric of my own fractured reality:
The Principle of Fallibility: In situations involving thinking participants, their view of the world is inherently partial and distorted.
The Principle of Reflexivity: These distorted views can actively influence the situation to which they relate, as false beliefs often lead to inappropriate actions, creating a feedback loop between perception and reality. What we believe to be true can, astonishingly, make it true, at least for a time.
These concepts, in turn, form the bedrock of my own studies into Information Theory, particularly as it applies to human systems. Krzysztof Urbanowicz, for instance, encapsulates this chaotic interplay of human perception and unpredictable outcomes in economics with a premise that borders on the paradoxical. His work, which explores the profound randomness in financial markets while hinting at hidden deterministic components, perfectly illustrates the limits of prediction when human belief drives the system:
"Most of the people working on stock market are almost sure that the data are likely to be unpredictable, so that it is difficult to have universal in time and space method to collect money. We can say also, that there are the ways of making the profit for very simple reason, because there are people that do it and got rich on stock market investments. From Physics point of view the data, that we are dealing with, are likely to be stochastic, not linearly correlated on scales larger than an hour. Randomness is dominant in such data but we think that there are deterministic components, which can be reveal by some method but complex, nonlinear method."
This directly connects to the "uncertainty principle." This principle, familiar from quantum mechanics, states that we cannot simultaneously measure the position (x) and momentum (p) of a particle with absolute precision; greater accuracy in one leads to less accuracy in the other.
Similarly, we can never truly know the absolute mind of any given individual. Each person is unique, making precise behavioral prediction impossible. What we can do, however, is identify common traits across humanity as a whole. This understanding then leads us to the concept of the Hermeneutic Circle. As Friedrich Schleiermacher claimed, this represents "the foundational law of all understanding and knowledge": "to find the spirit of the whole through the individual, and through the whole to grasp the individual."
For fans of Full Metal Alchemist, this resonates deeply with the underlying foundation of Alchemy in that epic saga: "All is One, and One is All." It speaks to a universal connection that transcends individual differences, suggesting that while the individual is unpredictable, patterns exist in the collective, hinting at a shared, yet often illusory, understanding of reality.
This interconnectedness leads to a seemingly obvious conclusion: our cultural upbringing profoundly shapes our perception of the universe. We are, to a significant extent, products of our environment. Yet, this isn't an exclusive rule; much of our worldview is also rooted in our biological makeup. The interplay between these forces creates our unique understanding, but also contributes to our individual 'illusions' – the subjective lens through which we interpret existence, and by which we can be deceived.
It's no accident that I've dedicated so much time to studying behavioral science. For me, it was a matter of survival, a desperate attempt to understand the forces that shaped my own fractured reality. As a child, I was a survivor of a very violent sexual assault. This trauma led to the development of a dissociative personality disorder, commonly referred to as PTSD. In its most pronounced forms, it manifests as Multiple Personality Disorder. Dissociation takes many forms, and one case particularly fascinated me: a woman I met years ago on a survivor site. She seemed surrounded by a vivid cast of internal characters—one a villain, another a hero. As I grew closer to her, she would suddenly scream that her villain was threatening her, consumed by fear. Her imagination was fantastic; she told the most brilliant stories. While hers was an extreme case, such dissociation is not uncommon among survivors. It is an environmentally induced mental illness, a profound example of the mind creating its own 'illusion' as a coping mechanism, a desperate attempt to reconcile unbearable truths. This personal experience offered a visceral understanding of Soros's principle of reflexivity, demonstrating how internal 'distorted views' can manifest as a profoundly altered reality, shaping a person's entire perceived world.
In truth, I had a lifeline, though I didn't recognize it at the time. My father was a specialist in mental illness, yet he never truly grasped what was unfolding before his eyes. He observed the behavior but couldn’t perceive its underlying reality. To him, I was simply a hostile youth lashing out at authority. My power had been stripped, and I was consumed by rage. Despite this, he inadvertently gave me the tools to survive. I absorbed his experiences in a way no one else could. I remember his retirement, after over a decade spent running a prison ward for the mentally ill. Tears welled in his eyes as he said, "I just wanted to help, and there was nothing I could do." I understood the pain in his heart; I lived through it with him. His efforts were not in vain; he saved me. And now, I pass on his experiences, another way of seeking to understand the human mind's construction of reality and the illusions it can harbor.
When I was a junior in high school, I took a remarkable class: advanced reading, or "Krinology" as we called it—a term unique to that highly experimental course, focused on the deeper understanding and rapid assimilation of complex texts. One of the topics we explored was schizophrenia. I was fascinated. For an essay assignment, I went straight to my dad. He handed me his DSMR2A, the field guide for mental health diagnosis at the time. He asked me to present the material to my class, and then to his other classes. I spoke about schizophrenia—the neurons in the brain overloading, firing past their mark—and schizophreniforms, a temporary condition with similar symptoms. We discussed how, according to the science of the day, mental illness was often classified as a biological condition. He harbored hesitation about this, believing too many mental illnesses were simply dismissed as biological because it made diagnosis and medication easy. "That was pop psychology," he'd say. Even today, if a child acts up, they're often given drugs. Too many children are being over-medicated for every minor quirk, and that remains a significant problem in the field—a problem rooted in a flawed understanding of human complexity and a simplistic view of mental illusion.
Of course, what made Krinology so fascinating was its emphasis on speed reading. The abundance of quotes in my work stems directly from that class. Our final test involved 1000 word roots. For instance, "instance": in (to indicate a set) + stance (a stated opinion), thus "instance" (to indicate a set of a stated opinion). To help us learn, he gave us keywords to trigger memory responses: "In: to ___ ; Stance: a ___." This was my first introduction to meta-memory, the ability to think about one's own memory, and another layer in the "crisis of illusion" – the awareness of our own mind’s potential for deception, and thus, its capacity for self-correction.
Many years later, I continued my studies on meta-memory, by then having lived through significant experiences. I had long since graduated from community college and spent years exploring Seattle in the 90s—an incredible experience. We were at the height of the music scene, and the Clinton economy was booming. Every night offered a different club, or the same ones; many were within walking distance. Eventually, I grew bored, hitchhiked across the US, and landed in Memphis to celebrate the millennium on Beale Street. Years later, I enjoyed jamming with the band there. B.B. King put on a great show as the destined hour arrived. I journeyed on, spent a year on the Continental Divide, and then returned home to enroll at the University a month after 9/11.
I remained fascinated by meta-memory, the study of memory itself. One of my key takeaways was the distinction between declarative memory and its subdivisions: episodic and semantic memory. I characterize these more descriptively as first- and third-person memories. For a class project, I chose the topic of memory repression. That might have been a mistake; I delved too deeply, wanting to understand what was happening to me. I found my answer, and three months later, I experienced a total memory breakdown. This was not merely an academic exercise; it was a devastating confrontation with my own mind’s ability to create and sustain illusions to protect itself from unbearable truths. The ground beneath me utterly gave way.
One of the fundamental truths of mental health is that we define what is normal by studying what is abnormal. At the time of my study, I had endured years of memory repression. The research indicated that repression was a natural occurrence, generally leading to a more positive outlook. Yet, in my experience, it wasn't truly repression; it was a process of dissociation. This subtle yet critical distinction highlights how the mind can construct a false reality to cope with trauma, creating a personal crisis of illusion where truth becomes a flexible concept—a horrifying echo of Soros's reflexivity principle applied to the individual psyche.
Let’s return to declarative memory. The clinical terms are episodic and semantic; I call them first- and third-person memories because these labels are more descriptive of the process. In a first-person memory, the individual recalls the event as if they were the player on the field. This is the initial process of memory encoding, where the memories show the event in vivid detail. A third-person memory is like watching events from the stadium—an observer watching the event unfold. This is an emotive memory, focusing on how one felt about the event. It’s the most common experience someone might have of an event like 9/11. We all remember watching the buildings collapse on TV; we all remember how we felt. (At least, those of us old enough to remember.) Now, remember where you were? That’s a first-person memory. I was feeding a blast furnace under the airport. I remember watching the planes land. I remember feeding the flames. Recall your own experiences: the first, of the TV; the second, of where you were. The emotive response is distinctly different.
The profound emotional complexity of trauma often forces the mind into a state of dissociation, occurring precisely in this liminal space between first- and third-person memories. Consider a survivor of sexual abuse, for instance, who might only access the third-person perspective of their trauma. They remember that their father loved them, blacking out the assault: "This is not happening; no, no, my father loves me; this is love." Abuse then turns to love: "It wasn't abuse; it was love; love is abuse." This is the ultimate, self-imposed illusion, a survival mechanism born of profound conflict, a terrifying example of reflexivity within the mind itself that distorts reality for a perceived sense of safety.
Therein lies the art of propaganda.
The propagandist, in a technical sense, exploits a logical flaw akin to what Bertrand Russell exposed in Gottlob Frege's foundational work on set theory. Imagine trying to define a 'set of all sets that do not contain themselves.' This leads to a paradox—a fundamental self-contradiction, a logical collapse. Similarly, propaganda thrives by creating false equivalencies, subtly redefining a 'green apple' (a specific, nuanced truth) as a 'red apple' (a simplified, desired narrative). It convinces the audience that a specific truth applies universally, or that two distinct things are equivalent, bypassing rational thought and appealing directly to emotion. This deliberate manipulation of categorization and definition makes it a perfect tool for manufacturing illusion.
In such a clinically sterile form, the sleight of hand is easily spotted. Yet, in my earlier example involving sexual abuse, where emotional truth is distorted into a self-preserving lie, it becomes profoundly more difficult to discern—not for an external observer, but for the child trying to reconcile such powerful, contradictory emotions. This is the fertile ground for the crisis of illusion on an individual level.
The true secret of propaganda lies in creating a mythos. A mythos isn't just a story; it's a deeply resonant narrative that taps into the collective unconscious, speaking to universal human desires for belonging, security, identity, or justice. People don't vote based on policy; that’s not how human thinking predominantly operates. The battle of ideas is fought through images, by touching that part of the soul that reaches deep within for an inner truth. This truth can never be an illusion in itself; it must be a real conviction, a justice that demands to be righted. People fight for a heroic cause, for a deeply held conviction that they believe is absolute, even if that conviction is based on a manufactured reality. The most potent myths play on our deepest fears of human betrayal or our yearning for a promised utopia, weaving intricate tapestries of shared belief that bind and blind.
At this juncture, I introduce my arch-nemesis: Steve R. Pieczenik, MD, PhD. His career began as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Henry Kissinger. A Harvard University-trained psychiatrist, his expertise spans foreign policy, international crisis management, and psychological warfare. This man is truly the best at what he does. He understands exactly what I'm talking about—the manipulation of perception, the creation of persuasive illusions on a mass scale, and how to wield them as weapons. He is the intellectual architect behind figures like Alex Jones and the Alt-Right movement, consistently promoting narratives such as an impending U.S. takeover, which, like the "New World Order" mythos, plays on the deepest fears of human betrayal, cultivating a collective illusion of danger and ultimate truth, making millions believe in a reality that serves his agenda. And while I may be nobody—just working a 9-to-5 job, utterly unnoticeable, certainly not part of any elite—I abandoned that aspiration long ago. I wanted to be real, just a person on the street, precisely to understand the pervasive impact of these illusions on everyday life.
Joseph Campbell, quoting Sigmund Freud, illuminates this crisis of truth and the deceptive nature of such crafted illusions:
"The truths contained in religious doctrines are after all so distorted and systematically disguised," writes Sigmund Freud, "that the mass of humanity cannot recognize them as truth. The case is similar to what happens when we tell a child that newborn babies are brought by the stork. Here, too, we are telling the truth in symbolic clothing, for we know what the large bird signifies. But the child does not know it. He hears only the distorted part of what we say, and feels that he has been deceived; and we know how often his distrust of the grown-ups and his refractoriness actually take their start from this impression. We have become convinced that it is better to avoid such symbolic disguising's of the truth in what we tell children and not to withhold from them a knowledge of the true state of affairs commensurate with their intellectual level."
Herein lies the crisis of illusion, so carefully crafted and so deeply ingrained, both personally and societally. It is a fundamental challenge to human understanding and social cohesion.
If manipulation thrives on manufactured realities, then the counter-force lies in cultivating genuine understanding and seeking an 'inner truth.' This is not a static dogma, but an active engagement with reality, built on principles of critical inquiry, empathy, and a rigorous commitment to verifiable information. It demands the courage to question deeply held beliefs, especially those that feel 'absolutely true' but lack empirical grounding. Cultivating this inner resilience involves a continuous process of self-reflection and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths, both external and internal. This personal struggle for clarity is mirrored by the broader societal fight against disinformation.
Many years ago, I found myself in a complete state of mental collapse. All my painful memories had been unleashed. My anchors—my coping mechanisms—struggled to hold me as doctors swarmed. I had revealed my past to someone, and the disclosure was so shocking that I was placed under arrest. I told them this day would come; I told them they would know my name, a name given to me for my dissociative behavior, a name that signified my own direct confrontation with the nature of reality and its inherent illusions.
So, I accept this challenge to arms, to fight against the carefully constructed illusions that distort truth and manipulate perception. I bring with me a mythos from the dawn of time. I ride with the spirit of Artemis, the mighty huntress, proud and carefree in spirit. Her symbol—the rising quarter moon—flies proud in the sky on the storm of tomorrow's eve, a symbol of strength and the clear sight needed to pierce through the veil of illusion, striving for a more genuine human understanding in a world perpetually threatened by manufactured realities. Our clarity, both individual and collective, is the ultimate battleground.
