The Seer's Explanation
That world out there is not what you think it is…
In the book, The Seer’s Explanation, I relate my life story as seen through a particular lens. I present my story as an inquiry into the possibility of living a life in a fundamentally different manner than that prescribed by our culture.
In our era, we are taught to plan our lives according to a reasonable understanding of what is required to be happy and successful. We typically begin in high school, choosing elective and perhaps advanced classes. We decide whether to go to college, and, if so, we choose a major and perhaps a minor. Later, we choose a career, where to live, whether to have a family, and so on. And we make all these decisions by examining the pros and cons of each alternative, feeling the gratification of the choices that work out and the frustration of those that don’t.
It turns out, however, that there is an alternative way of charting a course through one’s life. This requires a new and different understanding of what a human being is and how we perceive the world around us. Through a critical examination of our normal common understanding, we begin to glimpse the existence of possibilities most of us have never believed we could experience.
Back in 2013, upon publication of my first book, The Seer’s Explanation, I was interviewed on Grassroots TV in Aspen…
I wrote The Seer’s Explanation in 2012 into the empty space created by a divorce. I had studied physics in college and graduate school, and I was familiar with the phenomenon that is referred to in our culture by the saying, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
I didn’t realize at the time that I was writing a book. I thought I was going to the coffee shop with my laptop every morning and just journaling. It was only after six months or so that I recognized what was happening. I was being moved by a “force” I couldn’t see or hear but by which I was nonetheless compelled to write.
Before I published The Seer’s Explanation of course, I proofread the manuscript but I otherwise left it as it had come through me. I understood much of its content and some of the threads connecting it all. By the time my second book, Hoodwinked: Uncovering Our Fundamental Superstitions showed up, I was able to present the material as a complete thesis, a new understanding of what a human being really is.
Some of the material is common to both books, as one would expect from two snapshots of an inquiry based on one’s life experience taken nine years apart. Some stories from the Seer’s Explanation did not carry forward because they don’t contribute to the thesis I have developed much more fully in the new book.
About the book
From the Introduction:
What we see when we open our eyes in the morning is actually not the world itself but is rather our shared description of the world.
Now, you would think that we simply use a description of the world to think about it, to talk to others about it, and to act within it. That’s as our culture’s explanation would have it. However, in this other possibility, we are instead reemerging from our nighttime sleep to a multi-sensory picture that represents our description of the world. The world and its description are two very different things. And I have found that this idea compels a reexamination of who and what we are.
During the course of my examination of this idea, that we humans focus our attention on a description of the world and not on the world itself, I found myself changing my idea of what is pointed to by the term “human being”. During that shift I came to see that very few of us have ever examined what we mean when we use that term.
In the normal course of events, we take for granted our existence as separate creatures.
We use the term “human being” to identify what we are, but we take the meaning of that label as a given.
For most of us, being human is one of those unexamined foundational ideas on top of which we place all kinds of other assumptions and conclusions. I hope to show that examining those predicates will call into question everything we’ve ever believed about who we are.
My intention in recording this story is twofold. First, it is for me a way to clarify and further sharpen my sense of the continuity and evolution of my journey. In doing so I’ve also found it to be an illuminating and deeply settling experience. And second, it’s another experiment in what has revealed itself to be a lifelong chain of experiments. It is an attempt to see if my understanding of my journey—and my acceptance of its central idea—can be communicated in such a way as to encourage someone else to come to the conscious awareness of who we really are and what our lives have actually been about.
I will present this story in three parts. First, I will describe the idea that captivated me in as much detail as I’ve been able to appreciate. Second, I will present a selection of my personal memories, my life story as seen through the lens that the idea provides. And finally, I will examine what might be the implications of living within the scope of the idea.
Discussion Guide
This discussion guide is for people who would like to explore more about The Seer’s Explanation – enjoy.
The subtitle of The Seer’s Explanation is “That world out there isn’t what you think it is…” What does that mean to you?
Why do we need an explanation for what we see when we open our eyes in the morning? What are we actually seeing?
After reading The Seer’s Explanation, how would you describe the difference between “reality” and a dream.
What is the difference between a causal abstraction and an explanatory abstraction? Which one do you think is more powerful and/or useful? Why?
According to the conventional explanation of reality, having a strategy for a strong, healthy body is related to doing, i.e. what you do, what you don’t do, what you eat and don’t eat, how much you exercise, etc. How does this strategy shift when you look at a healthy body from the perspective of the seer’s explanation?
What is the power of inner silence? Why is it so powerful?
What would it take for you to live your life from the perspective of the seer’s explanation, instead of from the conventional explanation of reality?
Invite Larry Gottlieb to your book group:
Larry Gottlieb is available to meet online with your book group or organization for a discussion about The Seer’s Explanation. For a group discount on purchasing books, or to invite Larry to your online discussion or for more information contact Larry Gottlieb here.