Journal Notes

For ages, two great philosophical schools in Aêthoril have battled over a single, unanswerable question: which comes first, the thoughts in our mind, or the things in the world outside of it?

One school, the one our surface kin still follow, argues that the universe is an orderly thing waiting to be discovered by perfectly aligning ideas with what is being thought about. In this view, things come first and take ontological priority over thought, because the mind must mirror what is outside of it in order to attain truth about the universe. This argument fails for a simple reason: It treats the knower as a passive thing itself, ignoring the profound way our own actions and presence may change the very things we observe. One consequence of this view is that it must be possible to perfectly align all ideas in all heads to consequently align thought and thing in the admirable quest for this universal truth. It should be clear that the entire system fails to take into account the essential nature of all mortal beings: to be alive is to experience a unique place in space and time, meaning the symmetry required among all minds is physically unrealistic.

The other school, the way of my own kin, takes the exact opposite view and argues for the ontological priority of thought over things. My colleagues claim that our will and unique experience are what fundamentally shape reality. This argument rightly acknowledges the active and creative role of the knower, yet when pushed to its logical limit, it fails just as decisively. If all reality stems solely from sovereign thought, the possibility of any shared, external world dissolves. The knower becomes trapped in a state of absolute isolation, where the only thing guaranteed is a sea of disconnected dreams and lonely existence, a believe easily disproven by anyone willing to take a step outside their "multiversal dreamscape simulators", and whatever my colleagues come up with next.