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Interested in conversations about the nature of reality, multidimensionality, truth, being, religion, spirituality, life, love, consciousness, and language?
Wondering how to thrive in an uncertain and rapidly changing world?
Do you want to learn about things you've never experienced or heard of?
If so, we might just be for you!
Wendy Frase 0:00
Welcome to wake up call for the soul with Bill and Wendy. Hello, Bill.
Bill Frase 0:05
Hey Wen.
Wendy Frase 0:06
Well, it's good to be with you again for our first official episode. Last time we recorded what we called episode zero, and it was an intro to ourselves and how you started with your wake up call for the soul brand. So this time, we thought we'd continue a bit with the saying the truth is out there. And we mentioned that last time because we had brought up our favorite, one of our favorite all time TV series, which was the X Files, which investigated paranormal cases, and there were two FBI agents on there. One was a believer, one was a skeptic, and their names were Mulder and Scully, but at the end of the opening credits, they always flashed the truth is out there. And I thought, oh, it would be cool to talk more about that. And you pointed out at the end of that last episode that really the truth is in there or in here. So would you like to talk a little bit more about that?
Bill Frase 1:17
Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, when we were talking about that episode, the truth is out there. It's such an interesting phrase, because for myself, I perceive truth as something that I sense, feel and know within myself. And so one of the ideas that I think will come through loud and clear in this episode is that we human beings, we tend to use words, and we think that these words reflect reality. So for example, the truth is out there. We think of there as a place that is separate from ourselves. And then when we say, Well, the truth is in here, well, I think of my interior space being separate from everyone and everything else at this point in my journey, my sense, my perception, everything I experience now suggests to me that within and without, the truth is in there, the truth is out there, that These things are actually much more closely related to each other than we tend to think because of our language and how it even structures our thinking. So that's kind of the overview, I guess, of what we're talking about is this idea that our language is so much based on separation. And for me, this topic of and I think they're related. They're well, for me, they're absolutely intimately related. Truth and reality. Are these things that are connected, that are one with each other. They are, in their own ways, reflections of each other. And I think that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about here. And so this is potentially a very deep and complex episode because of the the nature of human language being one way, and then us in this conversation, doing our best to express language in ways that it wasn't really designed to do.
Wendy Frase 3:11
Yes, it's hard, and I know I've spoken to you a lot over the years, and we've had a lot of conversations being married for over 30 years, and I get confused sometimes too, especially with what you're talking about. So perhaps it would be better to start with some basic definitions, or what we define things to be.
Bill Frase 3:38
Yeah. So that's part of the trick of language, is that language is very contextual. Language. Oftentimes a single word can point to whole bunch of different concepts, ideas, perceptions, reality. So we are going to attempt to take some of the key words that we are going to be talking about in this episode and put them into these kind of definitions that are going to be, in their own way, much more constrained or limited than what what they might typically be used for,
Wendy Frase 4:11
because everyone defines things differently. Yeah, and I've noticed that even growing up in the church, or if people would ask you, well, are you a Christian? My general response now is, well, what do you mean by that? Because if I just give a flat answer, yes or no or this or that, we're probably still on two different wavelengths of thinking,
Bill Frase 4:37
Right.So these definitions are an attempt to help you, dear listeners, to have a sense of what we mean when we're using these words. So I'm going to start off the first definition that I came up for this conversation was either what we would call language, or I'll call it human language, or it's actually more closely related to. A human, verbal or symbolic language. We're dealing in a field that I think most philosophers would call epistemology, which has to do with how we perceive reality and truth and such things. And so it's going to get a bit deep, but I've tried to simplify these definitions to the best of my ability. So human language, or language, for this conversation, I'm considering these things to be combinations of human symbols that represent human concepts that are understood to point towards something or things. Most human language and thought presupposes and suggests that separation is more real than unity.
Wendy Frase 5:38
Okay? Because I want to just repeat that for myself, because that was a big mouthful. I felt combinations of human symbols that represent human concepts that are understood to point towards something or things. Okay, okay. We think I got it. I think I got it. But most you also said most human language and thought presupposes and suggests that separation is more real than unity.
Bill Frase 6:12
Yeah, and I think we're gonna get get into some examples of that as we dig in on some of these kind of linguistic examples, as we move through these other concepts.
Wendy Frase 6:22
Well, because even separation, I think of even different languages, French, Spanish, English. I mean, it's hard sometimes I studied French, and sometimes it's hard to come up with words that are similar in English and they mean, literally, maybe they can be translated that way, but they mean something different.
Bill Frase 6:50
Well, and for me, you bring up these different human verbal languages, and the thing that I see that they all have in common, at least every human language I have experienced so far in my life, whether I've heard it or seen a translation of it or whatever. Is that these languages typically emphasize separation over unity, and so there's a fundamental paradigm that feeds all of them. And there's a reason why you can even have a rough translation of French to English or Latin or Euskara, or take your pick of language, that these things people are, their language is based on a similar experience that may not actually reflect the true nature of reality,
Wendy Frase 7:33
Right.
Bill Frase 7:33
We're going deep,
Wendy Frase 7:35
Well, and that's true. That reminds me even of the Bible, one of the oldest books out there, translated from what Hebrew, Greek, whatever, and it's hard to even understand for sure what the authors wanted. Okay, let's continue with facts.
Bill Frase 7:48
Yeah, all right. So facts, here I am defining as formulations of I'll get rid of human just to simplify it, formulations of language that point toward things as they are thought to be. And again, I think we're gonna, we'll go through these definitions, and then we will, we'll, because we're gonna have, we're going to talk about facts, and then we're going to talk about this next subject, beliefs. So the definition I have here for beliefs formulations of language that people accept as true or real, regardless of their facticity or factuality, basically, things that people believe to be true or that they hope are true, or that they fear are true, regardless of maybe sufficient evidence or data to suggest that these things actually exist and are real, at least from that person's perspective. So things that are accepted as true or real. Did you want to add something there, Wen?
Wendy Frase 8:47
Well, at thispoint, are we going to give some examples of what we think facts and beliefs are, or are we saving that till after you talk about truth? Because this is where it gets interesting to me, because there seems to be a big difference between facts and beliefs now that I understand them from talking to you all these years. However, a lot of people hold beliefs as facts.
Bill Frase 9:14
That's very common situation. So all right, let's dig into facts. We can jump back to some other things, because we've got an idea of the flow here. So facts are things like Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, okay, okay, people consider that to be a fact. But in order for you to know whether it is more correct or less correct, you would have to go to the historical records. You would have to so often we hear a fact, we take it in. We're like, Oh, that's a fact. It's true, or it's real or it's correct. But how do you know that that fact is true? How do you literally know? I mean, did you physically witness. Are all of the presidents in succession, you know, and did some weird one sneak in there that nobody talks about. We don't know. We just have what people accept as a fact. And so for me, facts are kind of the they're like the essence of science. But for me they're kind of this really low grade sort of thing that most people, they just pass them off at each other say, Oh, well, this is, this is a fact, and this is a fact, it's like, but how do you know that it's a fact? And sometimes it doesn't matter
Wendy Frase 10:28
That's true, because I didn't live in the day when Abraham Lincoln was around to maybe say, yes, he's the 16th president. I learned that in school, and maybe whoever told me that was completely wrong
Bill Frase 10:43
and people, just because people hold certain facts in common doesn't make them true. Just because you can have one person have a fact and 8.5 plus billion people consider something to be a fact, and that doesn't make it any more real or true or valid, correct, whatever you want to call it
Wendy Frase 11:10
well, and I think that most people would agree a fact would be something even like one plus one equals two. And maybe you won't agree with that, Bill, but that is a broad known fact.
Bill Frase 11:23
Well, people consider it a fact, but that fact is based in an entire worldview, and so a different worldview would view that so called fact very differently, okay, and that different worldview is part of what we're talking about in this conversation here.
Wendy Frase 11:41
Okay, sounds good for now. So then beliefs, examples of beliefs, which I guess we could there's so many examples of beliefs, yeah, I believe I'm interesting. I believe I can't play the piano. I believe I saw a ghost yesterday.
Bill Frase 12:07
I believe in God. I believe that people are inherently evil. I believe that people are naturally good. These are beliefs. These are things that people express. And one of the things, as I was thinking about this conversation, that struck me is that beliefs, for me, seem to reflect these polar opposites of hope, like I have a belief that expresses a hope of a possibility that I can't perceive or I'm not aware of yet, but that I hope or I want this thing to be true. But then there are the beliefs, what we call negative thinking or resistant beliefs, that are really on this opposite pole for me, of some color or flavor of despair. Oh, people are just bad, and there's no way that they'll ever be decent or good, like these, these kind of more limiting or negative beliefs, or even beliefs about myself, like you had a lot of beliefs about yourself where it's like, Well, I'm a terrible person. I mean, how many people are walking around with that belief that reflects their own kind of despair, like it has the seed of hope that maybe it's not true? But then there's parts of us we wouldn't say these things if we didn't think or believe that maybe these things that I don't feel good about or that I despair about might actually be true, and maybe they're not just true temporarily, maybe they're true for much longer than that,
Wendy Frase 13:38
and those kind of things don't even need to be verbalized, because we say those in our heads sometimes, and don't even realize we do,
Bill Frase 13:46
yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of beliefs that, right, we've taken on, you could call it unconsciously. We've kind of absorbed them and and we have them, and we don't even realize that they're beliefs that's completely possible. And yet, I think that they all can be expressed even if they're in our minds. They're not verbalized through our vocal apparatus, but, but they can't like we have them as we've taken all these feelings and whatever things we've absorbed from being in the womb or childhood, and then we form them into these words and concepts that kind of line up with them.
Wendy Frase 14:23
All right, sounds good. Let's move to truth, because you have a definition for that.
Bill Frase 14:31
Yeah. And what I've done is I actually snuck in another one here on reality, which reality is really easy. I have reality as what is
Wendy Frase 14:39
Reality? What is. okay and what's truth then?
Bill Frase 14:43
So, so, then truth is that which is yet is beyond the capacity of language to express with great accuracy or precision. Truth is a reflection of the wholeness and unity of all that is so reality, for me, is that which is. Which for me, is an unbroken whole truth, are those perceptions of that wholeness. So it's a very different definition than say, because a lot of people say, well, Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln is the 16th President of the United States. That's a fact, and it's true. And for me, I'm playing some semantics here, but I consider that fact to be the more or less correct possibly. But I don't see it as reflecting a deeper truth, you know, because again, think about Abraham Lincoln. Okay, Abraham Lincoln is a part of the wholeness of what is as a unique an individual. Being president is a category people just made up. 16th is okay. So we care about the sequence of things and who comes before and after, other people, and even the United States is a it's an idea. It's a concept completely invented by people that has no independent reality outside of people thinking that it's real.
Wendy Frase 15:57
And even those kind of things Abraham Lincoln, a lot of us would say, if you disregard those, maybe facts or beliefs there, that a truth could be that he was a very inspirational historical figure. But then even you wouldn't even say that that's true, because it depends on perspective.
Bill Frase 16:26
Exactly that seems like what AJ Ayers would have said in his positivism. He would have called that an emotive statement that you know you could say Abraham Lincoln did exist. That's probably pretty factual, but Right? You add interesting or these other modifiers to it, and it's just kind of like, yeah, that's your opinion or truth, yeah.
Wendy Frase 16:49
Okay.Well, then I don't know if this is a good time to ask, but I did have a question. Is there one truth for everyone, like this idea of a higher truth, or we do? We each have our own truth?
Bill Frase 17:07
Yeah, okay,
Wendy Frase 17:14
coming to mind when you were like talking about this big, broad, interconnected truth out there.
Bill Frase 17:23
That's fair. No. I mean, if we're going to use words like truth and reality and claim that the words that we're using point towards something that actually exists, it's a totally fair question.
Wendy Frase 17:34
Do you have a simple, short answer for that question?
Bill Frase 17:40
I'll attempt it. All right, so my simple, short attempt at a simple short answer to right, this question that you've asked for me, reality is this, is that it's kind of this infinite, multi dimensional, isness. So all of reality and then truth as a reflection or a perception of that vast isness. There's this vast isness that exists. We call it reality, or I guess I should say I call it reality, and I call my perceptions of it perceptions of truth. And so what I perceive for myself is, is that different aspects of myself resonate with different aspects of reality that allow me to perceive certain aspects of that vast isness. And so to your question of like, well, does everyone have their own truth? Or whatever I perceive this great isness. And yet, each individual we each have our own unique capacities for perception and awareness that cause each of us to experience it, maybe similarly yet differently. Because we are each I perceive each of us to be unique. So we could have we can have, we'll call them conversations with each other, where I could share to the best of my ability, through the things I have available to me for expression with you, Wendy, and do my best to express this aspect of reality and truth that I feel to be real. And then you could come back and say, Oh, well, that sounds and looks sort of like and you bring this whole thing, and I'm like, I think, I think we might be perceiving something very similar, if not the same thing, through our unique instrumentalities. So there's your really succinct answer. I hope you love the shortness.
Wendy Frase 19:42
Yeah. Yeah, I guess I would agree that knowing you so well, that was a short answer. So and I guess for myself, is there one truth for all? I don't. Know, and this could be maybe just a belief, but I think there might be. But I like what you said is that we all have our own perception, understanding how it fits in with our lives, and we can also dig into that search that the truth is in there. So yeah, I like that idea, and it's kind of difficult to really define it, although I think you have done a great job at defining it. But thank you, Bill, for that definition.
Bill Frase 20:43
Yeah. And maybe, I don't know if this is the place for it, but language has things that just make it very challenging. And that's part of the irony of what we are attempting to do in this podcast episode. And I think a lot of what we're going to be talking about in this podcast in general, is I love language. I love hearing different languages. I don't understand most of them, or hardly any of them, except for American English. But verbal communication is very low bandwidth. If we're just talking about the words people use. Again, there's only so much information you can get through that way. But even now, even in this podcast format, like you and I, are attempting, through our vocal quality, through various expressions and emanations of our being, to convey more meaning than what is literally in the words themselves, whether people pick up on these things or not, who knows, but they are there. If everything is a unified whole, as I perceive it to be, all right, and then I mean another issue with language is that it tends to build upon human tendencies to prioritize choices for separation and choices that deprioritize what I would call Unity or wholeness. And so this gets into the things like, one of my favorite ones is a tree. Everyone you use the word tree, and people probably have an image in their mind of what a tree is, yes. So when you think of tree one day, what is a tree for? Tree for you?
Wendy Frase 22:24
When I think of tree, I think of something that grows outside, is attached to the earth. All trees have roots. Typically it has a base or a stump, and it has branches growing out with some sort of leaves. That's what I think of when I think of a tree.
Bill Frase 22:43
Okay, yeah. And I think that that's fairly typical for most people. And yet, that word and how we tend to use it and think about it, does it recognize the relationships between that tree and all that is, does it include the fact that the tree produces oxygen that I breathe, and that I breathe carbon dioxide that it then takes in. And this is true for life. Does it incorporate all of the creatures that live within and upon this tree? Does it incorporate the fact that the tree cannot exist without sunlight coming from the Sun, which is 93 million miles away, a fact that I cannot myself verify something that I guess, in my own way, I believe might be true. But anyways, people like numbers, and they think they're real. So 93 so called million miles away. Of course, miles are a human invention, absolutely and as is the number 93 apparently. Okay, so the sun and then it's related to the earth and its gravity, oh, and these roots are connected to mycelial networks that go throughout the ground that allow this tree to communicate with all kinds of other trees. And this tree, it's not just a tree, it's a particular species of tree, and that particular species of tree is related to all other trees in its treeness, and possibly even related to all other plants in its plantness and related to all other life in its lifeiness. So, you know, we don't have words and so again, the problem for me isn't so much in the Word Tree, it's how we tend to think of it. We tend to think of the tree as this isolated thing. But the truth of the tree is, is that it cannot exist without all of these myriad relationships that allow it to exist and thrive and to which, not only that contribute to it, but that it contributes to so this is my attempt at an example of the limitations of language and the limitations of or maybe I should specify verbal language, words and and their application to what is true What is real.
Wendy Frase 24:41
And you could really dig deep into anything like a Robin, a tree, a house, the snow,
Bill Frase 24:50
yeah, or anything that we have a word or a concept for, I know. I think so.
Wendy Frase 24:55
I don't know if this conversation is starting to discourage me or. Or not, it's very interesting. I'm still playing with this idea of the truth is out there, but not really the truth is in there. And what does that mean?
Bill Frase 25:11
So now I'm I think the way I would put it now is that the truth and reality are in here and out there, and then to follow that up, maybe to make more sense of it, is that I can be aware of truth as a reflection of reality, of what is through the resonance of either, I'll call it myself, or aspects of myself with aspects of what is and so I perceive truth and reality through the resonance of my aspects with truth and Reality.
Wendy Frase 25:57
Can this be more simple than what we are talking about here, because there's a lot of big concepts, and I actually agree with probably everything that you have said, it makes sense to me. But are you and I trying to over complicate it, or is it complicated?
Bill Frase 26:22
Well, actually, I don't think resonance is that complicated. I mean, resonance is the ability of any aspect of what is to vibrate in alignment with some other aspect of what is. That's resonance.
Wendy Frase 26:43
And how does that relate to truth?
Bill Frase 26:46
Well, that is my sense of how I have any sense of what is true or real, is through the resonance of aspects of myself, the vibrational alignment of aspects of myself with something, some aspect of that which is or this will blow your mind, okay, the resonance of aspects of myself with that which may be.
Wendy Frase 27:19
I don't even know where to go from there. But thank you, Bill. I hope that our listeners are understanding, some of them anyways, about what you just said.
Bill Frase 27:32
I feel, I feel like, you know, I feel like I'm keeping my promise we said in that first episode, like you guys are going to hear stuff you have never heard before. And I just, I feel like we might have hit that mark here in this episode.
Wendy Frase 27:48
Okay, yes, because we've talked a lot, we've okay so we've talked about facts and perceptions and truth. What are, what are some things that you want our listeners to take away from this conversation.
Bill Frase 28:06
So first, if it's not clear from this conversation, I think I'll just put the words together that truth and reality do not depend on what human beings think of as being true and real. Truth and reality are way vaster, way more expansive, way more unified and awesome and unbelievable to talk about belief so far beyond the facts that we are aware of that truth and reality are way vaster, way grander, and that they while we have words and even mathematical formulas that attempt to point in the direction of truth and reality, that that's the best they can do, they can't actually describe it with any real accuracy, and they can't contain it. They cannot encapsulate it. You can't take the word tree and say, Oh, I have contained a tree in this capsule. We proved that earlier in our conversation. So that's my first one. And I've said this before too. I mean, as over the course of this conversation. I mean, it's clear to me, we're calling this the truth is in there, just to contrast it to Mulder's, the truth is out there. And for me, I like this idea of more, that the truth is within me, and the truth is, we could call it outside of me, even though we tend to think of these things as being opposed. Inside and outside, we think of them as opposites, and we think of them as separate. And what I'm suggesting is, is that inside and outside are not separate, that they are one. And therefore, when we say the truth is out there, it would be better for us linguistically to say and it's in here too, and I can perceive it within myself through my resonance with aspects of truth and reality. You know, my hope is that we'll consider the possibility that our words that. That the words we use, the ideas we have, might not reflect truth and reality so much as they reflect the limited and limiting, socially constructed reality that human beings have co created over millennia. And I don't know if well, I'll call these hopes. My hope is that we might begin to contemplate possibilities for choosing to resonate with more of what is and what may be. That I feel it's through these resonances that we can know things instead of being satisfied with facts and even being satisfied with beliefs. Because I think a lot of people stop at facts. They'll say, oh, I have this fact, and it's a done deal. It's like, well, don't you want more than that? Or people will stop at beliefs. They'll say, I believe in God, and somehow they they say it as if they've arrived like, well, don't you want more than just to believe? Don't you want to know? Like to feel it deep inside yourself? Yeah, my hope another hope. I'm on this hope train here. Hope is that we might become much more curious about the words we use, the beliefs we carry, the facts we've accepted, to see how well these expressions point toward or away from truth and reality, shoot, even from correctness or incorrectness. But I'm much more interested in truth. Obviously we're having this conversation because truth is like the big word in the title truth. Do these facts, these kind of compact systems of information? Do they point toward truth, or are they really much more ideas that are just related to human, ideas that have really not much to do with that which is beyond our language. Yeah, and my hope is that we would allow ourselves, each of us, as individuals, but even as a species, to soften our thinking, to not take our language, our words, so literally, to understand that they are in their own ways, all of them metaphors pointing in various directions that we might be able to perceive more through the wholeness of our being, to perceive things that are not able to be put into language the way that facts and beliefs are. Facts and beliefs, they work really well in language, because I think they're rooted in this perception of separation. For me, truth is much more difficult to express, as I think this conversation proves, because if reality is a whole and our perceptions of truth are reflections of that unified reality. Then how do we express that in words? Again, we've been very challenged by in this conversation. I think everyone gets that. So those are my hopes, my takeaways. How about you, Wen?
Wendy Frase 32:54
Well, just listening to you, I think one of my thoughts is in regards to beliefs, just because I believe something to be true doesn't mean that it is true. So that's just a simple thing, that if someone else believes something to be true, that doesn't mean it is true. And I do feel that the truth is available to everyone, and we can find it. I feel that that is possible, whether in this life or the next, but I feel like traits for myself, Curiosity is very important, as you said, listening is important, and I even think that silence is too
Bill Frase 33:45
my sense is that some if something can be conveyed in verbal language, that it cannot actually be true because the language, because of the limitations of the language, if the language is based on perceptions of separation, then that's a good point. Then the verbal formulation, again, it can point in the direction of what is but its own limitations are going to prevent it from being able to express more fully that truth, that reality, that sensation, that perception of it, and for me, that goes for facts and it goes for beliefs, because they can be expressed these ways. And again, when we're doing our best to express our sense of truth verbally, the words are not really helpful to do that. Again, this conversation being a perfect example.
Wendy Frase 34:38
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't seek the truth just because it's it's hard to understand or hard to believe in our mind, I think the truth is available to all in this life or the next.
Bill Frase 34:59
Yeah. I'm thinking of a quote, I think it was attributed to BF Skinner, that if all you have is a hammer, everything's a nail. And I think that a lot of people, because our main tool is our brain, we think that truth is something that the brain can perceive. And in my own experience, I have found that it appears to be other aspects of my being that resonate with certain aspects of reality, and then my mind struggles over hours, days, weeks, years, decades, to connect those perceptions with what it thinks it knows. And that's a very different game from my mind actually knowing a thing in my experience,
Wendy Frase 35:49
Well, that's a that's a great point, Bill, and I have enjoyed this conversation with you today.
Bill Frase 35:55
Have you? It's like verbal gymnastics over here, man.
Wendy Frase 36:01
My brain is going five miles a minute, but I look forward to continuing these conversations with you again, Bill, until next time,
Bill Frase 36:15
Until next time, Wen. Thanks so much for listening to wake up call for the soul. We hope you'll join us next time.