Reality Tunnels.

"Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

Reality tunnel (aka belief system, world view, world model, reference frame, intentionality etc) is a term coined by Timothy Leary and popularised by Robert Anton Wilson. It refers to the concept that with a subconscious set of filters formed from their beliefs and experiences, everyone interprets this same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder". This is not necessarily meant to imply that there is no objective truth; just that our access to it is mediated through our senses, experience, conditioning, prior beliefs, and other non-objective factors. The individual world each person occupies is said to be their reality tunnel. The term can also apply to groups of people united by beliefs: we can speak of the fundamentalist Christian reality tunnel, the scientific materialist reality tunnel, the libertarian reality tunnel, etc
The concept of reality tunnels fits in nicely with the scientific concept of confirmation bias by which we tend to notice and assign significance to observations that confirm our prior beliefs, while filtering out or rationalizing away observations that do not fit with what we believe. This helps to explain why reality tunnels are usually transparent to their inhabitants. While it seems most people take their beliefs to correspond to the "one true objective reality," Robert Anton Wilson emphasizes that each person's reality tunnel is their own artistic creation, whether they realize it or not.

Through various techniques one can break down old reality tunnels and impose new reality tunnels by removing old filters and replacing them with new ones, new perspectives on reality - at will. This is achieved through various processess of deprogramming using meditation, controlled use of hallucinogens, neuro-linguistic programming, cybernetics, hypnosis, bio-feedback devices, and forcibly acting out other Reality Tunnels. Thus, it is believed one's Reality Tunnel can be widened to take full advantage of human potential and experience reality on more positive levels! Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising is (among other things) a guidebook to the exploration of various reality tunnels, breaking through the current one and opening our minds to a whole new world.

The most ideal Reality Tunnel would be the most open one. 'Question Everything; Exlore Everything; Believe Nothing 'is the main philosophy, so instead of travelling between Reality Tunnels you create one that encompasses everything. Beliefs are considered dogma, they filter out much of reality. Catmas are relative metabeliefs, or flexible temporary opinions of which many, even contradictory, can be held in one's consciousness. This way we have a larger map of reality and thus a wider perspective. We could achieve a lot more progress if we could evolve beyond belief systems, which are defended emotionally, not rationally. Wether religious, ideological and political, as this study of political bias shows. When you are able to open your mind to many differing and conflicting views, there will be much less or no confirmation bias on your part as you are able to make many new connections. Consider ideas, ideologies, viewpoints, etc as toys like I do. You know you can't play with one toy all the time or it gets boring, so you switch toys often. Believe nothing, it is the highest form of intelligence! (and absolutely necessary in conspiracy research or conscious evolution.)