AA’s Tyranny of (Other People’s) Experience
Suppose someone close to you passes away and you’re sad. A few days later you hear their voice, plain as day. You look around but the room is empty. You henceforth tell the story, “I’ve experienced things that lead me to know that death is not the end.” You’ve had a lifelong belief in souls and god and heaven, and this is strong corroborative evidence of all that. Or you might say, “I was so devastated after so-and-so died that for a while I worried I might be getting wonky. But I got over it.” You are a materialist and “believe” in science, which tells you that aural hallucinations in the circumstances you were under are in fact quite common. The mind plays tricks. Nothing “woo woo” here. To tell a story about what you “know” from experience, you must engage in an act of interpretation, and that essential step opens the door to an infinity of possible error. Interpretations of exactly the same raw experience can diverge radically, and the worldview of the interpreter always– alw...