Existentialism in Psychology: Is Reality Based Upon Determinism or Autonomous Human Construct?

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As a psychology major who likes to think of herself as an intellectual, I thoroughly enjoy combining the concepts of my field with philosophy, while thinking about how these ideas might influence the ways in which we view ourselves, our behaviors, and our personalities. One particular man, Rollo May, was able to combine psychoanalysis and existentialism in which he asserted that there is no reality or truth, no meaning without humanity’s participation in what we perceive to be existence. For the most part, I tend to agree with May on this. To elaborate, obviously things exist in truth and reality without the presence of humanity. For instance, humans perceive the sky as being blue. Light from the sun, which is made up of all the colors of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) shines down into our planet’s atmosphere.

While every color/wavelength of light is scattered throughout our atmosphere by the molecules that exist in it, because blue light has the shortest wavelength, it is scattered/dispersed further than the other wavelengths of light. Humanity has determined that this wavelength of visible light is a color that should be called blue. The concept of color and the names we give those colors (in any language) exist only because we make it so. However, the fact that the sky appears the way it does has not to do with human perception, but with real and true science that exists with or without us. If an alien race came to earth and perceived the sky to be what we think of as green, the science would remain the same. Some might take a more extreme stance on this issue and argue that even our science is a human construct.

According to dictionary.com, the philosophical definition of nihilism is “extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.” To take my argument a step further, I could propose that humanity in and of itself is a human construct. I mean, do we really even exist at all, or are we just the cosmic remnants of a lost memory of the universe, or some omnipotent higher power endlessly floating about in an infinite space of nothing that believes it has gained autonomy in determining its existence in which its perception of things such as power and money is its ultimate destruction? I completely understand how insane this sounds, since I did it on purpose for effect. Still, there probably exist a handful of people that believe something along the lines of what I just described.

I have memories of sitting around with my friends while discussing philosophical concepts saying things like, “Is this coffee table really here anyway?” as one of us attempted to wave our hand through it, resulting in a hard smack against the wood. “Yep, it’s really here.” Or something like, “If humanity believed intensely enough that reality was different from what we know, could we call a new reality into existence and change the world for the better?” People make jokes about these types of conversations and discussions, but I think it says something about our seeming lack of understanding concerning existence when incredibly intelligent individuals, like professors for example, have discussions about what reality truly is, and whether we construct our own meaning or if it is determined for us.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet himself says, “…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” I’m not particularly a Shakespeare fan myself, so I may be taking this quote out of context…however, by itself it seems incredibly philosophical, presenting the question of whether there is truth or reality outside of what humanity calls into existence. I think it’s important to consider such things that exist in our current reality when discussing the issue posed in this discussion. Humanity has constructed certain laws or rules condemning acts surrounding whatever is deemed to be immoral at the time. While there will most likely always be individuals or segments of people who hold steadfast to their morals and values, society as a whole is constantly altering and “rewriting” its own beliefs about what is right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, true and false, etc.

In the medieval times and as recently as the early 1800’s, homosexuals in western society have been executed simply because the traditional belief of the majority was that sodomy and simply being attracted to the same sex were evil and corrupted the “good work” organized religion was trying to accomplish in the world. Today in the year 2017, while there are still segments of society that practice these same techniques for ridding the world of what they believe to be sin, all of western society, and much of eastern society (and please correct me if I’m wrong) do not murder people for being homosexual. Even our general beliefs about drugs, addictions of all kinds, mental illnesses, and the way we practice our faiths, among many other things, are changing. In closing, I think the discussion of whether or not the majority of our truth and reality exists the way it does only because humanity makes it so has arguable merit.