3. Ideas
Although the 3rd obstacle to success is named in the theoretical description as ‘Ideas’ the term is deliberately left in a form both too general and too open to misunderstanding to be read unchallenged. Indeed, rather as Idea has been understood in such differing ways – and to such differing effect - in the works of Plato and Schopenhaeur, for example, the term ‘Idea’ must also here be clarified
The associated text is from an interview with Bunn: it largely concerns the internet, it’s development and it’s relationship to the nature of reality. The argument runs very much along the lines that reality – as it is generally understood – is not, in fact, a reality per se, but a reality that has been formed and shaped, given, in effect, by external ideas. This latter aspect is critical : external ideas, Bunn argues, are not necessarily accurate descriptions of an internal reality. They may, in fact and over time, partially shape or distort that internal world – and so create an often unhappy externalised version of reality for an individual – but they can never represent an individuals reality given that they are, by definition, given from another source.
For Bunn the internet is an example of how reality or, rather, realities can visibly be different from that which has been given (and too readily accepted). It can and does represent a perfectly valid alternative external reality. And it should therefore help people to question what they are given and form their own ideas. And it is in this sense that Bunn uses the term Idea.
Ideas are the forming of reality from an individuals own perspective and for an individuals own use and as such they are the key to breaking away from living a prescribed life.