The Difference Between Real and Illusory Rules or Limitations

“If we lived on a planet where nothing ever changed, there would be little to do. There would be nothing to figure out. There would be no impetus for science.

And if we lived in an unpredictable world, where things changed in random or very complex ways, we would not be able to figure things out. Again, there would be no such thing as science.

But we live in an in-between universe, where things change, but according to patterns, rules, or, as we call them, laws of nature.

If I throw a stick up in the air, it always falls down. If the sun sets in the west, it always rises again the next morning in the east. And so it becomes possible to figure things out. We can do science, and with it we can improve our lives.”

Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Most people seem to think that there’s some fixed list of rules that determines how everything in the world works, everything that people are capable of doing. They live their lives by these rules, often justifying every suboptimal choice with the excuse that “this is just the way world works” or “the way things have to be.”

Some people reject this paradigm outright, though. They insist that, like, there are no rules, maaaaan. Anyone can do anything they want. They just have to set their mind to it. They have to believe in themselves and manifest the reality they want. Anything can happen, and no one can ever really know anything (except the fact that no one can ever really know anything, of course). Just open your mind. Stop limiting yourself. It’s all in your head (and by “all,” they mean literally the entire universe).

There’s some truth to both these perspectives. There are, indeed, inviolable rules that cannot ever be broken by either natural or artificial forces. And there are also popular illusions about what can and cannot be done that constitute false truths. The fact that we cannot tell the difference between these two is the reason we find it so difficult to do what we want or pursue what we are ambitious about. We don’t know what the true boundary conditions of reality are. More often than not, we are afraid to find out.

The first set of rules (what we might call the “real rules”) is what’s physically possible. These rules do not need to be enforced by anyone because it is not possible to break them. If you could break them, they would not be physical laws. That’s precisely how we define them – by the principles that are absolutely applicable. If they could ever stop being applied, they would no longer be absolutes.

The second set of rules (what we might call the “fake rules”) is what’s socially permissible. These rules have to be enforced with the threat of punishment for breaking them because – spoiler alert – it is possible to break them. Anything that anyone has to forbid you from doing is something that you could do, or else they would not have to forbid you from doing it.

But why can’t things truly be limitless? Maybe we just haven’t figured out how to break the rules we think are real yet.

Things can’t be limitless because then nothing would have any form. The human body works the way it does because of its natural limits. A house holds its structure because of limits to the forces acting on the materials it is constructed of. We will spend all of future human history continually refining our understanding of what the real limits are. But we will never be able to invalidate the concept of real limits in totality.

A real limit is a delineation between what can happen and what cannot happen. It separates everything in life into these two categories, which is actually quite empowering so long as you happen to be a member of a species that has evolved a brain capable of abstract categorical reasoning. The limits serve your aims so long as you can identify them and arrange them to serve you. If you know with certainty what absolutely will not happen, it primes you to start figuring out what will happen.

If everything can happen, then everything does happen. If most things cannot happen, then only the relatively small group of things that can happen does. And if only one precise thing, out of the infinite possible things imaginable, can happen, then only that one precise thing happens. The more precise our understanding of what cannot happen because of real rules and natural limits, the more precisely we can force what we want to happen to happen.

Limits, by their nature, put us in a box. In a world where we are so often encouraged to “think outside the box,” this sounds like a bad thing at face value. But boxes can be useful, so long as the right things are in the right boxes. Boxes give us structure, organization, protection, and order. A box is a good thing so long as it's useful. It’s a bad thing when it prevents you from being able to do what you want with its contents.

Does it seem unfair that you can’t do anything you want and can imagine? That the world has limits that you cannot control?

The most empowering thing you can do is learn to sharply differentiate between real limits and fake ones (or physical ones and social ones). When you’ve removed all the false and artificially imposed limitations, what you’re left with are the natural and essential ones. That’s what science is: A tool for determining the real rules of the world, thereby freeing us from having to adhere to the fake ones.

It’s important to bear in mind that just because social rules aren’t “real” doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for breaking them. It’s absolutely within your power to strip down naked in the middle of a busy highway anytime you like, but you may not like the results of doing so. People might think you are crazy. You might get hit by a car. You might get arrested. You’ll probably be cold. What if you want to sit on a table instead of a chair? What if you want to eat with a hairbrush instead of a spoon? What if you want to stay home and knit a sweater instead of getting a job or going to school? Why should you do any of these things? Who decided that these are the correct ways to do things? What’s stopping you from stopping doing them differently? Only the fear of the consequences you might face.

With physical rules, you couldn’t break them even if you wanted to. It’s not a matter of the consequences being so bad that no one should ever attempt to defy gravity or the second law of thermodynamics. It’s not that everyone would think you were crazy or a really bad person for doing so. It’s that you literally cannot do it. You will never get that choice. And that’s what makes them absolute limitations that apply to all things, everywhere, all at once and forever. 

Social limits are optional. Physical limits are not. You can't disable gravity just because you feel like it. But you can get naked in public if that’s what your heart desires and you are prepared to deal with the consequences.

So it seems the pertinent question is: What do you want so badly that you’d be willing to deal with the consequences of breaking the social rules preventing you from acquiring it?

 “O God and Heavenly Father, grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), The Serenity Prayer

The most dramatic example of the distinction between real and imaginary limits comes from, of all places, the movie The Matrix. The much-discussed film is often used as a reference to learning to see through the lies of some widely accepted façade about the world (i.e., taking the red pill instead of the blue one). But the line that has always stuck most with me comes early on in the movie as dialogue between Morpheus and Neo.

Neo asks, “What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?”

Morpheus responds, “No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.”

When Neo asks about learning to move fast enough to do seemingly impossible things like dodging bullets, he’s still operating under the acceptance that the computer-generated bullets themselves are real and must be dodged.

You can work to become very fast, very strong, and very clever in your attempts to navigate around the rules that other minds invent for you. And it might even begin to feel like you are so good at working around the system that you are finally free of it. But the fact that you must work around it means that it is still your master.

The only true freedom is realizing that there are no bullets to dodge. The power of other people’s minds exists, in fact, only in their minds. They’ve got you caught up in believing in the grand illusion. When you can stand your ground as you witness the bullets coming toward you and let them pass through without fazing you, then you will be free of false impositions. Then you can devote your attention entirely to determining where reality’s real limits actually fall.

Remember: There are no bullets. It is only your mind that dodges.