tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6272246.post-72997411983240708912007-05-18T03:56:00.000-07:002007-05-18T23:10:41.863-07:00You know what reality is, right? Or do you? We define reality, in the strictest sense, as what we and the instruments we've designed can perceive; the problem with that is that neither our senses nor our instruments are designed to perceive reality as a whole... all we can get are bits and pieces.<br /><br />We think our 5 senses are wonderful, but looked at objectively there's not much to them: We can perceive light and sound, but only within certain ranges. We can distinguish some sorts of chemicals via smell and taste, but far from all. Our sense of touch tells us about what we're in contact with (down to a certain level) and temperature. And that's IT; our bodies have no ability to detect any of the other aspects of reality, whether it's commonplace stuff like microwaves, esoteric stuff like the parallel universes predicted by string theory, or anything in the spiritual realm. Even within the zone of what we CAN detect, we're no great shakes; countless lower animals have far sharper senses than we do, and in the bigger picture our senses evolved only to help us deal with our immediate environment, so we can't see atoms or galaxies, much less the nuts and bolts of how the omniverse is built and operates. Worst of all, our senses, and the parts of the brain that deliver their data to us, are easily fooled; illness, drugs, tiredness, emotional distress, religious mania, etc can distort our perceptions, and illusions, both of the optical and magician varieties, show how easy it is to trick them.<br /><br />And; our brains filter out the overwhelming majority of info our senses produce, so that our conscious minds only get a trickle of what little information we HAVE about reality... don't you wish you could see what the world around you looks like withOUT that filtration? AND; studies show that your memory isn't anywhere near as good as you think it is, which is bad because pretty much all our knowledge and understanding is rooted in MEMORIES of what we experienced or learned. Thus, we're basing our view of reality on woefully incomplete data brought into easily-fooled brains through crude senses, filtered heavily and then corrupted over time.<br /><br />Still think you know what reality is?<br /><br />But wait, what about the information brought to us by scientific instruments, or more basic ones like cameras-don't they show objective reality? Ignoring the issue of glitches and such, when one of our gadgets records something, it means that something real was there; it does NOT necessarily mean that what was recorded exactly matches what was there (ask anyone who's tried to photograph a dark object on a light background), or that the experts, who are only human, correctly interpreted what was recorded, or, and here's the biggie, that what has so far been recorded is everything that exists. Most scientists like to make it sound like we know everything now, except for minor details, but the truth is that, not only do we NOT know it all, we can't even guess at how much exists that we can't even SPECULATE about yet, much less measure and study via instruments... and all that stuff is part of reality.<br /><br />If you went back a few hundred years and tried to talk to people about, say, subatomic particles, you'd be greeted with laughter, scorn, derision... and maybe get thrown into an asylum, or even burned at the stake as a heretic. Even the most educated folks wouldn't believe you, because they'd have no way to perceive or otherwise detect the particles, or any evidence at all of their existence, and wouldn't just take your word on it... just as people with no personal experience of "the unknown" usually don't believe that there are spirits, psychic abilities or karma no matter what those of us who've experienced them claim.<br /><br />In the modern world, some of the most brilliant people we've got, theoretical physicists, can't agree on... just about anything that'd explain how the universe(s) is built at the finest level and/or how all the forces and the quantum world can be tied in together, despite the fact that massive amounts of the highest level math point to... well, they don't agree on that either. In other words, they don't agree on what reality is... so how can WE be sure when THEY aren't? And let's not forget, there's no reason whatsoever to think that the points they're debating now will be the final answers; if you had a dollar for every time the so-called experts believed they had the final answer for ANYTHING and were later proven wrong, you could retire. String theory, which is the best they can offer currently to explain reality, might be right, but why should we believe that strings are absolutely the most basic parts of matter/energy (which are actually the same thing, remember)... just because they're the most basic part that anyone's THOUGHT of thus far? And let's not forget that they've got nothing but guesswork to account for what 99.02% of the mass of the universe is made out of (see my post of 2-15-07); it could be ghosts, God, heaven, hell, demons, angels, karma, anything your religion, spiritual path or philosophy has come up with, and/or stuff that no human has even guessed at yet in the wildest speculative fiction... and whatever it is, it's part of reality.<br /><br />STILL think you know what reality is? If so, you need to write a book, because you're the only human being with that knowledge; of course, you'd be asked to furnish PROOF to convince the scientific types... and if you don't have any, you're in the same boat as the rest of us, because we've all spent the greater part of our lives, at the very least, believing that the combination of our personal observations and experiences, whatever bits and pieces of scientific lore we can recall, and our particular flavor of spirituality combined to fully describe reality.<br /><br />Ok... so what? On the one hand, this is all totally irrelevant, because you can live your life just fine without knowing what reality is. On the other hand, it's the biggest issue there is... and would you still be reading this post if you didn't have some shred of desire to KNOW? The best suggestion I can make is to pay a little attention to science to give you some guidelines, and ALOT of attention to those patterns in what goes on around you that can't be explained by normal cause and effect, and keep asking yourself "how?" and "why?"; sooner than you'd believe, you'll discover that "There are more things in heaven and Earth," and be a big step closer to knowing what reality is.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6272246-7299741198324070891?l=omniverse.blogspot.com'/></div>Omnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535142570254270177noreply@blogger.com