The importance of the "unreal"

When I tell people that our reality isn't actually "real", they mistakenly take my meaning as: "nothing we are seeing or doing has any meaning or any importance". This is absolutely NOT true. The importance of everything is in the experience of it.

In other words: although everything we see is NOT comprised of matter, is NOT objectively "real", the experience we are having couldn't be more real, and it has great importance.

And even further-
The stuff we experience makes us who we are, and these experiences will be with us forever, will have formed who we are, and are the critical factor in our accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, and drive the progression of our growth-path forward to whatever it is that we will eventually become. So we should not belittle these experiences we live through by seeing them as diminished by the fact that they are not "objectively real" and/or solid. We should revere them as the boards and nails with which we build the structure of our eternal selves.

Physicality

Is this thing “Physicality real” or not?

In discussions about odd occurrences in our world, we often hear people speak about whether something was “really here” in the physical. Whether the thing was “solid”.

I can imagine discussing these things in a new way. A way that allows us to deal with the fact that whether something is demonstrably “solid” is not a definitive way of saying whether it is “real”.

In 100 years “science” will look back at today’s paradigm as a childish, simplistic, naive, and patently incorrect way of viewing our reality, the same as how we look at those from flat Earth times. In some ways science already knows that it is a false representation of the fundamental basis of matter to think of it as comprised of “little pieces of matter” that can be smashed in to small and smaller bits.

At its smallest scale, scientists theorize that matter is actually comprised of tiny fields of electromagnetic energy. The fact that these little suckers vibrate without needing any energy input to them seems to me to violate some fundamental laws of physics, but let’s not think about that right now.

So we have this language problem, where we use the word “particle”, we really mean a large number of vibrating electromagnetic fields arranged in such a way as to behave as a single, larger group entity, and as such act as one “object”. I’m not even going to discuss whether this object exists in a physical form as “matter” (that is a whole different topic) I'm simply saying that although it is possible to describe this particle accurately (we just did), it is difficult to carry on a conversation by using that long sentence to convey a an otherwise simple meaning: so we use the word “particle” instead.

To avoid problems, we need some agreement on the meaning of the words we use. We need to agree that the word particle does not mean a little ball of stuff. It is a much more complex and nuanced arrangement of things. When scientists have conversations about these things, I think they are in much more agreement on the precise meanings, but less technical people have greatly varying assumptions built into their language, which leads to huge mis-matches between people’s understanding of each other’s meaning. This leads to major mistakes in people’s understanding of the nature of the world.

Bottom line is this- language forms conceptual models. Consequently, incorrect understanding of the meaning of a word, can easily lead to an incorrect conceptual model of the world!

In terms of whether it generally matters if objects are comprised of “little balls” of matter or organized groups of vibrating fields of energy: I would say it does not. In normal everyday life it is of little consequence to us what comprises fundamental building blocks of our apparently physical world. The real question is: do these objects persistently, objectively and independently exist?

We need to look at these three different aspects of individually to understand the actual nature of things.

Persistence refers to whether an object will continue to be perceived in a particular place if it is not acted upon by another object.

Objectivity refers to whether other observers perceive a particular object as well.

Independence refers to whether an object continues to be perceived when particular observers come and go. A key question here is whether an object is being created by its observers or whether it exists independent of them.

Consider that: the experience of physicality does not not require the actuality of “physical” objects. It is certainly possible to experience physicality (the sense that an object is “rock solid”) in a non-physical environment. Take for example: dreams and OBEs. Given this fact, let’s not confuse the experience of physicality, with the actuality of it.

Just to be clear about our terms-

Physical experience is when we sense that something is “solid”. We can touch it, feel it, smell it etc. This experience might happen in any environment (sleeping, waking, OEB, NDE, after death, etc).

Actual physical is what I am calling having the experience of physical, but specifically while awake. This is the normal case where people describe an object as being “real”.

You can see the problem with language emerging as we are describing very different things here with very similar and possibly convoluted language.

Wording aside: the difference between these two cases is both subtle and overt.

On one hand, it may matter little to an observer whether an object appears to be physical or is actually physical. If the two scenarios are indistinguishable, then what is the difference really? It’s sort of like: who cares if the universe is made of little balls of matter or little strings of energy? Does it really change our experience? Unless we are a physicist trying to study the nature of matter itself, no it generally doesn’t.

On the other hand: if our sense of physicality is simply an experience, and not an actual fact, then it means the apparently physical external universe only exists as a concept, as data. Given that material objects seem to be persistent, objective and independent, we might say that this data is somewhat “stable”, and not created or maintained by any one entity, but rather it exists as an independent thing with which we may all interact.

In dreams and other non-awake states of awareness, we find that we can no longer perceive or interact with these material objects from our awake world. During these non-awake periods we seem to be interacting with a totally separate, perhaps personal, subjective set of objects which presumably are a reflection of a different set of data over which we have substantially more control. In this state it seems also that we have substantial control over the level of physicality of the objects. Meaning: that we seem to have an impact on the rules governing how and whether we can interact with the objects. These differences of the rule-set governing the nature of how we are able to interact with objects is closely tied to what we mean when we say that something is “physical”. The problem is: in dreams when an object behaves as “solid”, we would only consider it as “physical” in our dream mind. When we are awake we might not use that word to describe it. Confusing right?

So although the experience of matter is well known to us: whether is derived from actual physical things or is really just an experience, is the question to be considered. The implications of this one question are fabulously significant to us because it redefines the whole nature of our existence. With this one extra level of understanding, we can see that perhaps all of science and technology, (which does valuable work to help us understand and live in our world) is completely missing what underlies it all.

For hundreds of years, science has been able to get by without understanding this lower, more fundamental nature of our existence. Generally science has been able to get by perfectly well, but this blind-spot has caused problems from time to time: especially when it comes to understanding some of the more esoteric aspects of our reality, such as the paranormal and even quantum physics. Until this oversight is resolved, science will continue to deny these “weird things” because they don’t have the basic tools with which to reach an understanding of them.

I have a feeling that science eventually, will be brought, however reluctantly, (kicking and screaming in-fact) to the conclusion that this aspect of our existence is quite real, and must be considered in order to reach a more complete understanding of our true nature, and how our reality is comprised. Perhaps this progress in science will need to (as Max Planck so famously said): come "one funeral at a time”.  

What About Science?

What About Science?

Another piece for my book-

In discussing these topics over the years I have occasionally been asked whether what I am saying means science is wrong. This is because most would assume that mainstream scientific theory would be in direct conflict with the types of things I am discussing about non-physical reality. After-all, how could the mainstream theory of a material based reality vs a theory which postulates that material doesn't even exist, find any common ground? Oddly enough, I think there may be quite a bit.

First of all: clearly scientific thought has had a huge impact on the life of most of the population of the planet. Every aspect of modern life is derived from one scientific development or another. It would certainly be difficult to suggest that science is irrelevant and totally based on false notions: wouldn’t it? Well,,, yes and no.

While working in the computer design world for several decades, I became very familiar with an engineering concept call “abstraction”. This approach is used because, especially in very complex systems, engineers must design the system in a series of levels, where each level serves a purpose, one building on the next. This approach allows a person or a team to concentrate on a particular aspect of the overall problem to be solved, without the need to pay much attention, or even to understand, what is going on “above” or “below” the layer on which they are working. In a computer programming situation, you might have a person working on some core part of a program, and perhaps another working on displaying the results to a screen, and perhaps a third managing the data storage. Each of these people has a problem to solve, and they just need to know how to communicate to one or more of the other layers, but are not generally concerned with the details of what the other layers are doing, or how it is being done.

A more humanistic example might be the process that ensues when you decide to start your car. You simply put the key in the ignition, and turn it, right? And the car starts. But there is an abstraction going on here. There is actually MUCH more going on that you don’t think about, (or perhaps that you would even understand) in order to start your car. There are thousands (maybe even millions) of individual steps which are necessary to accomplish the task. Luckily for you, a team of engineers have abstracted all that for you, so all you need to do is turn the key.

For the last several hundred years science has discovered smaller and small objects in our world and through understanding these objects, they have invented things: like, telescopes and advanced chemistry, and semiconductors, all of which have contributed to mankind's advancement, literally toward the stars. They have done this by leveraging the work that preceded their own. The interesting thing however, that they almost all fail to realize, is they are working on an abstracted version of reality.

So what does that actually mean?

It means that we do experience the fact that there are little bits of matter making up our world. They attract each other, and and repel each other in chemical reactions. And they seem to emit and absorb energy. And when we smash them, they they seem to be made up of smaller and small constituent parts. Our scientific community has figured out how these apparent pieces of “solid material” interact and behave. While our engineering communities have then taken advantage of these insights to design everything in our world. Their understanding of the universe, and its apparently material make-up, has been sufficient for them to accomplish incredible things. And their understanding is correct, to a point.

Here’s the rub: I am suggesting that although we all have the experience of material objects, these pieces of matter, they only exist as ideas, not as actual stuff. Just because our scientists and engineers have discovered and utilized how these apparent bits of matter behave, it doesn’t mean they are actually made of physical material. They might also be made of something else, but appear to be matter.

The bottom line is: science has made lots of valid discoveries about this thing that appears to be matter, which makes up our world, and they have a pretty good understanding of the rules governing it. All this is valid and true. However, they are almost all making a huge, incorrect and unquestioned assumption: that matter is a physical thing. That we are physical things. That our whole reality is based on physical things. There is no good reason to take this as an unquestioned fact, but they have always done so. This fallacy is the reason why our science is simultaneously correct in terms of that thing called matter, which appears to be physical, while it is also wrong because they don’t acknowledge that this thing is an abstraction. The thing they have always taken as a given, that matter is a solid thing, is only true in terms of our experience. There is an underlying process going on that has been mostly unseen for eons, that has been creating this “matter experience”. This creative mechanism is non-physical in nature and is not understood in the least, but should no longer be ignored. It seems to be associated with the enigma of consciousness. We may not understand how it works, but we should start at least acknowledging its profound impact on our world, and its role in creating the illusion of matter. And we should come to terms with the fact that our whole experience of reality is an abstraction with this non-physical mechanism of physical creation at its core.

But how could that be?

If you think about it, we are talking about trying to understand the nature of our reality, while being encompassed by (and in many ways limited by) the experience of it.

Consider a video game that simulates a world: one like “The Sims” or “World of Warcraft”. Let’s start by imagining that you are a character in a Sims world.

This Sims world is just like “real life”. There is gravity. You can walk, but not fly. If you drop an egg, it will break apart. You need to eat, or you get hungry. You need to sleep, or you get over-tired. And if you plant a seed, and water it, and the temperature and sunlight is correct, a plant will grow and fruit or vegetables will ripen.

When you go to sleep and wake up, you will find you are still in the Sim cabin with everything pretty much the same as you went to bed. The cabin still has the same number of rooms. The tree outside the door is still there. And the garden is still there, full of vegetables. Except,,, that one red tomato that you have been thinking about eating, is now half eaten. Apparently in the night that pesky gopher stopped by for a quick meal. So it looks like you are not the only creature in this world that can do things.

To you, the world is an amazing place. You occasionally wonder how this place works and why you are there, but in the end, you decide it just there is no purpose: it just IS.

That world is pretty ordinary and similar to ours. It is governed by the basic rules of physics and chemistry of which we are all familiar. It is “stable”. That is: it is pretty much the same when you awake as when you went to sleep (unlike a dream for instance), but just as in our “real” world, things do seem to be changeable. Just as in our world, those things that do change seem to be easily explained by the basic idea that matter or energy (both “material” things) can act on other matter or energy and affect it. So wind can blow down a tree. Sun can make a plant grow. And you can light a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and then cook a meal. Nothing very interesting here right?

Now lets take a look a the same situation but from our “higher” perspective in our current physical reality sitting at the computer, watching or playing with the Sims world. From our perspective we can see the plant which produced the tomato that Fred is wanting. But it doesn't exist in what WE would call a physical sense. Neither does Fred’s cabin, or the rock outside, or even Fred himself. All of these things are ideas. They are based on bits of data which were used to fabricate Fred’s world. Every tree, blade of grass, every molecule, every subatomic particle in Fred’s Sim world, is a construction by a powerful system, which is hidden from Fred but not from us. And the fundamental behaviors of Fred’s world, the rules, are all feeding into the system which is manifesting the world. So what Fred sees as a solid rock, is actually just an idea of a rock, manifested by the game system based on the data-set, and the rules governing the game.

But it sure seems real to Fred. Just yesterday he stubbed his toe on that very rock, and he felt that pain for hours. How could it NOT be real? Not be solid? It IS. He knows it more than he knows anything! He knows it just as much as he knows he is alive and breathing. He knows it to his core.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Fred has a friend, a philosopher named Phil. Phil is always stopping buy with food and wine for Fred. They like to sit for long hours by the river, smoking cigars, and drinking wine, and talking about the big questions of life, and even of existence itself.

Phil has been giving a lot of thought to the subject of the nature of reality. He has come to the conclusion that perhaps, everything we see, touch, and hear, is illusionary. He was half way through explaining this, when Fred stood up, fuming. Fred was amazed that his good friend could be spouting such nonsense, and insulted that Phil expected him to accept such a far fetched premise. He then provided what he considered to be an inarguable demonstration that matter is undoubtedly real: “otherwise how could I do this?” he said, while he banged his fist on the table the wine spilling all over. The argument went along for quite some time, but since Phil’s contention lacked sufficient proof to overcome what Fred felt was the incontrovertible and quite obvious fact of the physical world of matter, the two finally agreed to disagree on this point.

Let’s take a look at this argument from our superior standing on the question. Although we can see why Fred may not be able to swallow what Phil was saying, we can also see that without question, Phil was correct. We know with complete certainly that the environment where they live their lives is an artificial construction. We know the rock which caused Fred such pain, is only a concept. It contains no physical aspect whatsoever. All of this is obvious to us, given our more complete perspective on their world, even though it may be inconceivable for most of the people within that world. It should not be a surprise that they are unable to see, or sense, or possibly even imagine, that the apparently solid world in which they live, doesn’t physically exist.

Let’s pause to make an important point- Of course I’m not suggesting that this little story proves anything about the state of matter in our reality. It is just a story after-all, about two characters in a fictional world designed by software engineers, which is “manifested” on a computer designed by another group of engineers.

What the story does do however, is demonstrate the principal of superior standing (or point of view). It can be clearly seen that a question which is clearly in dispute, one which would be otherwise very hard to resolve within one point of reference, may be quite obvious and easy to put to rest, with a different point of view: a point of view with higher standing on the situation. One that perhaps contains some additional knowledge of the situation that the other observers lack. In this sort of situation, not only can the truth be easily seen, but also the reason for confusion on the part of the people at the lower level of perception is also quite clear. It becomes clear that: of course the players in the game can’t see the situation they are in. How could they? They lack the necessary overview of the situation that would be necessary to make the truth obvious. The fact is however, that the truth IS available to the people in our story, it just isn’t always easy to see.

Imagine for a minute that the world we are currently living in, is such a world as Fred and Phil’s. One where although we all experience solid matter as an obvious fact, the real truth, is that matter is a construction of some kind. And not only is “it” a construction, but even YOU are a creation of some larger system. How would you know? How would you tell? How would you react if someone told you the truth?

I am suggesting that, just as in the fictional Sims example, there is the obvious answer that nearly all people would believe to be true: and then there is the hidden, but ACTUAL answer to the question.

Let’s start with the first of the questions I pose: How would you know?

In the movie The Matrix, a group was walking through a wrecked building with Neo. Neo saw a cat, and then he saw the exact same cat again. Deja Vu. Morpheus explained that this was a “glitch in the system” which indicates they are not in the real world, but rather a simulation. Morpheus had realized that they had come across an anomaly that couldn't be explained by their science, and he was alert enough to not just let it pass. He understood that it was a fleeting example of the actual nature of their reality, vs the nature that most assumed was correct.

I have found that one way to see whether what we are experiencing is material or non-physically based, is by seeing if there are aspects of the world that just don’t fit using conventional thinking or applying the conventional rules of material science. If we were to find aspects of our world that don’t fit with materialist theories, things that seem to be more based in the non-physical vs physical matter, perhaps this could crack open the whole mystery for us. That is where we will be focusing our attention for now: finding those aspects of our world that just don’t fit.

Don’t worry: I don’t ask that the reader believe the unbelievable. I suggest that if the reader can set aside their long-held beliefs, and objectively look at the data which is available, they will find that there are “glitches” in our world that are available for all of us to see, and have been there throughout the whole of recorded human existence. For all that time we have almost universally just decided to turn the other way when they occur. After-all, even if we did notice, we would probably attribute the glitch to some religious story, or myth, or superstition. In the end, we were probably too busy just surviving to really pay much attention.

More recently, especially in the past 200 years or so, we have decided to let the high priests of religion and science to do the work of looking into this. We have abdicated our personal responsibility to make sense of things, and have decided that others are better prepared through their position, education or intelligence to figure out the truth, and explain these things to us. We were probably generally right: they may have been much better prepared to look into these things than the average person.

Until just recently our inability to crack the code was quite understandable as we only had small amounts of evidence indicating the falsity of our assumed physical nature, and further, we didn’t have the statistical tools or scientific means to show us the improbability of the odd things we DID occasionally see, if indeed we noticed at all.

However, with the latest science and the www we now we have:

1- fingertip access to all nearly all of the information ever recorded,

2- scientific methods to create and run tests, and measure results, with amazing rapidity and accuracy,

3- the ability to quickly analyze data with advanced statistical tools and methods,

4- the ability to communicate with nearly everyone on earth about our findings, and theirs.

It is due to these advancements that we humans now have the ability to study the real nature of our world. And further, even those of us who aren’t scientists now have the ability to collect, review, and understand the state-of-the-art in research into the nature of our reality. Anyone with sufficient time, a computer, curiosity, and ability to comprehend, can reach their own conclusions about the nature of the world in which we exist.

But why would we need to do this important work ourselves? Aren’t “really smart” people already working on this? I mean, what happened to all those scientists? In a few cases yes smart people ARE looking into this, but unfortunately I have found that nearly all scientists are doing just what we have all done, they turn the other way when they find a glitch. Or worse: rather than investigating the data and try to make sense of it, they twist themselves in knots to explain away the things that they don’t like, or don’t understand, rather than take the time to really comprehend what they are seeing. After-all, these apparent glitches bring into question the cherished beliefs they hold dear, and which form the basis of their whole working life in science. Yes, I’m saying that the same thing that motivates most people: a good job, well fed and happy children, and a vacation once in a while, motivate a scientist. They are people after-all. All of these things that most people want, require a stable job, and this is a strong motivation toward the accepted status quo. Scientists who go “off the reservation” and start poking around trying to understand the actual nature of reality are few and far between, because there are not many good paying jobs awaiting those who do so. Better to smash bits of “matter” together at CERN, or to teach more young minds about the nature of matter in our world, and thus perpetuating the hold that materialism has on us all.

So what do you say? Ready to take a closer look?