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?

Autumn Story

“An Autumn Story”

(This is not fiction: that is to say, not a construction of conscious thought. It happened this morning just the way I've described it)

Lot's of activity and change this week. Spent some time with one doctor discussing my improving knee and the fact that I can start getting more exercise to build it back up. While I also spent time with other doctors assessing my brain injury and how I should proceed with plans to build a life around my “new normal”.

Today turned out to be one of those spectacular sunny early fall days that exist as a picture in the hearts and minds of anyone who has spent much time in New England, the lust for which is renewed every autumn. All in all it seemed like a good day to begin a daily walking habit.

I walked in the warm sun, with a few early red and yellow leaves drifting in the soft September breeze. I walked by a pear tree at the end of the road, where the plump yellow orbs wafted a sweet lusciousness and invited a bite. And past an ancient just-mowed field where as a boy I rode my pony and where certainly generations before had done the same. The smell of a just-mowed field is one of those touch stones of youth stored away somewhere in my memory. As I walked, my mind wondered over the choices I've made, and still must make, and my imaginings ventured toward the unknown future with some trepidation.

Passing the pond where multitudes have skated and picnicked, and talked, and loved and cried, I decided to rest my sore knee beside the leaf dappled water. I sat on a stone bench erected by broken parents in the name of Brian, their child who left this plane much to soon and who played hockey on this pond so often and so many years before.

While I sat in the partial shade of a large oak I contemplated people's unease of getting older and of life's ultimate eventuality.

I paused and let my mind drift.

~

I felt the warm summer wind with the sun high in the sky as I languished there hanging from a limb. Plump and green and far from danger. An acorn. Life was good, and simple. The days were long and warm and mostly calm. Yes there was the occasional terrible wind and crashing rain which would claim some but not most of our community of nuts living in a rustling world of lush greenness.

One day I noticed that the wind blew cooler and our stems grew stiff and brittle. And first in ones and twos and eventually in great masses, our community was coming to an end. At first we ignored and denied what was happening, but after a time we each waited in fear while we prayed that our time would not be too soon, or cause us much pain. We looked upon those of us now resting motionless on the ground so far below, turning old and brown and decaying. What a pitiful sight. What awful thing had we done to deserve such an abject fate as this?

One lonesome cold day as the wind whipped and rain slashed as I wished the terror would stop but also hoping it would continue for at least one more day, there was silence. Peace. I was weightless and the thrashing noise turned to a soft woosh. It was wonderful. What magic had occurred? Had I been saved somehow? Was it because I was somehow special? Had I sufficiently pleased the bright warm god in the sky?

After a time was a bump, and another, and then rolling, and once again silent stillness.

Looking around I saw all the others, laying beside me in great masses. Still, but quite alive and looking back at me.

Given time to get used to things it was comfortable on the ground surrounded again by the others. Motionless, but in a way more content, for now there was no terror about to pounce except for the occasional bushy tailed beast who would steal away with some unlucky soul.

Like all the others, my shell slowly turned brown and there was a musty smoky perfume everywhere. It smelled pleasant. Expectant.

After a time I saw a crack appear in my neighbor's shell! He must have expired in the night and as he did his body gave way to its fate. Looking around I could see many others whose departed bodies had failed in the same dreadful way and who had left odd stems protruding from those cracks. Their guts exposed in a vulgar last display of fruitless effort to survive.

It was sad to finally realize that although just days before we had all thought we had been saved, it was only a pause in the relentless return to the dark infinity from which we were born just those few months prior. In the end we would be recycled through the ground, and although a new acorn would emerge after the long winter and spring, what would become of us? Where would all those stories of remembered warm days and cool nights and our aspirations and dreams finally end up? Apparently they would devolve to nothing as surely as our dark, now-rotting husks. Lost to eternity: in the end it seems, it would all be a complete waste.

~

Fear of the unknown. Fear of the future. Fear of the loss of existence; is a cold dark thing. It is a dye that stains deep into a soul. It changes how life is perceived and lived and loved.

As I sat there and imagined these things a single red leaf drifted and settled in my lap. I sat by the water and felt the warm sun on my face, and I looked up into the enormous tree from whence it fell. And I smiled because I could see what the acorn couldn't, or wouldn't. It was moving through a longer process than it knew. Those guts it would be spilling in its final act of rage against death were to become its first of millions of roots that would support a colossus that would live hundreds of years. That huge oak would remember all of these experiences, and over its lifespan, spawn countless like it. Each to ignorantly fumble along through its existence. Each never knowing its own magnificence but each unconsciously plotting a unique path to reach it.

I also smiled because I realized that perhaps unlike the acorn, I have been given glimpses of my own real self. Not enough to fully see and experience my eventual form but perhaps enough to see, to know, that a much deeper existence is real and it awaits. Unfortunately for the acorn it must travel successfully through each of the stages of growth to reach the point of being a great oak tree. My glimpses have shown me that I need not worry about such things. My peeks under the veil have shown that eventual transcendence, although having an unknown time and method, is inevitable. Is unavoidable.

So enough time having passed, and having other tasks ahead today, I left the side of the pond to walk home. As I left the gravel driveway and exited to my right, I began to walk, watching the 3 inch white line stretch ahead of me marking the side of the road. After several steps one (and only one) dark spot appeared on the line. As I walked past I noticed it was an acorn. A single perfect acorn with no others to be seen ahead or behind. I leaned down and picked it up. It was perfect and greenish but turning to brown.

When I rolled it over I found a crack and inside the crack, a little pale yellow shoot just inside.

That acorn sits as a reminder on my desk, perhaps considering its existence, as I sit and consider mine.

Sept 28, 2012

JKM III

------------------------

Epilogue

I have been spending a lot of time trying to improve my understanding of the nature of life, of existence, of consciousness, of reality. A big task to be sure, and perhaps a wandering road with no end, but it seems to me a reasonable cause none the less.

Circling around this topic are the existential questions: where did we come from, and upon our demise where do we “go”? In a passage from “Across The Unknown” written in the 1930's a living person was posing questions to an entity about our inability to see beyond the veil of death. This inability, to have direct experience of that which lies “beyond”, is why many rely on faith as a bedrock principal. Unfortunately, to me, and many others, “faith” is intellectually bankrupt, and anyhow far to dull an instrument to be used for such a delicate and important purpose as this: as it doesn't illuminate, but rather it sooths. The entity, which was wholly in agreement, posed something like the following:

you are like an acorn, unable to see the entirety of your situation. If only the acorn could see that what it perceives as “the end” is really just a normal transition to the next part of its existence as an oak tree.

As I thought of it, that crack in the acorn's shell is no different then the teeth falling out of a 5 year-old, or the hair from a 50 year old, or the caterpillar's move into its silken tomb. These are transitions that might be viewed as the end, and so they are in a way, but they are also incremental beginnings, and more importantly in a human these things also contain a continuity of conscious existence.

Even for those who “believe” in hereafter, the conundrum of death is mostly that they can't see the far side of the doorway through which others have passed. However, according to many accounts, we do have the ability to directly experience that door from the other side while living our lives. By directly experiencing it, this would allow a journeyer to step around “belief” altogether for the surety of a “knowing”. I have so far discovered that for me, belief is hollow. It is a knowing which I seek, and perhaps to which the road leads.       

Look more deeply-

Where the acorn sees untimely demise

The oak finds miraculous birth

JKM July 2016

"What It Takes"

~What It Takes~

It takes:

Curiosity-

to look deeply,

beyond the tall walls that others have helped you build,

and which block your way;

Fearlessness-

to face what what appears without flinching,

and to release what has become hollow;

Courage-

to reach into the dim void,

feel for what is there,

and to bring it deep into one's self with love;

Persistence-

to keep trying when 'the search for “it” '

ignores your fumbling attempts;

Patience-

to understand that the journey doesn't care

when and how you succeed,

but knows you will;

Wisdom-

to know when you have discovered the things you seek,

the things you needed to know for now,

the things you need to be,

even though you haven't yet gazed onto the full vista

from the summit of the zig-zagging trail you walk;

Confidence-

to know that the lessons which have become

an indelible part of you: are true,

and will support you and nourish you

until new paths emerge which will take you further

toward the end that drove you to look in the first place,,,

and which calls you still.

JKM

From a dream May 2016

The Illusion Of Matter

On the Illusion of Matter
May 2015

The point of this essay is to look at the way physical experiences are manifest. I have tried to base my descriptions on evidence that many of us see every day. I have chosen to talk about the “what” as opposed to the “how” of the matter, as I think the “how” is probably beyond our ability to know. It is certainly beyond my ability to infer based on the evidence I have collected to date.

As you can infer from the title, this paper covers the topic of whether matter exists in a physical form. I believe it is possible that it does not. The implications of this are wide ranging and impactful. However I would like to also state that even if it is true, it does not mean that the study and use of more conventional physics is valueless. This is because although I contend that matter doesn't exist in a what one would conventionally call “physical” form, its illusion is quite real, and since most of our lives take place in a physical (albeit illusionary) construct, how we seem to interact within the physical characteristics of our existence is of great consequence to us.

Although it is quite possible that actual physical particles (or even for that matter waves) don't exist in a physical sense, their illusion does follow quite strict rules, and these rules are reasonably well understood by the reductionist scientific world. Further, the wide range of scientific discoveries that have been made over the centuries have had tangible impact on billions of us that is impossible to ignore. That is: the study and manipulation of our world using materialist science has tremendously impacted our life experiences. So from some perspectives, we might say that whether matter is illusionary or not has little bearing on our lives. I would agree that this is true from SOME perspectives. However from other perspectives the difference is huge.

So, to begin-
the mind is perfectly capable of creating a 3D immersive (lifelike) experience: it is called a dream.
________

In a lucid dream I was riding on a train. Sitting in a widow seat, I looked out at the passing scenery while fully knowing I was tucked in my bed 10 miles from Boston, at about 4:30 AM. As we passed a large grove of trees I noticed the fine details, the rough bark, the infinite variety of shapes and sizes of each tree. I looked at individual branches and could find nothing that hinted at the fact that there was no physical matter comprising it all. I knew as I was looking at it, that this was all a creation, an illusion, of some sort.

I then looked at the perspective of the scene: the relative motion of the closest tress as they moved in perfect perspective against those further away, and those which moved relatively against those even further away. What could create this? What kind of power would be required for a computer to conceive, design in the most minute detail, and render all this in real time? Could the physical brain contain such power?

Then I took my experience to a new level. I decided to fly out of the train, within and above the quickly passing forest. I effortlessly moved up through the roof of the train and I literally flew through some of the trees. I felt a slight sensation as I passed through the material of each one. I glanced back over at the train powering down the tracks, a long line of passenger cars behind the diesel engine, followed by a caboose. I glanced in the other direction and again saw the fully realistic view of near and far trees passing in perfect perspective, even as I swooped up and over the forest.

Still, I could not find anything out of place. I could find nothing to give me a hint that what I was watching wasn't “real”. Perhaps this was because it WAS real: as real as any experience. Perhaps it was the same as any experience in our objective reality. Perhaps this dreaming/non-physical world is just as real as the waking one because it is being created in the same way as any real waking-world experience. How would that work? How COULD that work?

For purposes of this discussion, we can categorize two types of immersive personal experiences: physical and non-physical. We are all quite familiar with the physical, and we assume it is “powered” by sensing the existence of a separate “solid” material world, one comprised of matter. The non-physical is no less familiar but is quite different. Examples are- dreams, OBE, NDE, shared death experiences, etc.

Starting with the physical: Let's take a closer look particularly at our vision sense.

It has been pointed out many times that there is no intrinsic color to anything. Vision relies on photons (which carry color information only as a function of vibratory frequency) striking the retina in the eye, which  excites various rods and cones in particular ratios, which send electro-chemical information to the brain, and then something somehow interprets this information and through a process which no one understands, we perceive color. Oddly, nowhere along this trail of processes is there a sense, even a hint, of color.

Consider how a picture is transmitted to your TV. The quality of color doesn't exist in the transmitted data stream. Of course the information contains data that is used by the TV electronics to indicate color, but that is not the same as the actual qualitative experience of red being included in the data set. The TV must use its electronics to sort out the codes and turn on the proper colored dots for the quality of color to take form.  In a similar way, your eyes don't directly project colors on the visual screen of your awareness. Rather the mind, like the TV, sorts and interprets and converts the information sent from the eyes and creates a visual scene of the physical world, which is then projected on the screen of our “theater of the mind”. Many will argue that the brain, like the TV, converts the incoming sense data and biologically creates the sensation of color. OK I accept that this is a reasonable position. But lets hold that thought for a bit and look at this from a different perspective.

Let's turn to a different type of experience, a non-physical based one, that we can all imagine: a dream. We have all had completely realistic dreams, ones which occasionally, for all intents and purposes, can be indistinguishable from “real life”. Sights, sounds, touch, and even emotions appear as they would in our waking experience .

So again focusing on vision; we can easily see that while sleeping, our eyes are closed, consequently there is no visual sense data being presented to our brain. So it appears it is not necessary for us to actually be receiving sense input to have an immersive 3D (“real life”) visual experience. We can see that it is possible, somehow, for one to fabricate a totally convincing lifelike experience of a non-physical world: we all do it every night when we sleep.

Some would say, yes but those experiences are just comprised of memories. That somehow “sense data” is being provided to the brain's visual cortex from a memory. I would respond in two ways:
1- I have had many many dreams where I have experienced whole new, or vastly different environments from those that I have experienced in the past. I reject the notion that dreams are comprised of memories only: there is way too much evidence to the contrary.
2- Even if this were the case (that dreams are comprised only of memories) this doesn't change the fact that we are creating an immersive realistic experience with no physical sensory input. We are creating the experience from something else, something not containing nor as the result of, matter at all.

In one famous quote, a gentleman demonstrated the reason for his faith in the reality of physical matter by kicking a stone and submitting this is as obvious and convincing evidence of the supremacy of matter as the fundamental bedrock of our experience: but let's look closer.

Imagine you are in a dream, and talking to a person about this very subject, and the person kicks a dream stone and says, “see isn't it obvious that matter is real?”. He might show you the scuff on his shoe. He might even pick up the rock and hit you on the head. How would you respond? Well, you might respond as you would in waking consciousness and either agree with the obviousness of the demonstration, or you might argue the point: but in the end the other person would probably not be convinced. Why would they? It's just your opinion against theirs and lacking solid proof, yours is of no higher standing than theirs. We have a stand-off.

Now, let's say that you were to become lucid in this dream of yours, as I have many times. You would realize then, from your larger perspective, that this whole scene is playing out in a dream while you are lying in bed. You would know with absolute certainty that in this dream reality there IS no “solid matter” to comprise the rock. You would KNOW that this other person was being fooled. You yourself, while earlier in this dream non-lucidly, might have also been similarly fooled, but from your new (lucid) perspective, it is obvious that physical matter plays no role in this place. Here, in this physical-looking dream, just like in “real life”: shoes scuff, eggs fall and break, cars crash, and a punch in the nose will hurt and make your eyes water. All these things happen in the world of matter, and so too here in the non-physical dream space. Of course in the dream world it is possible for the rules to occasionally be different: sometimes you can fly, sometimes you can fall great distances and bounce etc, but most of the time the environment behaves pretty much the same as in the waking ("physical") world. In any case, amazingly, a realistic experiential environment is being fabricated that is similar to (perhaps even indistinguishable from) real life. And it isn't just a fuzzy “dream-like” state of mind that is giving us this impression, as we will discover during lucid dreaming.

So what we are left with is this: on a nightly basis, we find ourselves in quite realistic worlds, which apparently we create. Ones that can present as totally physical in behavior, but who's physical-looking objects lack any material basis. Perhaps the dream world that we experience comes from our memories, perhaps our imagination, perhaps it exists in some form in a larger consciousness. These are points that we might examine more closely, but we know that the experience is not formulated based on sense data from our eyes and ears. We know in some way, something is constructing our dream environment from something non-physical in nature. Although we don't know the nature of this world, and whether it exists apart from ourselves, let's just think of this environmental information which is at the root of this non-physical experience, as a dataset. Literally a set of data which describes our dream world.

Having looked more closely at our dreams we can see that the “projector” which illuminates our screen of experience need not be comprised of photons bouncing of “solid” material surfaces, but rather can also be a construction of our minds. Perhaps this is a fundamental attribute of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is primary. Perhaps further, this mechanism of experience-construction is the thing behind that which we experience as our “real life” 3D world as well.

What we can now see is, in the case of the physical world and the non-physical, our mind is involved with producing the content which is projected on our experiential screen. Remember, even in the physical process of sight, the mind/brain must convert the electro-chemical nerve impulses to display color. Both types of experiences may involve similar processes: but more on that in a bit.

A powerful way to look closer at these phenomenon can be through exploration while in “mixed consciousness”. This can make it possible for us to use our clear, lucid, awake, analytical thought process to experience and test the limits of this non-physical environment, as we are experiencing it. We can do this via lucid dreaming.

Recently I awoke (became lucid) in a dream where I was standing on the beach watching a beautiful multi-colored sunset. I could feel the sand between my toes and the warm sun on my face. I watched the rippling water and heard the small waves lapping on the wet sand. I stood there in amazement as I marveled at my mind's ability to create this scene, one which I had never seen before. It was indistinguishable from waking reality, and was playing out in 3D full motion video, with sight, smell, feeling, and sound before me.

While standing there alone on the beach, I spoke out loud to myself. I spoke to the incredible fact that while I knew I was lying in bed asleep, dreaming, I was also somehow bringing this totally new and sparkling world into existence.

While some part of me was asleep in my bed, another part was fully conscious of this fact and observing and narrating the scene, and apparently another part was creating the wind and the water and the Sun. Was some aspect of my mind planning each ripple in the ocean? Was some aspect of my mind choosing to move the clouds in unison through the sky? Were there unseen fish in that ocean swimming beneath the surface of the water? Were there people on that distant sailboat talking about their plans to start a family or buy a new home?

Dreaming is not the only case where we can see this non-physical reality creation process play out. We can also point to phenomena such as: Out of Body experiences, Near Death Experiences, Shared Death Experiences, shamanic journeying, and Remote Viewing. So there is a process in play here that may take many forms in many situations.

So now let's imagine the mind creating both the physical AND non-physical experience.

This is a big deal: in the case of the physical I am asking you to imagine that there IS NO physical aspect to anything. I'm suggesting that perhaps matter doesn't exist in a physical form at all. I am NOT just saying, as many currently do, that most of any physical object is comprised of empty space, and that even the small amount of space that IS occupied only contains vibrating electromagnetic strings,, so really isn't “physical”. No: what I am saying is perhaps what we experience as physical is actually a totally non-physical construction that contains neither particles or waves, but is rather only an idea: data. It is created by consciousness itself, just as in a dream. I am further saying that it is personal. It applies to you only. It has all of the attributes of the physical, but lacks that which we call matter. It lacks even the Planck-level underpinnings of matter. A lot to ask, but lets run with this thought.

Now that we have seen while dreaming we regularly experience an apparently physical world without the aid of any physical matter, we must consider the possibility that our “real” world has the same non-physical basis. After-all, isn't it reasonable to suppose that the same amazingly powerful creative process which forms the experience of our non-physical world may also be at the root of our “real world” experiences? Why should we presume that there are two utterly different ways which our world comes to expression? Parsimony would suggest there is but ONE underlying mechanism of experiential expression.

Imagine that right here, right now, although you are having a “physical” experience, it is being created by mind, or consciousness, and is not comprised by separate actual objects. I'm not suggesting that those physical objects don't exist in your experience, just that their source, their very nature, may not be what you think. Perhaps we don't exist in a physical world at all. Perhaps we exist as consciousness and we construct/manifest the experience of physical world in which we exist.

This is NOT to say that we manifest actual material reality, it is to say that we manifest the experience of physical reality. There is a non-trivial and unmistakable difference.

In one case, there are actual mechanical objects which stand alone from each other and us, and with which we interact through a process of billiard-ball mechanics. Alternatively, a manifested experience of reality contains no material objects whatsoever, and consequently no mechanical interactions. This method of expression only contains an experience where supposed objects appear as if they are acted upon by other supposed objects.

How would one even know the difference between actual physical reality and the manifested experience of physical reality? Perhaps you might ask: does it really even matter? Fair questions. We'll get to that part later. For now let's just poke around this a little more completely.

Now might be a good time to more clearly nail down the difference between “real life” or objective reality vs your more subjective, more personal, non-physical reality.

First- we need to look at the relative unchanging nature of “real life”. Not only is the world the same when you wake up as when you went to sleep, it is generally unchangeable while you are awake unless you interact with it physically. OTOH the non-physical is a much more malleable environment that more readily responds to your wishes. If you want a door to appear, it can. If you want to fly, go ahead. You can even pass through walls if you wish it to be so.

Second- another major difference is that real life is the same for everyone; it is “objective”. It is objectively consistent for all. Whereas the non-physical seems to be particular to the person “creating” it and is generally not a sharable experience. There are many documented exceptions lets think of it this way, for the time being.

I said earlier that I am suggesting that your experience of the real world is a creation of your consciousness and so that it is personal to you. So how can the physical experience be personal to you, but also objectively consistent for all?  Seems like a contradiction.

Also does this mean I am suggesting that you are the only being in existence and that you bring the entire universe into existence (solipsism)?

No. Am I suggesting that each of us exists, but brings a different and unique version of our reality into existence? No: but you are getting warmer. Read on.

So how does this model of reality hold up with our proposition of the supremacy of consciousness?

If we were to allow for two different classes of reality's experiential “data”: (objective and subjective) it holds up quite well.

The objective data set is that which is accessible to all entities who are participating in the particular reality: i.e it reflects the state of this apparently physical/material universe. Whether a dog or cat or human, or a cave dwelling bat, all will have the same shared basis of physical reality. All will individually experience whatever  is appropriate for their senses. A backyard with 10 green oak trees in it will look that way to a human. A bat will experience those trees differently, especially at night, when vision is not possible. It would experience 10 large objects with its sound location apparatus. All creatures will have a shared sense of the same reality because all will be based on the same objective data set.

On the other hand, when we consider a subjective data set we find it is particular to each observer and is dependent and changeable based on the observer's beliefs and desires. Although the way we create our experience is the same as with objective reality, this non-physical experience can be deeper and richer than the objective because it is not limited to that which is fed by the traditional human senses. Nor are we limited by traditional physics. For example we might be able to see with 360 degree vision, or be able to fly without physical assistance. Finally this data set will often be lost when the observer's attention is interrupted e.g. when one wakes up.

So if we allow for the possibility of two different sets of data to supply the input to the mind's world-creation process, we can see how this may result in a convincing physical or non-physical experience.

We can take this one step further and see that it is entirely possible for one's experience to include aspects of both data sets simultaneously. We have all experienced such a cases as: a real dog barking bleeding into a dream where a dream dog is barking. Or when your actual body needs to go the bathroom, one dreams about going to the bathroom.

There are many more interesting examples of mixed data experiences that might explain the otherwise unexplainable. What about the untold thousands of cases of awake people reporting visitations by the departed? Take for example, my father's oft-told story about a beloved grandfather physically appearing in his bedroom, at the foot of his bed, offering words of comfort on the night of his death in a car crash (the crash was not otherwise known to my father). Or of people reporting seeing angles or demons, or religious figures? What about the burning bush of Moses?: all cases where one perhaps is seeing a mix of the objective and subjective worlds simultaneously. How about all the cases where people swear they saw something incredible in the “real world”, and where usually only that person experiences that amazing thing, while others see only objective reality? What about UFOs? Or ghost sightings?

Further- there are documented cases of shared dreams and OBE experiences where two or more people were able to have an experience, document the details, and then compare notes with others to confirm a the shared non-physical event sequence. Or take for example “Shared Death” experiences, where a living loved one moves along with a deceased loved one part way through the process of the post-death transition. These sorts of experiences appear to be where we are able to share someone else's subjective (“non-physical”) reality. So it looks like we are able to access not only the usual objective data and our own subjective data, but in rare cases, someone else's subjective data as well.

One aspect of what we might consider our subjective data set is our memories. These memories span our waking life time and our non-physical experiences as well. By non-physical I refer to not just dreams but other experiences while in other states such as OBE and NDE. I would guess that our subjective data set includes memories of all those dreams that we've had and forgotten. And also those worlds, landscapes and people we've dreamed of, and have never thought of again. Memories of any environment seem to be available from any other as long as we are lucid enough to notice.

We have all come to understand that only a portion of what we experience when we are awake, seem to be available to us as memories. Only those things that are somehow notable seem to be available to us. It was during an interesting dream where I found that this is actually not the case.

I had a dream where I was sitting in my third grade classroom. I was speaking to my friends, most of which I had forgotten long ago. I suddenly realized that I remembered the names of each child in the class. This is information that was completely lost to me several decades ago.

The real kicker was, as I was talking to a particular friend and we discussed going to his house after school one day, he said that he would ask his mother, and that I should give him a call later so we could make plans. At that moment I realized knew his phone number just as if I was once again 8 years old and dialing it every day. This is definitely information that had been totally lost to me. And when I awoke that number was still clear a crystal in my thoughts.

I have since once again, forgotten the names of most of my forgotten friends, but I now realize the memories of all of that stuff, the faces, the names, the addresses and even the phone numbers, are still very alive and real and fresh, somewhere. Although it may not be accessible to my conscious physical-experience awareness, I have no doubt that it exists, intact, in some aspect of “mind”.

And if such a minuscule, unimportant day in my life is there, available, unperturbed, I now see that in all likelihood, every moment of every day of my life, perhaps every fragment of thought and every dream experience I've ever had, is available to be remembered. And if our actual physical experience is really a process driven by a “data-set”, all of this is available to be actually relived if I wish.

And finally, since we are actually able to share (to “live”) other people's subjective data, then we could actually experience what it is like to live other people's lives as well. And interestingly, this is exactly what many have reported during NDE, past live recall and other metaphysical events:
- the process of re-living even the most mundane, forgotten aspect of their lives, and
- the process of experiencing many aspects of their life through the perspective of those who with whom we've interacted, even to the point of allowing us to feel the emotions of the other person during the recalled event.

These ideas have been around for thousands of years, as family stories, as legend, as myth, as teachings, so I guess it should be of no surprise that these pieces fit together so well.

Earlier I mentioned that perhaps in some ways this view of how our world is comprised is not so important. After-all, whether matter has a physical composition or not, may be immaterial as long as it behaves in certain predictable ways when it is observed. Right?

Well yes this is true, however recognizing the real truth, that the physical world is an illusionary construct of our mind, plays a huge role in understanding and perhaps explaining the currently explainable. I refer to things like remote viewing, spiritual healing, the placebo effect, mediumship, end of life visions, end of life lucidity, out of body experiences, and on and on. These are all explainable if we use a mixed consciousness model that includes the objective and subjective.


Other aspects to study and consider-

Perhaps we could participate in a different shared reality
Perhaps we could create a new shared reality
How does time figure in?
Multi lives?
Akashic records?
One set of objective data contains all experiences, all lives from all contributors?
Other realities? Other dimensions?