Nothing is as it seems…
…nor is it otherwise.
I just bought a small book called From Science to God by Peter Russell. It’s been on my list for a few months after seeing a video of his online. In the book, he discusses the “hard problem” of consciousness–that is, how can consciousness arise from non-conscious matter–and some of the conclusions he has come to. Firstly, he addresses that we need to have a paradigm shift away from thinking matter is non-conscious, but that it may be that organisms are simply ways in which all-pervading consciousness is able to focus itself up to the point of self-awareness.
He also goes into the interesting properties of light (same speed no matter what, has no mass, can’t really prove that it exists anywhere beyond the source and the terminus) which suggest that its operating in such a way that it is beyond spacetime. Light exists in oneness and never leaves it, and the speed of light is not the speed at which light moves, but rather the speed at which existence manifests, which explains why it is constant no matter how fast you are traveling relative to it.
Further, he reminds us how everything you experience with your senses is an interpretation by your brain, as real as it is. I mean, just try and convince yourself that red doesn’t exist as you sit and stare at it. That’s just light quanta detected by the eye and interpreted in the brain into what we call “red”.
It’s so trippy.
I can think about it now… I think I am “feeling” the keys on my keyboard, but really, it’s another interpretation of electrochemical signals due to pressure in my fingertips. Nothing is experienced directly. That is the true interpretation of the Buddhist term maya, that we believe our brain’s interpretation as what is.
What are any of these things in our environment REALLY like?
The plastic of my computer mouse makes a certain sound and looks a certain way, but it’s all based on rules that are part of the same environment that my physical body exists within, thus my body experiences it the same way.
Atoms are 99.99999% nothing, but they seems solid because of the speed of the electrons orbiting them. I just want to explode, it’s so incredible to really understand what is taken for granted each day.
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Thank You!
Reading your post reminded me of a saying I heard in a recent movie of “Dr Seus’ Horton Hears a Who”. In in there’s a Kangaroo that states (hopefully I got it right): “If you can’t see it, hear it, or smell it, it doesn’t exist” when telling Horton that the Who’s are a figment of his imagination. This is all based on only what our bodies have to sense things in our environment without using machines or other tools. This is the reason people have a hard time (myself included) with things they can’t see, hear, touch, taste, or smell such as your inner self, spirits, etc… However, we go day-to-day using our cell phones when they too are based on radio waves we can’t sense, except that we know they are there because we talk to people with them. If it wasn’t for the machine to let us speak over them, then the next guy would be calling me crazy for saying there is something that allows me to talk to my friend without wires across the city without using smoke signals, light signals, tone signals, or a pidgin. It does make me think.