“what exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and unchanging and complete. It was not or nor shall be different since it is now, all at once, one and continuous”
Parmenides
Burnt Norton
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Tag Archives: reality
What’s the matter?
Or put another way, what actually is it, and does it exist at all? John Bell, the physicist, settled the 40 year old argument between Einstein and Neil’s Bohr and the Quantum sciences. What Bells Theorum (since proved experimentally) means is just this..
The universe is singular, connected. All parts no matter how distant instantaneously influence all other parts. Bells Theorum underpins David Bohm’s breakthroughs, arising from his work with Einstein at Princeton. This appears to show that reality is a single unboundaried flux or stream, with thoughts and matter as evanescent eddies and whirlpools. The model of the universe built up over centuries as material, atomic – is simply wrong.
In fact everything is dual – both wave and particle. That from quantum mechanics. Also matter is really a form of energy (e=mc2).
So everything is one, and that one thing is a complexity of energy and waves. Our conscious thought and matter, eddies and ripples in the one thing. Sounds like something from Hindu writing? It’s also prefigured by the beliefs of the oldest European cultures, with the three sisters of Wyrd spinning fate in the roots of Yggdrasil- the Tree of Life.
This world is a holograph
There is a little known law of nature, with deep implications for reality. In the 1970’s it was shown that the amount of information in any space was proportional to its area, not its volume. Weird, since space is not two-dimensional.
A theory has been developed that explains this – that the Universe is actually a holographic projection from the outside and only appears three dimensional here, within it. It was Jakob Bekenstein who came up with that, and implied that the Universe we experience is actually the inside of a black hole in the larger Universe.
Juan Maldacena published a paper in 1997 reinforcing this, in which he showed that you could consider the Universe to be a form of holographic projection. (Apparantly – I’ve only read about it – he’s a string theorist so by definition almost incomprehensible).
So, if that’s true then reality that we perceive as material and final is more like the shadows dancing on the wall of Plato’s Cave. In his Allegory of the Cave he postulated that what we perceive is only the shadow on a cave wall of the “ideal” reality beyond and outside. According to Maldacena and Bekenstein- what we perceive as 4 dimensional space-time is actually a holograph inside a black hole of what is outside and beyond.
” According to the allegory, man’s condition is one of bondage to perceptions. When man is chained up with only a fire behind him, he perceives the world by watching shadows on the wall. He does not realize that there is more to be seen or known, and as such leads a largely passive, disinterested life. So long as his basic needs are met, he does not ask questions. Many believe that this is a statement about people who do not overtly seek knowledge or truth, but rather accept what they are told or what they can immediately experience.” Philos.org, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Dream relationships
Intimacy can be a nightmare. Or dreamy. Which is it to be? It’s within our gift. To ourselves.
They want to take. Do I give?
Maybe. Probably, but do they understand that you are giving, and what they’re taking? It shouldn’t just be giving in. Just It seems to me that this is how it works. I have my own image of who I am. You, my beloved, have your idea of what is “me”; it’s quite different from mine. When we started out on our journey together – you needed me to be that person. Remember all of the friction back then? It was all around my idea of me and your idea of me. (Oh, and the versa of course. In fact probably more so!. So many years later our ideas and images of me have jostled toward each other. Giving and taking.
Mirror, mirror, you’re my all
It was a bit gritty sometimes, but looking back; thank you. Without your idea of me – I wouldn’t have become this facet of me-ness. You have been my mirror; which seemed to be distorted at first. Not so much giving and taking; more pushing and pulling; cajoling, believing, shining a light.
Here’s what I think. All the versions of self – are all dreams. Stories.. There is no real thing called me. Except perhaps the sum total of everyone’s idea of me. So can I change? As easily as changing channels. I can become how you see me, or how I’d like to be – just by thinking it.
Four in a bed
Really there are (at least) four people in our relationship. Me (according to me). Me (as you imagine me). You (who you are, to you). You (as I need and imagine you to be).
And we dance, don’t we. So many steps and pirouettes and sore toes.; but it’s the stuff that’s kept us going through the years. Holding our our gaze. An emergent quartet. That’s us.
We have trodden on each others toes quite often; but thank you for staying on the floor with me.
Think of all the fabulous stories that could be told. If we stuck, rather than twisted – when our dream of ourself is confronted. We’ve all walked out from friendships and marriages; all to preserve a fantasy of one particular me-ness or you-ness. Give, but don’t give in. Take, but not to cause heart ache.
Sitting By The Well (Chapter 1)
Marion Woodman discusses soul, water, flow and the feminine. First of 12 short talks that my daughter introduced us to. Transformational for me anyway, (oh – and inspiring, and hopeful, and revealing …).
I’d really love any thoughts or comments..
To listen click here … sitting by the well ch 1 soul and water
Touching the Flow
I’m bumbling bee not its sting
Flight of the gull not its wing
Not noun or thing-y at all
‘Cos I’m the bounce of a ball
Hop of a bird and its call
The verb, I am is to be
Container containing set free
Strong brown god striving to sea
For reading click here … touching the flow
All is not as it seems. Physics and Philosophy are pointing us to integration rather than differentiation. To wholeness rather than fragmentation.
The Nobel prize physicist David Bohm proposed that language is reshaped to focus on verbs, rather than nouns (subjects & objects). He calls this a “rheomode”, reflecting a reality of flow, of movement. He also picks up the insight of existential philosopher Martin Buber that we are the sum of our relationships – each to each.
And it’s relationship of waves not matter. In recent work Milo Wolff has shown that when thought of as intersecting standing waves, then reality can be described by simple equations. It is no longer necessary to invent a veritable zoo of exotic particles – and “dark” matter and energy. Wolff’s work is not new, but based on work by Maxwell, Schrodinger and Einstein.
Our watchwords, or better – watching words – and focus is shifting..
From nouns – to verbs..From quanta – to waves..From individuals – to connections..From fragmentation – to wholeness
.. or as Teilhard de Chardin would say – to the Omega Point – where humanity awakens to the reality of the whole, love.
Joy beyond angst?
It is politically correct to assume a materialistic existence built on a series of microscopic random events unfolding in intransitive time. We live in the ship of our ego, afloat on an ocean of materialism. No wonder we are full of loneliness and fear.
Sigmund Freud observed that the more you avoid a fear, or abyss, the unhealthier you become. All of the mechanisms of dealing with unconscious pain (projection, avoidance, repression etc) simply lead at best to neurosis, at worst to psychosis.
The big fear, the monster lurking in the deeps is existential angst. The terror of nothingness inside the tiny baby inside each of us. How, then, to deal with that? It’s worth tackling, since our insecurity is rooted right there. The more secure a person is, then the more listening, creative, compassionate, generous, talented and capable of joy they are. Insecurity spawns withdrawal, narcissism, unhappiness and disconnection. So that horizons contract to world as prison.
How then does security arise? Where do we find an ability to live in confidence? (Con Fides; with trust)? Some simply have faith. Probably they were securely attached as children. What about the rest of us?
Science is uncovering deep meaning at the most fundamental level. Experiments on matter at the most microscopic levels shows that existence is an infinite series of possibilities, potential – until observed. It is the act of observation that, in effect, crystallises out this particular existence from the cloud of possibilities. What then is this act of becoming, of creation that we are engaged upon together? . Surely there must be an “observer” to create this particular reality. Sure enough, our species are the most efficient engines of observation, whether through science or the arts. We each of us spend our life in observation (or as some would call it – witness, some knowledge). Interestingly our gathering of knowledge is escalating in a geometric progression. (Are we approaching Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point”?)
It appears to me our purpose as humans is to be just this – engines of observation crystallising out existence; and we do this together. That puts the onus on us collectively. It is OUR task to work for “good effect” – rather than trying to live with our eyes tight closed against the fear that we float on a sea of random meaninglessness.
…and then comfort comes; and connection and joy. Atman replaces ego, and angst evaporates. Until we forget and have to realise it all over again.
Its Wyrd, Man
The druids and those before them believed in Wyrd. Fate, spinning and spun eternally by the three sisters sitting at the base of the tree of life. World interwoven and changing with tides and currents rippling through it. Reality as flow, connection, relation, context, love). New facets of our connected reality constantly emerging. The same truths at the base of Hinduism – and in Quantum Mechanics ( and Buddhism and Christianity).
Metamorphosis. Water becoming ice. Caterpillars pupating, emerging into butterflies. We journey together into wondrous new states. Society has a reality separate from the individuals that it is made from. And we as individuals in turn have emerged as something new, from the molecules that constitute us now. We are co-evolving in a phase of emergence from one state to quite another.
Yet; mostly we think of the material world as static and secure. How strange. We manage that by focussing on short time segments. Thus we ignore the riverine flow of rocks, the evolution from raw plasma to chemicals to biology to ideas; and we are also blind to “now”, the window to eternity.
Why? Fear, I suspect, is to blame. The terror, the existential angst that is located in our ego – which of course is definitely an ephemera. This is just a trick of light. Look past the surface of the pool with its (reversed) image where we see our “self” reflected. There, within the water, is the flow of life which is our home. We let our egos rule over us, when – just here, just now (always here, now), in the flow of the universe is our real deathless self. As Rupert Brookes puts it “.. a pulse in the eternal mind, no less”. Like Narcissus, we are transfixed by inner absorption rather than an awareness of all-that-is.
Hug your Fear
We can’t push it away; not now. What then?
Embrace it, honestly. If it’s there anyway then really look at it. Anyway I found that it led me to the inbreath of the joy which lies just beyond acceptance. Really. Truly.
This is a diary from the front of the war with fear.. (bear with the language, it’s influenced by Martin Buber’s little book “I and Thou” )..
“Consideration of any “thing” entails full exploration of its meaning, including all contexts and antonyms.
Fear is a context that shades meaning of each “thing”.
The unknown arises because fear prevents its consideration.
Therefore fear, unlike joy, disgust or sadness, has to be subsumed in order that the unknown “thing” can be considered. That is, it must be seen as context, separately from the “thing”.
This perspective is achieved by accepting the worst feared outcome, by plumbing the depth of possibility.
Death is an antonym of, and also a context of life. The opposite is also true.
Fear of death is a surface reflecting our ego. It is a narcissistic mirror at the boundary of the ocean of existence. It’s reflective property is a barrier to our consideration of existence.
Fear of death prevents the conscious consideration of a deeper monster – existential angst – whereby we fear utter meaningless of infinite non-existence.
When existential angst is plumbed it is found to be a chimera, a confection of our ego; however it must be confronted and experienced for this this truth to be released.
It is by swimming naked in the infinite sea of potential meaningless that meaning emerges.
It is through integration with nothing that number and all “things” are realised.
It is through this mechanism that death is dissolved through a wider perspective, so that the joy of unification with “all that is” is glimpsed as the truth. “All that is” is synomymous with “the word existing beyond time”.
Some do not have to travel this path to truth. They are most often securely attached and live confidently (with trust). This is most often a gift from their parent, who held them in maternal reverie through their perilous crossing to the world of “things”. They are blessed”
Touching the Flow
Poetically…
No no I’m never no thing
I’m bumbling bee not its sting
Flight of the gull not its wing
Not noun or thing-y at all
‘Cos I’m the bounce of a ball
Hop of a bird and its call
The verb, I am is to be
Container containing set free
Strong brown god striving to sea
Prosaically…
All is not as it seems. Physics and Philosophy are pointing us to integration rather than differentiation. To wholeness rather than fragmentation. This requires that we change the way we relate to each other. In the language of neural networking – to focus on edges and synapses rather than points and neutrons.
David Bohm proposes (“Wholeness and the Implicate Order”) that language is reshaped to focus on verbs, rather than nouns (subjects & objects). He calls this a “rheomode”, reflecting a reality of flow, of movement. Elsewhere, for instance in “On Dialogue” he picks up the insight of existential philosopher Martin Buber – that reality is in relation, not the thing (“Ich-Du”).
The world, as Buber says, is two-fold. Everything can be described simultaneously either as bits – quanta – or waves. We appear to have achieved mastery by conceiving reality in terms of the material. To be investigated by smashing into fragments. However consider, just for a moment, the REAL basis of a theory – the standard model – which purports to explain material reality; but depends on conjuring “dark matter” and “dark energy”. For “dark” read – “we don’t know, but we need it to make our equations work”. How much of this “dark” stuff is necessary for the equations to work? 95% of all that is… You have to say that physicists have chutzpah. Not only does this dark stuff account for 95% of everything – but these guys are really precise about what they don’t know – “Dark matter accounts for 23.3 percent of the cosmos, and dark energy fills in 72.1 percent [source: NASA]“
Meanwhile, fortunately, considering reality as a wave is much more productive. In recent work Milo Wolff has shown that when described as intersecting standing waves, then reality can be described by simple equations. It is no longer necessary to invent a veritable zoo of exotic particles – and “dark” matter and energy. Wolff’s work is not new, but based on work by Maxwell, Schrodinger and Einstein.
Our watchwords, or better – watching words – and focus is shifting..
From nouns – to verbs..From quanta – to waves..From individuals – to connections..From fragmentation – to wholeness
.. or as Teilhard de Chardin would say – to the Omega Point – where humanity awakens to the reality of the whole.
“Teilhard calls the contributing universal energy that generates the Omega Point “forces of compression”. Unlike the scientific definition, which incorporates gravity and mass, Teilhard’s forces of compression sources from communication and contact between human beings. This value is limitless and directly correlated with entropy. It suggests that as humans continue to interact, consciousness evolves and grows.‘