Saturday, June 29, 2013

An Examination of the Possible Effects of Neighbouring Matter

an examination of the possible effects of neighbouring matter:

though we may never be able to truly, fully "see" or know in a visual sense what is happening at the micro level of matter in real space, we can posit various ways matter affects its neighbours:

it makes its neighbours more like itself. this is the most evident possibility and explains how our eyesight works and how objects seem to "move" as the visual pattern or image is copied incrementally. this is how signals are passed through space, how we communicate, etc.

it makes its neighbours more different, as though, to use a 3D mechanical motion theoretical model metaphor, it knocks its neighbours off course.

it has no effect on its neighbours.

two neighbours tend to stabilize each other, so they stay more or less the same.

what we are thinking about is how matter's change changes its neighbours' change, so to speak.

CLEARCHARGE

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Reality and Earth and Dreams and Hallucinations and the Perplexing Question of What Is Real?

reality and earth and dreams and hallucinations and the perplexing question of what is real:

"i mean, what is the commonly accepted view, or opinion, about what is real on earth, or at least what everyone has to assume? i'll tell you, that there are at least billions of real people for a start, right? and for someone who is not, you know, a schizophrenic, everyone you see is real and you have to deal with them as though they're real, and also that there's some kind of science that connects everyone together but i'm not going to go into that, because i don't know a whole lot about science or how it really works or would work. and then it's like, that is the only completely real thing, everything else, dreams, hallucinations, you know, seeing or hearing things other people don't seem to, and other worlds, that's all deprecated or even dismissed as not real at all. it's like you have to believe waking life on earth is the only real thing in reality and only people you can see and meet and talk to that way are real, everything else, imaginary, or a product of the unconscious mind."

"so you're saying they could be real? i may really meet other people in my dreams?"

"listen, i can't say what is definitely real or definitely not real. i can't prove anything. what i mean is, i have doubts about the thing everyone on earth has to go by. what i'm saying is, in a sense, it's all real, it's all found in reality, you know? it's all sensory experience. the question is, are the other people you meet in waking life or in dreams or talk to in so called hallucinations, are they real or not? i mean, let's look at the possibility that even in waking life on earth some people are not real. i mean, people like to think in absolute terms, either everyone is real or it's all a simulation but it's actually more probable that, unless solipsism is true and you are the only real person in this reality, that some people are real and only some are simulated."

"i just hope it's not solipsism that's true."

"right. who wants that? but as a schizophrenic, you have to consider, you're forced to think really, at some point, that the whole thing, earth, everyone you know, is just a huge hallucination, and even if it's not, it's probable, as a schizophrenic, that some people you walk past or even know, are just not real. they're hallucinations."

"wait. but couldn't everyone on earth be schizophrenic, at least slightly? i mean, that's how we all got here? you know, it could be suppressed for most people most of the time, but my theory is the earth thing is based on, it's derived from some form of schizophrenia that everyone has, like everyone dreams, though maybe schizophrenia isn't quite the right word."

"it could be. a lot of people hear things, more than are diagnosed schizophrenic. and people have imaginations, right? it's not much of a leap to think that this feeds into what they see and hear. and who said science existed at the start of time? i'm sure it was a little different to start with."

"yeah, maybe it was all a woozy schizophrenic mess to begin with. anyway, so it's like you have to figure out all the combinations of possibilities. so like maybe i mostly live in a simulation but i know a few real people on earth and when i dream, i'm completely meeting real people sometimes, and perhaps some of the voices i hear, the so called hallucinations, i'm talking to real people."

"right. the problem is, if you assume it's neither 100% or 0% anything, you're left with a huge scale of possibilities. it could be anything in between. but i mean, it does come down to the question, how many real people are there, anyway? if it turns out there are only like 30 real people in the whole of reality, well, i mean, isn't the unconscious that's feeding the hallucination of earth huge? to power the whole illusion. if it's really in the billions, well, that means earth, as given, as it's put up to be, is something like the truth. but if it's only in the thousands or even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it becomes harder to think about."

"right. like who are the real people on earth?"

"yeah. and what is everyone else doing?"

"do you think they're the guardian angels? wondering about poor old us who went to earth and left and when are we going to come back?"

"you know, you have to consider that everything that's out there, in books, in culture, in myths and legends, is somehow real in some sense, though maybe there's a distortion of the truth."

"not everything is real surely?"

"well, the case may be that some things are only real in thought, truly imaginary."

"you mean, like some things in history never happened? they made it up?"

"i don't know if someone consciously made it up or history just appeared, you know. there is a theory the earth, as it is, is only like less than 200 years old. at the very start it came with a history that just wasn't real. reality could only be a few hundred years old. the real year on the calendar may be something like Year 442."

"that would be A.D. 1572 for Year 1?"

"right. except earth didn't start until about 1850 and then it was mostly illusion, a simulation."

"so gradually more and more real people went to earth. i guess you just have to think of everything, every possibility. but if it were true, why would people want to think everything is billions of years old?"

"i think people underestimate how fast things change and really how much existed already or was possible at the start of time."

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Start of Time and Sleep

the start of time and sleep:

"was there a start of time? and if there wasn't a start of time, what does that mean? that there was always something that happened before any time? it's mind boggling."

"well, if there were an infinite time before now, you'd think we'd be more advanced, right? but what do we mean by the start of time? in the sense that nothing came before the start in the way that time progresses now with something happening before each moment? i can see that in one sense it really doesn't matter as everything that has time is always changing and probably repeating itself, so what difference does marking the start of time make? maybe it's an interesting footnote, you know, like a flag, but nothing more."

"no, it's definitely more than that. doesn't it bug you? also, if there were a start of time, it naturally follows thinking there might be an end of time."

"it's a little paranoid. and it does bug me too. first you're afraid, right, that there was no start of time, that we're already infinitely old, yet we can't remember anything, and next, if there were a start of time, that just brings up the question of the end of time, but thankfully i don't think it necessarily logically follows."

"OK, so there could be a start of time but no end?"

"right. and maybe, you know, it's not even the right question. maybe the question is, is change, or the number of states something can have over all time, is that infinite or finite? i mean there are other questions apart from whether there was a start of time or not."

"so it's like looking at time as a set of different states and it sort of goes back and forth? so if i had a bag of say five different marbles, each marble represents a different state, and obviously there are only five states, that represents all time for the marble in general."

"right. so one of the marbles is the state at the start of time and as general universal time progresses it becomes that marble again and again, perhaps."

"like to touch home base again. so if say we were at the start of time, were we awake or were we asleep?"

"i think we were mostly awake, as we are awake most of the time, right? but i think it could have been somewhere in the middle, when we are wide awake nowadays, that's an extreme position, and likewise, when we're deeply asleep, that's another extreme position, we were born somewhere in between."

"it's just i can't remember what happened even a few minutes ago sometimes or what i was thinking, let alone what happened at the start of time!"

"no, some things can change in an instant, sometimes there is no gradual in between. maybe change is discrete, not continuous."

"what do you really think? was there a start of time?"

"i do think, yes, there was a start of time. anyway, it's easier to think about."

"the realness of progress does suggest to me there was a start of time, i guess. do you think the truth is easier to think about? how awake do you think you were born?"

"i guess fairly awake but more like in a dream. you know, maybe the wide awake stable world is something that came later. i mean, maybe it's not original."

"some people are afraid to go to sleep, and i guess some people are afraid of staying awake too long. maybe you're right, the wide awake world is not that natural because it's different from the beginning but it seems the most real sometimes."

"awake, asleep, dreaming, it's all real. the problem is you forget what happens when you're asleep so it only seems less real."

"what we were talking about before, it's faster. dreams seem to last for hours but are really only minutes long, that kind of thing. it's shocking how easily you forget what happens in your dreams."

"it's like a balancing act. sleep is seen as the solution to being awake too long, but i guess likewise being awake may be the solution to being asleep for so long. both reset things."

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, June 8, 2013

The Voyage of Sleep

the voyage of sleep:

"...so at one point i used to think that sleep was kind of like being dead, but that wasn't very satisfactory, in that you don't really know what death is, right? all the time you're alive, being dead is just some vague as yet undefined state of being, or not being, like nobody knows what death is while they are alive, right?"

"i used to think that when you are fast asleep, you're just not thinking, so you don't remember anything when you wake up."

"right. so sleep, and in extension, death, seems like an absence of thought. i mean the word "consciousness" is used, but like all words, i mean, if words and thought were like food, a particular word has its own unique flavour, right? all the words that mean the same thing, all the synonyms, might be like one type of food, like ice cream, but ice cream comes in all these different flavours, and so do words. for me, the word "consciousness" seems to suggest something mystical and fragile and fleeting, but it means the same thing as the phrase "thought in your head", right?"

"how about head think?"

"yeah. so words have different connotations. but the most commonly used words might not be the best or the simplest words. sometimes it seems the oddest words get promoted the most. it's like the most popular sandwich was banana with mustard and cucumber on raisin bread! but i digress..."

"you were talking about sleep and consciousness."

"again the word "consciousness" just makes it seem like it could go at any moment, like it was a flickering candle flame or something, and you know any minute something could come along and put it out. you know, maybe it's just the wrong word."

"right, but we are stuck with it, don't you think? as much as you'd like to, you can't change the vocabulary. anyway, i don't believe that you're not thinking whilst you're asleep anymore. i wanted to try to, you know, like observe myself as i was falling asleep, and remember what was happening."

"monitor yourself, like thinking about what was going on while you were falling asleep?"

"exactly. and a few times as i was falling asleep, i forced myself awake, you know, sat up suddenly so i could think about what i was thinking just before. and it's like, as you are falling asleep, everything in your mind becomes cloudy and violent, in that your thoughts change really fast, and they don't make much sense. you certainly couldn't easily explain in language what you were thinking about clearly. and then, yesterday, i had been drinking coffee, and i woke up further along the sleep cycle, i think actually just fallen completely asleep and then suddenly awake and i realized, you are completely thinking all the time you are asleep, that you stop thinking is a complete lie."

"i know but what you are thinking, or the quality of your thinking, if thoughts could be conceived of as like a matter substance like a diamond, are completely different to what they are when you are awake. it's like the mind switches to another substance."

"yeah, so my head could be like a giant crystal glass marble, but it's a magical marble and keeps changing inside."

"yes. during consciousness, it's say more or less clear and slow swirls and waves happening inside but as you fall asleep, the marble clouds over like you're saying and it's almost getting violent inside, everything is moving and twisting and turning so fast. that's probably why most of the time you can't remember what happens at this stage."

"yes, it's ironic. sleep seems slow and peaceful but what is really happening in the first stage is completely not."

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, June 1, 2013

The Flow of Words and Ideas and Subtext

the flow of words and ideas and subtext:

"...it's like i was talking at cross purposes with her the whole time. maybe she thought i was judging her or something but she was misconstruing everything i said and then she was, i don't want to say attacking me back, but that's what it felt like."

"she was criticizing you, you mean?"

"not directly but how to put it, it's like she knew my weaknesses, all my faults and character flaws, and kept digging at that. i certainly didn't mean to criticize her or patronize her or whatever."

"in other words, you made some innocent remark and she took it the wrong way and then she got angry and then felt compelled to return what she thought was an insult."

"exactly. also, i think she's passive aggressive."

"but what does that really mean? instead of exploding with anger, you contain it, bottle it up inside or only release a bit of the toxic stuff at worst or become unresponsive and behave a little badly maybe? but is that so bad? a lot of people avoid confrontation and it's their natural reaction."

"i know, but part of me thinks it would be a relief if everyone just said what they thought, but yes, i see how it could get out of hand. you say things you don't mean, you being the normal, thoughtful, almost placid self."

"the question does arise, though, do people know what you think? is there some inadvertent telepathy going on? is there some channel through the collective unconscious or whatever, that streams the ideas and thoughts running through our heads? i mean, we filter out most of the bad stuff when we talk, but who's to say there is definitely, you know, completely proven, no way that there is any transmission of what we are thinking? i mean, scientists say you can't prove telepathy, but can they, by the same token, prove that there is definitely zero thought transfer going on?"

"so what you are saying is, i was really actually thinking bad thoughts about her, but even though i didn't say anything of that, she picked up on it? so i'm actually a bad person anyway?"

"no, i'm not saying that. were you thinking bad thoughts about her?"

"no! not until she started attacking me!"

"what you were saying about saying things you don't mean, what you really think and feel and believe being contradicted by what you say in anger, i look back and i see where i've made mistakes, you know? like why did i ever believe that? so it's a work in progress. but, i mean, i'm here, you're where you are, eternally, it's like why should we ever deal in anything so negative, you know? i'm just glad that we can communicate, we can talk."

"i know. there's all the time in the world."

CLEARCHARGE