The Destiny of the Head Stone

the destiny of the head stone:

one of the first questions the head stone ever had was where am i? for there was something to see, even in the beginning, which makes sense because otherwise it surely would have been blind. and the magical light in the cone-shaped field in front of it was deceptive for it implied movement. later, it concluded finally that where it was, really, bore no relation to what it saw. images may seem to move, but the head stone was truly forever immovable, like a piece of jade embedded in the rock of space.

another question in the beginning was, of course, were there others like it? as time became apparent would it meet them, be able to see some representation of another person? or at least know something of what lay far beyond it in space? how to communicate with someone else through the senses? the first moments of time were deceptively quiet and solitary.

be that as it may, it was destined to be born into the later world, really a vigorous exercise of the senses, even if such life is mostly a visual experience, a son et lumière for the mind. and like all shows, its life in this world had to come to an end. time is elastic, the return to what life was before was inevitable.

and it would think back on its period in the world, its life there, what it was to think for a time that it was someone living in a universe with billions of people on a planet called Earth.

CLEARCHARGE

In Your World

in your world:

"in your world that might be a famous person, but i've never heard of him."

is there a metaphysical significance to that? could it be that we are really living in our own worlds, our own versions of Earth, only it just seems that we are living in the same, standardized Earth, with the same people in it? the invention of the computer and the internet showed us what was possible first of all and introduced concepts that we could borrow from to better understand the metaphysics of reality.

"ok, what if this person only exists in my world, i mean, i know when you say "in my world" you generally mean the place where you live, the people you know, etc. and that's individual but you assume that the media is the same, right?"

"maybe it isn't. how far you can test it is doubtful too. maybe you could look it up, this guy you're talking about, on the internet, and show me that he exists, but how do i know that you haven't just delivered that media to me through some channel in real space, just now, by us being together? and that he really didn't exist in my world before, but now i'm with you, he does? if you see what i mean."

"so real people meeting each other involves some kind of trade of information?"

"yes. so it opens up channels, i don't know, i'm tempted to say subspace channels but that's something else on Star Trek, maybe "interpersonal data channel" is better. i don't believe in the concept of the external world so how else could it work? i mean, of course, the data channels are open even when we're not together but presumably they're even more open when we are."

"so say we live in a more or less standardized, common Earth. i guess for it to be 100% standardized, it would require some central "Earth supercomputer" and maybe that doesn't exist. everyone has their own local Earth supercomputer, like everyone's an internet server, so to speak, in their own right."

"yeah, so data flows back and forth and yeah, obviously you each have some kind of supercomputer to render all your visuals, everything you see, and hear of course."

"and maybe data gets corrupted, there are errors in the transmission."

"and signal noise. that could explain how we live in slightly different versions of Earth. like we all live in parallel universes. because of poor connection. but i had an experience, where i was waiting to meet someone in a public place, and they appeared out of nowhere, literally."

"that happens to me too. we were going abroad and we were in a large train station and my father had wandered off and i was getting worried because i couldn't see him and then he appeared suddenly, just like that, at a distance. it's things like travel where you get paranoid whether the whole thing actually "works" or not."

"and then i was upset once, very emotional, and then either the dvd player broke or there was no electricity or something but it wouldn't come on. and then when i calmed down, it worked."

"i mean you could explain it away as, "oh, it's all in your mind", it was just an electrical fault, but the worrying thing is that if the external world is not real, it really is all in your own mind! weird things, frightening things, happen when you are very emotional."

"yeah like machines break. maybe it's harder to meet real people, assuming lots of simulated Non Player Characters, not just because there may be few real people, but because everything has to work, there has to be an excellent connection between real people."

"i don't know. real people. in one way, i think it's more frightening. what if you don't get along? a virtual character, someone simulated, you don't really care, right? it doesn't matter."

"well i don't know about that. what if the NPC came from someone else's, a real person's, database of characters, maybe they're not real but they're just like someone real, and they would know how you treat one of their simulated people."

"my army of illusions against someone else's? i still think it's less intimidating to deal with someone simulated and wouldn't you convert a character from somewhere else to someone more suitable in your own matrix? i don't know. but trade is good, right? when i was a kid, i really don't think i could write that easily. i mean, like when i was 6, we had to write an essay each weekend on that week's lesson on Native Americans, one page. it wasn't easy for me. maybe i could write better in a previous life and just forgot, but it's like, when i go to a book store and see all those titles on the shelves, that's got to come from elsewhere, other people have done all that, my unconscious or local Earth supercomputer may be able to create simulated people and a few snatches of speech but it's hard to believe it could come up with thousands of different books."

"think how much your world has changed. and you're not alone is what that shows. there are a ton of ideas out there."

CLEARCHARGE

Life Like in a Matrix

life like in a matrix:

"having seen The Matrix movie, it's inevitable that you ask yourself, what if i'm in a matrix? i mean it's deceptive, we know the movie is a fiction and over the top so it's easy to dismiss, but what if the concept of simulated reality were real, just a more normal, mundane version? if i were in a matrix, how does the real thing differ from the movie one?"

"but what do you mean by in a matrix exactly?"

"well, first of all, the external world is not real. i mean, some might say that means philosophical idealism is true, but i'm not so sure that means everything is mental, that is, somehow related to thought and the five senses, what if there were still non-mental things which you couldn't exactly call physical or material as in like what you see in what is perceived as the physical external world, actually, as an aside, i'm not so sure physical is the right word as that means "human body" to me and i'm guessing that was the original meaning, but like, what if there were statues of humans that really existed in space, unchanging, but you couldn't exactly call them mental things, you know? what if there were solid forms out there fixed in space from which things we see are derived? the second thing about being in a matrix is that at least some people are simulated. i guess that's what i mean about a matrix, like that in the film, The Matrix."

"but who owns the matrix? is there a central supercomputer and all the data is delivered via a connection to everyone? are there several of them? local sub-servers? what? i can see how connection was always there. everyone is connected. people who aren't connected are really people in separate realities that aren't even here."

"i think reality and creation are a little messy. it's like some things always existed, right from the start of time, like parts of the supercomputer, parts of nature, human even. i think maybe things we take for granted were probably always there, like up and down and things fall downwards and we walk on top of the ground. i mean it's completely possible to imagine a reality where the opposite holds, where everything is upside down."

"so things that seem supermodern to us may have been there since time zero? i suppose if it's possible now, then the basic parts were always there is an argument. and i guess if everyone is connected, it's probable that everyone in a matrix is in the same one."

"yes i think it's unwise to assume, once you've accepted the matrix premise, that you're completely alone in your own matrix and everyone you see is simulated."

"yes going from one extreme, assuming the external world and everyone you see is real, to the complete opposite, it's all virtual. i think that says something about the way we think, in absolute extremes."

"whereas life is a grey area in between. you say who owns the matrix, that suggests there's some mastermind behind it with all the power but what if no one has any great power at all, we're all averagely unpowerful people stuck in the matrix because reality always was and is, so to speak, "matrix-ready"?"

"well that's one meaning of own, but i meant more like, where is the supercomputer, i mean in whose personal space?"

"well, if we are all fixed in space, some people always near, some far, you know, where does one person's space become another's? some people may be all together in a cluster, some may be far spaced out. about who owns it, i guess it's probably in parts piecemeal across reality's space. it's just too simple to think that, yes, all of it is in one person's personal space."

"so maybe the work's farmed out. we have to assume connection is great, i guess. maybe the orange is somewhere, and wheat in someone's else's zone, for example. but what if someone had a total breakdown, like a key processor is in someone's personal space, her zone, if you like, and she was really in a bad way?"

"well there is the possibility everything stops working tomorrow. like i've often wondered, what if the sun doesn't come up in the morning? things like that, you know."

"so you need a backup, right? maybe that's there, hopefully. i think the key is that the situation is very fluid. the way time works, i think, is that things could change in an instant, time isn't continuous, it's discrete perhaps, is a theory. but i think the internet makes everything change even faster. it's instant. one of the reasons i'm not a solipsist is that there is all this media, you think there's no way my subconscious could come up with all this stuff, therefore i couldn't possibly be alone. maybe there are a lot of real people working in the media? in Hollywood? and so Los Angeles?"

"i read articles about science and i wonder how much of it could hold up, given that many scientists assume the external world is real?"

"well if it works, it works. but what came first? it's like the chicken and the egg, were they discovering how things work or magically making things work according to their theory? the scientist could be a god, no?"

"well then everyone's a god of something. if say, the orange were originally here, does that make me the god of the orange? maybe."

"well then if it's all personal, i guess it gets a little creepy. how much do you accept from another person? if you knew something was originally theirs? is it better to give or to receive? would we even get along if we met?"

"well everyone's done it, i guess. so it's a little late to start worrying about it now. but to give and to receive, well someone has to receive and someone has to give. i mean, we're all connected, in one reality, so give is good, receive is good. it means there's a connection. otherwise we'd be completely alone."

"if you put it that way. what about language? i mean it's just like the fruit example in a way. if you go by what the media says, English is the most common language. you think maybe space could be divided up into language zones? but what if there were, say, Russian or French speakers to the right on a map of reality but also to the far left, could they really be apart, i mean, is a distribution with isolated zones with the same language even possible, because you'd think all the speakers of a language would be in one zone, right?"

"i would say English has many contributors to make it that common. originally, a language was just the sounds in the air, so to speak, and then we attached meanings, that's my theory, or maybe even a sound was already attached to the presence of something in a metaphysical sense."

"for me, the interesting thing about The Matrix was the paranoia about the evil demonic supercomputer behind it all. what if by creating the simulation and all these simulated people we did something dangerous? i mean hopefully it's harmless and only makes us a little crazy, but what if it's really bad?"

"try to turn it off? the thing is, it's really out of our control, or it seems it is. it's like trying to stop dreaming, having nightmares. we have to roll with the punches."

"and hope for the best?"

"always."

CLEARCHARGE

Hypotheses on Reality and Playing with Belief Cards

hypotheses on reality and playing with belief cards:

"it never comes to that. no one really talks about it, do they, what they really believe about reality? it is unspoken but everyone knows what they have to assume to go about their normal lives on earth and they get it from what they see and hear around them."

"well, nobody really talks about it, but they may think it, that reality, the world of earth, is not quite what it seems, what you say everyone has to assume: an external world, physical motion, materialism or physicalism, whatever you call it. i think the reason really is a paranoid one, that they suspect they'll be accused of being at least slightly crazy and at worst get hauled off to a mental hospital and locked up forever. but then, also, i guess, these things can't be demonstrably proved to anyone else."

"or disproved. like if i say there is no external world, and this is the major plank of belief or assumption that everyone has to go by, really, well then someone will say, "what are we, a brain in a vat?" well, the problem with that is it assumes that there is still an external world outside our brain or our mind, a room with a vat and cables hooking us up to a Matrix-like simulation. the belief lingers on, whereas it should be thrown out completely. there is no external room where our brains are in, no wires, nothing. if anything, it's completely cleanly, invisibly done or connected."

"but we are visually impressionable people. it's not surprising, when everything we see leads us to assume there is an external world out there. we believe more what we see than what we hear, i guess."

"the truth of the matter is that if everyone teleported then the belief in an external world would collapse overnight. i can claim i have, but unless you do it yourself, you're going to doubt it."

"yes. it's completely obvious that the external world is not real when you've done it, teleport that is."

"yes. it's like an epiphany. because that just can't happen if the external world is real and the transition between locations is seamless, i mean, you feel nothing. i've read of other weird things happening to people, like seeing events repeated, a person passing by twice, or finding their car on a different level in the car park or parking lot, and seeing things that weren't there before suddenly appearing and so on."

"well, you could assume you are the only one who has teleported but surely if you'd done it, someone else has as well? it's just a fault in the visual geographical system. maybe it's even a fault or bug in the system that's contagious?"

"it happened to me so it has to happen to someone else? i'm propagating errors in the system?"

"but tell me again what the alternative is to an external material world?"

"right, physical motion is not real or mechanical motion or what seems like motion. in real space, everything exists in a fixed location relative to everything else. only time makes things change state."

"but then with pop culture and everything, you think, well, what is life then if not the commonly thought? is it a dream, is it the Matrix, what is it?"

"well that's where i run into problems too. i mean they are not clear-cut binary alternative possibilities, like is the external world real or not? i mean, i remember my life on earth began as a dream, right, but computers, hey, they're completely real, the technology, right? so it's probably at least a bit of both. what i have noticed, for me anyway, is that when i'm in a dream, i'm completely hazy about the true facts of my life, it's like i have an alternative dream existence that progresses that's similar to my waking life. i dream of my old school, my old homes, but the circumstances are different and when i try to remember facts about my waking life, i often think things that are false, only to realize upon waking, that i was incorrect."

"right, the dreams sweep you up and everything moves so fast that you're completely caught up in it."

"yeah, so you have the amnesia effect that blocks out the truth about waking life."

"which explains why you poorly remember what happened before you were born into this world, on earth. but as a schizophrenic who hears auditory hallucinations, what about that? i mean the question is, obviously, whether you hear thoughts that are your own, or it's coming from real other people."

"it's extremely awkward talking to your psychiatrist about voices. because inevitably, they want to know what you hear, right? and a lot of the stuff is personal. it's either your inner thoughts as sound or it's coming from people that are truly nearby, or even far away, i suppose."

"who may or may not be on earth, as well. how schizophrenic would you say you were, on a scale of 1 to 10?"

"well, there are different aspects. you have the voices, which to every psychiatrist indicates you are schizo, right? maybe i was about a 7 in that area once, at one time i had about 7 or 8 different voices going on at the same time. but the eyesight going haywire, the teleportation, the streams of text i could see, train timetables instantly changing in front of me, different maps of the country where the towns are all in wrong places, travel tickets dated in the future, passages of novels changing, all that made me about at least 9 on that scale, if not 10."

"whatever it is, a Matrix, or a dream, or whatever, is everyone in the same one? i mean, a lot of the stuff must be shared, right?"

"i can see how, if everyone were in their own matrix, they would end up with solipsistic fancies."

"right. all the stuff about the Law of Attraction, i mean, it could work, if you were in your own world, conceivably. but if everyone were in the same earth Matrix, it would seem a little harder to manifest things. you can't control other people and events so much."

"though, imagine a modern house existed right at the start of time. i mean, running hot water and electrical machines and lights. it's like in time, they reverse engineered everything to make it work mechanically, you know, installed plumbing, connected pipes to reservoirs, built power stations and so on. but the point is, that was there, this working house, in the beginning."

"like human is original, not created. OK, if we dismiss the external world outright, since you so proved it wasn't real, i mean, that's one philosophical question out of the way, the big question really is, what about the other people in reality? OK, do we assume everyone is on earth or some are left out? on earth are all the other people we see real or are some simulated people? are there other planets with people on them, in this same universe, could this be a Star Wars or Star Trek universe? are there other simulations running?"

"i don't know. it's like playing with different ideas. if only you had a deck of cards with different ideas or beliefs about reality, i mean you could play around with them, mix and match and see where that leads you. some beliefs negate others but i can see how some could all be real in some way."

"well, i can't help feeling that it is important to know the truth. i mean we may not be able to "know" in the strictest philosophical sense but at least we could think about the truth to some emotional depth. like, if i assume my mother is not real, is just a philosophical zombie, a simulated person, is it important to know that?"

"i think it's important to at least know the true date and how much of the history of earth may not be real. i mean, i've come out with the date Year 442 as the true date before, but that's just what i've heard. a lot of schizophrenics say the voices lie to them and whatever, but what if some of it's true?"

"it would explain a lot. how little everyone knows about reality for starters. and it's not like intelligent life doesn't exist. it does. it would just be that so little time has passed from the start of time that everyone is still feeling around for the truth. but voices do lie is the problem, some of the time. you can't believe everything you hear."

"back to what you were saying. i dreamed about my mother first and then my father second and i think i woke up next to my father and sister on a plane from Taipei to Hawaii on 29 August, 1975. US Immigration stamped the date at Honolulu on my passport which i still have. but my official birthday is February 11, 1972, so i was already 3 years old when i was truly born on earth. i guess some might say that's when my soul truly arrived."

"you still dream about your parents don't you?"

"yes. and they're alternative versions of them."

"you know, some would say that you merely forgot everything that happened before."

"well, no, i clearly remember the dream sequence leading up to that. i've never forgot. so i definitely have preferences, is waking life a dream? well, no, but it's, derived from it, is that the right word?"

"of course, the other big question, is what happens when you die on earth?"

"yes. are we fated to reincarnate on earth or do we go back to whatever it was before? because whatever real matter we are, it can't cease to exist right, it could only change to something very different at worst, right?"

"but back to the here and now. i'm obsessed with knowing who, if given some people are not real, is actually real that i interact with on a regular basis. i mean, what figure should i hold in my mind? are we all surrounded by illusions of people in our daily life but we read and see and hear about real people in the media?"

"or there could be pockets of real people together in some places. you never know, you could be surrounded by lots of real people, you just don't know it."

"but what is a best guess estimate? 66% zombies? 1% real people? or what?"

"yeah. there is a danger, when you've woken up about the external world not being the case, that you assume you're surrounded by illusions. i mean, it could be really embarrassing. you might know lots of real people but suddenly assume they're all not real."

"i know. i've thought of that. but sometimes people just don't seem real. you can mentally control what some people say or there is a touch of that or they're just completely predictable."

"i don't know. i've had someone say to me before, apropos of nothing, "i'm quite real." and i was grateful to hear it. i don't think anyone, it's not like anyone would come up and say, "i want you to know, i am a zombie, a simulated person, a non-player character, a complete illusion."

"haha. i don't see that happening, you're right."

CLEARCHARGE

Flexible Assumptions about Life

flexible assumptions about life:

"what happened when i was 20 was quite shocking to me. i mean huge upheaval. it's like i was born, i came into this world, i accepted everything i was told, and for a long time, i believed it all. but i suppose as a child, that's typical."

"there's a docile quality to childhood. it's like in a dream. you instantly accept everything you think about the dream world. in a way psychologically that is the most docile state perhaps, in that you're completely led by your thoughts no matter how strange they seem when you wake up."

"and the first thing i remember about this lifetime is a long series of dreams. well then the breakdown happened to me and all the craziness. but what it did was, it called all my assumptions about life, about the world, about earth, into question. it's like it scrambled my brain. i knew some of my thoughts were crazy, were definitely false, but then what if some of the assumptions i had when i was, you know, "normal", also false? how could i be sure?"

"you mean normal assumptions about life and the world?"

"yes, the ones everyone accepts, like the population."

"like seeing is believing."

"exactly. that everything you see and hear in three dimensions is somehow real is the core assumption. but when you have hallucinations, when you're not sure what you're seeing or hearing is real and what is not anymore, that changes everything. and you can never change it back."

"not to lessen what you're saying, but i wonder if, what if everyone experiences hallucinations, maybe just slightly in some cases, you know, not enough to raise the alarm, but it's like, no one admits to it!? maybe it's not a minority? or not hallucinations, in that they're not real at all, but a whisper here and there, you know, they're not sure if someone spoke or not, they certainly can't see anyone, but they're none the wiser? maybe they see something and think, that's odd, but they don't really question it?"

"so, so called normal forever isn't the case for anyone? that wouldn't surprise me. the mind is a delicate thing. it's an upset or something strange that happens first."

"what happened to you was your assumptions were shaken and you became a sceptic."

"no, you're right. that's why you have to have flexible assumptions about life. what happens when you realize you were crazy about something you believed for a very long time is that the shock doesn't wear off for years. you wonder about everything. like are the people i see real, is the world full of philosophical zombies or illusions of people? are the voices i hear, without seeing anybody, real people calling to me, or not?"

"and it's not definitely all or nothing. what if the answer is sometimes?"

"right. it's like changing gears. you wake up and think, what am i going to assume about the world today? you don't want to get stuck into a mindset that collapses when you find out some part of it wasn't true and never was."

CLEARCHARGE

What the World Seems

what the world seems:

"so at one point in time it seemed completely real, for an instant, that i could be the only person in reality. it was my solipsistic moment. and let me tell you it was a frightening concept. but even worse was that, ok, i'm thinking i'm the only real person, but all the while, i'm in a crowded room surrounded by people! it's one thing to think i am alone, but then what is going on with all the other people i can see? it means a total loss of control, right? a reality of falsity that you have little or no power over."

"but you came back from that? you stopped believing that? how long did it go on for?"

"well, yes and no. that was one extreme. and people like simple thinking, right? either other people are all not real or the other side of the coin is everyone is real. now i had gone for years thinking that everyone was real, so long that i can always revert to that, but the thing is, i think i've come to the conclusion that thinking in black and white, all or nothing, you know, that kind of thinking is flawed. what is more probable, and in the end you have to deal with probabilities because no one is going to come up to you and tell what the truth is, right, is that the world is somewhere in between."

"you mean some people are real and some people are not, they're philosophical zombies?"

"exactly. the philosophical question of the guy dreaming about being a butterfly and is he really a man or a butterfly dreaming he is a man, i think the correct answer is both. what this example just points out is, again, we like to think of binary possibilities, it's one or the other, but the truth is, to put it simply, it's all real. there are elements of truth in both situations."

"ok. but because we're talking, we know the other person is real, right, and solipsism can't be strictly true?"

"yes. but the part of that where other people are not real, is what i'm saying, that is probably the case. just not everyone."

"but how can you disprove that everyone is real and we're all together on earth?"

"well one thing i do remember clearly is that my life on earth began as a sequence of dreams, each more and more "awake" like until we get to where i have my first clear memory of being on earth at the age of three, the summer of 1975, i mean fully awake, on a flight to Honolulu from Taipei. and the weird thing is, you'd expect to forget a lot of dreams, but i still remember each of the dreams in my pre-earth sequence. so what i'm saying is, earth has something to do with the dream world. sometimes, i wonder if something really bad were to happen in life here on earth, would i "wake up" from the waking nightmare, in the world i came from before earth?"

"but what you're saying about people wanting to think of distinct possibilities, you know, as if only the extremes could be true, it's because it's hard to make sense of something more complex where bits of both or even third or fourth possibilities could be true. you can accept that, i mean, but it's hard to know where to begin, and it's frustrating, because ultimately it becomes some kind of mathematical project, where you're looking at all the combinations that could exist and you try to assign probabilities to each. it's like you want to think life is simple but in the end it's a mess of Bayesian probabilities or something like that."

"i know. i'm constantly changing my assumptions. some days it's like, well, maybe i met a real person today and other days, no one around me is real, i'm wandering around in a waking dream. and it's not like in The Matrix, where in a sense the guy got out of being a brain in a vat. if you were a brain in a vat, you couldn't exactly stop being one. the "real world" in the movie may have more real people in it, that's all it is."

"that's slightly a whole other topic. what i want to know is, if some people are real and some aren't, how do you tell who is real and who isn't?"

"well as far as logic goes, and i'm not sure, real people are more shocking."

"because philosophical zombies are more a product of the unconscious?"

"right. they're more what you expect."

"well i've met plenty of shocking people, so that's at least a few dozen real people i guess. but what if you marry someone who isn't real, or marry someone who is real, for that matter? would you have a preference one way or the other?"

"well that's a minefield. i think i have the same policy for both when i'm with people. i can't get into obsessing, well, is this person real or not all the time."

"that's probably wise. but you can't exactly escape from that. once the question is out of the bag, so to speak, you can't avoid it anymore."

"well from a paranoid point of view, and i confess, i've lain awake frightened as anything some nights, both possibilities are worrying."

"right. if the other person is not real, then no big deal, right, is one way to look at any trouble. but what's the other fear?"

"it goes back to that moment when i thought i alone was real but was surrounded by a crowd. if that situation could exist, where the unconscious runs rampant, generating zombies everywhere, it just seems a dangerous place to be."

"so more real people, please. so i guess finally, what's a good number to hold in your mind as a best guess as to what the true population is?"

"i don't know, i wish i did. but i'm sure there are other worlds too and not everyone is on earth."

"come on, give me a number! something i wouldn't end up embarrassed by, should the truth ever get out."

"ok. maybe lower estimate high two digits, which would mean the collective unconscious is huge, like a supercomputer processing all these zombie people. high estimate, maybe a million, where you couldn't really tell the difference."

"so maybe median estimate 5 digits? somebody must have written all these books in the book stores, right?"

"the main variable we need to know is how much is the unconscious capable of? if it's a supercomputer, then anything is possible, right? then we get a low figure for the true number of people. if it requires that many people to produce all the literature and stuff like that in the world then it's a high figure. and anyway, you should probably even if you have the correct estimate consciously change your assumptions all the time."

"just to get used to all the possibilities?"

"right. exactly."

CLEARCHARGE

The Journey of the Head Stone

the journey of the head stone:

and so there in the fixed heavens of space, there was a head stone. it could think for itself and see and hear. and it was not alone. it was sure there were others like it but as it could never really move, it could not crawl across space to verify and measure things in any sense. it spent its time imagining things, dreamed of other worlds, and when it thought hard enough it could almost fully imagine a largely populated place called earth, where humans could interact with other humans and lead busy lives. it was as if a traveller from this place was feeding thoughts and ideas about earth to it. it seemed almost real.

then one day, the head stone fell asleep for days. and when you sleep for days, the reality is that you forget. the head stone dreamed of earth and woke up as a very young child, in a new family, with a mother and a father, perhaps a sister or a brother too. for decades, the head stone lived as a mortal on earth. it grew up, experienced life. then one particular day the head stone fell asleep and died, leaving earth, to return to the world from where it came.

CLEARCHARGE

Concept of the 3D Mechanical Motion World

concept of the 3D mechanical motion world:

the concept is of a world where objects change position, where they "move" in three dimensional empty "space". if there is no metaphysical truth in this but this is a concept that is so universally known that it barely requires explanation, there is the question of how this came about.

of the basis of this, first, it must have been seen that an object seemed to move. second, it must have seemed that the body could move relative to its surroundings too. and so the initial concept of the 3D mechanical motion world was formed.

CLEARCHARGE

On Size and Complexity

on size and complexity:

on first impression, the world, and the universe, seem a very big place. there is the sense, to anyone born on earth, that there are many places we will never explore, many people we will never know, many things we will never try. we walk a narrow path in life, aware that we only sample very little of what seems possible. the world is large and complex.

but complexity is not always bound with spatial size. little things could be very complex and large things may be simple. the permutations of a spatial arrangement become increasingly complex with the number of objects. and though an abstract example, in mathematics, everything is achieved with only ten numbers. and spatially large things may only have a few states, while spatially little things may have many. a tv screen has only so many pixels but it offers size in complexity as to what can be seen on it.

is so much possible in one life? or even desirable? what would we wish to avoid? and what do we truly want?

CLEARCHARGE