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This is a very difficult idea because we are simply not mentally equipped to understand the universe in any other way, but here it goes...
The concepts of real vs not real are very basic tools we use to understand our world as we go through life and have been critical for survival over our evolutionary history, but could they be too broad and/or should there be another catagory or three?
Things can be real but irrelevant to us, like black holes or a pencil in Moscow or not real but very relevant, like a good work of fiction that inspires us or the future.
We have already begun exploring elements of a universe that is neither real nor unreal in Quantum Mechanics; we have a mental image of subatomic particles for example, but that's not actually what they look like... we can't actually see them and have simply created models to facilitate comprehension.
In fact, our comprehension breaks down entirely at such a scale; such particles can be in two places at one time and be directly effected by observation and generally behave complete contrary to our understanding of how reality functions.
So is our standard mental classification of what's real and what isn't obsolete? What catagory (if any) should be added, or do we need a completely different system of comprehension?
In fact, our comprehension breaks down entirely at such a scale; such particles can be in two places at one time and be directly effected by observation and generally behave complete contrary to our understanding of how reality functions.
So is our standard mental classification of what's real and what isn't obsolete? What catagory (if any) should be added, or do we need a completely different system of comprehension?
My advice? See Mystic, oh Chango the Inversalist!. He'll explain it for you!
My advice? See Mystic, oh Chango the Inversalist!. He'll explain it for you!
I'm too young and impudent to do that.
But my question is serious... and probably impossible, like that annoying "teaching a dog algebra" problem...
How does one comprehend the incomprehensible anyway? It is ignorant to say there aren't things beyond (current) human comprehension, but they are probably beyond us in the first place because we can't comprehend them, like a dog sniffing my old College Algebra textbook. (or even more incomprehensible, how does a hundred dollar book become only worth 10.00 after only 4 months? )
Anyway, my mind needs exercise sometimes. As June pointed out, what we assume are absolutes (real vs unreal) are really just subjective, so I have to wonder what we gain and/or miss by playing the game of life as if we knew absolutely...
I have only one thought on this, and it's a contradiction (but I find contradictions to be the only things that make sense anymore)
everything is nothing, and nothing is everything, therefore everything is important because nothing is important, and because nothing is important, everything is important.
But my question is serious... and probably impossible, like that annoying "teaching a dog algebra" problem...
How does one comprehend the incomprehensible anyway? It is ignorant to say there aren't things beyond (current) human comprehension, but they are probably beyond us in the first place because we can't comprehend them, like a dog sniffing my old College Algebra textbook. (or even more incomprehensible, how does a hundred dollar book become only worth 10.00 after only 4 months? )
Anyway, my mind needs exercise sometimes. As June pointed out, what we assume are absolutes (real vs unreal) are really just subjective, so I have to wonder what we gain and/or miss by playing the game of life as if we knew absolutely...
I tend to take refuge in the supposition that the only reality is what is predictably repeatable. Thus it doesn't matter that we have no idea what's beyond the universe, what amazing things we don't know and maybe never will, and we can regard the odd things going on at sub - atomic level as of academic interest.
What we can do is find out what its repeatably reliable and the questions of absolutes and exceptions can be regarded as academic also. Rather as knowing that Europe and America are on opposite sides of the Atlantic and that the continents are actually adrift on a pool of magma is true but not germane to that fact. And to consider that fact as mere subjective human opinion must look risible.
We could probably live with the irritating fact that we will probably never know what is at the bottom of that magma, but that would never be a valid reason to simply suggest not speculating about such matters or -even worse - claiming that the centre is a huge marshmallow because it all came to me in a dream and YOU can't prove that it isn't.
And if we do reject unvalidated speculation AND the temptation to give it all up as hopeless, science can devise some surprisingly cunning ways of actually finding out what is at the centre of the molten globe, and shows some signs of coming up with answers to a lot of other questions that have been teasing us and which have long been a ripe area for unfounded speculations presented as believable fact.
read Carlos Castenada's books. He discusses this subject...... the Tonal vs the Nagual.
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