A brief note on reality

[Elidor]

Reality is a construct, and our human selves are shadows on a wall–our higher selves partaking in a play by forgetting it is a play, by believing that we can die. The world around us is little more than ideas and abstracts. The beauty of the illusion is that it is both real, and convincing.

Seen through the right eyes, a tree is merely an infinitely simple expression of numbers. But the beauty of that expression tends to blind us to the underlying concision of what it represents: an idea. The right eyes see the world turned upside-down and inside-out, a chaotic jumble of information which must be successfully decoded and navigated. And it is best navigated as a series of ideas, each possessed of enough detail to create another piece in the reality puzzle.

It is experience that brings us to this world: the need of it, the eternal hunger for it. We must explore it, taste it, learn from it, fuck it, excrete it. In a world that can only pretend to kill us, each of us holds the key to our own salvation. Whether we ever wake up to that possibility is entirely up to US, not some mythical son of god. But it is certainly unnecessary for the enjoyment of the game.

Just as light is a wave and a particle, so reality is objective and subjective. We define it as it defines us. It is only as real as we are, and as we will discover, there are many levels to what is real, especially as regards ourselves.

[cliss]

1. Nice.

Now we're getting into the Hindu perception of reality, which becomes an understanding of different forms of energy, or light.

It's really a very intricate illusion. As I'm laying on the beach in Oahu, watching the sun play on the waves and nearby Diamond Head Crater. I'm trying to understand that the whole beautiful scene is nothing more than particles of light, or waves of energy.

I raise my sun-tanned hand, and observe it. What I'm seeing is swirling masses of protons (very small, mind you). Hard to imagine, but nonetheless true.

[Michael Sharp]

2. For myself, I prefer

so see the sunset.

ms

[Elidor]

3. Hindus on Oahu

Your reality is better than mine. It is raining here, and I haven't seen the ocean in 29 years.

[dbt]

4. Wait a minute here!

I thought reality was all about the singing of fiddle strings!

;-)
dbt

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Reality is that which, when you no longer believe in it, still exists."

- writer Philip K. Dick

[Elidor]

6. The Master

Dick had a perspective I can't even conceive.