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jetpack_monkeyA couple weeks back I saw a movie called What the #$*! Do We Know?. I may have mentioned it. Blew my mind then. Blows my mind now. And I haven't even been back to see it a second time, though that's certainly a plan for the immediate future.
The premise of the movie is laid out in the title - What the fuck do we know, anyway? How much of reality can you say is real? How much of experience can you say you've experienced? Given the immense and driving force of our abstract brains, why are we so reliant on physical objects for understanding? Especially when quantum theory is telling us that the physical objects may not be there at all?
I'm not talking The Matrix here, folks. That was child's play.
Perhaps the single most bizarre/enlightening thing to come out of What is it at once strengthened my agnosticism (bordering on atheism) and gave me a true sense of divinity.
A fact that is pretty commonly known, so to speak, is that we are receiving millions and millions of bits of information at all times - but only perceive a very small percent of them. We develop patterns in our perception - ways of fitting large pieces of information into very small boxes so we can walk around and not go crazy trying to deal with every. single. thing. on an individual basis, from dust mote to freight train.
Now, what if the amount of information we're receiving is much larger than common wisdom would have it? What if the patterns we're fitting things into are actually patterns of patterns? What if what we're receiving isn't sight and sound and touch and taste and smell? What if these are only patterns that help us cope with whatever truly surrounds us - or, in fact, doesn't surround us?
All perception is received as information. It's not unlike a computer. The picture of the apple on the screen isn't an apple. It's a bunch of 1s and 0s forced by programming into a visual image of an apple. When we look at an apple in the "real world," we're not seeing an apple. We're seeing an image of an apple, interpreted from the information gathered by the brain.
Who can say that information isn't all the apple is?
What if perception is reality? What if reality is perception?
Mind you, these are all Big Questions that probably don't have much bearing on real life... or do they?
If it is in fact true that perception is reality - can't perceiving something differently then change reality?
What if changing the world really is as simple as changing our mind?
I have a friend from Fairfield, IA, where the Transcendental Meditation movement is huge. This friend, Brendan, swore to me up and down that one of his teachers at his old high school could actually levitate himself. No strings, wires, anything.
I thought this was bunk at the time, which was really odd because Brendan? Not the kind of guy to make up stories. Generally the type to shut up if he thought what he was about to say was even half-bullshit.
But, I thought it was bunk. Now, I'm not so sure.
If a man believed he could levitate - truly believed it, not just, "Gosh if I try really hard maybe I can do it" - maybe he can. If it seemed completely normal to him, like something anybody should be able to do if they'd just get over themselves... then who's to say he couldn't tell gravity to take a piss?
What's gravity but a perception of weight? What's gravity but a belief in weight?
The question of immortality, of course, comes up. If all reality is perception, if all physical matter is perception... and our bodies are matter... Who are we?
Sounds like a bunch of philosophical, New Age hokum, I know. But at some point, science and philosophy - once thought to be completely seperate, even opposing entitites - at some point they become the same thing. And who's to say they weren't always?
And I'm sounding dangerously close to religious here. Oh, hi, here's a big unknown. Let's stick another big unknown and possibly fictional quality on it that somehow explains it and then call it God.
I don't believe in God. That doesn't mean I don't believe in god.
More than ever, I see evidence that the true all-powerful deity of the universe isn't one big sky-bully. It's not even a singular entity or a seperate entity at all. We are god. Every single one of us in a mass of interconnected perception and creation. We're made of the same stuff as stars - information.
We're the nebula in the sky. We're the planets in the solar system. We're the bird on the tree and the grass on the ground. It's a big blobby mass of us.
Or so one theory goes that I'm rather fond of at the moment. But what the fuck do I know?
All great ideas were once blasphemy - paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw.
Throughout history, scientific fact has been wrong. About everything. Consistently. Every time we think we have it right, something new comes out and says, "Sorry, boys, but boo-ya! New theory!" The Earth is not flat. It is not the center of the universe, galaxy, or solar system. Two objects of different masses (and similar drag coeffecients) will not fall at different speeds.
Given all of this - who is to say that what we know now has anything to do with how things are?
I can see the appeal of religion here, also. If science - which by nature is malleable and cannot provide all the answers ever, and the answers it does provide are either incomplete or completely flawed - will not stick to a single world concept, then why not turn to a system which has completely fucked what we call logic and stuck to an indoctrinated system of constants or near-constants?
Yes, I have issues with religion. Yes, I'm aware that I'm coming off as incredibly insulting. So, this next statement's going to come as a bit of weird surprise:
God exists.
He exists for those who believe he exists. If their perception of the world is that God exists within it and they truly believe that? Then God lives and breathes in the world of their perception. And since we cannot say what is and is not real beyond our own perception... He's as real as the belief folks have in Him.
He doesn't exist in my perception, so he's not in my world. But my interpretations of the data presented to me tend to be a bit different. I can't deny the existence of a God, or six billion iterations of God. People believe he exists, so he exists.
As a philosophy, this must seem incredibly fucked up. If everything exists that's perceived... then what the fuck?
I don't know. I don't have an explanation for everything. Am I expected to? Am I expected to have an easy answer to fit all the questions? Mercy, I hope not.
I guess that's the point. This whole perception thing is my bread basket today. But tomorrow, something else could come along that blows that out of the water. Because, really. What the fuck do I know?
And more importantly, why is my bread basket in the water?
In any case? See the movie. You might disagree with everything it has to say, or you may love everything it has to say. As long as you think about what it has to say, it's done its work.
It's currently playing in (and I don't know the locales of EVERYONE on my flist, so if I forgot you, the complete list is here) CA - San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose. AZ - Tempe, Tucson. OH - Columbus, Yellow Springs. PA - Homestead. WA - Seattle, Bellingham, Bainbridge Island. FL - Orlando, Key West. IN - Indianapolis. KY - Louisville. MA - Boston, Cambridge, Waltham. NY - New York. WI - Milwaukee.
Please, go see it. If my babble made any sense, go see it. If it completely boggled you, go see it. Everyone will take something different away from it. I haven't even begun to express what I've experienced.
The premise of the movie is laid out in the title - What the fuck do we know, anyway? How much of reality can you say is real? How much of experience can you say you've experienced? Given the immense and driving force of our abstract brains, why are we so reliant on physical objects for understanding? Especially when quantum theory is telling us that the physical objects may not be there at all?
I'm not talking The Matrix here, folks. That was child's play.
Perhaps the single most bizarre/enlightening thing to come out of What is it at once strengthened my agnosticism (bordering on atheism) and gave me a true sense of divinity.
A fact that is pretty commonly known, so to speak, is that we are receiving millions and millions of bits of information at all times - but only perceive a very small percent of them. We develop patterns in our perception - ways of fitting large pieces of information into very small boxes so we can walk around and not go crazy trying to deal with every. single. thing. on an individual basis, from dust mote to freight train.
Now, what if the amount of information we're receiving is much larger than common wisdom would have it? What if the patterns we're fitting things into are actually patterns of patterns? What if what we're receiving isn't sight and sound and touch and taste and smell? What if these are only patterns that help us cope with whatever truly surrounds us - or, in fact, doesn't surround us?
All perception is received as information. It's not unlike a computer. The picture of the apple on the screen isn't an apple. It's a bunch of 1s and 0s forced by programming into a visual image of an apple. When we look at an apple in the "real world," we're not seeing an apple. We're seeing an image of an apple, interpreted from the information gathered by the brain.
Who can say that information isn't all the apple is?
What if perception is reality? What if reality is perception?
Mind you, these are all Big Questions that probably don't have much bearing on real life... or do they?
If it is in fact true that perception is reality - can't perceiving something differently then change reality?
What if changing the world really is as simple as changing our mind?
I have a friend from Fairfield, IA, where the Transcendental Meditation movement is huge. This friend, Brendan, swore to me up and down that one of his teachers at his old high school could actually levitate himself. No strings, wires, anything.
I thought this was bunk at the time, which was really odd because Brendan? Not the kind of guy to make up stories. Generally the type to shut up if he thought what he was about to say was even half-bullshit.
But, I thought it was bunk. Now, I'm not so sure.
If a man believed he could levitate - truly believed it, not just, "Gosh if I try really hard maybe I can do it" - maybe he can. If it seemed completely normal to him, like something anybody should be able to do if they'd just get over themselves... then who's to say he couldn't tell gravity to take a piss?
What's gravity but a perception of weight? What's gravity but a belief in weight?
The question of immortality, of course, comes up. If all reality is perception, if all physical matter is perception... and our bodies are matter... Who are we?
Sounds like a bunch of philosophical, New Age hokum, I know. But at some point, science and philosophy - once thought to be completely seperate, even opposing entitites - at some point they become the same thing. And who's to say they weren't always?
And I'm sounding dangerously close to religious here. Oh, hi, here's a big unknown. Let's stick another big unknown and possibly fictional quality on it that somehow explains it and then call it God.
I don't believe in God. That doesn't mean I don't believe in god.
More than ever, I see evidence that the true all-powerful deity of the universe isn't one big sky-bully. It's not even a singular entity or a seperate entity at all. We are god. Every single one of us in a mass of interconnected perception and creation. We're made of the same stuff as stars - information.
We're the nebula in the sky. We're the planets in the solar system. We're the bird on the tree and the grass on the ground. It's a big blobby mass of us.
Or so one theory goes that I'm rather fond of at the moment. But what the fuck do I know?
All great ideas were once blasphemy - paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw.
Throughout history, scientific fact has been wrong. About everything. Consistently. Every time we think we have it right, something new comes out and says, "Sorry, boys, but boo-ya! New theory!" The Earth is not flat. It is not the center of the universe, galaxy, or solar system. Two objects of different masses (and similar drag coeffecients) will not fall at different speeds.
Given all of this - who is to say that what we know now has anything to do with how things are?
I can see the appeal of religion here, also. If science - which by nature is malleable and cannot provide all the answers ever, and the answers it does provide are either incomplete or completely flawed - will not stick to a single world concept, then why not turn to a system which has completely fucked what we call logic and stuck to an indoctrinated system of constants or near-constants?
Yes, I have issues with religion. Yes, I'm aware that I'm coming off as incredibly insulting. So, this next statement's going to come as a bit of weird surprise:
God exists.
He exists for those who believe he exists. If their perception of the world is that God exists within it and they truly believe that? Then God lives and breathes in the world of their perception. And since we cannot say what is and is not real beyond our own perception... He's as real as the belief folks have in Him.
He doesn't exist in my perception, so he's not in my world. But my interpretations of the data presented to me tend to be a bit different. I can't deny the existence of a God, or six billion iterations of God. People believe he exists, so he exists.
As a philosophy, this must seem incredibly fucked up. If everything exists that's perceived... then what the fuck?
I don't know. I don't have an explanation for everything. Am I expected to? Am I expected to have an easy answer to fit all the questions? Mercy, I hope not.
I guess that's the point. This whole perception thing is my bread basket today. But tomorrow, something else could come along that blows that out of the water. Because, really. What the fuck do I know?
And more importantly, why is my bread basket in the water?
In any case? See the movie. You might disagree with everything it has to say, or you may love everything it has to say. As long as you think about what it has to say, it's done its work.
It's currently playing in (and I don't know the locales of EVERYONE on my flist, so if I forgot you, the complete list is here) CA - San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose. AZ - Tempe, Tucson. OH - Columbus, Yellow Springs. PA - Homestead. WA - Seattle, Bellingham, Bainbridge Island. FL - Orlando, Key West. IN - Indianapolis. KY - Louisville. MA - Boston, Cambridge, Waltham. NY - New York. WI - Milwaukee.
Please, go see it. If my babble made any sense, go see it. If it completely boggled you, go see it. Everyone will take something different away from it. I haven't even begun to express what I've experienced.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 03:43 pm (UTC)You've given me something to ponder today. And the movie is actually showing in Boulder! Wish I had money to see it. :-(
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 05:59 pm (UTC)