Quote:
Originally Posted by cdn2wheeler  There's reality and then there's reality.
I'm sitting in a black leather chair right now. To me, it's comfortable. To you, it may not be. Both our realities of the chair are true, but the chair itself hasn't changed.
There is such a thing as objective reality. That would be demonstrated by the existence of the chair. There's also such thing as subjective reality, which means we may perceive the reality of the chair in different ways.
So bandying about overarching statements like there are "as many realities going on as there are people on the planet" is a gross oversimplification. There may be many subjective realities - the chair is hard or soft, comfortable or not - but that doesn't change the chair itself.
Probably true. But my "reality" and your "reality" has little, if any influence, on the object we're perceiving, whether it's a chair or a situation or a person. The object is, regardless of our perceptions of it. |
Really? Perhaps we should examine this interesting question of whether your chair is really "real".
Your chair is made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of subatomic particles. Do subatomic particles exist, and if so, what makes them exist? Well, according to quantum physics, your subatomic particles exist neither as wave, nor as particle, until something (let's call it X) happens. What is X?
There are several theories about this. One is the "consciousness causes collapse" theory - it is observation that causes the subatomic particle to exist. Observation implies consciousness, therefore without consciousness there is no existence of the subatomic particles, and therefore ultimately there is no atom, and no molecule, and ultimately no chair.
Therefore whatever is not perceived, simply does not exist. This extends from subatomic particles all the way to buildings, planets, moons, stars etc.
Another alternative theory is referred to as the "Many Worlds" theory, developed by quantum physicist Hugh Everitt, which you can google and read about for yourself as well. This is a phenomenological theory, which means it is developed to explain actual phenomena observed by scientists (that is, they did certain experiments, and they really observed certain results, and then a theory is developed to explain the results). In a highly simplified nutshell, Hugh postulates multiple realities (such as some realities where your chair exists in your room, and other realities where there is no such chair in your room) and these realities can keep dividing into more and more different realities. Hugh Everitt's theory is actually alarmingly close to the multidimensional realities explained by Seth (the entity supposedly channeled by one Jane Roberts in the 1970s, and in many ways, a predecessor to Hicks' Abraham).
A third theory (which comes closest to achieving the idea of an "objective reality") is the Bohm interpretation (this is by David Bohm, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb). Bohm's interpretation, however, is forced to introduce the principle of non-locality, which means that something happening in one place can
instantly (more precisely, at the speed of light, but not greater) affect something else, regardless of distance. Eg my thoughts about XYZ, which is situated on the other side of the planet earth, can instantly affect XYZ.
Whichever way you look, Cdn2wheeler, don't be so quick to assume that objective reality exists - or even if it does exist, that it is what you think it is.
Consciousness causes collapse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Many-worlds interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bohm interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia