[Acting Like Godot]

To help you understand why you think your hand is solid, it is helpful to compare yourself to a snail.

A snail has a much slower nervous system than us. Suppose you put a red flower right in front of a snail. It sees the red flower. You then take the flower away for two seconds. Next, you put the flower back in front of the snail.

Because the snail's nervous system is so slow, its perception of reality is that the red flower had been there all along. It cannot tell that the red flower had appeared, disappeared and reappeared.

That's basically why you think your hand is solid. It has disappeared, appeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared - but you cannot tell. Your nervous system is too slow.

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I am going to walk you through it one more time:

1. All material things are made up of atoms
2. Atoms are composed of subatomic particles moving at vast speed through huge empty spaces (atoms are mostly empty)
3. Subatomic particles are not material things. They are fluctuations of energy in a huge void.
4. Subatomic particles flicker in and out of existence depending on whether you are observing them or not.
5. Before you decide to observe them, they are probability amplitudes in a field of infinite possibilities (they are neither wave or particle but possess the potential to be either).
6. When you decide to observe them, they turn into spacetime events (occupying a particular space at a particular time) known as particles, and manifest as matter.

Note: Point 6 is for matter (like your chair). For other things like radio signals or light, the act of observation may not turn them into matter. The act of observation may instead turn them into waves. It also depends on how you observe them. For example, depending on the type of experiment you do, light may appear to be wave, or may appear to be particle.

7. Your brain is flickering in and out of existence at the speed of light.

8. Your nervous system cannot process quantum events (movement of subatomic particles) at the speed they are really happening.

9. Therefore your nervous system decodes the quantum events and perceives them as solid three-dimensional material bodies.

10. The snail is even slower than you. That's why it thinks the red flower has been there all along, even though you had placed the flower, removed the flower and put it back again.

11. When you observe the quantum movements of the universe, it "solidifies" into matter.

12. If you do not observe it, it does not exist. It could be wave or particle.

You therefore have created all the matter that you have ever seen. Your hand, your body, the snail, the red flower, your computer, your mother etc. If you had no consciousness, they would cease to exist (they would still however possess the potential to become either wave or particle.)

What would you like to do with your consciousness today?

Consciousness is for observation. Change your consciousness, and your observation changes. Change your observation and reality changes. How do you know you're not a snail?