How do we know what is and isn't real?

The matter can be expressed with an elegent economy of expression by saying matter exhibits the properties of conscious expression. Our own conscious expressions being various energetic relationships with the properties of absorption reflection and polarity.

 

(As I sit writing these two posts, (actually I just posted the first one) I am listening to a CD, which seems oddly appropriate---It is titled, Venu, which is an old Sanskrit or Indian name for the bamboo flute. (The artist is Hariprasad-Zakir Hussain.) It is bamboo flute played to the accompaniment of tabla. There is also the added sound of the tonal strings on a sitar. The song which lasts over an hour is a rag that is set to a folk song of the Ahir, a mountain tribe in Northern India---it is a classical melody of the early morning hours---the hush of the darkest point before the dawn) P.S. I got busy the first post refers to my last post----I wasn't able to come back to it tonight (and now I am listening to dubstep---which also seems oddly appropriate in its own way...)

I like this explanation—it perhaps places even greater focus on the subjective than I do myself

In other words, metaphorically, if the tree falls in the forest it makes no sound if no one is there to hear it. This may very well be correct, but then why so much prehistory, why so much earthly changes and evolution of lower life forms, and so forth---if there was no one to observe it, and if it therefore occurred only in essence? Why has matter evolved over time and consistently manifests a record of that evolutionary history.

This is right back to the dilemma of the observer in quantum physics, such as the implications of the double slit experiment, or the metaphorical Schrodinger’s cat. Assuming that we need the observer in order for the physical to manifest, can we be so pretentious as to assume that all this phenomena that makes up the great universe, is simply to manifest reality for the short period of time, and in the minute localized piece of the universe wherein humans are present? (And here we are on the verge of destroying ourselves.) We can only understand consciousness in terms of human consciousness, and by that we determine that, as one quantum physicist struggling with the problem joked, a mouse can’t determine the physical reality around it. The implication was that, for example, it would seem to a dogmatic scientist that a virgin forest could not exist based on the conscious observations of the animals within that forest.

And yet every time I go into a sweat lodge, I (along with the others there) am connecting to grandfathers—beings that are so old, they have witnessed all of the changes of the earth—we call them rocks. As an experiment one time (to see if there is anything to it), I was stuck in traffic on a Saturday afternoon on a suburban side road, and asked a bird for information. I couldn’t see what the problem was, but I kept watching a red tailed hawk circling above, and so I mentally asked it, how far does this traffic go. Surprisingly I got a mental answer, and then the bird took off. Surprisingly the answer was correct. I have been in yuwipi ceremonies and have felt and heard the rumble of buffalo hoofs when a buffalo spirit entered. I have heard the loud cry of an eagle and felt a large wing brush across me as an eagle spirit entered. I have watched spirits heal a man, who sat next to me, both of us against the wall, except the spirits moved around his back, as if there was no wall. For about 14 years now, I have had a relationship with a non-existent wolf, who’s presence I can feel when it is near, who has taught me, warned me, and watched out for me, and for which I gave up years ago trying to find a rational explanation to. The list could go on and on.

Yet these are all drawn from my own subjective experience, and you would have no way of knowing whether it is true or not. So all I can ask of you is, isn’t it possible that there are other forms of consciousness in the universe, that can also serve as that observer? Is it not overly-reductionist to assume that consciousness must exist in the form, the capacity of awareness, and within the biological and structural restraints that we understand it to be in our own existential (human) experience of it?

It is interesting how you describe the Gestalt, and how an object cannot exist until it is perceived as standing out from its background---coincidentally, as I pointed out earlier, the etymology of the word to exist is to ‘stand out,’ ‘emerge’ and to be---but it is a word that arises from two roots: ex, ‘forth, and ‘sistere,’ to cause to stand.

The question is one of whether the gestalt is a psyche problem of the ego, or do all things manifest only as form in the background until it stands out as an observed phenomena? I believe that we record far more details of reality in the subconscious, than we do consciously. The Jungian definition of the ego is that of a filter that filters out all stimulus and phenomena that is not relevant to our conscious choice/perception of reality. What is filtered out however, is recorded subconsciously. This seems to be validated by such things as hypnotic regression where memory-based details seem excessively lucid where even observations could be made that weren’t made originally.

What if there is no one to observe the Gestalt? Once again, this issue takes us back to the question of who the observer is.

In one of the latest theories of cosmology, where the zero point energy field replaces inertia (as inertia) in Newton’s Law of motion, it is the universal field of latent light energy that gives shape to matter. In other words, a non-physical (non-physical based on my Second Principal to Descartes’ First Principal) energy from a higher dimension gives shape to matter qua matter---the thing in itself---the form that creates our perception of matter. It is the 4th Dimension (Time) as light, bringing forth a three-dimensional zero point energy field (Space) which creates the inertia that surrounds mass to give it its shape and quality (Form). In other words, the Space-Time continuum creates Form.

This form was described by the Ancient Greeks, most notably Plato and Aristotle, and it is implied in every ancient spirituality. If the Space-Time continuum creates form in this manner, then we must ask: “Is there intentionality in this Form?”

We are faced with the possibility of, to borrow from Aristotle, nous (the Greek word for Mind). We could then consider the following relationship Nous----time/space----matter/observation (individual consciousness). If the Now and subjective perception is based on the photons reaching the receiving particles and the receiving observer, then it would seem that Nous is based on the opposite—the point at which the photons are emitted. Nous is the nonphysical source (where essence manifests), the Now is the manifesting of the Physical.

By the way, In my last post I stated that everyone experiences the same Now at the same time. This might seem contrary to The Special Theory of Relativity, which states that time is relative to the observer and his relative velocity. Remember the present Now is not time itself, the Now is the single present moment of all that is real. As velocity increases, we move through the 4th Dimension faster than we do through space, i.e. as we move through the space-time continuum at higher velocities, due to the bending of space-time, we are moving through time more than space. But the Nows are still experienced at the same time as the Nows of someone sitting still. It is just the succession of Nows (time) that is different.

I forget how I explained it earlier, but if I leave earth on June 1st, 2015, and travel so fast that it takes me two years to travel across space, which for you as a solitary observer, took me 4 years, when I return to earth it will be June 1st 2019, for both you and me. I may have sent messages to earth through out the 2 years of my travels, but those messages would have been received on earth over the equivalent 4 years of my absence. Then I would land on earth and it would be the same Now (I just would have aged 2 years only). Therefore, my future is always your future, your future is always my future. Our Now is always the same present.

In terms of distance, it is the same Now on the sun as it is on earth, even though it takes 8 minutes for sunlight to reach earth—therefore I am still experiencing the same future as the earth, it is only localized. Again this is because the moment of Now is not determined by the source of the light, rather by the observation or recipient particle of the light.

 

If a non-sentient, non-conscious measuring device can serve as observer in the double split experiment, I see no reason why other animals or even plants could not.

 

But how do you explain the version of the experiment where the measuring device does not put out any record of when it takes a measurement, and therefore the conscious observer can never know when it happens (i.e. observe it), and there is no wave collapse----the resulting pattern never changes.

This was one of the strangest and unsettling versions of the experiment.

 

what is unsettling about the fact that you have to turn on the tape recorder to get a tape?

 

It is memory that maintains our view of the world.

 

It would be simple if that was the problem. The real problem is that the position of the particle is measured a random times, which should change the diffraction pattern of the particles as they go through the double slits at those random times. The only difference is that the observer has no idea of the position (measurement) or even when it is happening because there is no output. The fact that there is no change suggests that a conscious observer needs to make the observation.

 

Or it needs to be re-corded via chordata. The universe relies on communication in order to expand in form.

 

The experiment doesnt dpend on the observer the observer and the experiment and the results are all the same thing. There is no subjective objective dichotomy there is what you know and what you have yet to learn and what we may be confused about

 

Now that you put it that way... Actually I think this is a great description of what I would imagine the nonphysical realm of the form would be like----the universe outside the holograph where there exists the thing qua thing, the thing in itself, or the essence. This is the universe at the source of all sensory phenomena, but especially light----the background of the Gestalt is therefore the realm of the form----I like that.

 

Wheeler's delayed choice experiments demonstrate that extracting "which path" information after a particle passes through the slits can seem to retroactively alter its previous behavior at the slits.
Quantum eraser experiments demonstrate that wave behavior can be restored by erasing or otherwise making permanently unavailable the "which path" information.
A simple do-it-at-home demonstration of the quantum eraser phenomenon was given in an article in Scientific American.[39] If one sets polarizers before each slit with their axes orthogonal to each other, the interference pattern will be eliminated. The polarizers can be considered as introducing which-path information to each beam. Introducing a third polarizer in front of the detector with an axis of 45° relative to the other polarizers "erases" this information, allowing the interference pattern to reappear. This can also be accounted for by considering the light to be a classical wave,[39]:91 and also when using circular polarizers and single photons.[40]:6 Implementations of the polarizers using entangled photon pairs have no classical explanation.

 

Or the non-formulaic presence of matter or matter as it is before accretion.

 

We ourselves provide polarity through observation and genuflection.

 

Wheeler's delayed choice experiment is yet another variation that defies reason. It is funny that it says that it 'seems to' retroactively alter the previous path---many scientists agree that this is what actually happens---the implication is that our observation impacts what has already happened---our observation goes back in time. Scientists have trouble accepting this however-----so you have the quantum eraser which is used by some to inadequately argue that we don't go back in time via Wheeler's experiment. It basically amounts to saying that we can cosmetically (i.e. physically) change the path to look like one or the other, so the delayed observation in Wheeler's experiment must do the same thing----where the logic fails is that in Wheeler's experiment there is no actual polarizing action taking place---it is merely the same observation/measurement that is done in every other double slit experiment prior to the Quantum eraser experiment. Furthermore, the Quantum Eraser reintroduces the wave pattern (interference pattern) not the slit pattern from the observation----i.e. it has the opposite effect.


However----we could apply my concept of the Now to Wheeler's experiment and apply it the same way that I suggested an explanation of entanglement. This would explain the Wheeler experiment in the sense that the delayed observation and the resulting slit pattern are all part of the same Now. This would mean that while we appear to be altering the past--in other words, whether the light passed through the slits as particle or war tve prior to the observation, but in fact the observation is simply defining the Now.

However this raises new questions and problems----for example, doe this mean that each photon of a single moment of Now is of the same Now from source to target (receiving particle)? In the 4th Dimension that is certainly true, but what does that mean for our sublight-speed world where time exists? This would also mean that the observer/time relationship is even more complex than either Meagain's relative time and my own concept of observer/time.

 

I probably can't but nature doesn't occur in specialized labs where all variables are attempted to be controlled.

 

I have another theory---it's about these mind experiments (there is a German word for this which escapes me at the moment)---if brushing your teeth once a week with your other hand is a way of helping fight Alzheimer's disease, then certainly trying to conceptualize multidimensional space and the space-time implications of light and time----has got to be a good exercise at fighting it as well.

 

I think that the past is represented by memeory and we are not the only ones with memory. Plants for example keep records. We can determine local flora and probable fauna of the distant past from the examination of seeds or spores or reading tree rings. Our own memory is propagated through genes and it contains memories of the history of our entire family tree. In terms of planetary memory across genera and class it is possible that we have in our dna insect nexus as well as plant and fungal influences. Right now it is suggested that we are using only twenty percent of available genetic information and it is also suggested that emotion plays a role in the expression of genes. If is conceivable that a person through the use of consistent effort or devotional techniquies could impress on the expression of genes in such a way as to produce a physical metamorphosis that may infer such attributes as extreme longevity and miraculous healings etc.

 

If your past is someone else's present, then doesn't that make the present exist only in our heads as well?