Our perception of reality
Sometimes I am not sure whether to stand in absolute awe or to laugh about some of the paradoxes we live within
Grasping the fullness of what these might reveal seemingly appearing on the spectrum between tantalising and utterly absurd
Most of us too busy busying ourselves with trivial activities that we never have a moment to reflect on our place in the universe
Too busy worrying about what seems very important to us that we forget about the incredible mystery that surrounds us
That we are specs in the universe yet that the universe isn’t unless perceived by us
It’s completely mind boggling if we stop and think about it
If we stop to remember that our reality is unique and that the way we experience the world is the only version of the world that we will ever have the illusion to understand, which really makes it the only reality in our world, our human universe, relative to our own experience
Your perception will be different from mine, mine from yours, your universe
Chaos
In our lives where we seek structure and an illusion of control
Maybe we can find comfort in the fact that life originated from chaos?
In pure chaos, in the Planck era ‘before’ the Big Bang, time was an ingredient of the quantum soup ‘before’ the orderliness of our current universe which mysteriously led atoms to becoming human brains
How improbable!
Stemming from chaos and disorder, humans became islands of order made of chaos
Time
I’m finding it very somehow reassuring that physicists struggle to define when time ‘started’, that inflationary theories accept the Big Bang while being saddled with the problem of endings and beginnings
It makes my own struggle to grasp the concept of beginnings and endings, somewhat universal
Really, when do things start when do things end?
When does time start?
No time no atoms no human brain no perception of time
Which makes Time personal
And Eternity timeless
Which reminds us that past and future are illusions, and that only the present moment exists
And the present is the only thing that has no end
The strings
This all feels strangely interconnected in my mind in ways I can’t yet fully explain
What binds it all together?
The strings?
The potential unifying theory that brings Large and Small together
The musical metaphor is not lost on you, you who feels so physically moved by the cello you wrote a song called The Strings
The vibrations produce musical notes
The waves are the vibrations of an invisible string
And the particles the specific notes that appear in space-time
Which brings us back to that dualism
Dualism
A reminder that paradox exists
That light can be both wavelengths and particles
That two opposite things can be true at the same time
That nature is dual, both subjective and objective
Giving humans the ability to see any situation from either perspective
Giving rise to the potential for psychology in the quantum domain
The mind-like behaviour of subatomic particles
Acting on purpose rather than visibly randomly
Light
Is this why we can get so much joy from observing Light?
Because light is timeless?
Giving rise to Life on Earth and continuing to sustain it
Photons, particles of light with no mass and moving at the speed of light
Photons that last forever because for them time does not pass
In light lies eternity
Timeless eternity
Knowing
Sometimes I wonder whether somewhere deep down an inner knowing is what makes me stop at the sight of rays of sunlight, makes me cry listening to the vibrations of the cello
Our minds and the universe
How much of a connection is there between our perception of the world and its fundamental principles?
How much of a parallel can we draw between the physics of the universe and what goes on inside our minds?
The observer’s dilemma
One of my inner-doubts about writing is the idea that by writing I am somehow not fully living because of instead of being the protagonist of my own life, I somehow become its observer
The writer’s dilemma is bound to the observer’s dilemma
Yet coming back to physics
To be is to be perceived
Things exist because they are perceived
Quantum phenomena are neither waves or particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are measured
The observer is woven in the very fabric of reality
Which might mean that observing and writing might be a way of bringing things to life?
That our pens o-pen parallel universes as our stories unfold?