Reality..Reality! It's second nature to us.It is what we live our entire lifetime in and are forever within that lifetime surrounded by.Reality isn't just interacting with matter and energy (and associated forces); ditto time and space, but in lots of less intangible ways like comprehending the names of objects and their nature; dates, and their importance; and places (we've never been to).And there are other concepts you can't really grasp in your hand yet which you'd consider real - like Wednesdays and blueness and freshness.And there are also your mental realities of memories and knowledge and emotions, etc.You often interact with reality in degrees of ignorance just because that reality is just the way things are, and are done, even if you don't know the full evolution of why it came to be that way.But is reality really real in the sense that it would still be an identical reality even if you didn't exist, or yet exist, or that your equivalent halfway across the world, or the Universe or as someone generations ago or to come experiences it? You'd probably agree - surely rain a million years ago has the same wet reality as rain you or your equivalents experience.The stars would still shine even in a lifeless Universe.You believe it, but can you prove it?Reality must also be an individual's experience.You can experience something creative - a painting, a song, a book, a garden, interior decorations, or a work of common or extraordinary architecture.That's one reality.But you can't share or come to terms with the nature of the reality experienced by the creator part and parcel in creating that work.So your perception of reality is somewhat limited.As the song title goes, "Is that all there is?" The answer is "No".Your reality isn't another person's or species reality, and further more, your day-to-day reality is but a small subset of all possible realities, reality here equated to environments, past, present and future and just beyond your event horizon.It's self evident that a NASA astronaut has a quite different day-to-day reality relative to that of an Australian drover who road the range a century before.While you of course have some say in expanding your personal reality event horizon, you could change jobs or move halfway around the world, or win the lottery, some environments and associated realities are forever beyond your reach.You can't experience life a thousand years ago, or in the future; you can't currently live on Mars; if you weren't born an American citizen, even though you're now an American citizen, you can't become President of the United States.Of course if there is such a thing as reincarnation (which I seriously doubt), then you might eventually experience other realities, elsewhere and else-when.Then too, if there is a Multiverse, then in other universes you might just be living and experiencing other lives and lifestyles and times.Who can say?But wait.What if reality is all in the mind - your mind? You are the sum total of all there is.Then anything you want is yours.If you imagine living on Mars, then Mars is your home! Assuming however you're not the be all and end all of life, the Universe, and everything, an associated question might be if you have never heard of it, or experienced it, or imagined it, does 'it' have reality? Even if you have heard, but forgotten about it; experienced it, but not at this very moment; even if you have imagined it, but not currently, does 'it' have reality?Before getting to the nitty-gritty of reality, I'll just point out that there are various components to reality.There are lots of ways those components can be put together - as Black Holes, as planets, even as people.But the most mysterious component of all is probably mind - a construct of reality and by reality that can comprehend reality.You are an example of reality's way of comprehending reality - or some of it anyway!Is Reality Observer Dependent or Independent?One of the most important players in all things quantum is the observer - that person or instrument that makes a measurement will decides between all possible outcomes.Even though the Copenhagen Interpretation says that Mother Nature only makes up Her mind - collapses the wave function of possibilities to a specific outcome - when an observation or measurement is made, and until then all possibilities are, well, possible, then I have to ask, how on Earth (or in the Universe) did anything happen before any life (and associated mind) evolve? Taken to its logical conclusion, the Copenhagen Interpretation would say that prior to the origin and evolution of life, the Universe didn't exist because there was nothing with sensory equipment and a comprehending mind around to observe it and give it existence.[Of course if the Universe (actually Multiverse) has always existed and therefore if life has always existed somewhere or other, that would take care of that little problem quick-smart.] Regardless, how does Nature make up Her mind today in those parts of the Universe where there are no observers? Observers, to my mind, are an irrelevance and while a part of reality, do not determine what reality actually happens.Reality exists - it is what it is and what it is exists independently of any observer or mind or consciousness.Another important player in all things quantum is the concept of probability, or chance, or randomness or uncertainty or indeterminacy.That's in stark contrast to classical physics where all things are predetermined and where cause and effect rule the roost.Now to my manner of thinking, quantum uncertainty, the core of which is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, is only uncertain because there are observers trying to measure things, although fundamentally they can not ever get a precise measurement, no matter how good their instruments are, or ever will be.You can't measure things in the micro realm without affecting the every thing you are trying to measure.However, remove the observer from the picture and things are as certain and predetermined in the micro world as they are in the macro (classical) world.An electron might jump around like a flea as it is pummeled with photons of all wavelengths and energies from radio to gamma, and to an observer trying to measure the electron's position and velocity finds it is always somewhat uncertain, nevertheless, at any specific point in time, it's somewhere with precise coordinates, and it's traveling at a specific velocity.Any radioactive substance decays at a known rate - the half-life.If you have 1000 atoms of a radioactive substance, and the half-life is one year, do you really need to interrupt your holidays after one year to check that there are still 500 radioactive atoms left?Now apparently an isolated neutron will decay into an electron, a proton and (I believe) an antineutrino within roughly ten minutes.If you could put an isolated neutron in an impenetrable box, and put it on your closest shelf, do you really need to open the box - other than to satisfy personal curiosity - ten years later to find out what's in the box? If you believe the Copenhagen Interpretation, there's a possibility that there is still just a neutron in the box.Me, I think that's so unlikely a possibility that you could stake the family fortune on the outcome and win hands-down.To flog a dead horse, the Copenhagen Interpretation says that you have to actually observe something in order for it to have reality.Until you observe, all possibilities are, well, possible.Mother Nature makes up her mind when you observe.But it does seem to be possible to know the reality of something without measuring or observing it because of entanglement, where knowing the state of one object, immediately gives you information on the state of something intimately associated with it, but which you don't actually observe.The Reality of Both Nothing and Something..There has to be some nothing as well as some something.If everything were something, then nothing could move as all the Universe would be chockablock - like the fad of a VW, or a phone booth being stuffed full to overflowing with college kids.You couldn't push anything out of the way as there would be no nothing to push it into!The Reality of Something. Matter & Energy..We live in the world of the macro and in the realm of classical physics - the physics you were taught in high school.Your homes, cars and offices are probably filled with electronic gadgets that operate in the realm of the micro - quantum physics (which you probably weren't taught in high school).You'd think that there should be a smooth and continuous transition from the macro/classical to the micro/quantum, and vice versa, as you go up or down the scale of size.However, I'm hard pressed to think of an example in reality where both quantum and classical physical concepts or laws have to be integrated in order to explain or predict something.Again, it's like there are two different sets of software running the cosmos!That said, the reality of matter and energy in our macro day-to-day existence, while obvious, depends on the reality of the bits and pieces that make up the realm of the micro.So, molecules had better be real, and atoms and the particles that make them up - things like quarks and electrons and neutrinos.Thus, it's disturbing to read in various books on particle and quantum physics that these are treated as point (dimensionless) particles.Presumably this is to make the mathematics easier or simpler (and just pick up an academic text in these subjects, open to a random page, and see what I mean).Clearly a dimensionless particle can not have reality as particles have mass.That implies of necessity that the particles must have size - a volume.If you gather up an infinite number of dimensionless particles, you could fit them into zero volume.Since macro bits and pieces have volume - you have a volume - you can not be ultimately comprised of dimensionless micro bits!Further, we have all these high energy 'atom smashers' (particle accelerators) where the objective is to smash one particle into another at higher and higher energies and see what happens.If the particles, usually electrons or protons, had zero volume, they couldn't collide! Despite phrases like 'point particles', particles really have three dimensions (volume), and thus objects around you, including you, have volume.Particles have reality, and so do you.And because mass and energy are interchangeable, energy has reality.If you doubt that, put your hand on a hot stove!In addition, the very fact that we experience variety in matter tells us that there must be more than one kind of matter.If there were only one kind of stuff - say electrons and only electrons - then everything we experience would be just that stuff; only that stuff; that stuff alone.No variety - it's all things electron! That's clearly not the case, so there's more to matter than just, say, electrons!The Reality of Nothing. Time & Space..Go into a dark, quiet room with no sensory distractions.You know that time is passing all around you, yet you can't detect this time with any of your five senses.You can't see time; hear time; smell time; taste time; or touch time.To detect time, you need some intermediary mechanism - look at your watch; listen to the ticking of a clock; feel your pulse.Translated, to detect time (and by the way ditto space), you need matter/energy which time as some effect on.Put another way, if matter/energy did not exist, the concept of time would be meaningless.(Ditto space - in the absence of matter/energy you couldn't detect space with your five senses.There'd be nothing to see, hear, taste, touch or smell.).Space has no meaning unless there is something inside it, and/or outside it, to give it some boundary and hence reality.If there's no matter/energy, there's no need of any space for it to reside in.So, time and space aren't real without matter and energy.Only matter and energy have reality.Since time and space are meaningless concepts without matter and energy, its nonsense to talk about creating time and space.You'd automatically create time and space if you could create matter/energy.Alas, the conservation laws of physics state that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed only changed in form.Presumably nothing can create matter/energy - certainly no human being has ever done it - and since I reject the concept of a supernatural creator being (God), I'm forced to conclude that matter and energy, therefore space and time, have always existed and will always exist.[Eliminating a creator God from consideration simplifies things no end.].Your Pet's Reality..I'll assume that as your pet (assuming you have one or more), or some other animal you have had a relationship with or observed closely, can't speak for itself or themselves, and as you're totally familiar with your pet's personality, that you're a good spokesperson for them - as good as it's going to get anyway.So, if you were your pet (bird, fish, cat, whatever) how would your perception or knowledge of reality shift - if it does.Firstly there's a near universal reality for all higher life forms - including humans.That universality is expressed in the phrase "empty what's full; fill what's empty; scratch where it itches"!Humor aside let's start with the initial gateways - the senses.We're all aware that our sensory apparatus can and has been exceeded by some animals - including common household pets.Not only is vision more acute in some animals, but extends further into the ultraviolet and/or infrared than ours.Hearing is keener; sense of smell is sharper; pressure gradients more noticeable, etc.Be all that as it may, I can't see that altering basic perceptions of reality in any significant way.Ditto for physical abilities - birds gotta fly; fish gotta swim; horses gotta run.Again, there's nothing significantly different in principle here.The fact that a horse can run faster than you doesn't give the horse a whole different perspective or outlook on the world.Yet, on our home world, there is a life form, with a most alien of realities, at least relative to us or from our perspective.The most alien of realities, from our point of view, must be experienced by that of a fish, even a pet goldfish.Consider, we live for all practical purposes in a two dimensional world - the surface of our planet.Fish live in a three dimensional world.They, for all practical purposes, experience no weather or climate.There's not much temperature variation.They, depending on species and depth, may never experience a day-night cycle, rather live all the time in absolute darkness.They don't experience gravity per say as the water and swim bladders produce neutral buoyancy.From our point of view, I guess, their reality is not only quite different, but certainly more boring - although boring is a rather emotive term.The fish may not have any comprehension of what boring is.So, having a conversation with a fish (a thought experiment obviously) might be about the closest one could come to terms with a substantial alternative reality.Except the absolutes, the basics are still there - survival, food, sex, etc.Reality is ultimately perceived and processed by our brains, and our companion animals have brains, just as we do.Animals have a "The You" component to them.Pets clearly can think, make (to them anyway) intelligent decisions; they can and do dream.They have emotions.They can learn; they have memories.They have a world view.Yet, I'm sure that 99.9% of the time your pets and mine have absolutely no comprehension of what you are doing or why.They may like warmth, but have no idea of what thermodynamics is.They like sex but the purpose and genetics of it all is beyond them.They like food but have no comprehension of agriculture and manufacturing and transport and distribution and money and shopping and all those bits and pieces that put doggie food in the doggie bowl.Yet your activities, warmth, sex, food is of course part of their reality, although not part of their understanding.Now our companion animals are fairly closely related species to us.Felines, of which I have two, have a worldview.However, their worldview, concerns, philosophy, science, etc.Revolves around whether there's food in their food bowl; do they have a clean litter box to access; am I around when required to open doors for them and where are the mice hiding! I often envy their relatively uncomplicated lives.No pondering the great issues like looking at a star and wondering if an alien cat is looking back in this direction; no comprehension of taxes or money so-called compulsory voting or politics.Four billions of years of evolution (assuming an origin of life within 500 million years of Earth's origin) made no demands or requirements for living things to comprehend abstract things like philosophy or science (like cosmology or quantum mechanics) or mathematics, not to mention politics and economics.The sum total of our (meaning life, not just humans) concerns, over those four billion years, our worldview, or our reality, centered on food, shelter, sex and just plain survival.That's also true for the hundreds of thousands of years, all through human evolution, into what we've become now.And that's true today.I'm sure 99.9% of good folks (meaning humans) today pay near zero attention to these abstract non-essentials in their day-to-day existence.It's bad enough that our lives have been enhanced by the abstractions of government and taxes and bills and nine-to-five jobs (or lack thereof).So herein lays my fundamental question.If our companion animals can't come to terms with the Big Picture, ultimate reality, relative to us, but we ourselves are only just that little bit further along in evolutionary (brain-related) advancement (call that advanced IQ or whatever) relative to them, then, what makes you think that the entire vista of reality is comprehensible to you? I sometimes wonder if we're yet fully biologically or mentally equipped to ponder the great abstracts - comprehend the fullness of reality, not just the few bits and pieces that we have come to terms with and think as being the near be all and end all of what's real.Perhaps our worldview of these things are not only limited, but of necessity will be limited.Translated, perhaps further eons yet worth of brain development might be necessary to fully comprehend our reality; what we comprehend currently might be, relatively speaking, just a tiny bit in advance of what our animal friends comprehend! There's a long, long, road to hoe.Personal Reality..For all you know, you might actually be a multi-tentacled, slimy green blob-thing living on the Planet Zork and dreaming that you are a human living on Planet Earth and deriving near infinite amount of civic pride/satisfaction and/or orgasmic pleasure in paying your way (mainly via taxes and rates).Then again, maybe your really Triffid-like, living on some extra-solar hot Jupiter, hallucinating that you're on Planet Zork and consequently dreaming of being a Planet Earth humanoid.Well, maybe not.But be that as it may.It's probably impossible to ever know of experience absolute reality since everything external to us, in order to be experienced, has to be filtered and processed through a complex biochemical laboratory via our eyes, ears, skin, etc.Hence via our nervous system up to the brain.Who really knows what kind of translation happens along the way or what's lost (or wrongly gained) in translation.Our reality might be a total hash of actual reality! But, we do the best we can with what we get to work with.We perceive the reality of the Universe (and its component parts) via our five senses - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - and through instruments (technology) which, while extending the range of those senses, translate their measurements back into the range we can comprehend with our sensory apparatus.A radio telescope can see and record radio waves, but the (computer or paper) image spat out for our viewing is obviously in the visible light range to cater for our eyes.Ditto our radios translate radio waves we can't see or hear into sound we can hear.While there are probably differences in the perceptions of reality twixt males and females, it's probably also true that these are so minor as to not be really worth elaborating on.No two people ever experience seemingly identical things exactly down to the Nth degree.That is, you and I will not experience vision, hearing, taste, smell or touch in the precise same way.That's quite apart from relativity theory which can illustrate these differences quite dramatically.No, even in our relativity-irrelevant day-to-day life and world, for example, what's blue to someone might appear slightly blue-green to another; what's a perfect C-note to one is ever so slightly sharp (#) to another; what's a hot cup of coffee to one person is only very warm to another, even though the temperature is identical in both cases.Even two people tasting the same food will perceive things slightly differently.Yet clearly the blue/blue-green color has one and only one specific wavelength; the note has one and only one frequency; and the hot/very warm cup of coffee really has just one uniform temperature.[Note that these differences have nothing to do with individual likes or dislikes - that's a separate category of an even more personal 'reality' altogether.].Speaking of temperature, differences in perception extends to instruments which augment our senses as well.We might be able to estimate temperature to within a degree or two.But even two seemingly identical thermometers will register ever so slight differences, perhaps to with 1/100th or 1/1000th of a degree, but differences nevertheless.So what aspects of the Universe do we sense? Well, obviously things that are composed of matter and energy (which are two sides of the same coin).We can see matter and energy, we can hear energy, we can touch matter and experience its energy, and we can smell and taste matter.Yet, those aspects are quite incomplete.Our sense of vision is useless over most of the electromagnetic spectrum.Our sense of hearing is adequate over only a relatively small range of frequencies or octaves.Our reality, apart from vision and hearing is also confined to a relatively narrow range of temperatures, gravitational and magnetic fields, and chemical elements.But we don't sense Earth's magnetic field (though apparently some animals do), which is a tad strange since we can sense or feel the Earth's gravitational field or force.Our senses can't see, hear, taste, touch or smell time, and time is a fundamental aspect to our existence and to the properties of our Universe.And if string or superstring theory is correct, then we exist in a ten or eleven dimensional Universe, yet we can't see, hear taste, touch or smell them.An extra six or seven dimensions to our Universe is not trivial, yet we're not equipped to experience them.That's weird! We've no direct awareness of the quantum world.What would our reality be like at the atomic level or below? I don't know, but it sure wouldn't mirror the comfortable reality we deal with in the macroverse.Although the strong nuclear force holds together all the atomic nuclei in our bodies, we don't feel or sense it, nor for that matter the weak nuclear force.There's strong circumstantial evidence that parallel universes should exist, yet we've no apparent perception of these.We've no perception of what it would be like to experience reality inside a Black Hole, and for that matter, we've only an academic understanding of the reality of the interior of a stellar object, like our Sun, not a personal reality, or for that matter most of the environments in our Universe.Think of all those realities we've never experienced, and probably never can experience.What else might we lack knowledge or perception of that's not yet been dreamt of in our philosophy or science? I shudder to think of all that we're missing!Personal Reality from Two Points of View..Let's return to our favorite imaginary couple, Jane and Clive, one of which sees blue, hears a pure C-note and perceives coffee as hot; the other a shade of blue-green, hears C#, and perceives equally hot coffee as only very warm.Jane is aware of the idea that matter is mostly empty space.Jane knows that neutrinos can pass through light-years of 'solid' lead unimpeded."Why can't I be like a neutrino and pass through 'solid' matter?" she asks.Jane, being a good experimental scientist, decides to personally experiment and test the idea.Both Jane and Clive look up a physics equation, F=ma (force equals mass times acceleration).They ponder this abstract representation linking force, mass and acceleration and how it could be translated into showing that matter was mainly empty space.Jane gets an idea of accelerating a mass (her fist) to provide a force against another mass (say a brick wall), expecting her fist mass and the other brick mass to intersect.[Boy is she going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.] Jane was aware of course that just leaning her hand on the wall wasn't sufficient enough oomph - she needed more force.Anyway, Jane and Clive discuss this practical demonstration of Jane slamming her fist into a brick wall; Clive tries to talk her out of this experiment, but has to capitulate (a woman just has to have the last word) and just observes while a remote camera films the event for posterity.So, we have Jane slamming her fist into a brick wall and Clive watches.We assume that Jane's fist doesn't pass harmlessly through the brick wall - empty space or no empty space.So Jane experiences the physical reality of intense pain; at best black and blue bruising; at worst, broken bones in her hand.Clive of course experiences no such pain (though he'd better show some sympathy or else he just might), but he certainly experiences the intense sound (scream) of Jane's 'ouch'!So one definition of reality could be something along the line, and I'm sure Jane would now agree, is that reality is something that hits back when you hit it! Yet, there's got to be more to reality than that.Later on, we have Jane and Clive watch the film of Jane slamming her fist into a brick wall.Neither Jane nor Clive now experiences any actual pain, yet the mental reality of watching the film will trigger quite different memories in each of the two participants.We have Jane and Clive just think about Jane slamming her fist into a brick wall; we have Jane and Clive dream about Jane slamming her fist in to a brick wall; we have Jane and Clive hallucinate (being somewhat under the influence) about Jane slamming her fist into a brick wall - these are all variations on the same theme.If these mental processes (thinking, dreaming or hallucinating) happened before-the-fact that Jane slammed her fist into a brick wall then that's going to produce quite a different mental image(s) than if these mental processes happened after-the-fact that Jane slammed her fist into a brick wall.So you see, one scenario gives rise to many varieties of reality.There's the abstract reality of the equation.There's the mental reality of what might be.There's the mental reality of what was.There's the physical reality of Jane's pain and Clive's throbbing eardrum! There's the reality of the film to remind them never to try this stunt again!
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