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What do you think the whole of reality is ultimately?

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» What do you think the whole of reality is ultimately?

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I for one think that we live in a 4-d bubble of space/time, that contains the dimentions of length, width, depth & time, beyond that I think that this bubble is one of a 5-d multiverse, the 5th dimention being probability, the other bubbles containing all the genuine alternative possiblities that didn't happen, and this 5-d multiverse is itself just part of a 6-d reality, (whatever the 6th dimension is), that part of a 7th and so on for however many dimensions there are, maybe even limitless. Why do I believe this? No idea, it just seems pretty awsome, nor can it be proven wrong yet so I'll go with that. As for death I think either we go up a dimension everytime we exist, or we just cease to exist althogethar, neither one bothers me much though.

What are your theories?

@dawoel,

On first thoughts, I think it will not be totally correct to label probability as a dimension, because
1) The word dimension (in its scientific and philosophic context) would be defined as a certain parameter/variable required to define a point existing in the cosmos.
2) Even if you were to assign the term "dimension" to probability in order to refer to alternate scenarios (which you refer to as bubbles), those alternate scenarios must have taken place in a certain point in space and at a certain point in time. Thus, our dimensions are sufficient to interpret the events in other bubbles.
On second thoughts, though, one might argue for your point just as well: e.g., in another bubble, atom bombs might not have been dropped in 1945, maybe in 1992, not on japan, but on iceland! This obviously did not happen in our reality, so it would not be correct to say that the dimensions/the frame of reference in "OUR BUBBLE" can accurately define the events of another bubble. There must be another variable, which is changes the time scale and the scale of space from one bubble to another. This could be probability. I think it'd be better to think of it as a modulatory variable/dimension.
Thirdly, (countering the above rebuttal) we could think of time in another bubble as function of time here (maybe they are 50 years ahead). So we used no special dimension but only an adjustment. The bubble also exists in space (say 10^120 light years to our left), so an adjustment in space coordinates also leads us to their frame. (Drifting into Galilean transformations, it seems. But the transformations feel very relevant here)
Certainly food for thought and cosmological debate.

@aeris ac,

Hi there,

My own favorite concept at this moment is the notion of a Universal Consciousness (I would use the ocean as a metaphor), is imbued in each Individual Consciousness (the waves of an ocean) and it is all creating using light. Light has some pretty interesting unique properties: a) velocity is constant in all frames of references, b) used to create 3 dimensional holograms in a 2 dimensional space, c) illuminates all but itself, etc.

Rich

@dawoel,

Except as a metaphor, the whole world is not knowable. You can use any metaphor you want, each makes the same amount of sense.

@jgweed,

jgweed;75347 wrote:

Except as a metaphor, the whole world is not knowable. You can use any metaphor you want, each makes the same amount of sense.

I think to each individual, a metaphor has its own meaning. And to dome extent that it might enrich other people's understanding of who they are and where they are. Often people cannot imagine how they can be individuals and yet at the same time connected. The ocean/waves metaphor provides some idea for these individuals. For others, who are involved with duality and being, such a metaphor has no meaning.

There are many times I have found metaphors to be of immense help. Someone on this forum mentioned the Holographic Universe to me. It was absolutely splendid for my imagination and brought many concepts together immediately for me.

If one sees the micro in the macro, then metaphors may have enormous value for exploring that which is within us.

Rich

@richrf,

To consider the 4d a holism of 3d and 5d a holism of 4d and so on and so on, well, this is so naive I think we should stay away from this altogether.

Dimensions are not levels, topologically anyways.

@dawoel,

dawoel;75298 wrote:

What do you think the whole of reality is ultimately?

Consciousness/Mind

@nameless,

nameless;75482 wrote:

Consciousness/Mind

Very practical idea, in my opinion it is sufficient too. Our practical reality is our state of being conscious. On a cosmological scale, I think that, instead of building castles in the air, we should rather look at what we do and know and can aspire to know given our current scientific means. The idea of trying to interpret the universe on a multi-dimensional scale is pretty hollow when you look at the practical picture. Our current knowledge allows us proof enough only to know about the cosmos in our immediate vicinity only. :brickwall:
When we have the means to interpret the whole of the cosmos, then only can we know the whole of reality.

@aeris ac,

aeris_ac;75540 wrote:

... to know given our current scientific means.

There are many means of gaining 'understanding' ('knowing' is such a poor term) other than science (which is just one sucker root of the philosophy tree).

Quote:

The idea of trying to interpret the universe on a multi-dimensional scale is pretty hollow when you look at the practical picture.

There is 'direct perception', and then there is the 'thinking about' (interpretation of) those direct perceptions.

Quote:

Our current knowledge allows us proof enough only to know about the cosmos in our immediate vicinity only.

For each of us, at the moment of description, 'the universe' is all that we each can directly perceive (very immediate vicinity!).

Quote:

...then only can we know the whole of reality.

We are Conscious Perspectives and can never, by our inherent limitations, perceive ('know') the complete Universe.
"The complete Universe can be defined/described as the sum-total of all Conscious perspectives!" - Book of Fudd (4:20)
'One' Consciousness.

@dawoel,

The whole of reality for us is meaning, and meaning is being, and being is life, and life is time... When we die it does not mean, and does not matter so nothing is, and nothing means...

@dawoel,

whole of reality is the sum of its parts.

@Elmud,

Elmud;75797 wrote:

whole of reality is the sum of its parts.

Not possibly true.... Every whole is a whole because it is whole....If it were possible to part it out, and put it back together it was already more than a whole, but a combination of many wholes... For example, if you have a whole apple, no amount of effort can combine it if it is halved... Two half apples never make a whole, but rather, equal a whole...Think of all of reality that cannot be given a sum??? What of empty space??? Is not reality made also of nothings??? What is their sum???

@dawoel,

Currently I am leaning towards,

It is currently something but ultimately nothing i.e. all the negative whatevers eg charge, energy etc cancel out the positive counterparts to leave net zero. All is a network of relations between these differences.

@Fido,

A joke perpetuated by an Aristotelean Prime Mover with a bad sense of humour who had nothing better to do one weekend and came up with this.

Personally I would have hired a better team of script writers for the job.:devilish:

@Fido,

Fido;75809 wrote:

Not possibly true.... Every whole is a whole because it is whole....If it were possible to part it out, and put it back together it was already more than a whole, but a combination of many wholes... For example, if you have a whole apple, no amount of effort can combine it if it is halved... Two half apples never make a whole, but rather, equal a whole...Think of all of reality that cannot be given a sum??? What of empty space??? Is not reality made also of nothings??? What is their sum???

The hologram is interesting in that you can break it in two, and each new part will still contain the whole.

Rich

@richrf,

richrf;75996 wrote:

The hologram is interesting in that you can break it in two, and each new part will still contain the whole.

Rich

I agree that it is interesting, and disagree that each part contains the whole... Each part contains a certain perspective... And as with every photo, the hologram contains more a moment in time than a place in time... If it were possible to sum time it would in some senses be possible to more accurately recapture a whole...If we consider that at every moment of every second all matter is changing its form, and that every atom is in the process of decay then we can sense the problem we have, that we can only recreate our reality in gross, and not exactly... Every natural whole is a unit; an individual, that is not divide-able...To divide takes something essential from it, and to try to understand things, reality, we divide, divide, divide; and so lose the sense of the natural whole...No matter how the parts are summed, we miss the whole...

If an example is necessary, then I give you your Alphabet....Take it apart, and make alphabet soup...Put it together, and do you have the whole??? Is it in the correct order??? If it is, is it possible to say it is whole without an essential understanding of its place in language, in the contruction of words, of all the words??? Without that understanding apart from the object of the object as an object, we cannot say it is whole, and we should know that it is not since as a set of phonograms it fails our ears as our ears fail the languages we might translate into the Alphabet, so that even with many marks designating many pronunciations we still cannot capture many languages that one must grow up with to speak fully and hear correctly... We approximate, so our sums are so many approximations of the wholes we encounter... We can never be certain... We must live with uncertainty....

---------- Post added 07-08-2009 at 08:18 PM ----------

Paracelsus;75986 wrote:

A joke perpetuated by an Aristotelean Prime Mover with a bad sense of humour who had nothing better to do one weekend and came up with this.

Personally I would have hired a better team of script writers for the job.:devilish:

Imagine a person who can see order, but is blind to disorder, and you have the whole of humanity...until we can conceive of -we cannot know, and we cannot conceive of disorder...Since we presume order, but see little of it we are sort of living in a riddle, a conundrum... Which makes me laugh, since my father usually confused that word with condom...I suppose it must be so, since so few people can figure them out, and for the poor little spermy, it must be one heck of a brain teaser...

@Fido,

Fido;76000 wrote:

Imagine a person who can see order, but is blind to disorder, and you have the whole of humanity...until we can conceive of -we cannot know, and we cannot conceive of disorder...Since we presume order, but see little of it we are sort of living in a riddle, a conundrum... Which makes me laugh, since my father usually confused that word with condom...I suppose it must be so, since so few people can figure them out, and for the poor little spermy, it must be one heck of a brain teaser...

Ho hum some mysteries exist which are beyond the scope of human intellect to fathom. The beauty of it is knowing that our consciousness has an event horizon and just enjoying the show. Not everything can be answered hence no TOE, and imagine how dull life would be if it was.:poke-eye:

@Fido,

Fido;76000 wrote:

I agree that it is interesting, and disagree that each part contains the whole... Each part contains a certain perspective...

My understanding is that each part contains exactly the same as the whole. From Wikipedia:

Quote:

Holography (from the Greek, ὅλος- whole + γραφή-grafē writing, drawing) is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes in exactly the same way as if the object were still present, thus making the recorded image (hologram) appear three dimensional.

Quote:

Since each point in the hologram contains light from the whole of the original scene, the whole scene can, in principle, be reconstructed from an arbitrarily small part of the hologram. To demonstrate this concept, the hologram can be broken into small pieces and the entire object can still be seen from each small piece.

The whole perspective is preserved in each of the parts because the waves intersections are preserved. Some believe that this is the means by which memory works - and some believe this is the way the mind conceives of the universe.

Rich

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