View Full Version : Illusion is truth
"The first of all pleasures is illusion". -Voltaire
"All the world is a stage". -Shakespeare
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Einstein
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.” -Siddhartha Gautama
Whether from philosopher, poet, scientist, or the founder of Buddhism mankind has had heard this message conveyed in many ways.
There is an epic self-conspiracy happening. When you start to sweat in a dream, get angry at a loved one, get drunk in a bar or fall madly in love with another you are the actor and the play.
When you sit back and think about the nature of reality, you are also the actor and the play.
THAT's where I get lost in the attempt to sort it out....better to just be.
This week I have been listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn, and hearing reminders about and noticing my persistent judgment of all things. I have just been noticing my tendency to have an opinion about just about everything, as if my opinion was relevant in any way. I wonder what it would be like to just let go of that, let go of some sense that what I think about something means anything at all. I suspect that would be freeing in ways that I can't yet imagine. I guess the first step might be to recall that the events are illusion and my opinions about events is also illusion and of course my belief/desire/wish that I had control over any of it is also illusion. Thanks for the quotes.
I think there is a song in there.....something Madonna-ish about being "an illusory girl, in an illusory world...." You know.
I was half-watching Through the Wormhole (Morgan Freeman, Science Channel) the other night and a physicist observed that during their experiments, watched subjects became more solid while unwatched ones became less so. I wish I had caught the scientist's name or paid more attention to the nature of his work.
I was half-watching Through the Wormhole (Morgan Freeman, Science Channel) the other night and a physicist observed that during their experiments, watched subjects became more solid while unwatched ones became less so. I wish I had caught the scientist's name or paid more attention to the nature of his work.
Probably along the lines of this:
"Quantum theory represents an object differently depending on whether it is being observed or not being observed. Every physicists without exception uses this twofold quantum description in his or her own work, but physicists hold many divergent opinions about "what is actually going on" during these two stages in an object's existence: being observed and not-being-observed.
Whenever an object--bulldog, baseball, or baryon--is not under observation, quantum physicists represent that object as a "wave of probability", called the object's "wave function". instead of definite values for attributes such as position, velocity and spin, each of the object's attributes takes on--in the mathematics at least--a wide range of possible values, values that oscillate in a wavelike manner at a variety of different frequencies. This way of treating unobserved objects is one of quantum theory's most peculiar features. Physicists treat an unobserved object not as a real thing but as a probability wave, not as an actiual happening but only as a bundle of vibratory possibilities.
On the other hand, when an object is observed, it always manifests at one particular place, with one particular spin and velocity, instead of a smeared-out range of physical properties. During the act of measurement, the mathematical description abruptly shifts--from a spread-out range of possible attributes (unmeasured object) to single-valued actual attributes (measured object). This sudden measurement-induced switch of descriptions is called "the collapse of the wave function", or simply "the quantum jump". What actually happens during a quantum jump is the biggest mystery in quantum physics. Whether this drastic shift in the mathematical description corresponds to an actual dislocation in the real world or is a purely mathematical quirk continues to be a matter of deep controversy in the physics community."
http://quantumtantra.com/werner.html
Thank you Alan. Physics seems a lot more interesting to me now than it did when I was growing up, due to phenomena like that one.
"I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." --biologist J.B.S. Haldane
People who suppose we know it all or All That Is can be tidily quantified make me as tired as Holy Writ literalists, but in the end we may--each and every one of us--be imagining our own personal universe.
Check this out for more info:
http://www.doubleslitexperiment.com/
When you sit back and think about the nature of reality, you are also the actor and the play.
THAT's where I get lost in the attempt to sort it out....better to just be.
What? I wouldn't give up my part as truth seeker/finder (whatever) for anything! Well, if it made me suffer I might. But I love it for NOW and I'm glad you noticed that it is a part too.
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