Reality – It’s all relative; it’s reversible; it’s symmetric; it’s personal; it kicks back when you kick it; it’s conceptual; it’s theoretical; it’s actual; it’s abstract; it’s bio-friendly; it’s unforgiving; it’s emotional; and ultimately the reality of life, the Universe and everything resides in your mind.
Reality from Two More Points of View – Squared:
Position yourself way above the Sun’s North Pole and film the motion of the solar system, or just the inner solar system ‘below’ you. You’d film the Earth revolving about the Sun in a counter clockwise direction, and rotating in an easterly direction.
If you now role that film in reverse, you’d see the Earth revolving in a clockwise direction and rotating in a westerly direction. An inhabitant of that time reversed Earth would see the Sun rise in the west and set in the east! However, that’s no violation of physical law. It’s relatively easy to picture a solar system is which the revolution of planetary bodies is the opposite of ours; planets that rotate in the opposite direction.
Such opposites with respect to motion are what you’d see in a mirror reflection – if you had a mirror big enough. So, if you reverse time [T], you produce a mirror image of the motion (left handedness motion becomes right handedness motion and vice versa), which in physics is called parity [P]. If you look in a mirror, your right hand now looks like a left hand and vice versa – that’s parity. That applies equally on the micro scale; with the added feature that to preserve the overall symmetry, the charge [C] needs to be reversed too. So, a positive [CPT] is symmetrical with a negative [CPT]. Since the macro is made up of the micro, in our time reversed; parity (motion) reversed, Earth; said Earth would have all the charges in all the particles that made it up reversed. In short, said Earth would be an antimatter Earth!
On the micro level, a positron (positive charge), rotating clockwise (spin up) while moving forward in time at one second per second is symmetrical with an electron (negative charge), rotating counter clockwise (spin down), and moving backwards in time, at a rate of one second per second! Again, there’s no violation of physical law. The laws of physics do not make any distinction between time frames moving from past to present to future relative to time frames going from future to present to past. It’s the same reality from two different perspectives. Which version you prefer is solely up to you – either interpretation is a valid one. Most people of course prefer the classical time frames forward version – the Earth revolves counter clockwise and rotates easterly and is composed of matter and goes from past to present to future. But, you can be, if you wish to be, justifiably stubborn and reverse the CPT and accept that reality.
Again, if you reverse the time frame, you need to also reverse the image of whatever is in motion to its mirror image instead. Now that image may be hard to swallow and isn’t really a ‘reflection’ of your day to day macro world. If you look in your home mirror, and see a reflection of a grandfather clock with hands rotating and pendulum swinging, it will look odd – the hands going the wrong way around (counter clockwise) and the pendulum going right-left-right instead of left-right-left. But, physicists can handle it (at least via their abstract equations – just like the mathematics can deal with the ten or eleven dimensions required of string theory.
So, in general, negative [CPT] and positive [CPT] are the two symmetrical sides of the same physical law reality coin.
But there are two other ways of looking at and interpreting this. There’s 1) a real mix of (a hell of a lot of) matter and (a very little amount of) antimatter all going forward in time together in step, or 2) you can postulate the concept of additional pseudo-antimatter by postulating that every now and then elementary particles of matter reverse direction in time (hence reverse charge and parity as well) thus mimicking what we call antimatter. That mimicked antimatter elementary particle can reverse time direction again and revert back to what we call normal matter. That applies equally to real antimatter reversing time’s arrow and becoming pseudo-matter. While the former (1) is the commonly accepted, commonsense point of view, it’s actually the latter (2) that has greater explanatory power in solving some of those mysteries of physics, such as entanglement, and double slit experiment weirdness and why are all electrons or positrons identical (because maybe there’s only one of each zigzagging backwards and forwards in time).
Reality Really Is A Personal Thing:
The most unique thing about you is “The You” inside you – your mind. There’s nothing unique about your sex, blood type, pigmentation, hair style, body shape, age, etc. Your genetic makeup isn’t unique if you have an identical twin. Many of your body’s organs can be transplanted into other bodies. But your mind is unique. Even if you had an identical twin, your minds would be different.
Your brain, which houses the mind, is the organ that has to absorb the sensory input we constantly receive from the outside world. While we have some limited control over the sensory barrage or onslaught reality inflicts on us, we so have some – control that is. You can often choose what you want to taste or listen to or see. You can close your eyes or stick your fingers in your ears if you want. Another form of control is that you can choose your surroundings, maybe eventually immerse yourself in a totally artificial reality, as in the Star Trek’s holodeck programs. So, in one sense, reality really is all in the mind as all sensory input flows into it. And since your mind is unique, your reality, or your version of reality, must be unique too.
Quite apart fro having some control over external sensory input, the inner workings of your body also can affect the mind and therefore your notion of reality. Migraine headaches can cause you to ‘see’ flashes of light where no optical input is preset. A build-up of this chemical, or lack of that substance, can cause quite considerable alterations in your perception of what’s happening – reality. Near Death Experiences (the NDE) is a case in point. Control over those inner workings is possible, in some cases, to a greater or lesser degree. However, you’re body often tends to do its own thing and mind over matter is a useless exercise!
All of which leads to the point that you can also alter your own perception of reality, not directly via sensory stimuli, but chemically. There are lots of drugs, prescription, legal and over-the-counter (alcohol, etc.), not quite so legal (LSD, magic mushrooms, marijuana, various herbs, etc.) which affect brain (mind) chemistry and how you perceive the outside world. The question then arises, if you can alter your brain’s (mind’s) chemistry, and that alters your perception of reality, how do you know that your unaltered (normal) brain chemistry is giving you an accurate reflection of what’s out there? If you’re honest, you don’t! But you can assume that you are getting a reasonable facsimile of reality, otherwise basic survival would be highly problematic. I mean if you thing that’s a purring pussy cat approaching you when it’s actually a roaring man-eating tiger, you’re in deep shit. Or, equally in the fertilizer, that’s not really table salt you’re sprinkling on your veggies, its cyanide!
There’s also the area of electrical stimulation of the brain that can produce realities which aren’t real but which, to you, are very real indeed!
There’s an opposite side to the altering-your-mind’s-sensory-input. Instead of adding or replacing inputs, eliminate them – deprive yourself of as much sensory input as possible. I’m thinking of isolation tanks where you float in water at body temperature, there’s no light, no sound, no smell. Of course your heart still thumps and you can still think (therefore you are and therefore you still have a grip on reality, even if the sum total of that reality is just you, and only you. Regardless, it’s a far removal from your day-to-day perception of what’s real!
Lastly, while mind melds (or telepathy) are probably an ever unlikely possibility, I can se the day when there is a direct interface between a computer, an artificial intelligence perhaps, and the human mind. Perhaps that computer link might be an interface between one human mind and another. That way you could directly experience another person’s reality!
The key point: Actual reality has relatively little to do with your brain chemistry (apart from providing the matter/energy needed to run the apparatus). Your perception of reality has everything to do with brain chemistry. That’s true even if reality is augmented by technology, from telescopes to microscopes; mass spectrometers to particle accelerators; eye glasses to hearing aids.
To be continued…
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