PHYSICAL REALITY IS AN ILLUSION

The physical universe, of which we know only very little through the limited scope and imperfect lens of our five physical senses, is what we take to be reality, as long as we indentify ourselves solely as physical bodies. Since we are only capable of seeing a tiny fraction of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, hear only a negligible portion of the total range of vibrational sound, feel only the surface of the deeply fractal structure of molecules and atoms, and smell and taste far fewer organic compounds that many of our animal friends, what makes us think that the picture of reality constructed in our minds are complete? After all, that picture is nothing more than the subjective interpretation of streams of severely limited data, allowed to continue on its inward path to your mind only after it is processed and passed through multiple layers of physical and neurological filtering structures that are part of our pyhsical bodies. This reducing of bits, waves and fields of radiated and reflected energy to specific forms is not arbitrary, however, it is done for the practical reason of survival. Without this reduction of the spectrum of energies that flood the cosmos, to a manageable stream going into our brains, the physical vehicles forming a link between consciousness and the cosmos would be destroyed.

As we push the frontiers of scientific understanding beyond the simplistic pictures provided by our physical senses, the farther we go, the more we see that those pictures are imcomplete and misleading concerning the true nature of reality. The fact that our best pictures of reality, used by science to construct a Standard Model of reality, are incomplete and misleading, is reflected in the history of science. The Standard Model, the consensus of mainstream scientists, defended by many as the truth, is constantly changing. Examples abound: The consensus was once that the earth was flat and the center of the universe. The scientific model of reality is continually changing. Just during my lifetime, the confidently estimated size of the universe has changed by huge factors multiple times. The continental drift theory was rejected as psuedo-science when I was an undergraduate, but is now fully accepted as plate tectonics. And there are many more examples of the dynamic nature of scientific truth.

I have seen yesterday’s speculations become today’s reality many times since I was in my twenties in the late 1950s and early 60s. And this is as it should be. It is seen, in retrospect as progress. Perhaps the most instructive example is the search for the basic building block of the universe. As scientists studied the structure of physical reality, it became clear that the everyday objects of our experience were made up of smaller objects, and those smaller objects of yet smaller objects. The bodies of living plants and animals were found to be made of organic structures and cells, inanimate objects were found to be made of several types of macro-forms, supported by patterns of crystaline structures, and both cells and crystals were found to be made of molecules, and the molecules were found to be made up different atoms, which in turn were found to be made up of electrons, protons and neutrons.

But when scientists tried to find the most basic building block of atoms, it seemed to keep slipping through their fingers. The discovery by Max Planck that reality is quantized promised a bottom to this descent into micro-reality. From the point of view of a physicist, reality consists of only four things: matter, energy, space, and time. But physicist Max Planck said, in "'Das Wesen der Materie' ('The Nature of Matter')". Speech in Florence, Italy,, 1944.:

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such.“

And Albert Einstein, on page 155, in Relativiy The Special and general Theory, said:

“There is no such thing as empty space… Space-time does not claim existence on ots own, but only as a structural quality of the field.“

So, three of the four things physicalists consider as real, either do not exist, or they are not what our senses seem to tell us they are! What about the fourth one: energy? Quoting Planck again:

“All [of what we call] matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.”

So is everything ultimately made of energy? Continuing on, Planck said:

“We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

So as long ago as 1944 (still well within my lifetime; I was born in 1936.) two leading physicists, Albert Einstein and Max Planck, now considered to be the founders of the two pillars of modern science: relativity and quantum physics, said that matter, energy, time, and space, have no existence of their own, and Planck went a bit further, he said that consciousness is behind matter and energy, the substance of physical reality.

So, to summarize, the four things we think of as the basic components of physical reality: space, time, matter and energy, are not what we think they are. This is just another way of saying they are illusions. And solid matter faded away as an illusion, as we learned atoms are mostly space. The “particles” we call electrons, protons and neutrons, are dependent upon energetic forces, and consciousness is behind the forces.

Application of the quantum math I’ve described in several publications, including Reality Begins with Consciousness, (Neppe and Close, 2015) and Is Consciousness Primary? (The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences, 2019), reveals that consciousness (we called it gimmel) is present in electrons and the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons in every atom of what we call ordinary matter. Not only that, it is present in greater proportions in the elements of the periodic table that make up living organisms. Another important finding of analyses using quantum math is that individualized consciousness (you or me, for example) is part of the primary matrix of consciousness that is behind the forces that shape reality.

Conclusion: What we think of as physical reality is an illusion.

Application of the calculus of dimensional distinctios, the quantum calculus, shows that the basic building blocks of reality are formed in the underlying reality of Primary Consciousness by the conscious drawing of distinctions. As sentient beings, we are quantums of conscioiusness evolving in a dynamic quantized world floating in the infinite domain of Cosmic Consciousness. Thus we are all connected in consciousness, and the evolution of reality is not random, it is meaningful change driven by Spiritual forces.

ERC 9/22/2019