By popular demand (re: one, lone request in my inbox), a screed on the nature of reality. I must say, I hope you have not come to these pages hoping to learn something. We’ve thrown our homework onto the fire!
But this does not stop our musing. Now that your expectations are lower than a North Shore whore, I turn to the question at hand: what is real, what is really real? Perhaps you think you are a real person who likes to eat potato chips and listen to MIA and that these are incontrovertable factoids, proofs that your wee brain is capable of quantifying the nature of existence . Maybe you like science. Or, like me, you like handsome science gents like Richard Dawkins in elbow patches. Then you might take an interest in quantum theory. Supported by measurements of the observable universe, quantum theory posits the multiverse, infinite universes strung together like so many holes in swiss cheese, in which all possibilities are realized. Think of it! An infinite number of Lambchops swizzling on an infinite number of lollies. Flavors of which I cannot even conceive!Â
If every permutation of matter is out there, trudging through its own weary life like a flatworm crawling from the ooze, some of the universes are bound to be simulations. Who is to say that this is not one of them? I am not bothered if what we call reality is actually a simulation, though I wish I had been programmed today off. Even though I am but a mote of dust in the infinite universe, I love a holiday!Â
We all think we are somebody, something immutable and permanent that our reason can define and conquer, though every moment nature provides evidence to the contrary. We are but fingers on the hand of the universe, waving. Hello?
(If you enjoyed this reflection, please stay tuned for part two of this extremely well researched series, On the Nature of Identity. Hint: it is all relative, you baboon!)
Most enjoyable. If we’re all fingers on the hand of the universe, I want to be a thumb like the one in that Tom Robbins book – waving in the air for a ride into the version of this universe where the rest of my bodily existence (and of all of my dear friends and family) is unfettered by pedestrian concerns like money, lack of fame, illness, sour farts, or idiotic neighbors.