There is reality and then our approximation of it. Maybe there are an infinite number of realities actually, but that is a different talk. The key here is approximation. We make many many assumptions, approximations, short cuts to move through this world. One of the most basic, one that is at the bottom of that structure that virtually everything else is built upon is that things are separate. There is good over here and bad over there. There is pain, and then there is a separate thing called pleasure. There is you and there is me. No, not really.
We know (to the degree that we know anything!) that everything is connected. Every particle in the cosmos affects and is affected by every other particle. This is really profound. That is really hard to wrap one’s head around. Every grain of rice affects every star. Every lint ball is affected by third cheeseburger. Every single proton in every single hydrogen atom in every single water molecule in every single cheese “particle” affects the outcome of every single driving decision and sporting event and coin flip!
Can you separate your left side from your right? Can we remove the water from the wave? Are there criminals and then the rest of us? Isn’t all of this just a giant mélange of energy packets, giving, taking, sharing, exchanging, squirming, vibrating? Is there an “us” and a “them”? No. There just IS.
There always and will ever be just “IS”. There is a good deal of room here for most all religious or spiritual or metaphysical beliefs and paradigms. The only really super interesting, important, (and unknowable!) ones are what we would call the beginning and the end. Are there any? Is there one but not the other? What was on the other side of “creation” or “the big bang” or day one? What is on the other side of Omega? Is it determined yet? Are there an infinite number? Does infinity exist? Of course, these are really important big things that we cannot possibly know, but are really fun nevertheless to think about! Does our thinking about them affect the eventual “stuff” on the other side of “the end”?
If there is no you and me, separately, then of course I want to help “you” if “you” are in trouble. Do I only care about my left lung? Does my spleen not matter? Of course, if you are homeless or trapped in addiction or in need of a hug I want to help, because I too am in need because we are one. Why don’t we help then? Why don’t I help the hundreds of people right here right now in my own town that are hurting? I don’t have an answer. How could we conceive of genocides or river pollution? Would we pollute ourselves? Would we kill ourselves over and over again?
Are solutions separate from questions or problems? Is everything, I mean EVERYTHING, predetermined? It seems to me that if you look at it one way it is, and another, equally valid way none of it is. Are these the same thing? How could anything be NOT predetermined if everything is connected and the same? Once again, approximations. I really think that I can stop writing right now, but maybe I can’t? I believe that I can either throw my shoe across the room or not. Maybe I simultaneously do and do not in a multitude of multiverses. Maybe I have and maybe I have not a million million million times.
There is not you and a separate thing called me. This is just a (dangerous) illusion.
