It's a well known - what some would call 'fact' - that atoms are made mostly of 'empty space'. 99% of atoms or matter is actually composed of empty space a.k.a. 'vacuum'. The above picture resembles a transparent person walking in/out a door. The light is a special light though. It can shine through empty space... That's why he's looks transparent. (I don't know, but does something sound incoherent?) This - being made in Photoshop - is probably not what it would look like. Although, the only thing I've done is to reduce the opacity of the layer with the silhouette to 1%. And if a person was made of atoms... And the atoms are made of 99% "nothing"... Then there has to be 1% something. And that's what is in the silhouette. So, it might just be an accurate representation. And then again, we know its not an accurate representation because we are not transparent in reality. But why not really? Outer space is a vacuum. The vacuum is empty space. Light travels though outer space just fine. Is there an explanation as to why light doesn't pass though us, when we are made of 99% empty space? There might be an explanation, I just haven't looked into it.
But think about it for a moment. We are made of 99% empty space. You might already have heard of this, if you have, have you ever then thought about it for a moment? Everything we see around us and that which we like to call our bodies is 99% "nothing". Why then does everything seem so solid? Solid, liquid and gaseous. That's our universe. But 99% of it isn't there? (And the last 1% turns out to be energy, not 'matter' really.)
How about the famous guy-throwing-a-rock-from-a-train example. Einstein when looking into general relativity theory came up with the following scenario. A person is sitting in a train cabin with open windows as the train passes by a train platform. On the platform is another person standing and waiting. When the train passes the person on the platform, the guy on the train drops a rock out the window down onto the platform. Both persons see the rock falling to the ground. Now, the guy on the train simply drops the stone out the window and because he is already moving with the train - and therefore also the rock - when he drops it, from his point of view he sees the rock falling straight down. The inertia of the train is transferred to him and from him to the rock. The guy on the ground on the other hand, sees the stone making a curved trajectory. Because of the same physical circumstances - the inertia from to train to the rock - to the person on the ground it doesn't fall straight down, but follows a curve, starting at the window the rock moves with the train while it falls making a curved trajectory. The question then becomes, what is the stones true trajectory? The one observed from the train or the one from the ground? To make matters even worse, what if there is twenty people observing the rock as it falls? Ten on the ground and ten on the train. They will all observe a trajectory different from any others'. In theory a thousand points of view (or an infinity) could be situated in the scenario and none of them would observe the same trajectory. (Like every singe grain of sand know on this planet, not a single one is identical to another. Would it then not be a reasonable assumption, that no point of view is identical either?) Every trajectory is 'correct'. But that's not what we want to hear - Einstein certainly didn't - because with an infinity of points of view, all being correct, its a chaos of trajectories all overlapping in an infinity of possibilities... That are all correct? It doesn't compute with the idea of an 'objective' reality. It can't be verified. Which of the potentially infinite number of points of view should verify that another point of view is the 'true trajectory'?
If we insist and ask which of them is the true trajectory, the answer is none. There is no true trajectory of the stone. There are no trajectories in the universe. The stone in and by itself has no trajectory. Everything is relative - and that's an absolute (and therefore paradoxical) proposition.
Another interesting thing about Einsteins general relativity is that it predicts the speed of light to be absolute. This means that whatever the speed of the observer of a ray of light, the light will always travel about 300.000 kilometers per second. Normally if you're driving lets say 100 km/h and another car that is travelling 160 km/h overtakes you, you'll observe the car passing by yours with a velocity of 60 km/h. [You subtract your speed with hers.] But in the case of a beam of light passing by, you don't subtract speed because it's absolute. Even if you're travelling with 150.000 km/s as the ray passes you, it will still travel (from your point of view) 300.000 km/s faster that you! A stationary observer watching you and the light passing by will also measure the same speed! The speed of light is absolute whatever the speed of the observer.
What's really going to cook your noodle later on is that because of this absolute speed, if one were to travel 87% the speed of light, one would observe half of both distance covered and time spent covering it. [Don't ask why it's 87% that makes half the speed, that's just how the math works out.] This has to do with the so called 'time-space continuum'. That is, with an observer travelling at 87% the speed of light will observe 150.000 kilometers distance covered in 0.5 seconds. That's still 300.000 km/s. An observer travelling at 99.5% the speed of light will observe a tenth of the original 300.000 km/s. That is, 30.000 kilometers distance covered in 0.1 seconds. And yes, an observer travelling 100% the speed of light will observe nul distance in nul time. For someone not travelling at the speed of light, light will travel from the point of emission 300.000 kilometers to the point of absorption in 1 second. But from lights point of view (travelling at that absolute speed) the distance from point of emission to the point of absorption is covered in zero time! It's both places at once. From lights point of view the point of emission and the point of absorption are co-incident. How's that for paradoxical? Light doesn't go 'really' anywhere. [Peter Russell was he that made me aware of this facet of relativity theory in his Primacy of Consciousness - visit his site or see the presentation. He does a very fine job.]
What do these ideas have in common? I'd like to indicate, that there doesn't seem to be any 'objective reality'. Don't get me started on 'Quantum Mechanics'! 'Entanglement'. 'The Double Slit Experiment' (here's a good explanatory clip also talking of 'The Observer Effect'. Tie this in with 'Fractals'? 'Holographic Universe'? 'Sacred Geometry'? ... Back it up with 'String Theory' (3 hour NOVA documentary here).
Anyway. When reviewing this, I am sure one will observe indications that point at 'objective reality' not being very solid. Not being anything like we perceive it - or think of it. And then 'Synchonicity'. This universe is fluid. Ever changing. We get used to "the world". We find it, name it, and forget about it. But it's a mystery. Something that cannot be identified with a word. Everything is transitory. Forms. At the time we name the forms, the words we use are already outdated.
I would agree with the "Hard Problem Inside Out" of Peter Russell. (He explains the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' in the presentation. [Here's Wiki. Here's David Chalmers, Australian Philosopher of Consciousness.]) Because the more interesting question becomes (after the inside-out-turning): How does consciousness create this diversity of forms? Here I'd go to Krishnamurti and then Carlos Castaneda. But that's another post. Do it yourself.
So. There is a reality. There is something there. But we cannot name it. It is not 'something'. It is what it is. Not that sound we utter or symbols we write. No description is identical with what it is. There are 'things' and there is what it is. But what it is ... is there. But it's not what you think it is! Don't talk to be about rocks in space! It's in your face! The moon!? I might refer to it as a minor planetary body ... But what it is? ... It's absolutely mysterious!
UPDATE:
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