How We Form Reality in Our Heads

How We Form Reality in Our Heads

In order for we puny humans to be able to concentrate on any part of the universe, we need to limit the amount of sensory inputs we are able to perceive. To facilitate that limitations our minds (consciousness) is wrapped in an electrical system which gives us only a small amount of all possible information.

Our bodies necessarily limit us to only a single point of view of the world around us at a time. In a similar manner we are limited to a single moment in the progression of moments we see as time. We are also constrained in the frequency range of mechanical vibrations we can hear and the spectrum of light our eyes can see.

Sketch One

In the first sketch the reality of the tree can be seen from every possible angle at the same moment. Each of us can only see the one reality of the tree from the position we stand. All the other realities go forever unseen. They nonetheless existed and continue to exist, but unseen. This can be demonstrated by having another person stand at any other position and call out to you that they can see the tree and describe it to you.

If the tree was spray painted blue on the far side, they would claim it was a blue tree while you continue to swear it is green as always.

After the two of you walk away from the tree you will always hold your own opinion of the nature of the tree. Everyone else who ever visits the tree will likewise have the differing opinion depending on which side they stood at. 

Sketch two

The passage of time is also expressed in the single moment you are ever able to see at one time. A bird flying to the tree, roosting there for some interval and flying away will only be discernible as a fluid progression through the air to and from the tree. time lapse multiple exposures can depict what one might see if successive moments could all be observed simultaneously. The impressions would be highly chaotic.

The tree has a full life-cycle which is stretched out into years. It rises out of the soil as a seedling, to become a sapling then a fully grown tree only to be felled some day by ax, wind, flood, or decay. We can come back occasionally to see the changes but not ever see the multitude of appearances all at once. That would be part of that chaotic experience which psychotic people might be experiencing in their mental illness.

The physical processes by which we see the reality we see involves receiving a small number of photons on our retinas as two dime-sized areas upside-down. The two images are fused together to appear 3D and are projected out into the world outside our heads. Imagine THAT. In order to see movement two successive images are fused together so that we see one image moving. This means there must be some sort of storage buffer to hold the previous image. A lot of processing is going on for our sensory abilities to be. We are not able to see anything unless photons reflect off of it.

We also know that a lot of post processing is going on in order for us to see what we see ant not see what we don't see.  For example we don't see the red blood cell that are floating around in our field of vision. We don't see the two holes in our retinas where the optic nerve passes through and back to our brains. Actually, there are no retina cells to see the color YELLOW but we see it nonetheless. 

In our dreams we see objects without the benefit of light or eyes.

All of the reality we see is only a field of light waves interacting with each other until some tiny portion reaches a retina and a sentient brain where it is converted something we perceive as tangible and "real." There is no image until it is seen. the image making process requires an aperture through which the light waves pass and are highly filtered to limit the light to only that portion which arrive from the same direction. In Sketch One thee is only one image of the tree and it the one You see. the rest of the light is merely a bunch of disorganized photons forming interference patterns that will never be seen.

      

Repurposing the Doomsday Clock

Let us cut through all the name calling and character assassination after the 2016 Presidential Election. He's this and She's that. There is little value in continuing the rhetoric and vitriol. We can even dispense with recriminations for how and why the election turned out the way it did. Whatever comes now we must be able to survive it.

  Whatever else Donald Trump is, he is a corporate CEO. He thinks like a corporation man and acts accordingly. None of his supporters can or would argue against that statement. He uses the rules which have been put in place to benefit corporate interests. He is correct in his assertion that he was proper in writing off nearly a $1 bn in losses which would allow him to not be liable for income taxes for nearly two decades as the result. Not even the reason for the written off losses are really pertinent.

The trouble with his mentality as a CEO and President of the USA is that one cannot run a country like it was a corporation. Here is the point. Corporations have Internalities and Externalities. Countries of people cannot have externalities.

To a coal mining corporation the price of mineral leases and how much labor is required to get it out of the ground is an internal concern of the owners. What their customers do with the coal is an externality, i.e. none of their concern. The coal mining company doesn't care how efficiently the coal is burned, how much ash is left over to handle or what the customer does with it. The company only concern is to pay enough wages to get a man into the mine. Whether that pay is enough to live on is external to their operation. If the miner is injured, it requires Federal legislation to force the company to attend to the costs. They do not take care of disabled miners out of the goodness of their heart. Doing so diminishes shareholder value.

Donald Trump in and by himself is not so much a counter-productive thing, but the CEO of a corporation sets and shapes corporate mentality and attitudes. The fiasco of Wells Fargo Bank and the employees defrauding millions of customers with unwanted credit accounts flows directly from the top down. Corporate leadership created the climate where employees felt it necessary to commit financial crimes in order to succeed in their jobs.

Mr. Trump has led a sizable portion of this country down a road that leads to manifestation of fear, hatreds, violence and vitriolic free speech. The gun manufacturers had yet another banner year of sales with the prospects of Hillary Clinton becoming President. I suggest this time sales were driven not by the prospects of the government coming for the weapons but that they will be needed in an imminent demographic clash. Who suggested that such a need would come to be?

Beyond the prospects of ultra-conservative SCOTUS appointments gutting the ACA, Roe v. Wade, Marriage Equality and Gender Rights is the prospect that the Trump-modified complexion of the Supreme Court will more deeply entrench Citizens United, corporate and fetal personhood, and divest the nation of such externalities as fair living wages, health care access, education and environmental protections.

Beyond the Supreme Court appointments, there are dozens of cabinet positions and agency chiefs who will not be aligned with human being concerns such as clean water and air (corporate externalities.) They are likely to give concessions to corporate interests which can never be recovered. The divestiture of a National Forest to logging and mining cannot be taken back. Once the ground water is contaminated it will take centuries if ever for it to be clear again.

If we do not put our financial resources into high school graduations and post-secondary college degrees, we will not have enough doctors to serve every American. We need nursing and other medical staff. We need to focus our efforts of training tens of thousands of such position. Where is the Trump leadership to keep that imminent disaster at bay? But remember, health care is a corporate externality.

One of the several Presidential job duties is to be America's Ambassador to the world. There are countries which already acknowledge the ineptitude of Donald Trump. More so than what WE think of him, is what the world thinks of him and of us. We are only 4.5% of the global population. What they think matters.

America cannot treat human needs and the environment like they were externalities. Doing so will increase suffering and move us closer to the metaphorical doomsday midnight. We used to have the clock face showing 11:58 pm to show us the world was only two minutes from nuclear disaster due to conflicts with China and the now defunct Soviet Union. That clock needs to be rebranded as the environment/social collapse clock.

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Author's Note: The book cover images in the side margins of this blog are my own publications of eBooks available at both Amazon and B&N. Please take a moment and go to the sites and read about them. Then if you like it, buy one or two.