My Big TOE
AWAKENING – DISCOVERY — INNER WORKINGS
A TRILOGY UNIFYING PHILOSOPHY, PHYSICS, AND METAPHYSICS
Thomas Campbell
Book 2 Discovery – Abridged Version – Part 14
You can conceptualize or model our boundary between the “un- experienceable reality” (beyond the limited perception of beings within the space-time simulation) and the “experienced reality” (within the limited perception of space-time beings) as an energy packet exchange interface. This nonphysical to physical interface receives energy packets from physical space-time players (in PMR) and sends back the appropriate return energy packets according to the governing space-time rule-set. The interface between the physical reality-experiencing space-time players and the un-experienceable nonphysical TBC would seem to be the ultimate source of PMR experience. That is a simple description of how our virtual physical reality is constructed;
We reach out to touch an object that has (within TBC) specific space- time coordinates and properties associated with it. According to the space-time rule-set and the attributes of that particular object-player, it feels solid. We perceive it to have certain attributes, classify it as a unique or familiar perception, and finally interpret its significance relative to past experiences and current beliefs. Subsequently, we define this perception to be an object that is both real and physical and it becomes a part of our local reality experience. Rocks and people and houses are real. Mass is real. Separation of two or more individual masses in space is real because I can put myself between them and move them independently of, and relative to, each other — consequently, space is also real. I change, as does everything else, therefore time is real. Some apparently real things (such as rocks, taxes, dreams, and cocktail party chatter) may seem more real to certain individuals at certain times than others.
All appearances of being real are derived from the interpreted perception that constitutes our experience. All are dependent upon the limitations of the sensing apparatus and the limitations of the interpretation that we give to the data collected — our two filters of variable and unknown quality that are always placed between us and the “un-experienceable reality” that lies behind or beyond our perception. From the PMR view, “lies behind or beyond our perception” means: lies within the nonphysical.
A few examples will make this clear. We think we see an object, but what we actually perceive is a portion of the light energy (energy in a discrete packet form) that has interacted with the object, not the object itself. Next we must interpret this received pattern of light data. What we see is a function of the object, the attributes of the light that impinged on it, how that particular light interacted with that particular object, how the sensor (eye, optic nerve) interacted with the light coming from the object, how we generated and interpreted the resulting optic nerve data, and finally, how we integrate this interpreted information with the rest of our experience and beliefs.
There are no less than five processes occurring between the object itself and our sense of the reality of that object. Each process has its limitations, dependencies, random components, variations, and error sources. Our reality is the result of these imperfect processes working and interacting together. Our other senses go through similarly complex processes. Fortunately, these processes and the science that represents them are generally consistent: Every time you look at a given object (under similar conditions) you see essentially the same representation of the same object but you may or may not interpret it the same way each time. Your mental, emotional, and consciousness- quality state is changeable, as are your beliefs, fears, understanding, focus, interests, perspective, experience, and knowledgebase. Your interpretation depends on these as well as any errors, confusion, or random components; each event is a unique experience
Beliefs that appear as scientific, religious, or cultural truths, as well as emotions, attitudes, and values are mental constructs created within and by the minds of each individuated consciousness. It is not that these subjective realities are not important; to the contrary, they are primarily responsible for the bulk of the content within most individuated consciousness because of the strong influence they exert on the interpretation of the objective sensory data. It is the subjective interactions within your local reality that determines and drives most of your objective activity (interaction), and that most often pushes the evolutionary levers of intent and motivation.
However, because the subjective nature of your local reality is discussed elsewhere, in this section we are going to stay focused on physical experience. Nevertheless, it is good to keep in mind (as we go through this explanation of how physical reality is nothing other than a highly structured and consistent experience of a consciousness constrained by the space-time rule-set) that the content of consciousness and the quality of that content remain the most important attributes of sentient entities.
Imagine that a man born blind and deaf (we have assumed away two of his five sensors) is riding in an automobile with you. This trip is a part of his reality as it is a part of yours, but his perception and interpretation of that perception creates a vastly different experience. The only memorable event he had noticed was caused by that idiot truck driver who forced you onto the shoulder of the road. Your passenger experienced only a bumpy section of the highway that he interpreted as either under construction or needing to be under construction. He never became angry, he never hollered and swore, and he never made those rude gestures as you did. His reality, his opportunity for growth is defined by his experience, which is very different from your own.
Consider the world we experience when we look through special infrared or ultra-violet goggles. Imagine these goggles being permanently placed over your eyes. You would get new information previously unavailable to your unaided eye, and lose some of the information you were used to (for example, you may no longer be able to read print on paper under florescent lighting or appreciate a color photograph). Your reality and your ability to function within that reality are now dramatically altered. Life, relationship, and interaction would never be the same again and you would need to learn how to interpret the new data. Similarly, the sensory data gathered from machines that are designed to extend our senses must be interpreted by someone. Regardless of how the data originates, it necessarily must pass through the same two limiting filters that separate “what is” from “what appears to be.” There is no physical way to circumvent the filtering process. The machine, as an extension of us, can only enable us to see “what appears to be.” Quantum mechanics makes the same point in its own way.
Consider the rich and elaborately differentiated auditory and olfactory reality of your dog. Would you have the dog’s experience if you had the dog’s sensors? No, of course not! You would probably not experience great pleasure and enthusiasm for sniffing the excrement deposited by the dogs and cats in your neighborhood — your interpretations of those odors would be very different. What about the vastly different realities that are experienced by exceptionally dim people versus exceptionally bright people: by well-educated world travelers versus those who have never been in a school or outside the tiny village of their birth; by scientific cultures versus those steeped in superstition or mystical tradition?
I am not judging which cultures or realities are better, but only pointing out the dramatic differences in their perceived and interpreted realities. A collection of individuals from vastly different cultures, who are led to experience the same complex objective environment at the same time, will come to different conclusions about the nature and significance of their experience. The objects themselves are not as significant as the interpretations they initiate within an individuated consciousness. Big Picture significance is invested in the people, not the things. Little picture significance is invested in the things, not the people.
Both people and things have their function within the larger system — personal understanding of the Big Picture (wisdom) is required to optimize individual profitability. If one focuses exclusively on the seeds, one will never experience the splendor of the fruit. We make our choices and then live with the results.
If an individual plucked out of the depths of the Brazilian rain forest and an MIT professor of physics were put together, both would be able to see the same poisonous frog, tropical snake, trees, river, laser device, CD player, and airplane as well as equations on the blackboard. Their sensory perception, though similar, would not collect the same data because they would notice different things. They may agree on the form of objects placed directly in front of them, but on little else. Their realities (discomforts, anxieties, fears, needs, desires, and attitudes — all the cultural, religious, personal, and scientific beliefs along with their individual ego-stuff) would be vastly different. Their love-stuff (caring, compassion, and giving) would be of similar type, and could most easily overlap into a common experience.
Obviously, there is more to an individual’s personal reality than merely a sensory measurement describing what exists in the common (physical) environment. Do you think a personal reality is different from reality? Your personal reality is different from someone else’s personal reality because your experiences and quality are different. As your awareness and knowledge grows, your personal reality grows. Anything that resides outside your personal reality is invisible to you and appears not to exist. What you consider to be the objective outside reality is much smaller (only a tiny subset), more personal, and less objective than you think. That portion of one’s experience that appears to be shared, consistent, universal, and objective is simply a reflection of a common space-time rule-set and player list, and as such, it makes up the least significant component of each individual’s local or personal reality. By comparison, your personal relationships with other sentient entities (which are primarily subjective in nature regardless of how hard you may try to construe them as objective) are easily the most significant component of your reality.
Viewing your local reality as merely the output of an environment being viewed by particular sensors and given a particular interpretation is an oversimplification of the process that ignores the vast quantity of specific subjective content that dramatically modifies and constrains the collected objective data. The local reality that each of us creates is wholly dependent on the particular filters we bring to the interaction: it is a product of our personal experience, knowledge, emotional state, and the quality of our consciousness.
Your local reality is to some extent personal. Your personal reality is primarily local, though it can be expanded beyond that limited awareness. You would probably be surprised to discover the extent to which you create your own reality. The illusion is that we are “in here” while reality is independently “out there.” The outside world, which represents the apparently objective portion of your personal reality, is based upon a uniquely interpreted set of uniquely limited perception data. That uniqueness represents your individuality. You have more input into, and influence over, the creation of your objective reality than you might imagine.
The “set” is consistent and follows the space-time rule-set without deviation (accept as allowed by the psi uncertainty principle); however, the “story” is yours alone. Furthermore, because you have sentient intent, purpose, and free will, the story determines the set, not the other way around. Believing that the PMR set determines your personal story represents a common error based on the misunderstanding that the physical universe is primary and you are a secondary derivative of it.
To a locally limited awareness, objective causality appears to define physical reality. When you realize that you are experiencing PMR through a virtual reality simulator-trainer, the possibility that there are optimizing feedback loops causally connecting the quality of your choices (the successful evolution of your consciousness through experience) to the action taking place in the virtual world projected by the simulator, becomes a more reasonable proposition. Although the simulator must appear consistent to all players, there are many subtle and not so subtle ways that the apparent outside physical environment (including relationships with others) can be purposely modified within the virtual reality generator to present each player with a maximum learning opportunity. The virtual PMR reality dimension or experience generation system maintains rule-set integrity and provides the best integrated optimal opportunity (on the average) for the entire system (for all sentient players). To preserve the honesty and straightforwardness of your interactions within PMR, the psi uncertainty principle makes sure that cross-dimensional energy transfers are adequately obscured.
Your personal interpretations of the meaning and significance of your inside and outside experience automatically customize your personal reality in a manner that increases the likelihood of finding those experiences and opportunities that are most important to your individual evolution. Your local reality provides the playing field, the players, and the rules of the game. Its structure provides a context within which experience can take place and your free will can choose; it enables your individual evolution to unfold by supplying the complete player set (relationship and interaction) as well as the rule- set that defines the permissible energetic interactions (objective causality).
Contrary to popular belief, your local reality is not an objective place that you inhabit as you might inhabit a house. Nevertheless, your local reality is the result of your personal interaction with a seemingly objective outside world. Your local reality represents your personalization of only a very limited interaction (energy exchange) with the possible outside world. Experience, and hence your reality, is not independent of the experiencer; it reflects the unique subjective, historical, and emotional state of the individual. Your experience, as well as your personal interpretation of your experience, is strongly influenced by the quality of your consciousness.
Beings of notable quality who are also regular pudding tasters on the Path of Knowledge have a more practiced ability to evaluate the quality, significance, and opportunity of their experience. They evolve within a much larger decision space (live and function within a much larger, more varied and complex reality) and are likely to be less personally limited as well as more aware of their personal limitations.
Note the interdependent cyclical (more accurately spiral) nature of consciousness evolution. An intent that reflects quality creates an action within a virtual reality that produces learning opportunities that lead to increased quality that supports more profitable intents. The consciousness quality spiral can be bootstrapped in a downward (degenerative) or upward (progressive) evolutionary direction by incrementally increasing or decreasing the entropy of the system.
Let’s summarize what we have discussed thus far. That we collectively declare our shared local reality to be universal or fundamental because everybody sees a similar thing is a tribute to the smallness of our view, the similarity of our sensors, the homogeneity of our beliefs, and to the consistency of the rule-set and player list. The collective similarity of our interpretation is a tribute to the commonality of our cultures, belief systems, needs, egos, and goals. This collective experiential agreement is not based upon the existence of a fundamental (identical for everybody) local reality. A local reality is local to the individual, not the environment. From your perspective, there is no other reality except your local or personal reality — however large or small that might be. Ignorance is blind; you do not know what you do not know. To a large extent, each individual and each culture or belief system creates its own local realities that are teeming with pertinent and challenging learning opportunities.
Collective experiential agreement is based on a common space-time rule-set that defines a consistent energy packet interaction between all player types. It is this ubiquitous and consistent space-time rule-set that represents the common source, the common environment, which leads to similar experiential results for each individual within PMR. There is also a common physically un-experienceable external environment that exists behind our perception — the “what is” that exists within the “un-experienceable reality” that is at the root of our experience.
PMR (physical) experience is derived exclusively from the “experienced reality” of “what appears to be.” “What appears to be” is the result of applying our limited individual filters of perception and interpretation to “what is.” “What appears to be” is more accurately: “What it appears to be to me,” which is unique for each individual while at the same time supports common experience at an average or common level of perception and interpretation.
The “un-experienceable reality,” may, or may not, be objective and invariant, although it usually appears to be both. The only thing that we know about it for sure is that we (from the PMR view) must always remain ignorant of it because, by definition, it is what lies beyond our limited physical perception (with or without machines). It represents the mechanics of the space-time simulation that the players are not aware of.
The nonphysical is therefore the ultimate source of our physical experience because it provides the common rule-based (algorithmic) foundation upon which our physical experience is constructed (computed). An “un- experienced reality” exists outside our causal system, beyond the limited perception that defines our PMR reality. The “un- experienceable reality” (from the physical perspective) can only be accessed or understood (as can our beginnings) through a process that transcends our local reality and local objective logic. By definition, any process that steps beyond our local causal logic, beyond our collective local reality, is called mystical.
Nonphysical reality is a reality that is in, and of, consciousness — which is why only the mind can travel and gather experience within nonphysical reality. Do not expect a parapsychologist to bring back the equivalent of nonphysical rock samples for the rest of us to look at: NPMR is not a distant moon.
Consciousness is energy, the most basic form of energy and perhaps the only form of non-virtual energy. Experienced reality, un- experienced reality, TBC, PMR, you, and the space-time rule-set are all constructs of consciousness. Each is created and designed to accomplish its specific function. All are subsets of the one single consciousness we have been calling AUM. Consciousness is all — the rest is merely apparent to a limited view within a highly constrained awareness. A superb virtual reality, by definition, must always feel totally and convincingly physical to its inhabitants whether it is simulating PMR or NPMR. What appears to be nonphysical is relative to what appears to be physical. The reality an entity is mentally immersed in appears physical while all others appear nonphysical. Each is as real and extant within TBC, EBC, or AUM as any of the others. The appearance of being physical or nonphysical is relative to the viewpoint of the observer, and hence, relative to the observer’s knowledge, awareness, and consciousness quality.
Logic tells us that our experience, from which our local reality is derived, exudes from a seemingly invariant mystical (from PMR perspective only) core of “un-experienceable reality.” Remembering how a mystic from a little picture might actually be a scientist within a bigger picture (Chapter 20, Book 1), let us now poke our heads up beyond PMR. The first thing we nonphysical scientists become aware of is that PMR physics represents a small subset of a much larger rule- set that defines how TBC (subset of AUM’s mind or consciousness space) implements the physical and nonphysical components of us, our local reality, PMR, and OS.
From the PMR point of view, perception is an interaction of our sensors with some undefined “un-experienced reality” through an energy packet exchange interface that produces data within our central nervous system that, when interpreted, creates the experience with which we define our local reality. The perception process from our little picture viewpoint is simply a matter of physics, and how our biology and machines implement that physics. Neither the “un- experienced reality” source nor the energy packet exchange interface is directly relevant to our experience of PMR.
If our past experience and the quality of our consciousness determine how we interpret the data from our perception, it would seem that something nonphysical is in charge of and controls both ends of the process that creates experience — and transforms aware intent into action that can learn from that experience. Is it clear yet that our experience, including the physical experience that defines our local PMR-based reality, is sandwiched between, dependent on, and created by two wholly nonphysical processes carried out within, and created by, consciousness itself?
Is this simple or what? You and I are clumps of individuated consciousness engaged in a dance of energy packet exchanges through an interface that maintains the rules of the game. The book you are reading in your mind is the book I wrote in my mind. The paper and ink and the hand you are holding it with and the eyeballs you are reading it with are the required effects of the space-time rule-set that defines the form and structure of our interaction.
If you think the constraints of space-time are annoying because you are constrained to read word by word what a more natural, less constrained, mind could transmit, comprehend, and thoroughly absorb in a few quick big gulps, criminy, I had to type the damn thing with just two stubby little physical fingers and a pail of drugstore glasses. That is simply the nature of space-time — simple, direct, slow, detailed, and relatively linear — as the experience within any good elementary school should be.
How could our cute little individual fleshy bodies and all the other physical things (critters, rocks, bushes and earthquakes) that seem solid be nothing more than constructs of consciousness? How could our solid PMR reality be described as mind, a dream, a delusion, or as extant only in the mind of God (as it might be put by an imaginative PMR poet or hopelessly trapped PMR scientist)? How can our physical and nonphysical parts be integrated into one being? How is it that all earth’s beings, critters, objects, and energy are connected? How can all this be on a big communications net or part of a grand digital simulation? If you have been paying close attention, you should know the answers to these questions.
The solution to the mind-matter problem is embarrassingly simple. In the Big Picture, there is no matter — everything is mind. There is only the little picture experience-of-matter within mind. “Physical” does not exist — the term “nonphysical reality” only has meaning relative to a nonexistent physical reality. Once you leave the delusion of a local physical reality, everything appears physical, or equivalently, nonphysical, and the distinction between the two vanishes. All reality has solidity of form and function that obeys the causality enforced by its governing rule-set. The physical-nonphysical and mind-matter dichotomies are an illusion created by a limited local PMR viewpoint.