A summer of rabbit holes.
So many holes. Some are made of sand, but my favorites are the black ones. Pits full of theories, equations, and breathtaking views. It’s been a summer of physics. My textbooks have got me thinking and my mind is just exploding.
It has been hard to write. The mere act would require putting down the books and videos or pausing from the adventure around me. The now is quite engaging:) Here is one of the many adventures this summer. Steve and I driving through fog to Block Island, which has been one of over 7 destinations so far this summer.
But I’ve learned that this part, reflecting and writing, is the most essential part of my learning. Only by being able to teach/ express the theories in a way that allows another to apply them equals true mastery. Teaching is mastery.
However, some of the holes I can’t even begin to write about and I worry that I will never be able to. For example, how does one write about the mathematical probability that we live in a simulation? It makes my mind hurt every time I enter this black hole, which after a good 2-week stint, I’m just getting out of. While I understand string theory and the probabilities, now with the birth of AI…the probability just keeps multiplying in my mind. But, I still can’t write about it, which frustrates me to my core. I can’t write about it, because it is missing an essential piece to understand it- the WHY.
All knowledge has a why. And we don’t know it. Mankind has zero understanding as to why such a simulation would exist and how to “see” it. And after all the books, I still can’t answer even the basic question regarding this simulation debate.
For example, if I accept and gameplay out the fact that we are living in a simulation, I can’t answer what is the meaning of it? Why does it exist? And if I even push myself to just blindly accept it, I can’t say what I would do differently. How would this knowledge change my day-to-day existence?
In theory this knowledge should shape my view and change my behaviors accordingly. For example, knowing that the world is round changes my actions. Accepting that fact allows Steve and I to sail straight into the ocean without fear of falling off. But certain knowledge I’m finding is too big to accept for us humans. Too hard to fathom that we retreat back to the mean. Back to the archetypes, which I am learning are cultural fabricated personas/ concepts that allow mankind to function. It allows the infinite to feel finite, graspable. The word “archetypes” has popped up in my physics textbooks, acutonics textbook, and cymatics textbook (my latest obsession). So clearly this is an important concept to note.
But it is true. We all gravitate to archetypes. They are easier. They make us feel safe. They are cognitive schemas that can be pointed to and organized in brains. We want what we know and the unknown is scary. What is “best” is what we have experienced. The idea of something “better” is too risky. The idea of questioning even risks the explosion of all you’ve known. From the world being round to the idea that we live in a multiverse.
Earth shattering concepts and mankind does not do well with new information.
We seek the familiar. For example the idea that the world was round and not flat was discovered in 5th century BC and in the 3rd century BC Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth’s circumference. But mankind did not accept this fact until 1500s AD. We couldn’t get rid of the archetype that the world was flat, because that was what we knew and could prove with our vision. The idea that our vision may be incorrect…what does that mean about everything else we “see.” If we can’t trust our eyes what can we trust? It took 1000’s of years for mankind to believe a concept that went against their archetype of the world.
And maybe that is where mankind is again. We are understanding that the universe is MUCH bigger and connected than we ever knew. That we are all made of the same stardust. And that we are not alone. But us mere humans can’t comprehend the WHY so retreat back to our archeatypes and it turns out that this human is no different.
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