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RE: Thoughts on reality

in #physics7 years ago

This is very interesting. And I agree completely that we just cannot comprehend reality to it's fullest degree. We could very well be surrounded by other forms of life but we are unable perceive them at all due to our limited senses.


This reminds me of another thought I had... When trying to understand the limitations of our senses, I have been using insects as an example. Imagine you are a beatle, walking on a log. Your whole world is just searching for food and shelter. Now, asking humans to comprehend reality is like asking that beatle to understand how a combustion engine inside the airplane flying above works. The beatle has no possibility of ever understanding. It just cannot comprehend it.

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Exactly. Most physicists now believe that there are 11 dimensions (not only our 4 dimensions, including space-time). Can you comprehend that??!

Also, Michio Kaku, in his great book Hyperspace, has a thought experiment similar to your beetle story. He realized that fish, swimming around in the water, would / could have no conception of the world outside of the water. Y'know, the world of our reality.

And he said that if one of the fish was caught by you and pulled out of the water, all the other fish would believe he had completely vanished. And they could prove that he did vanish, just by searching the entire lake.

Then, when you threw the fish back, all the other fish would be very shocked at his sudden reappearance.

And when the fish told them about this whole other world "outside of the water," they would not be able to believe him,

Makes you wonder if we are just fish swimming around, unable to get out of our "water."

I love that analogy! Quite thought-provoking!