is there something beyond reality?

[katia]

one of the possibilities i imagine is an identical altered universe which is exactly the opposite of this one so that the sum total can be zero.... that facilitates imagining how all this could have come out of 'nothing'! 
do you ever think that there is something beyond present reality or anything that we could even imagine of? does this mean i'm changing?    kidding!

[The Middle Way]

  now that's just weird.

I can only look at models of universes, the 'actual' universe, and I have been yet unable to find a zero sum in it. You get Planck scale-close to zero all over the place, but no actual (absolute) zero. I might have missed something, but I haven't found a 'real' description of it yet.

The so-called vacuum state is roiling with activity, in other words.

I doubt, often enough (which might be once, 'often enough'  ) that there is any such thing as reality in the objective sense, that subject is object in an elaborate game, almost a hoax.

Let's take space-time as a given, anyway.  The rules of macro (general relativity) and micro (quantum mechanics) don't quite gibe. So, outside of my own speculations and what fuels that, I think that there must be some explanation, akin to the ever-popular theory of everything.

*hmmmmmm* 

[katia]

now that's just weird.

I can only look at models of universes, the 'actual' universe, and I have been yet unable to find a zero sum in it. You get Planck scale-close to zero all over the place, but no actual (absolute) zero. I might have missed something, but I haven't found a 'real' description of it yet.

The so-called vacuum state is roiling with activity, in other words.

I doubt, often enough (which might be once, 'often enough'  ) that there is any such thing as reality in the objective sense, that subject is object in an elaborate game, almost a hoax.

Let's take space-time as a given, anyway.  The rules of macro (general relativity) and micro (quantum mechanics) don't quite gibe. So, outside of my own speculations and what fuels that, I think that there must be some explanation, akin to the ever-popular theory of everything.

*hmmmmmm* 

i told you.  i think i may be changing    i'm in a weird mood lately..ha ha ha

[Robyn]

We live in an illusion.  What is real is that we are not separated from God.  The illusion comes because Ego wants us to be defensive and to believe that God hates us.  That thought empowers poor, hopeless, sick Ego.  So our only job here is forgiveness.

Eventually, all of humanity will realize that reality awaits in our recognition and acceptance of the fact that we are eternal spirits seeking a human experience.  Then we will realize that we have been home all along.

And 'eventually' is no problem since time is part of the illusion.  The only part of time that is eternal is NOW.  Time will end when we all awaken to reality.

Robyn
from A Course in Miracles

[VeryGnawty]

To answer whether or not something can be beyond reality, we must first define reality.  We say something is real when it has actual existence apart from a concept or perception.

The problem here is that nobody has ever actually seen anything apart from having a concept of it, or perceiving it.  So while we can easily decide on what isn't real (because it exists only in concept or perception) it is literally impossible to know what is real.

It could very well be that we are all living a big illusion.  The only difference between the real world and pulling a rabbit out of a hat, is that we agree that pulling rabbits out of hats is silly.  In a similar way, we agree that the "real world" is not an illusion, thus making it real.

This is why some people believe in things like levitation and ESP.  To them, it is real, because they have accepted that as reality.  Yet others take the opposite approach, they believe everything is illusion, including themselves.  It could even be said that the concept of reality is an illusion in itself.  After all "reality" as it is has no tangible basis.  "Reality" exists only in concept and perception.  You can't walk into the forest and find reality written on a tree, or carried in the wind, or reflected in the water.  Reality still remains an entirely human concept, existing only in the philosophy of mind.

On a less philosophical note, I agree with the ACiM quote posted above.

[VeryGnawty]

We did not come from "nothing"

It's not so much that the universe started out as nothing, as much as it started out as a lack of something.  More accurately, the universe started out as anything, rather than nothing.  Once order was imposed upon the anything, it became something.

Take a sandbox, for instance.  It is full of sand.  So you make a sand castle out of it.  It's not that the sand castle didn't exist before you made it.  Because it did exist, only as a formless substance.  It was just waiting for an intelligent entity (that is you) to come along and do something with it.

The universe is a lot like a box of sand.  In the beginning there was a formless substance, much like a lump of sand.  Then someone, or something, came along and had some fun with it.  But it was still just a lump of sand in principle.  It merely looks different now.

[The Middle Way]

We did not come from "nothing"

It's not so much that the universe started out as nothing, as much as it started out as a lack of something.  More accurately, the universe started out as anything, rather than nothing.  Once order was imposed upon the anything, it became something.

It seems to have started out as <everything> in potential.

In the words of the great sage Rosanne Rosannadanna, it's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Take a sandbox, for instance.  It is full of sand.  So you make a sand castle out of it.  It's not that the sand castle didn't exist before you made it.  Because it did exist, only as a formless substance.  It was just waiting for an intelligent entity (that is you) to come along and do something with it.

The universe is a lot like a box of sand.  In the beginning there was a formless substance, much like a lump of sand.  Then someone, or something, came along and had some fun with it.  But it was still just a lump of sand in principle.  It merely looks different now.

BUT a lump of sand isn't technically formless. Formlessness is Absolute. So you get Religion as a way of conceptualizing. The Hamlet-esque question is, what imposed this 'order' out of your implied 'chaos'?

I completely concur with the qualifier <in principle>

and castles made of sand
melt into the sea
eventually

Jimi Hendrix

[RebeccaFog]

   As far as I can tell, to me, everything is beyond reality.
   I have to believe in my emotions more than my mind because my emotions are the able to hurt me and to make me feel well. Since I don't entirely trust my intellect, to me, nothing it tells me is real.

   Everything is beyond real to me until I can feel it.

[Jonie]

Katia yes I do, the other day someone was telling me a story about their childhood and once again I heard how some kid did something stupid that could have gotten them killed. It reminded me of my own childhood and of all the stupid things that I did that could have gotten me killed but didn't. It made me wonder if maybe life isn't like we see it, but splinters into different realities as we travel though it and then all joins back together again at some time for a more comprehensive life experience.
It might go something like this; a child is born and dies at one year of age which causes the first splinter. In one reality the parents grieve for the child and in another reality the child just gets sick and recovers and goes on to be raised by another part of the larger being that is this child's parents and the child in the first reality is the same person as the child in the second reality and one day will be rejoined into a person who knows what it is to die and also what it is to live past the age of one. The parents one day will also be joined with other parts of themselves and then they will know both the sorrow of losing a child and the joy of raising a child.
This could mean that in one reality we were born female and live life that way, in an other we were born MTF's and have an SRS and live life that way and yet in an other we were born MTF's and never get the SRS operation and live life that way and still another where were born male and are perfectly happy with it. All this done with the purpose of learning the most in the time we spend living in this reality.
This theory is different though because is doesn't add up to nothing but just the oppisite and one realtiy doesn't cancel out the other but inhances it.

[Pica Pica]

maybe i'm not buying into the new age vibe, but reality is 'what is', there can be nothing beyond 'what is', because all it would be is 'what is not', but there can't be a 'what is not'. Because it's not. So all you got is reality. Just reality is bigger and more exciting than we usually realise.

[The Middle Way]

 

I am only so far able to buy into the new age xylophone and marimbas, limited budget for tuned percussion as it stands. Maybe new age steel drums next quarter, if my virtual nothingness sells well enough.

NONE

[Pica Pica]

Marimbas are my favourite, I got this great marimba thing called 'crazy mallets' it makes me smile so much. The marimba and the cymbalon, with makes a similar sound but by a different method.

Do those paintings come with the cave? and can i draw moustaches and cartoon penises on them?

[Wendy]

Katia,

Just as there is matter there is anti-matter.  Our reality is limited to a few dimensions and beyond reality is not limited to our dimensions.

[The Middle Way]

Marimbas are my favourite, I got this great marimba thing called 'crazy mallets' it makes me smile so much. The marimba and the cymbalon, with makes a similar sound but by a different method.

Do those paintings come with the cave? and can i draw moustaches and cartoon penises on them?

The cave comes with the painting. Pay me cash you can do whatever you like with the thing.

after all:

it's just a lot of nothin so what can it mean.

[Kate]

do you ever think that there is something beyond present reality or anything that we could even imagine of?

LOL, hey, I call myself a changeling... a faerie.. what do you think I'm gonna say? I live for hope and possibility, dreaming and magic. All things are possible to me, it's just a matter of a wink and sidestepping of the expected.

I've *always* known this, just like I've always known I was a girl. They went together somehow, seeming paradoxes reflecting one another, dreaming my existence here, dual braids forming the cord of my fate. The truth of being a girl reflects inversely the fact of being a boy, just as the truth of The Dreaming  inversely reflects the banality of physical existence.

Faerie humour at it's best

I know that sounds nuts, and well what can I say? I know what I know, or maybe I should say I know that I don't know what I don't know.

And that little tidbit is my one advantage, my one thread of hope I cling to for my life.

~Kate~

[The Middle Way]

What about when the banality of your dreaming reflects the truth of physical existence?

signed
frick 'n frack

[tinkerbell]

is there something beyond reality?

Reality is different things to different people.   The "something" is learning, don't we live in a multiuniverse? 

tink

[Elizabeth]

I read an article a few years ago called "Reality Really isn't Real". It was in a physics journal that I read all the time. It was about how "locality" can be violated. I could sit here and write all the complexities of the experiment but instead I will just summarize the end result. That result is that things in our reality can be affected by things not in our reality. This is a violation of "locality". It had long been theorized by quantum mechanics and many tests have been performed over the years to test this theory.

Einstein thought that there were hidden variables that we just could not see. He called these violations of locality, "spooky actions at a distance". Unfortunately, Einstein died just a few years before the famous "Bell's Theorem" proved there were no hidden variables. Einstein was wrong, locality was being violated. Reality really isn't real.

The only reality is the one we create for ourselves. That is what I truly believe.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[tinkerbell]

I read an article a few years ago called "Reality Really isn't Real". It was in a physics journal that I read all the time. It was about how "locality" can be violated. I could sit here and write all the complexities of the experiment but instead I will just summarize the end result. That result is that things in our reality can be affected by things not in our reality. This is a violation of "locality". It had long been theorized by quantum mechanics and many tests have been performed over the years to test this theory.

Einstein thought that there were hidden variables that we just could not see. He called these violations of locality, "spooky actions at a distance". Unfortunately, Einstein died just a few years before the famous "Bell's Theorem" proved there were no hidden variables. Einstein was wrong, locality was being violated. Reality really isn't real.

The only reality is the one we create for ourselves. That is what I truly believe.

Love always,
Elizabeth

The M-theory! 

tink

[The Middle Way]

...things in our reality can be affected by things not in our reality. This is a violation of "locality". It had long been theorized by quantum mechanics and many tests have been performed over the years to test this theory.

Einstein thought that there were hidden variables that we just could not see. He called these violations of locality, "spooky actions at a distance".

The 'new double-slit experiment' indicates <some> doubt as to absolute causality also.

Einstein actually said that? As his whole proof absolutely refuted Newtonian action-at-a-distance [IE: there isn't any simulaneity, closest to, is the time/action of 'c'], it's odd that he'd use that language.