 Horror/Scary: February 18, 2015 Issue [#6829] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Reality Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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Reality?
So, what is reality?
Websters Says:
1. The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
2. The state or quality of having existence or substance.
When you woke up this morning, you found the world largely as you left it. You were still you; the room in which you awoke was the same one you went to sleep in. The outside world had not been rearranged. History was unchanged and the future remained unknowable. In other words, you woke up to reality.
As Morpheus said: "What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
What do we actually mean by reality? A straightforward answer is that it means everything that appears to our five senses - everything that we can see, smell, touch and so forth. Yet this answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the recession and the number 5, which we cannot sense but which are very real. It also ignores phantom limbs and illusory smells. Both can appear vividly real, but we would like to say that these are not part of reality.
Nothing seems more real than the world of everyday objects, but things are not as they seem. A set of relatively simple experiments reveals enormous holes in our intuitive understanding of physical reality. Trying to explain what goes on leads to some very peculiar and often highly surprising theories of the world around us.
Here is a simple example. Take an ordinary desk lamp, a few pieces of cardboard with holes of decreasing sizes, and some sort of projection screen such as a white wall. If you put a piece of cardboard between the lamp and the wall, you will see a bright patch where the light passes through the hole in the cardboard. If you now replace the cardboard with pieces containing smaller and smaller holes, the patch too will diminish in size. Once we get below a certain size, however, it disappears entirely.
When Albert Einstein finally completed his general theory of relativity in 1916, he looked down at the equations and discovered an unexpected message: the universe is expanding. He didn't believe the physical universe could shrink or grow, so he ignored what the equations were telling him. Thirteen years later, Edwin Hubble found clear evidence of the universe's expansion. Einstein had missed the opportunity to make the most dramatic scientific prediction in history.
How did Einstein's equations "know" that the universe was expanding when he did not? If mathematics is nothing more than a language we use to describe the world, an invention of the human brain, how can it possibly churn out anything beyond what we put in?
DESCARTES might have been onto something with "I think therefore I am", but surely "I think therefore you are" is going a bit far? Not for some of the brightest minds of 20th-century physics as they wrestled mightily with the strange implications of the quantum world.
According to prevailing wisdom, a quantum particle such as an electron or photon can only be properly described as a mathematical entity known as a wave function. Wave functions can exist as "superpositions" of many states at once. A photon, for instance, can circulate in two different directions around an optical fiber; or an electron can simultaneously spin clockwise and anticlockwise or be in two positions at once.
When any attempt is made to observe these simultaneous existences, however, something odd happens: we see only one. How do many possibilities become one physical reality? 
I consciously observe the lucid dream world. It is real to me because the firing of neurons in my brain stem are interpreted as real sensory data by my brain. I could argue that lucid dreams constitute part of my reality. But what if no-one else can perceive my dream reality? Just how many realities are there anyway - yours, mine, his, hers?
As Einstein suggested, is every form of reality merely an illusion? Is nothing real? Did John Lennon know it when he said: "Let me take you down 'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real. And there's nothing to get hung about."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
~ Albert Einstein
What once might have been labeled a purely philosophical argument now lurks in the revelations of quantum research.
The current understanding - that every probability exists at once, in the same reality, until you measure or observe them - is mind-blowing. And yet the math is there to prove it.
But let's slow down a bit.
It might be more useful to start with how the human brain perceives reality, and how this gives way to subjective experience. Because no two brains perceive the same events the same way.
In the Matrix, Morpheus said: "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth."
Neo: "What truth?"
Morpheus: "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. "
Basically, REALITY is what we perceive it to be. So, when we are creating different worlds in our writing where unimaginable things can happen, perhaps we are actually creating something REAL, somewhere else, for someone who is totally unsuspecting of the horror just around the next corner.
Until next time,
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DEAD LETTERS
Shannon  says:
Thank you so much for featuring Willow's stories in this edition of the Horror/Scary Newsletter, Bill. I am honored. 
LJPC - the tortoise  comments:
Hi Bill! What an excellent newsletter! I loved all your detailed examples of the physical reactions to fear. I'm definitely keeping this newsletter for future reference. Thanks so much! 
~ Laura
drifter46
I love waking up from a weird dream. The almost always lead to story ideas. As for your vaccum cleaner thing, all I can say about it is next time you dream about a vaccum cleaner....wait for it....SUCK IT UP and go back to sleep! *FacePalm* Thanks for the chuckle W.D. As always, your newsletters are great to read.
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