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Don’t the Laws of Physics Show There’s a World Outside of Consciousness?
We discover consistencies about matter and energy we call laws of physics, but they are only experiences in our Minds that are expressions of Our Universal Intelligence. The Earth School environment has what Tom Campbell calls “rule sets” we must adhere to.[i] If we jump off a high cliff, we will be dashed on the rocks below. Eating high-calorie foods will result in our gaining weight. We must travel through space by our conscious effort to go from Paris to New York. We experience the arrow of time, from past to present to future. All the characteristics of Earth School are part of the environment created for us that will enable us to love, learn lessons, and have happy lives. We call these rule sets laws of physics or natural laws.
The rule set we have is unique to Earth School. Most of the rules don’t apply in other realms. In the realm of life that most people enter after graduating from Earth School, which the Theosophists called “Summerland,” jumping off a cliff will not result in our dashing ourselves on the rocks below. We won’t need to worry about gaining weight; in fact, we won’t need to eat at all. Those in Summerland perceive space as we do in Earth School, but when someone wants to visit a library a thousand miles of earth space away, that person simply intends to be there and instantly is standing before the stacks of books. Space is in our perception, not in a world outside of us.
The rule sets for Earth School give us consistency, consequences for actions, and a clear, predictable structure for daily life. We need that stability to function. Humankind then imposes other sets of rules on us that are not part of the rule set. For example, we must not take someone else’s stuff against their will. We may “own” things, but the ownership is entirely by assent of those around us. We may not drive a car without a license. All of the rules society imposes add to the rules that are the rule sets for Earth School.
The laws of physics are just the structure of the Earth School experience. Experiences come to us from Our Universal Intelligence so we can participate in Earth School, love, learn, and enjoy the experiences. We can identify the consistencies in the way the world is structured; we call them laws. A stable structure avoids the uncomfortable feeling of chaos or unpredictability Earth School would have without the framework. The laws of physics give form to the Earth School experiences.
Read more about these facts in the book There Is Nothing but Mind and Experiences, available through Amazon.com
Doesn’t Science Tell Us the Material World Outside of Us Gives Us Sensory Experiences?
Color, texture, odor, taste, and sounds are not in even their physical world. All are created by the Mind from the experiences of bland, raw energy in the materialists’ conception. The fact that we are having sensory experiences only in the Mind is true even from a materialist’s perspective. Materialists believe there is a world outside of us that exists independent of us and we have experiences by having light waves, sound vibrations, molecules with odor, or touches received by sense organs from that world of energy and matter. However, there are phenomena called qualia that are not in the world out there. They happen only in the mind.
From that materialist perspective, color is not in the energy and matter of the world they believe is outside of them. The sense of red we have when we see a rose is not in a rose even in the materialist’s world. The redness is entirely in the Mind resulting from interpretations of the differing wavelengths of light entering the eye. In the materialist’s conception, the energy and matter outside of people have no color, not even black and white. They state that the energy and matter also has no smell. Smell is the response, in the olfactory sensory neurons, to molecules wafting through the air that attach to olfactory cilia in the nose to trigger the neurons that give the Mind a sense of odor. Energy and matter in the materialist’s outside world have no odor. There is no soft touch of a rose petal in the materialist’s universe. Electrons in the rose petals and the finger repel each other so there is no actual touch, just sensations in receptors on the skin that are then translated into texture in the Mind. But there is no touch or texture in the materialist’s outside world. There is no pain in the finger; only the Mind can perceive a thing such as pain. In the materialist’s world, energy and matter take shape and are perceived as having a size only when the Mind gives them shape and size.
Take away the redness, the smell, the touch, the shape, and the size and what is left of the rose in the materialist’s outside world? Nothing but featureless waves or fragments of energy. The rose is assembled and experienced only in the Mind, even in the materialist’s conception of reality.
Science textbooks all assert that the physical properties of the materialist’s matter are shape, size, taste, color, smell, and texture. They are wrong. The materialist’s matter has none of these properties. These are all experiences that occur only in the Mind. The textbooks should read, “The properties the Mind gives to the flow of energy materialists call matter are shape, size, taste, color, smell, and texture.”
Another way even materialists agree that reality is created in the Mind is the suggestion among neuroscientists now that what comes to the person’s senses is “uncertain, indirectly related to what’s out there, and ambiguous.” They explain that “In order to make sense of it, the brain has to do something we call ‘inference.’ It has to combine this ambiguous sensory data with prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to then form its best guess about what caused the sensory information that it gets.”[ii] In so doing, the brain (in their conception) assembles and augments the sensed data to create organized perceptions. The brain adds inferences, expectations from similar memories, and imagination to fill in the large gaps from unperceived parts of the sensory experience to form a whole that is in large part an invention of the Mind, not a real world they believe is outside of us.
So even the materialists agree that what we perceive as reality is a construct of the Mind. But the materialists are incorrect in asserting that there is energy and matter outside of the Mind. There is only Mind and experiences.
How Can I Be Creating Reality When the World Seems to Be Given to Me?
It might be better to say we are given the reality we expect to have and in that way we create the reality. Our Universal Intelligence does the actual creating. We grew up in Earth School learning what to expect, and now because we expect it, the world is available to us as we expect it to be. Even though we didn’t originate the world, we are continuing its creation as it is by our expectations, which are fulfilled by Our Universal Intelligence.
We are accessing experiences in a world with continuity that fits our past experiences and the past experiences of the other people in Earth School. We make changes in this world and our changes become additions to the experiences everyone is given as we all experience Earth School. We are perpetuating the world we were able to access that is accessible in Our Universal Intelligence and adding to it for others to experience. We are creating reality, but not from nothing. Humankind is perpetuating this world we are accessing because, as the totality of Minds that are members of Our Universal Intelligence, we expect the world to be as it was when we grew up in it. Whatever the world is—whether cold, harsh, and cruel or warm, loving, and gentle—we are perpetuating it and adding to it by adding either cold, harshness, and cruelty or warmth, love, and gentleness. Our Universal Intelligence gives us the experiences of the world we expect to have.
It may seem the world is being given to us without our control or influence over what comes, but actually we are in control of what comes to us and to humankind. But influencing all of humankind to change the experiences we’re having is difficult. We can control our own experiences in our little sphere of influence, especially our own Minds and bodies, but all the other individuals that make up society must change their expectations for us to see monumental advancements in humankind. Part of our role as members of Our Universal Intelligence is to be instrumental in helping humankind change the experiences it is perpetuating and expecting. We can create a reality that is full of love, compassion, other-centeredness, and kindness, but we must each be a well-tuned instrument in the orchestra that creates a world of harmony and exquisite compositions.
Why Do We Have Different Reactions to the Same Experiences We Are Accessing Together?
As we grew up in our different circumstances, we learned different interpretations of life events. As adults, the interpretations that arise with the experiences result in our unique reactions that are different from other people’s reactions because others grew up in different circumstances.
To the experiences we have from Our Universal Intelligence we must add something critical for our lives in Earth School: interpretations. Our interpretations are learned. We learn a coiled-up rope in the corner of our room is nonthreatening but a coiled-up snake is threatening. We respond to the coiled-up rope with calm or joy at finding the rope we thought we had lost. We respond to the coiled-up snake with fear or with joy at finding the pet snake we had lost. The interpretations are entirely in our individual Minds.
Interpretations are the second prominent property of who we are. We have experiences, and we have interpretations of the experiences. Emotions follow, but the emotions are the consequence of the person’s interpretation; they are not embodied in the experiences. The interpretations are not accessible by themselves as experiences are. They are deeply embedded, fundamental properties that constitute our selves. They cannot be separated or quantified individually. They cannot be dissected. They are fundamental to our lives.
While we are accessing the same experience from Our Universal Intelligence, our interpretations are entirely individual. They are who we are. They constitute our level of spiritual maturity. One person seeing a suffering man sitting alone by a road may interpret the experience with disgust and revulsion. Another may interpret the experience with sympathy and compassion. Our level of love and compassion for people comes from our interpretations of experiences, not the experiences. That was the message of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The experience was the same for the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan who passed by. But the interpretations of the experience were profoundly different.
We learn our interpretations through the models of others who have responded to such experiences, our history with the experiences or similar experiences, and the deliberate changes we have made to have the interpretations we desire. As we go through Earth School, we grow to have interpretations with more love and compassion. We change our view of life and other people, learn lessons, and enjoy experiences by changing our interpretations about life experiences.
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[i] Thomas Campbell, My Big Toe: A Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics: Awakening, Discovery, Inner Workings (Huntsville, AL: Lightning Strike Books, 2007).
[ii] Anil Seth, “Anil Seth on a New Science of Consciousness,” Closer to Truth Chats, September 3, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDFB6hf87yk&list=WL&index=2&t=1416s.
