Are you only sensing the void? No…… like literally the void.
Have you ever heard about holographic universe hypothesis or theory? The theory states that we hallucinate reality, and the hallucinations are the product of our brain’s neural creativity. The idea is that the way we are, we actually can’t make a real observation of reality or what actually is out there in reality, why? you might ask. You see the thing is, everything and anything you sense is the interpretation of your brain and sensing system, there is no actual red color in the universe, red color is the sensation created by your brain. It’s true for every other color and shape we sense.
Round is round because that’s how our brain interpret it. Our sense of touch, smell or hearing all follow this, they interpret and creates the world around you, not the real-world mind you, but the world that our brain hallucinates. It’s not that easy to understand straight away, but once you do, it can hit you hard.
There are two ways to look at reality, one is subjective other is objective, objective reality is that part of reality which does not require a conscious observer to exists, on the other hand subjective reality needs an active observer to be what it is. What this means is that subjective reality is part of the subject or observer, it’s not outside of the observer or perceiver.
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A world out of subjectivity.
Subjective reality is an integral part of a subject. Your perception, ideas, emotions, imaginations and thoughts are all part of subjective reality, you are being the subject, but not only that, all the sensations you are feeling from your senses are also part of subjective reality.
Red color you see is not an objective reality but a subjective one; there is no red color outside of your sensation and experience. Sure, there may be a wavelength of red coming from a source of light, entering your eyes, but wavelength of red is not red itself, red is what your brain creates as an experience when it interprets that wavelength.
This realization unveils a really deep rabbit hole, where does the subjective reality ends and objective one begins? Isn’t the concept of wavelength is also just a part of subjective reality? Wavelengths are the observational results of dissected light. What we are observing is again a part of our own subjective reality, as observations are nothing but end results of our brain’s interpretations.
We only have one tool to realize the reality, and that is our brain, not that it would have changed anything if we had many, but as far as we know we only have one. All you see, feel, touch, sense is the creative experience created by this tool known as brain. One can never experience or sense anything beyond what this tool is representing. Images that are formed in your eyes are inside you, not outside, sounds that you hear are also happening inside you, sense of touch is obviously an inside matter, and this is same for rest of the senses too.
What you see is what it is.
So, the world you see outside is nothing but all part of subjective reality, mountains, rivers, people, shapes and smells, all of them. This doesn’t mean world is not real; this only means world doesn’t exist outside of you. The conclusion here is that all you have known or all you will ever know is part of the subjective reality, your subjective reality. Whatever may seem objective is just another subjective truth, created by your brain.
The moon only exists when you look at it or when someone else looks at it, the waterfall only make sound when there is someone to hear it, the wind is only blowing because there is someone to feel it and so on. This reality is same or at least relative for everyone because this is the result of relatively designed and functioning brains or more accurately minds, as calling it a brain is meaningless because brain itself, is also a part of our subjective observation.
This world is a collective hallucination of somewhat similar functioning minds. Now, what is a mind? Is it a combined sum of all the sensations including physical, emotional and mental, or is it something more than that. The answer is somewhere in between. Mind is more like a potential for all the sensations that can come into realization. Sometimes this potential is next to nothing in certain cases, like potential of visual sensations in a blind person, but still mind is a potential and every sensation is manifested through it.
What is beyond your mind?
The holographic universe theory ends at this point with the conclusion that because we can never experience anything beyond our minds, therefore, we can never know what real objective reality is or what is outside of the box of our senses. We are basically doomed to stay trapped in our own minds, as long as we are. Trying to look what’s outside of our minds is absurd even to think about.
The very act of inquiring something beyond your senses defeats the purpose of inquiring to begin with, your senses and mind are the only tools you have to inquire, how can you enquire something beyond your own tools of enquiry. Although, I agree, it is obviously hopeless, but I think there is still a solution here.
Whenever you find yourself stuck at a question, a question which seems to have no possible answer, no matter how much you think about it, stop trying to find the answer immediately and try to look for the solution instead. Most of the time when there is no answer to the question, it only means you are asking the wrong question; change the angle of the question you were going for. Instead of asking, how to enquire something beyond your mind, ask what is left there to be beyond the sensations and the components of mind?
The table at your home.
Let’s do the enquiry ourselves than, if we take a rock, the subjective components you are giving to a rock are its shape, its size, its colour, its hardness and its weight. Its shape, colour and size are the creative visualisation of our mind and its hardness is the sensation created by sense of touch which again is part of the same. Feeling something’s weight is nothing but another sensation. So, if we take all that out of the rock, what is the rock left with? Rock is left with a void, a void of nothingness.
One thing that should be clear before we go any further is that things don’t have anything of their own, they borrow everything from you, all their properties are actually, YOUR PROPERTIES. Once, when I was having this conversation with someone, they said to me that even if they lose all of their senses today, the table at their home is not going to disappear magically, it will still be there, everyone else will still see and feel it.
I said, of course it will, it will only disappear for you, but the “difference” here is what you are misunderstanding, and what most people misunderstand. The difference is not that now you can’t perceive the table and they can, the difference is that now you aren’t creating the table as part of your subjective reality and they still are. If the thing you are sensing has nothing of its own, and its whole existence depends upon you, it is fair to assume that your sensations, whatever they are, are not arising from an objective source but from a subjective one, through and through.
What sustains you?
In this world everything is based on something else, nothing is there which you can call as self-sustaining or that don’t have layers of hidden components sustaining it behind the scenes. Everything is creating something else, and that something else is creating something else, so it’s obvious for us to think, that even if everything is our own subjective reality, there has to be something creating that subjective reality. Now, if we say, it is the mind that’s creating our reality, what is creating our mind then?
The thing here is, isn’t the whole cause and effect/creation and creator system is also just a part of our own subjective reality? How can we apply rules of our subjective reality to find out, what is beyond the subjective reality? We can’t, and we shouldn’t even try to either, because it’s completely fatuous to do so. A valid question can be asked then, how can something arise from the void?
No, nothing can arise from the void, that’s the whole point of a void is, but you see, void, nothing, null and such are all, again the part of this subjective reality of our mind. If you can’t find the words that can express what you mean, then all you can do is find the words that can at least express what you don’t mean, these words are doing something like that.
Game of the words.
All they are hinting is that there are no properties or components related to our subjective reality there. It’s basically implying that it’s empty of what we know or what we can know. That’s why, a void. I think mind does not arise from the void, I think it infests over it, something can’t self-sustain itself in our world, but this isn’t our world, we are beyond our depths here.
Mind has to be a self-creating phenomenon, because if not, then something that created mind, has to be a part of our subjective reality too, as creation and creator or cause and effect, are all part of our subjective reality. If something CREATED mind than it is bound to come under the rules and properties of our reality and hence bound to come under the mind itself.
Something that created by mind cannot create the mind itself, thus we have to come to a conclusion that mind is a self-sustained phenomenon. It comes and pops out of existence just like bubbles in water.
All individual minds work in coherence with other minds like an arrangement of cogs and dials. This symphony of design creates a huge and incredible structure known as the WORLD. Our minds are so alike and similar to each other in their functionality that they create such disciplined and consistent reality that it’s hard to question its validity.
The Relative experience of our minds.
But minds are not plainly and completely similar to each other, as we all know our experiences of this subjective reality are even more subjective from individual to individual.
Red colour doesn’t have same exact sensation nor does it have equal significance for everyone. This is the real reason why some people like red over orange or vice versa. Different minds generate different sensations of same exact occurrence, which give rise to preferences and aversions. This produces a multi layered subjective reality effect.
The model of our reality is in such a way that it brings about almost comparable outcomes, but not identical. If I have to put it in a single sentence, I will say, “Our minds are not same but relative to each other”.
This relativity is the key reason and basis of our faith in this reality as a table must exists outside of my perception because it comes in everyone else’s perception too even when it’s not in my perception, so it should exist even after everyone who can perceive it fades away from reality. This relativity gives the illusion that the world is outside of and distinct to our perception.
As real as they come.
I don’t think illusions or even delusions are not real, it’s just that what they represent is not real. Illusions themselves are as real as anything can be. Reality, even if subjective, is real, but its objective impersonation is fictitious. In a way reality is just like a dream, they both are subjective and they both are creation of a mind.
One another thing that I find interesting about a dream is that when you are dreaming no matter how weird or how ridicules that dream is, you hardly ever get suspicious of its authenticity and realness. Even if you are a logical or skeptic person, in a dream you simply go with all the ridiculousness, like it’s the most normal and real thing there is.
