of doors and mirrors

A few of centuries ago George Berkeley told us that “to be is to be perceived.” Roughly he meant that nothing existed independent of the consciousness that perceived it. As a very young child, I remember thinking that I was that consciousness. This childhood solipsism was a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind to live in and thankfully I grew out of it. But I remember the intuitive concept very vividly and it has been a recurring theme with me. I am always interested in consciousness-centric views of reality and I find that I constantly scan for them across religion, science and the arts. There are usually quite a few instances to be found across theologies and the arts (poetry especially) but science is usually more commitment-shy. So, I was quite thrilled when I found this (via 3qaurksdaily) and I’ve just spent another of those obsessive days.

-In daily life, space and time are harmless illusions. A problem arises only because, by treating these as fundamental and independent things, science picks a completely wrong starting point for investigations into the nature of reality. Most researchers still believe they can build from one side of nature, the physical, without the other side, the living. By inclination and training these scientists are obsessed with mathematical descriptions of the world. If only, after leaving work, they would look out with equal seriousness over a pond and watch the schools of minnows rise to the surface. The fish, the ducks, and the cormorants, paddling out beyond the pads and the cattails, are all part of the greater answer.

If this interests you, you may want to look at John Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment which was conducted to prove his Participatory Anthropic Principle, which is much of the same thing but more exciting because it is empirical.

But then, what the scientist feels compelled to prove, the poet states with fantastic insouciance.

Tattoo

The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.

The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters of grass.

There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.

Wallace Stevens

अज़ मिहर ता ब-ज़ररह दिल-ओ-दिल है आइनह
तूती को शश जिहत से मुक़ाबिल है आइनह

- Ghalib