Q. What does it mean when someone says that "nothing is real"? Surely trees, rocks, mountains, oceans, people, cars, etc. are "real". we can see them, touch them, etc. Is this just metaphorical or delusional, or is there "real" science to support it?
A. When i say that "nothing is real", that is my ongoing direct perception. i can recognize trees as different from sky, and chairs from lamps, and avoid bumping into the furniture (normally) but there is a deep experiential, not philosophical, "knowing", and direct seeing that they are not "material", not really "real". They appear to all have the same "energy", and to be, at some level, all one thing, like they were in a painting. There is at the same time, a deep Stillness that is unchanging, "underneath" all this.
This insight has been reported by mystics for millenia, and doubtless those who have used psychedelics (i haven't) can resonate with this. Ramana Maharshi in his "Talks With Ramana Maharshi", gives three different metaphors of how we believe, incorrectly, that the world is "real", which is called an "adhyasa".
The first metaphor is when you are walking alone at night and see a snake, or a potentially dangerous mugger. As the light improves, or we get closer, we see that is just a rope, or just a post - an illusion. Once it's realized, it is clearly seen as something else and the illusion disappears.
The second metaphor is of a mirage in the desert, that looks like a body of water, which you really want. When you realize it is just a mirage, unlike in the first metaphor, it doesn't go away, but you aren't fooled and don't try to drink it.
The third metaphor is a dream, which is closer to what i experience. In your dream world, everything appears real...you have a dream body, there are dream people, dream events, etc. It is a self-consistent "reality", and you apparently do things in it. However, when you "wake up", you realize it was just a dream. (Some may even realize that it is a dream when they're dreaming it.) The common languaging that folk like Ramana Maharshi use is that you are "dreaming while awake", or "asleep while awake".
The further distinction is that the "stuff" of the world, like in a dream, does not continue to exist permanently and so is regarded, ontologically, as "unreal". Only the unchanging Stillness, Self, Brahman, Oneness, Universal Field, etc. is regarded as "real". As one lives in/as that Stillness, everything else is obviously changing and "unreal".
As the Beatles' John Lennon wrote in Strawberry Fields Forever:
"Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know, I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a "yes", but it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down, cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about"
This was written during the period when Lennon was using "increasing quantities of drugs" especially LSD and cannabis.
This change in perception in persistent nonduality and in psychedelics is linked to deenergizing parts of the default mode network (DMN). As described in the blogposts "magic mushrooms work like meditation?...the latest science" and "Seeing everything as "One"? What is mystical? What is real?", when the key nodes of the DMN are deactivated, the mystical experiences of "All is One" and "Now, now, now" manifest.
A recent article in Scientific America "What is real?" approaches this "unreal world" through quantum physics. As this points out, in the currently accepted Standard Model (See "How 'consciousness' creates matter...the 'God' particle"), there are four groups of elementary particles and four types of force fields, which control the actions among those particles.
However, what these fields and particles are becomes less clear as quantum field theory, a key element of the Standard Model, assigns a field to each particle, and the fields themselves are broken up, or "quantized", which gives rise to particles.
There is an excellent graphic in the "What is real?" article on four different assumptions on particles which can be summarized as:
Consensus Reality What we see What we infer Quantum Reality
Particles are localized Tracks in bubble chamber Particles leaving tracks Separate bubbles
No particles, no action Nothing in vacuum Counter sees nothing Counter clicks
Particle is, or isn't Nothing in vacuum Nothing in vacuum Accelerating observer
sees particles
Particles have discrete Two separate "entangled" Two particles have The two particles
properties particles different spins are one system
Our assumptions on fields are similarly changed. In a classical field, every point has a measurable property, like electric field strength. In quantum fields, any point has many possible quantities, not assigned to any specific location, but assigned to all of space.
Given this confusion about particles and fields, and their inability to explain "everything", another approach is needed. But what would it be? Well, since "things" can't define reality by "structural realism", perhaps "properties" can. In this approach, "properties" are the basic blocks, or particulars, as something called "tropes".
The common metaphor is that a "ball" that we played w/when we were little kids, is only a bundle of properties at first to us, like "round", "red", "elastic", and "bouncy". Later someone told us it was called a "ball", so we made "ball" a cognitive summary of some collection of those properties. However, "ball" has no reality discrete from its properties.
There are many questions around "tropes". Where did they come from? As we have different capabilities in our sensory receptors does that mean that everyone's "tropes" and "balls" are different? This does, however, match up w/the subjective nature of reality implied in quantum mechanics.
This "personal" subjective nature in quantum mechanics is being increasingly discussed and incorporated, with increased use of Quantum Bayesianism, (QBism - apologies to Picasso). QBism incorporates probability and subjectivity into the very structure of the wave function. It is defined as "the field of statistics in which the evidence about the true state of the world is expressed in terms of degrees of belief".
Although quantum physics has been a hugely successful and useful approach to understanding the world, and has astonishing ability to calculate and predict phenomena, it is full of paradoxes and issues that it can't explain.
Its traditional wave function describes how particles behave in a quantum world and yet it produces seemingly intractable "problems" such as Schrodinger's cat that is both dead and alive, or in two states at the same time, or particles in two places at once, and travelling faster than the speed of light.
Incorporating subjective probabilities, as in QBism, based on "degrees of belief", fundamentally redefines that wave function. It becomes a mathematical tool that an observer uses to assign his/her personal belief that a quantum system will have a specific property. The wave function then does not really exist "in the world" - it is merely the reflection of an individual's subjective mental state. This reflects the mystical statement that "we create the world"; we are the ultimate subject of our (unreal) world.
The article "Inside Out: The Epistemology of Everything" by Tor Norretranders highlights how both quantum physics and contemporary neuroscience have reached the same conclusion: there is no consistency, or reality in the "real" world, it is something that we make up.
As Tor observes, "What we perceive as being outside of us is a fancy and elegant projection of what we have inside; everything we experience is inside...The trick of perception is the trick of mistaking an inner world for the outside world...When we understand that the inner emotional states are more real than what we experience of the outside world, the epoch of insane mania for rational control will be over."
Or as the famous physicist John Wheeler said "There is no out there, out there". We do not know what the world is really like, uncorrelated with, and unprocessed by us. When we seem to experience an ever-changing external world that is out there, independent of us, it is something we dream up. When we discover what it is that doesn't change as our inner emotional states change, we come upon the Truth, a great unperturbed Stillness.
As discussed in the blogpost "Do your mystical experiences fit w/quantum physics? neuroscience?", credible contemporary physicists are coming to the conclusion that what is "real", and underlying all of this, is possibly, even likely, an all-pervasive, "self-aware", unified field of universal consciousness. So, to answer the question "What is really 'real'?"; it would be that, or rather That.
BTW, there is an open, far-ranging video interview of me by Rick Archer on Buddha At The Gas Pump, or BATGAP, which is Rick's very popular creation. As the interview is about 2 hrs, it is also available as an .mp3 audio file which is downloadable. my face glows and dissembles from about 45:00 on. These are not mystical yogic powers; they are issues w/the new c902 Logitech webcam; stay w/the c901.
There is a very clever video, "The Psychology of the Internet Troll" by Academic Earth, that you might find entertaining and informative. It fits well w/the earlier blogpost "Why we flame, and tell all, on line, but not in person".
 |
| Ramana Maharshi |
This insight has been reported by mystics for millenia, and doubtless those who have used psychedelics (i haven't) can resonate with this. Ramana Maharshi in his "Talks With Ramana Maharshi", gives three different metaphors of how we believe, incorrectly, that the world is "real", which is called an "adhyasa".
 |
| Rope/snake |
The first metaphor is when you are walking alone at night and see a snake, or a potentially dangerous mugger. As the light improves, or we get closer, we see that is just a rope, or just a post - an illusion. Once it's realized, it is clearly seen as something else and the illusion disappears.
 |
| Mirage |
The second metaphor is of a mirage in the desert, that looks like a body of water, which you really want. When you realize it is just a mirage, unlike in the first metaphor, it doesn't go away, but you aren't fooled and don't try to drink it.
 |
| Dream |
The third metaphor is a dream, which is closer to what i experience. In your dream world, everything appears real...you have a dream body, there are dream people, dream events, etc. It is a self-consistent "reality", and you apparently do things in it. However, when you "wake up", you realize it was just a dream. (Some may even realize that it is a dream when they're dreaming it.) The common languaging that folk like Ramana Maharshi use is that you are "dreaming while awake", or "asleep while awake".
The further distinction is that the "stuff" of the world, like in a dream, does not continue to exist permanently and so is regarded, ontologically, as "unreal". Only the unchanging Stillness, Self, Brahman, Oneness, Universal Field, etc. is regarded as "real". As one lives in/as that Stillness, everything else is obviously changing and "unreal".
 |
| Entrance to Strawberry Fields in Liverpool |
"Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know, I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a "yes", but it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down, cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about"
 |
| John Lennon c'mon, you knew that |
This change in perception in persistent nonduality and in psychedelics is linked to deenergizing parts of the default mode network (DMN). As described in the blogposts "magic mushrooms work like meditation?...the latest science" and "Seeing everything as "One"? What is mystical? What is real?", when the key nodes of the DMN are deactivated, the mystical experiences of "All is One" and "Now, now, now" manifest.
 |
| "God" particle Higgs Boson |
However, what these fields and particles are becomes less clear as quantum field theory, a key element of the Standard Model, assigns a field to each particle, and the fields themselves are broken up, or "quantized", which gives rise to particles.
There is an excellent graphic in the "What is real?" article on four different assumptions on particles which can be summarized as:
Consensus Reality What we see What we infer Quantum Reality
Particles are localized Tracks in bubble chamber Particles leaving tracks Separate bubbles
No particles, no action Nothing in vacuum Counter sees nothing Counter clicks
Particle is, or isn't Nothing in vacuum Nothing in vacuum Accelerating observer
sees particles
Particles have discrete Two separate "entangled" Two particles have The two particles
properties particles different spins are one system
 |
| Standard Model |
Our assumptions on fields are similarly changed. In a classical field, every point has a measurable property, like electric field strength. In quantum fields, any point has many possible quantities, not assigned to any specific location, but assigned to all of space.
Given this confusion about particles and fields, and their inability to explain "everything", another approach is needed. But what would it be? Well, since "things" can't define reality by "structural realism", perhaps "properties" can. In this approach, "properties" are the basic blocks, or particulars, as something called "tropes".
 |
| Red ball XXL size |
There are many questions around "tropes". Where did they come from? As we have different capabilities in our sensory receptors does that mean that everyone's "tropes" and "balls" are different? This does, however, match up w/the subjective nature of reality implied in quantum mechanics.
This "personal" subjective nature in quantum mechanics is being increasingly discussed and incorporated, with increased use of Quantum Bayesianism, (QBism - apologies to Picasso). QBism incorporates probability and subjectivity into the very structure of the wave function. It is defined as "the field of statistics in which the evidence about the true state of the world is expressed in terms of degrees of belief".
 |
| Schrodinger's Cat |
Its traditional wave function describes how particles behave in a quantum world and yet it produces seemingly intractable "problems" such as Schrodinger's cat that is both dead and alive, or in two states at the same time, or particles in two places at once, and travelling faster than the speed of light.
Incorporating subjective probabilities, as in QBism, based on "degrees of belief", fundamentally redefines that wave function. It becomes a mathematical tool that an observer uses to assign his/her personal belief that a quantum system will have a specific property. The wave function then does not really exist "in the world" - it is merely the reflection of an individual's subjective mental state. This reflects the mystical statement that "we create the world"; we are the ultimate subject of our (unreal) world.
The article "Inside Out: The Epistemology of Everything" by Tor Norretranders highlights how both quantum physics and contemporary neuroscience have reached the same conclusion: there is no consistency, or reality in the "real" world, it is something that we make up.
 |
| Tor Norretranders |
Or as the famous physicist John Wheeler said "There is no out there, out there". We do not know what the world is really like, uncorrelated with, and unprocessed by us. When we seem to experience an ever-changing external world that is out there, independent of us, it is something we dream up. When we discover what it is that doesn't change as our inner emotional states change, we come upon the Truth, a great unperturbed Stillness.
As discussed in the blogpost "Do your mystical experiences fit w/quantum physics? neuroscience?", credible contemporary physicists are coming to the conclusion that what is "real", and underlying all of this, is possibly, even likely, an all-pervasive, "self-aware", unified field of universal consciousness. So, to answer the question "What is really 'real'?"; it would be that, or rather That.
BTW, there is an open, far-ranging video interview of me by Rick Archer on Buddha At The Gas Pump, or BATGAP, which is Rick's very popular creation. As the interview is about 2 hrs, it is also available as an .mp3 audio file which is downloadable. my face glows and dissembles from about 45:00 on. These are not mystical yogic powers; they are issues w/the new c902 Logitech webcam; stay w/the c901.
There is a very clever video, "The Psychology of the Internet Troll" by Academic Earth, that you might find entertaining and informative. It fits well w/the earlier blogpost "Why we flame, and tell all, on line, but not in person".
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