One of my favorite things to think about is how my experience of reality differs from those around me. My history as both a spiritual individual following my own path and my history as a trained scientist and chemical engineer give me views that have I often perceived be in "conflict". I "know" that there is an objective factual reality in which anyone on this planet can reproduce the same result via <a href="http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_scientific_method.shtml" target="_blank">scientific method testing</a>. However, I also know that in this reality that two mutually contradicting <a href="http://www.kheper.net/topics/emanation/emanation.html" target="_blank">states</a> or <a href="http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/Projects/moderncosmo/Sean's%20mutliverse.html" target="_blank">realities</a> can exist simultaneously. As an example an electron can be in two places at once yet we can not reproduce this at the macro scale (human size). Why, I specifically don't know but I have not seen any evidence to suggest reproducible success.
I have seen evidence that the greater the number of people who believe in the possibility of something the more likely it is to be found and observed in a factual and reproducible way. The evidence I found for this is presented <a href="http://noosphere.princeton.edu/" target="_blank">here</a>. I will leave it to you read and come to your own conclusions. My theory is that science makes discoveries of new technologies and new scientific concepts as the population of our plant starts to assume at an unconscious level that such discoveries will be made. Just think of space travel and of things like explosion proof films, jet packs, self hardening armor; all items of stark fantasy and back in the day believed to be improbable if not impossible.
One of the things that I have heard from eastern spiritual traditions and from my own Neo-pagan traditions is the fact that the reality you experience is a story that you continuously tell yourself. The past is dimly remembered and colored by perspective ("History is always written by the winners"); the future is a fiction that we only dream about and attempt to create through the act of dreaming or more diliberately through magikal acts. So I would like to leave you with a final link to an article I came across today that inspired this post, "<a href="http://www.ultrafeel.tv/reality-tunnel-how-beliefs-and-expectations-create-what-you-experience-in-life/" target="_blank">Reality-tunnel: How beliefs and expectations create what you experience in life</a>". This article does an interesting and very visual example of the things I mentioned here and if your having trouble visualizing the possibilities of alternative realities can perhaps crank that door open a bit more for you.
I have seen evidence that the greater the number of people who believe in the possibility of something the more likely it is to be found and observed in a factual and reproducible way. The evidence I found for this is presented <a href="http://noosphere.princeton.edu/" target="_blank">here</a>. I will leave it to you read and come to your own conclusions. My theory is that science makes discoveries of new technologies and new scientific concepts as the population of our plant starts to assume at an unconscious level that such discoveries will be made. Just think of space travel and of things like explosion proof films, jet packs, self hardening armor; all items of stark fantasy and back in the day believed to be improbable if not impossible.
One of the things that I have heard from eastern spiritual traditions and from my own Neo-pagan traditions is the fact that the reality you experience is a story that you continuously tell yourself. The past is dimly remembered and colored by perspective ("History is always written by the winners"); the future is a fiction that we only dream about and attempt to create through the act of dreaming or more diliberately through magikal acts. So I would like to leave you with a final link to an article I came across today that inspired this post, "<a href="http://www.ultrafeel.tv/reality-tunnel-how-beliefs-and-expectations-create-what-you-experience-in-life/" target="_blank">Reality-tunnel: How beliefs and expectations create what you experience in life</a>". This article does an interesting and very visual example of the things I mentioned here and if your having trouble visualizing the possibilities of alternative realities can perhaps crank that door open a bit more for you.