Who Is Asking?

“The way in which we approach nature, governs what we find.” ~ McGilchrist

Brilliant!

I have said this in so many words. I think many philosophers and physicists have said something like this, but having it reduced to eleven words is like taking a snapshot of reality. My friend, Barry Gibbs, used to say, “It is not what it is, but what it is perceived to be.”

This is exactly why we get things wrong sometimes.

Tone matters!

If someone sends you a text or an email, you may completely miss their original intention by reading it, and allowing your head-voice to say it sarcastically when it was meant literally; or the other way around.

So much is lost in translation; even when we are using exact words and phrases. Take solids for instance: if I give you a definition for a solid, you would think of it as something which resists penetration by degrees, but a neutrino would not agree. I could refer to a pane of glass as a solid, but then I would be ignoring the most obvious dynamic of clear glass; it allows light to pass right through. Birds will tell you that ignoring this principle can be problematic. If I say that no-thing can go through glass, then I would have to put light in a separate category. If light is no-thing, then what is a photon?

This becomes a problem if we want to stick to our guns in every situation.

So if the question is: “Is glass solid?”

The answer has to be: “Who is asking?”

If you happen to be a human, using your finger to yield a reply, you’d swear it was solid, but if you kept your fingers out of it and asked your eyes to check it out, the eyes would say, “It does not look solid.”

If you asked your ears to get in there and break the tie, your ears would say, “Well, there is some degree of solidity there, but I do hear some sound through it.”

So glass really is debatable; and everything is like this.

So if the question is: “What is this I now perceive?”

The answer must be: “Who is asking?”

If you simply reply: “Me.” Well, then everything you now perceive is just what it appears to be.

But if you say, “I Am.” We have a problem.