Friday, July 03, 2009

Really virtual

Time and space, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, which was his gravity field theory, are curved in the presence of mass. In Newtonian mechanics, they were invariable absolutes. They became somewhat less concrete as they were subjected to the vagaries of the observer subjectivity in special relativity theory and then subsumed as aspects of an overarching geometry in general relativity. Finally, with the advent of quantum mechanics, time and space became full-fledged virtual entities. Really virtual, not just virtually real.

In considering the word "virtual," we remember that it means as if in fact, not in fact. There is a jump implicit there. When we jump to the conclusion that something possesses some quantum of virtual reality of something, affirming its probabilistic exsistence, that quantum jump is itself a reality-making factor wherein the "stuff" of consciousness takes on the mantle of creativity.

Any creator uses the "as if" principle constantly. In fact, one cannot write, act, paint, or do anything unless one pushes forward with the action as if one can actually do it. There are so many times that I sit down to write, not knowing what I am going to write but having a pretty good idea that I will be able to figure out something to say in a manner that does justice to the impulse that caused me to sit down at the computer to begin with. And then something almost always does emerge from that probabilistic virtual "as if" state. Then the thing lives its virtual life, becoming real momentarily to whoever reads it, and is immediately transformed into the stuff of their consciousness, perhaps in greatly morphed form.

No matter. If it lives at all in any form, the purpose was fulfilled and the light has been passed. For while we live on this planet, we must keep on passing the light back and forth to each other in order to be able to hold the torrent of information quanta that is pouring down upon us from the multiuniverse at an ever-increasing rate. The virtue of virtuality will be seen as consciousness jumps up a quantum frequency to accommodate this cosmic river.