Looking at a cardinal sitting on an electrical line, I realized it wasn’t red, but rather red to me. My eyes are built to see red, whereas the morning dove’s are built to see the same bird in UV light and a mosquito sees it as an infrared heat signature. How the bird sees itself is a further mystery.
My subjective experience of the bird, or other animals, depends on biological makeup. If someone said, no, that’s a red cardinal, period, I’d know more about them than the bird, for example that they’re not colorblind. And perhaps that they see the world as fixed.
It’s tough to argue.
For example, subjectively the sun does set from our vantage point. But objectively we know it’s the earth spinning while the sun holds steady. Yet that’s almost impossible to picture standing on the spinning earth.
The world looks fixed from a human mind, even though it only appears to be that way simply from our context. And what quantum science is showing now is if you zoom in enough, it’s all rotating atoms and quarks.
Not assuming any given stance is correct, I’m much more curious how these three vantage points – fixed, contextual, quantum – guide our view of reality.
From a fixed vantage point, the world appears as separate from us. I am in here while the world is out there. The same view translates to other sentient animals, who we assume see us from their eyes as looking at them. A scientific process of observation becomes possible, where we can study animals and nature, analyze minerals and compounds, and shape the world and technology to our purposes. I am doing what my viewpoint allows me to do, just as the bird is doing what its viewpoint allows it to do.
From a contextual vantage point, the world becomes subjective. I may see the bird as red while a mosquito may see it as infrared. Suddenly, the world isn’t fixed anymore. If it’s different based on the biological makeup of each sentient animal, then it could also be different based on the subjective experience of each human being. For example, my father-in-law, a former contractor, sees the world as structural, noticing the physical makeup of buildings, stairs, and roads, whereas my aunt, a life-long artist, sees the world in perspective, noticing the background and foreground the buildings, stairs, and roads are set in. Their viewpoints affect how they express themselves, the words they use, and how they listen.
From a quantum vantage point, the world becomes emergent. Seeing a bird is one possibility among many. Beyond the bird, there is all possibility, and the world becomes porous. I am also porous, no longer separate or subjective. I am as the world is. Movement, change, fluctuation become constant. Within unlimited possibility, even choice is emergent, because who is there to subjectively choose or see things a certain way?
In a fixed world we will do what is within our limits, whereas in a contextual world we will the world to be a certain way, and in a quantum world even free will comes into question.
We may spend millennia proving and disproving the above, but because each of us only has about 70ish years, I’m much more curious how seeing the world from each of these vantage points affects our lives. What if we experimented with each way?
A fixed point is often the default, so we can put that aside and start with contextual viewpoints. What does the world appear to be to a 6 year old versus a 65 year old? How about someone who believes in god versus doesn’t? Is rich versus poor? Who has been in space versus the deep in the ocean? Who works outside versus inside? We can actively imagine each of these scenarios even though we may not have experienced any single one, and by doing so, imagine a different world for ourselves. And perhaps even choose which viewpoint suits us best.
Then let’s try the quantum viewpoint. What if the world is simply unlimited possibility? This is where koans, poems, and quotes can be helpful.
“And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” –Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Verse 48
Softest of mornings, hello.
And what will you do today, I wonder,
to my heart?
And how much honey can the heart stand, I wonder,
before it must break?–Mary Oliver, Softest of Mornings
May our hearts break, break, and break again.
May it all be revealed to us
The insides of our hearts, every bloody curve and shadow
May we find the light there.–Bureen Ruffin, Curve and Shadow
“Neither be in a state of waiting nor of expectation.” –Mooji
The inquiry I’ve been experimenting with is, “what wants to happen?”. “I don’t know” is almost always where I start – a place of unlimited possibility.
How do you see the world?
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