Category: the internet

Faith in Observations

The above picture is my “what the actual f*ck” face, in response to a nightmare I had last night. I took the above picture at my worst, with no makeup, bad lighting, sweaty after a workout to say I would rather people remember me like this, at my WORST than HOW I was represented in my dream last night….

I was in a room with a huge crowd of people that I do not know engaging in behavior that was different depending on the person interacting with me…and it was GOD AWFULL. It was as if my person had been appropriated and I kept wanting to scream out the person who was not me’s mouth and say “THIS IS NOT ME! I WOULD NEVER DO THAT, SAY THAT, OR ACT LIKE THAT! I literally woke up saying “that is not me.” I felt so nauseated that I fumbled my way to the bathroom. It took more than a minute to settle down and wonder what the actual fuck freaked me out so bad. I’ve been misjudged or misunderstood a lot my whole life…so what was behind my reaction? I came to the conclusion that it all has to do with the faith people put in their own observations…many of which, given the amorphous nature of cyber space, are in truth wholly inaccurate but because of how advanced the kind of fakery and manipulation of information has become out there, and how easily and quickly it can disseminate to others I worry about the impact on how we perceive any person, place or thing is having on the world we live in. And for me as observer? I am left with the very sorry feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better

What my last post was supposed to be about when speaking of walking in my own shoes, removed from any particular role I’ve played in the past, was to hone and purify my observations as I move along my future path. I have spent a lifetime looking into the impact that an observer has on shaping the reality of our world…and with the invention of the internet, AI, and access to millions we can literally “create” a sense of reality that is observable and feels real and yet is completely fabricated…I guess that is what has me freaked out. So let me present the science and power of observation as I understand it…

In the world of quantum the observer, or the means by which “something” is observed, means everything.  Its form depends on “how” it’s observed.  For example, light can exist both as a particle or a wave, depending on how it is observed, which, until quantum physics, was considered impossible.   Physicist Werner Heisenberg, gave even more importance to the observer via the uncertainty principle, which states that the exact position and velocity of a particle cannot both be known at the same time—the more precisely one value is known, the greater the range of possibilities that exist for the other.  Even the act of observing something changes the reality of what is being observed.  In the classical view of the universe, science taught that by eliminating subjective influences nature could be revealed as she really was.  Quantum physics changed that classical viewpoint by exposing a dichotomy between experienced and un-experienced reality.  The idea that the mechanism of observation could actually affect what form matter took forced science into a new paradigm, besides giving great weight to the observer.

The discovery of the wave/particle duality has taken us beyond the limitations of Newtonian physics.  There are two levels of reality which can be said to exist: reality as experienced, or as it exists in relation to the observer; and reality that is un-experienced, or as it exists in the absence of an observer (sort of like the old question does a tree falling in a forest make a sound when no one is there to hear it?).  Un-experienced reality, then, is reality as it exists before or beyond human experience (perhaps in a dimension beyond height, width, weight, depth and time).  Un-experienced reality relates to experiential reality in that it forms the basis or context of experienced reality like an archetype or prototype.  The issue that is of central importance to me is the relationship between what is experienced and what is not.  Naturally, since human beings, as observers, are confined by certain dimensional and subjective limitations, it would seem obvious that the un-experienced dimension has the greater control over what we perceive.  I’m not so sure of that anymore; from my theological background I know the power human beings have to be co-creators of the universe and therefore color every experience with personal meaning.  What I have begun to worry about in this age of information overload, is the effect that all the absolutely made-up bullshit out there in cyberspace that looks and feels like it is real but is a complete fabrication will have on the physical and tangible reality we observe every day. I certainly know that it affects how an observer moves in and responds to the world.

I know I’m sounding heady right now, but with the plethora of examples of false information out there and the actual impact it has made on individual observers can’t be dismissed. I think all this falsehood has shaped our physical reality more dangerously than we will ever know. And I also think there are plenty of evil people out there who know this and have used it to corrupt the goodness that access to information and other people in this world could mean via the internet. Those who control information have the power…which is why Jesus warned us about prophets presenting themselves as wolves in sheep’s clothing. In this age of cyberspace, we all have to be hypervigilant about the truth of what we observe. As I walk forward in my own shoes…I will hone and root what I see and hear in fact not fiction. The dream I had will be a reminder of how easily it is to portray someone in a way that is completely false but feels real, especially when their purpose, like mine, is to wield love and celebrate the true and beautiful blueprint of all God’s people.

Expert Witness

Graduation-CapYesterday was one of those days when I had just had enough.  Enough of those biting facebook pre-fab pictures with the pithy sarcastic quotes, be it about a sports team, or personal politics; enough of comments from actual people who fall into the category of “it’s true because I read about it on the internet”, or “my friends brother had a cousin who did this and it worked awesome…”; enough of people who think they know everything about a health issue because they saw it on Dr Oz.  Without wanting to sound judgmental ..No wait, that was the old me…in my kindest and gentlest way let me  say  JUST STOP IT!  Having easy access to so much information isn’t always a good thing.  While everyone gets to have an opinion… and having the freedom to express ideas is one of the things I love about this country, here is the proverbial but….not every opinion is weighted the same, some are more well-formed and researched than others, some are just mean, and ummm, yeah some are just mean.

We need experts, people who have taken the time and energy to study and learn about a subject and can then benefit the rest of us from what they’ve learned.  Quite frankly, though, we have lost the ability to appreciate who they really are…PERIOD!  I would hope that most people, when going to all that trouble to share an opinion, would like to be accurate about what comes out of their mouths.  I know my teenage sons think they are experts.   Much of the time they are far from accurate.  I know, I know, welcome to adolescence which is  my first field of expertise… I should know better.  While I may understand them,  I also feel responsible as a parent to teach them how to formulate a well-educated opinion.  Thinking you know it all will never make it so, even if there is a legion of people behind you who think the same way.  When my boys tell me how frustrated they get when I don’t listen to them, or believe them, it is because A) I have already done the painstakingly difficult work of becoming an expert in the field that they are presently choosing to dismiss with such reckless abandon, or B) or I dismiss it because they saw it on a podcast or other questionable source, and my ears just don’t do stupid anymore.  Silence will always be better than stupid in my book.  Yet I do hear them.  I love their passion, but I won’t tolerate their ignorance, especially when it makes my ears bleed.  I will never ask them to regurgitate my ideas.  I want them to have their own opinions, and they do…many in opposition to mine.  I just  WANT THEM  TO DO THE WORK TO FORMULATE A BALANCED AND WELL RESEARCHED OPINION FIRST!  I want my sons to behave as reasonable people attempting to develop well thought out opinions based on factual information, from both sides of an idea, not opinions that are presented as factual information by pseudo experts who have their own agenda to pursue.  And let me tell you, it is an uphill battle when they watch the behavior of some adults who should know better.  Having a strong opinion is a very good thing.  But it is a very bad thing to expect that everyone else should agree with you, or belittle them when they don’t, especially if you haven’t done your homework.  There were plenty of examples of that kind of ignorance in any daily news cycle.

I have strong opinions…surprise, surprise.  I was taught to do my research, listen to real experts and as much as possible,  see an opposing viewpoint from another’s perspective, by sincerely asking them questions to try to figure out why they think the way they do.  Walking in someone else’s shoes, while very difficult, is also an enlightening experience.  Most importantly, for me anyway, is creating a foundation through higher education.  The experts in law, public policy, theology, economics, literature etc. who I studied under, never tried to indoctrinate me, rather facilitated a necessary dismantling of my ignorance, of sorts, and challenged me to re configured a smarter and wiser version.  The great thing I’ve discovered from having such a strong academic background is that the more I know, the more I realize there is to learn and understand.  More importantly, I learned that no real expert is afraid of not knowing every answer, because they are enthused and challenged to find the answer.

And yet I am also aware of how many experts have betrayed the trust of the many….that will have to be for another post, and a lot more research…..