The Senses Novels all bear the ‘motto’ listed in the title of this post. I have been asked on various occasions, “What do you mean by that?” and “What is reality then?” As you read the novels, you will find that each of the primary characters has an ability and that ability can seemingly alter reality.
I once asked a friend if he thought that what he saw was the same thing that I saw? We agreed that a ball was round and that it was red, it had a texture that we called soft. I then asked him what did those things mean? I wanted him to describe round and red and soft. He couldn’t do it without referencing other things that had the same characteristics. I then asked if he believed that the world around us could be changed simply by the way we perceive it? He said, "No if it could then the door behind him could become a porpoise at a moment’s notice." I looked over his shoulder and said, “It just did.” He whipped around saying “WHAT?” Obviously, it hadn’t, my name isn’t Jacob after all. He was a little angry with me, but I asked him if his belief had been suspended in that single instant. He wasn’t very happy, but he had to admit that for a split second he at least wondered if the door had changed.
What I mean by reality not being what we think is that this isn’t our world, it belongs to one a lot more powerful than any of us. He has split seas in half so people could walk on dry land and caused the sun in the sky to halt in its course. Is that the reality you know? What is reality? It’s what our perceptions tell us it is and the agreement that we, as people, come to on the definitions for those perceptions. Nothing more than that. If you doubt what I’m saying, ask a physicist to explain reality in terms of quantum physics to you.
For instance, the strange power that two quantum particles seem to possess to communicate no matter how far apart just doesn’t seem reasonable, it doesn’t seem to make sense in the ‘reality’ of our universe. This apparent ability of two particles to communicate across vast distances with no time delay is something that even Einstein described as "spooky action at a distance." So, what is reality? It certainly isn’t what you or I think it is.
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