I recently spent a relaxing week at a peaceful resort in the Berkshires.
It had an array of connected ponds and bridges through which you could
paddle your canoe or walk.
In one pond there was a fountain which caught my attention. It looked like
an inverted white cone with water spilling out.
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* *
* * : * *
*-----+-----*
* \ : / *
\ : /
\ : /
\ : /
\:/
*
Imagine this figure revolved about the vertical axis.
After several minutes, it occured to me that there is no cone in the middle.
The shape was formed by parabolic sprays of water.Code:
* : *
* *----+----* *
* * : * *
* * : * *
:
*:*
:
:
*
Then I had another thought. (I had lots of time on my hands, you see.)
That central "cone" doesn't exist.
Well, it exists, but it isn't real.
Okay, it's real, but it isn't there.
Um, it's there, but it really isn't . . .
Okay, the cone is there . . . We can see it and point to it.
But we cannot, for example, pick it up and hold it.
The cone is an illusion.
It is created from thousands of droplets of water all in motion.
It is being recreated from moment to moment.
An analogous phenomenon is a candle flame.
It is real . . . it is there.
But it is a constantly changing mixture of heat, particles and gases
. . which waves in a breeze like a single entity.
Yet it too cannot be picked up and held.
A slow-motion movie of the cone would reveal individual droplets
moving in parabolic arcs. .In fact, a movie creates the illusion of
motion by flashing a series of still pictures before us.
This led me to another thought. .Suppose all of Life is a series of
still pictures, that there is no motion -- only the illustion of motion.
Suppose the entire Unverse is being created and recreated at, say,
twenty frames per second ... too fast for our brains to perceive.
Then every twentieth of a second, our Universe exists in a series of
still pictures. .And we are blissfully unware of it.
This means that, beween the still pictures, there are finite gaps of time.
This leaves ample room for other Universes to exist in the gaps.
So there could be countless Universes in our space-time continuum.
These are the thoughts that kept me from the upper levels of
the corporate ladder.
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