time and space are modes by which we think, not conditions in which we live —D. Marianoff

  

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Throughout his life, (John) Wheeler aspired to understand the most fundamental components of the cosmos. He changed his mind on that issue several times in his career, starting with particles, venturing into fields and geometry, and finally delving into information. 

He also wanted to comprehend the organizing principles steering those components into recognizable patterns. Sum over histories, based on the principle of least action applied to quantum physics, was one such idea, but he also considered others. 

In the end, he became convinced that the answer had to do with a “self-excited circuit”: a symbiosis between conscious observers and what they were observing, namely, the cosmic past. Somehow, through our looks back in time, we organized our own universe, from among the frothy possibilities of the quantum foam. 

Therefore, in Wheeler’s mind, the questions of “How come existence?” and “How come the quantum?” became inextricably linked. 


—Paul Halpern
The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality

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I, like other searchers, attempt formulation after formulation of the central issues and here present a wider overview, taking for working hypothesis the most effective one that has survived this winnowing: It from Bit. Otherwise put, every it — every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself — derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely — even if in some contexts indirectly — from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes or no questions, binary choices, bits.

It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.


—John Archibald Wheeler

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I think it’s a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead.

That there isn’t their life and our life. Nor your life and my life. That it’s just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled with it as deep as entanglement goes.


—Kate Forster
wait - what ?

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non-duality

     

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When you wake up in the morning, consciousness dawns. In this state of being conscious, you perceive a body, mind and world. These are appearances only, not what you are. To identify oneself with any of those appearances gives rise to the notion of being a separate person, self or individual entity. This is the cause of all seeking, suffering and doubts. Being conscious is a state that comes and goes. 

In sleep, unconsciousness or death, the experience of being conscious subsides. So it is clearly a transitory state. However, before you awoke and became conscious of anything else, including the fact of being conscious, you were there. Consciousness happened to you who were there to experience it. 

Your original, fundamental position is prior to consciousness. This "prior to consciousness" identity that you are cannot be named at all. From this unnameable, non-conceptual source, which is your original, innate nature, arises the sense of conscious presence. This is also the sense of being, the experience that "I am", or the bare fact of knowing that you are. This is the first appearance or experience upon your original state.

Within this consciousness state emerges the mind, the body and the entire world of appearances. Little can be said about your original state because it is clearly beyond all concepts and even prior to consciousness. Some pointers that have been used are: non-conceptual awareness, awareness unaware of itself, pure being (beyond being and non-being), the absolute, the unmanifest, noumenon, cognizing emptiness, no thing - to name only a few. This non-conceptual awareness or being IS what you are. It is pure non-duality or unicity in which both subject and object are merged.

Just as the sun does not know light because it IS light, so you do not know your original nature (as an object) because you ARE THAT. It is forever beyond the grasp of concepts and subject-object knowledge. Yet it is entirely evident and inescapable as that in you (which is you) that allows you to say with utter certitude "I am" and "I know that I am". Even when those words subside, you ARE. 

Even when the consciousness that knows those words subsides, you ARE. Consciousness is the light of creation. But you, as the unnameable source, are the primordial awareness, being or no thing (call it what you will) in which consciousness comes and goes.


—John Archibald Wheeler, theoretical physicist

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When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an 

image in front of her and then steps into it.

—Meister Eckhart

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Your consciousness is not in your body.
Your body is in your consciousness.

You are not in your reality.
Your reality is in your consciousness.

You are not within time or space.
Space and time are ideas within your consciousness.

Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it.

My guru told me, "Trust me, I tell you: you are Divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done."

If you have regard for me, remember my words. The knowledge "I Am” is the greatest God, the Guru; be one with that, be intimate with it. That itself will bless you with all the knowledge relevant for you.


—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen. —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

    

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Matter, which appears to be dense, according to physics actually is made up mostly of empty space, with a few very small particles moving around like planets. At high energy, other particles pass through what appears to be solid matter.

… As you probe more deeply into matter, it appears to have more and more subtle properties. In my view, the implications of physics seem to be that nature is so subtle that it could be almost alive or intelligent.

… The question is whether matter is rather crude and mechanical, or whether it gets more and more subtle, and becomes indistinguishable from what people have called mind.


—David Bohm
from Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unity

 

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When you wake up in the morning, consciousness dawns. 

In this state of being conscious, you perceive a body, mind and world. These are appearances only, not what you are. To identify oneself with any of those appearances gives rise to the notion of being a separate person, self or individual entity. This is the cause of all seeking, suffering and doubts. Being conscious is a state that comes and goes. 

In sleep, unconsciousness or death, the experience of being conscious subsides. So it is clearly a transitory state. However, before you awoke and became conscious of anything else, including the fact of being conscious, you were there.

Consciousness happened to you who were there to experience it. Your original, fundamental position is prior to consciousness. This "prior to consciousness" identity that you are cannot be named at all. From this unnameable, non-conceptual source, which is your original, innate nature, arises the sense of conscious presence. This is also the sense of being, the experience that "I am", or the bare fact of knowing that you are. This is the first appearance or experience upon your original state.

Within this consciousness state emerges the mind, the body and the entire world of appearances. Little can be said about your original state because it is clearly beyond all concepts and even prior to consciousness. Some pointers that have been used are: non-conceptual awareness, awareness unaware of itself, pure being (beyond being and non-being), the absolute, the unmanifest, noumenon, cognizing emptiness, no thing - to name only a few. This non-conceptual awareness or being IS what you are. It is pure non-duality or unicity in which both subject and object are merged.

Just as the sun does not know light because it IS light, so you do not know your original nature (as an object) because you ARE THAT. It is forever beyond the grasp of concepts and subject-object knowledge. Yet it is entirely evident and inescapable as that in you (which is you) that allows you to say with utter certitude "I am" and "I know that I am". 

Even when those words subside, you ARE. 

Even when consciousness subsides, you ARE. 

Consciousness is the light of creation. But you, as the unnameable source, are the primordial awareness, being or no thing (call it what you will) in which consciousness comes and goes.


—John Archibald Wheeler

theoretical physicist

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Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one. 

—Albert Einstein

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