The higher you stand, the further you see

Relativity, by M. C. Escher. Lithograph, 1953.

Most things seem big if you are very small. Most things seem small if you are very big.*

The extent to which information is tied to a local context determines the extent to which the information is universally true. You can't and you don't see the same thing from a worm's point of view as you can and do from a person's perspective, or a bird's, a dog's or a god's point of view. Which perspective is absolutely correct? None. Which is absolutely incorrect? None.

Examples follow. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain... in Tanzania. For people without telescopes, the Earth is at the center of the cosmos. Food that humans call rotten or spoiled is a banquet for bacteria. Weeds are plants that humans don't like and/or can't use. One person's "terrorist" is another person's "freedom fighter". The lemma is continuous and discreet. As realtors put it: location, location, location! Or in other words: context, context, context!

Context-free thinking, context-free language, and language-free conversation are prerequisites to universal understanding and universal communication. The higher you stand the further you can see. The higher you think, the more contexts/perspectives you understand. The higher the level of abstraction (meta) the more can be seen of the nature of reality.

What we think we know of reality, is only ever an approximation. It is stochastic, uncertain, and frothy and foamy. Waves, yes, but particles too. Bohr's complementarity principle is a tool for resolving apparent differences, for reconciling the apparently irreconcilable. Things that may seem to be contradictory are usually if not always merely different aspects in different contexts of the same fundamental truth. With one exception, nothing is true for all time in all places in every way. Every thing is only ever sometimes true, in some places, in some ways. There is only one thing that is always true: Everything (as a monadic whole). In other words, only God is always right.

By definition, Reality is that which encompasses all contexts, everywhere, at all times. The less that a truth is context-dependent, the more accurately it reflects reality and the more of reality it reflects.

What types of context are there? The types are too numerous to list, but here are some examples: contexts of person, of culture, of mind, of identity, of family, of school, of work, of paradigm, of shared belief, of species-hood, of genus-hood, of domain-hood, and many more.

How can I understand Everything within the narrow context of my finite mind? Obviously I can't. How can I understand Everything or every thing within the constrained context of a wholly materialistic culture? Obviously I can't. How can I embrace the All with arms that are not as wide as the All? Obviously, I can't. But if my arms were longer, I could.

So if you want to get closer to understanding the meaning and purpose of life and the true nature of reality, the challenge is to rigorously strip, scrub, abrade, scrape, remove all contexts from cogitation and elucidation, so that the biggest, purest meaning can emerge.

* This thought is expressed somewhere in Daniel Dennett's monumental book, "Consciousness explained".

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eBooks by Cosmic Rapture
(for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader.)

NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS. This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously and grotesquely illustrated.

AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?). We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS. A disturbing repository of quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.

MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS. An unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms, including but not limited to barbaric episodes of herring-flinging and kipper-kissing. A cacklingly bizarre read that may induce fatal hysteria. Not Recommended!

FIENDS & FREAKS and serpents, dragons, devils, lobsters, anguished spirits, hungry ghosts, hell-beings, zombies, organ-grinders, anti-gods, gods and other horse-thieves you wouldn't want to meet in a dark cosmos. Immature Content! Adults Maybe.

HAGS TO HAGGIS. An obnoxious folio featuring a puke of whiskey-soaked war-nags, witches, maniacs, manticores and escapegoats. Not to mention (please don't!) debottlenecking and desilofication, illustrated. Take your brain for a walk on the wild side. Leave your guts behind.