Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Wisdom of THHGTTG (The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy)

I have found quite a few subjects of interest between the many pages of Douglas Adam's series THHGTTG also known as the "Guide." Science fiction may be fiction, but it sure harbors a ton of fact! The perspective that Adams frequently shows us is one of a pandimensional, intergalactic omniversal kind. He does not shy away from using the ridiculous to point us to the unknown. Often times we are more receptive to learning new things if we can first; reject them, laugh at them and quietly be influenced by the idea of them. My favorite quote in Adam's second installment of the "guide" series ("The Restaurant At The End of the Universe ," Chapter 6, p.174) is as follows: "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate." The joke often points to a grain of truth. Reality, or rather its perception is by its very infinite nature completely impossible to grasp. First we find one loose thread, so to speak, then another and soon the entire menagerie unravels like a house made of yarn. Yet the house of yarn is functional, even in its own dysfunction. The universe need not be real (in a classical Newtonian sense) in order for it to be functional. All that is required is that it be (or appear to be) functional. As we go through our daily lives, we are mostly unaware of the gaps, the flaws and the unravled ends that make up our tattered reality matrix. This matrix or tapestry is continually built upon by the higher, more discreet functions of our mind and the shared mind we all interact with (society, both micro and macro) Any discrepancies are quickly labeled as "paranormal" in nature or "painted" over by higher functions of our mind. If we were to see clearly the higher order symmetries that are responsible for our world and others' existence (the raw program code, of sorts) we might deduce that reality, at least as we know it, is in fact very inaccurate after all!

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