Blurts & Spasms

Answer to Quora question: What Are Your Favorite Original Thought Experiments?

I like Schrödinger's Cat and Einstein's "Chasing a Beam of Light," but I also have a few of my own creation. Here's one from my book The Vital Mystic:

"FRED AND THE BUBBLE OF NOTHINGNESS

Imagine a bubble of nothingness. Absolute nothingness. Not even a thought can penetrate this bubble. Not even an all-powerful Deity, for the non-space and non-time inside this bubble don’t even exist, and have never existed. It is, in fact, a nonexistence that preceded even our conception of it, in the moment before these sentences were written or read. Inside this bubble of nothingness lives a fellow named Fred. For my own entertainment, I like to imagine him wearing a burgundy sweater and gold wire glasses, sitting at an immense roll-top desk of some richly grained hardwood. Fred is humming to himself and thinking about the essence of his reality, as it flows in all directions around him; he does not perceive himself to be in a finite bubble at all. What to us is a non-concept of nonexistence is, in fact, Fred’s ever-expanding universe – albeit of “nothingness.” Taking a sip of hot chocolate, Fred imagines a realm that utterly contradicts his own: a realm of existence, complete with galaxies, spiritual forces, and and sapient beings. He even imagines you reading about him right now. But from Fred’s perspective, his own universe occupies everything that has meaning and reality for him, and all that exists for you and me is trapped within Fred’s bubble of rich – but objectively finite – imagination. Just as we view Fred as a negation of all that is for us, Fred views us as a negation of all that is not for him.

Then Fred moves on to other thoughts, and you yourself finish reading this description of Fred. Soon, both of you have pretty much forgotten about each other, but a question remains: what is the meaning of Fred to you? And what is the nature of everything in our Universe – everything that we can ever imagine or experience, even an all-encompassing, all-powerful Deity – to Fred? Clearly, with a shrug and another sip of hot chocolate, Fred can dismiss everything that we are, and all that we dream we are, as completely insignificant, just as we can easily dispense with everything that Fred imagines he is – Fred doesn’t exist, after all! This shows us how the contrast between our conception of reality and our direct experience of reality necessitates meaning, and how all meaning is therefore interdependent – that is, created by the context of one thing relating to another. This is not only true for the extreme dichotomy of existence and non-existence, but also for every subtle gradient of differentiation we perceive both in the external Universe, and in ourselves. Externally we differentiate a beautiful flower from a bothersome weed, a refreshing rain from an overwhelming deluge, a pleasant fragrance from a cloying stench, or an exciting adventure from a terrifying crisis. Internally we compare and contrast the inspiring flame of passion and the destructive heat of anger, overconfident knowledge and humble wisdom, a humorous observation and a demeaning jibe, a brilliant insight and deluded insanity. And with each choice to separate and evaluate what we encounter, we perpetually construct and support all of our most fundamental beliefs."

Thanks for the A2A.