Do you ever look out at the world and think, “How could it be that any effectively generated formal theory in which all arithmetic truths can be proved is inconsistent”? Or, “That is one hokey looking tree; no way that is real…. They could have put a little more time into that one, jeesh!”

I call that questionable reality realiquanto, a combination of “reality” and “aliquanto,” which is Latin for “somewhat.”

A lot of what we see we take for granted without having the slightest idea of how it works. The rest of what we see we take for granted believing that we understand it, when in realiquanto we have only a rudimentary understanding of its true nature.

I have the following questions about the universe. Feel free to enlighten me with your rudimentary explanations:

1.

First of all, it occurs to me that time & space do not exist. To define time, one must refer to time. The same is true of space. It might take some dictionaries a while to get there, but inevitably they will have to refer to time in defining time and space in defining space. In the immediate definitions, dictionaries will indirectly refer to those terms by using words that rely on time or space for their meanings.

For example, on dictionary.com, time is defined as “the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future.” To understand this, one must know what the word sequential means. Dictionary.com defines sequential as, “characterized by regular sequence of parts.” But what is a sequence? Again, Dictionary.com: “the following of one thing after another.” To understand this, however, one must know what following means. The same source defines it as, “that which comes immediately after.” So, what does after mean? Dictionary.com: “later in time than.” Ha! Did you catch that? They probably thought no one would bother following the trail all the way back to its beginning. It is as if fleeble were defined as “that which is fleeble,” or “fleeble is the fleeble between things.”

If a concept can not be defined without referring back to itself, it has no objective reality. And because everything – all matter and energy – exists in time and space, it follows that nothing exists. Now, you might be thinking that I have wasted a lot of space writing all of this and you have wasted considerable time reading it. However, as I have just demonstrated, neither one of us have wasted anything. And in any case, neither of us exists.

2.

Probiotics are all the rage. They are supposed to replenish the natural beneficial fauna in your body. But if you eat a probiotic yogurt or pill or whatever, won’t it be digested by your stomach acids? How could it possibly survive your digestive system to set up shop in your body?

3.

If the farther away an astronomical object the older the light, and we are looking back in time to near the start of the universe, how come that light hasn’t past us already? I mean, we started from the same Big Bang & the light from that explosion is traveling at, well, the speed of light. So, when we look toward the center of the universe, it seems like that light should have long since passed by us, since we have to be traveling away from the center slower than the speed of light.

4.

In the subjective reality of “The Secret,” what if two people who were experts at “the Secret” came to an intersection at the same time from different directions & both believed that there would be a green light for them – would they pass harmlessly though each other?

5.

And finally, if it is wrong to eat people, why do they taste so good? (Just kidding. Really.)

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Beneath this daisy lie some Suggestions for People Who Make Things…