Isn't this amazing? In actual, objective fact this is a static picture. Yet our minds create the sense of movement in it. (If you really want to get it spinning, click on the image to blow it up. You can get it to stop if you stare at one point for a couple of seconds. )
Do you know what's even more amazing? The computer screen on which you're looking at this, the desk on which the computer screen sits, the chair on which you sit--you, yourself, if you want to go all out with this--all seem to be static objects and yet, in actual, objective fact are collectives of infinitesimally small bits of energy whirling and swirling around mind numbingly huge expanses of empty space
I went to see Horton Hears a Who the other day and was reminded of all those late night conversations I had in high school and college about whether or not our whole universe is really a microscopic organism in some giant's big toe. And I recently read an article in a popular science magazine about the lively conversation among scienctists about concepts of a multiverse in which our universe is but one of an infinite number of universes.
What is "real"? Am I, as Chuan Tzu asked, a person dreaming I'm a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I'm a person? Am I a concrete independent person or a swirling pattern of energy? Am I a static two-dimensional image or a moving picture?
in Gassho,
RevWik
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