The Layman'sGuide ToQuantum Reality

1 HISTORY

We live in a world, which is not as it seems. We know that the table that we sit at, and the chair that enthrones us, are as insubstantial as the air. We know this, but our eyes and minds insist that they are as solid and as real as they appear.

Recent discoveries in science have led us to new theories about how our universe works. Most of us were raised to believe that the material things around us are solid, that atoms resemble tiny Solar Systems, and that the environment obeys the same laws no matter where you find yourself.

Due to the Theory of Relativity and the Laws of Quantum Mechanics, we also know that our Reality is dependent on several factors and that our world is dependent on those factors, manifesting differently with their presence or absence. Because we expect our world to be hard and REAL, but we also know that it is malleable and changeable, we find ourselves temporarily living in a schizophrenic reality.

Both the nonscientific Layman and the hard, disciplined Scientist have problems wrapping their brains around the new theories' implications. The human ability to visualize and understand events arises from our early childhood learning process, where we first encountered thoughts dealing with the subject or subjects that we are reconsidering. If we learn that when we are in a high place, such as the edge of a cliff, we will fall off, we tend to accept that belief, even when we know that a harness secures us from any possibility of actually falling.

Historically, human beings have patterned their thought processes around a consensus thematic, with some legacy assumptions about Reality left over from the ancestral societies from which the current one as sprung. Let us run through a brief recap of historical assumptions.

We will start with the earliest time where we have any reliable data, about 10,000 BC. I am convinced that before that date, the human race had other civilizations that varied from the Paleolithic to as advanced as our current world, but we have little evidence to back that up directly, so we will ignore it for now.

In earliest times, the world was assumed to be ruled by Great Powers, and Shamanistic healings and Sympathetic Magicks safeguarded life in the tribes and clans. The Great Powers were not quite gods, and they needed to be placated, not worshiped. Think of them as Titans, or Giants. It took a master of Magick to control them for the benefit of the tribe.

With the advent of agriculture as a major source of food for the people, it became necessary that a contract exists between the Powers and the People, and so, our assumptions turned the Great Powers into the gods, who protected our interests in return for our worship. This contract allowed the people to settle down and tend the crops in the same place each year, and start to build cities such as Ur, Jericho and the rest of the ancient Mesopotamian cities, not to mention their counterparts around the world. This mindset was most likely well advanced by 8,000 BC.

Once the cities got going, the technologies started to develop like weeds in an untended garden. Among the advances were aqueducts, wheeled carts and chariots, animal husbandry, and materials advancements such as the building arts and metallurgy. These advancements allowed the City States to field armies equipped first with copper and bronze weaponry, then with iron weapons. They could also sweep through the enemy ranks on horses, or in chariots.

By around 500 AD, most everyone in the 'civilized' world who wanted iron bladed weapons had them, and the time of control of the world by gods had passed. Even though the new power in the world was the warrior with his shiny new sword, most people still had gods in which they believed, and stories of the war in heaven between the gods and the giants. There was a newborn idea of an omnipresent god (or God), and all of these legacy gods, but the real mover of the world was the warrior and his armies.

As the cities became larger and more complex, humanity developed a need to expand their knowledge base, to combat the problems of food production, foreign diseases and protection against ever expanding enemies. This push for expanded knowledge began a push for learning more of the secrets of the universe, starting in the 1300's, and continuing with an explosive expansion of scientific inquiry until today, or until about 1900 AD, before finding a contradiction.