The Making of Reality

Overview of Contents

1 Bricks for the Brain – How We Create the World of Things

1.1 From the Senses into the Box

This section explains how our perception and our mind convert a continuous stream of sensual impressions into a simplified model of a world consisting of individual “things”.

1.2 Language – Cement for the Model World

The things created this way are then assigned names, by which we declare them “objectively existent” – easily forgetting that language can only describe thinking models, but not “reality per se”.

2 A Stage for the World – About Space, Time and Other Dimensions

2.1 Space – Make Room for Things

Here we take a closer look at the term “space”. The term “dimension” is explained, and a four-dimensional cube is used as an example to illustrate how the relations in the known three dimensions can be extrapolated into higher-dimensional spaces.

2.2 Flat Out into a Flat World

This section introduces a hypothetical, two-dimensional world inhabitated by flat beings (“flabs”). This helps to make higher-dimensional worlds, which are actually unimaginable for us, at least somewhat comprehensible.

2.3 More Space for Time

Based on the flab universe, this section explains how time can be interpreted as a fourth dimension.

2.4 Space and Time Are Relatives

This section explains (without mathematical formulas) the basics of Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and thus the concept of four-dimensional spacetime, where space and time are not absolute conditions, but each observer has his own space-time coordinate system.

2.5 The “Elastoverse” – Space and Time are Flexible

This section covers the General Theory of Relativity, which also includes gravitation, interpreting it as a curvature of four-dimensional spacetime.

3 The Search for Substance – Does Matter Really Matter?

3.1 A Knot in the Nothing

Here we literally take apart our common notion of “substance”, until we find that matter consists almost entirely of empty space, and the rest is not very substantial either, as it is basically just “frozen energy”.

3.2 Strange Subatomic Surfers

This section shows that particles of matter have wave characteristics, which leads to the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, where particles are described as probability waves.

3.3 The World is Fuzzy

This section covers a central aspect of quantum mechanics – the uncertainty principle, which states that an absolutely exact observation is not possible. The more precisely we observe one property of a particle, the more “fuzzy” certain other properties become.

4 The Multiverse – A Space of Unlimited Possibilities

4.1 A Hole in Physics

Until today, in spite of numerous approaches, there is no generally accepted complete physical description of the world that would reconcile the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Furthermore, quantum mechanics leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and the most common interpretation poses some logical problems.

4.2 How Many Worlds Does the World Have?

This section presents the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is consistent with statements of the theory of relativity. It assumes the existence of countless parallel realities, which interfere with each other more or less strongly, depending on how precisely a conscious observer observes something (the observer himself exists in countless variants as well). This idea is used as the starting point to develop – using a coffee cup as an example – the concept of a higher-dimensional “possibility space”, which unites in itself all possible variants of the universe.

4.3 One for All, or All for One?

This section deals with the question of whether all parallel realities (and thus all variants of an observer) are “equally real” or one of them is the only “real one”. A fully conclusive answer cannot be given within this world model, but the suggested answer is a reasonable balance between the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics.

5 Navigation in Possibility Space – How Consciousness Steers Us through the Multiverse

5.1 Conscious Perception as Reality Filter

This section gives a definition of consciousness and explains how we choose a certain version of reality from the countless variants in possibility space with our act of concsious observation – thus becoming the creators of our own reality.

5.2 The Illusion of Time and Causality

There is no physical difference between past and future – from a higher-dimensional perspective, all moments and all possible developments of the universe exist in parallel. It is our own consciousness that selects certain “snapshots” from the spectrum of possibilities and sorts them so that they form a consistent story of life – a “fate” – as a path through possibility space. The “passing” of time and the principle of cause and effect are creations of our consiousness.

5.3 A Myth Called Chance

What is it that decides which of the many possible realities is selected by our consciousness? This section calls our conventional assumption of blind chance into question and presents experimental results, which prove that our consciousness has a targeted influence on so-called “random” events.

5.4 Echos from the Future – the Time Wave Theory

The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes that quantum waves travel into the future as well as back into the past. Only the combination of both wave types creates actual events. Combined with the idea of possibility space, this means that our present state of consiousness resonates with a “matching” variant of the future, which thus becomes the most probable future for us. Our “fate” is not a matter of chance.

5.5 Miracles to Order

This section deals with the “law of attraction” and shows that the influence of our conscious perception on our reality has very tangible consequences in everyday life and can lead to events that are magnitudes away from statistical expectation – miracles are indeed doable.

5.6 The Realostat – How to Create a Stable Reality

There is no reality without conscious perception – we create what we perceive, and we perceive what we create. This feedback loop ensures that we experience a stable reality, where miracles occur only rarely. Our own belief prevents strong deviations from the reality we consider “normal”.

6 Spirit Unlimited – Group Consciousness and the Creation of Collective Reality

6.1 The Illusion of Individuality

This section shows that our notion of clearly delimited, separate individuals is very questionable already on the biological and physical level. The role of our ego in this isolated self-perception is explained, and the idea of “group beings” is presented.

6.2 My World, Your World – Joint Realities

This section deals with the question why most people experience rather similar realities, even though everyone creates their own reality. The exchange of information between people plays a crucial role here. It creates joint truth systems, which in turn make sure that our individual realities fit each other. Our belief system lets us always encounter exactly those people and things that confirm our world view.

6.3 The Hypernet – Online in the Consciousness Network

This section covers an even more fundamental level of information exchange than the previous section. Beyond our everyday consciousness and our sensual perception, we have access to a giant pool of information, which we can also interpret as collective consciousness. This doesn’t only explain phenomena of extra-sensory perception, but also the complex networking of our individual realities, which ensures that they all fit into a joint frame of reality.

7 God on Tour – The Multiverse as a Consciousness Structure

7.1 The Soul Matrix – Cosmic Hierarchy of Consciousness

In this section, the term “soul” is defined not as a delimited “thing”, but as a flexible frame of perception. As shown by psychic and spiritual experience, this frame of perception can extend to include other people, things or even the entire universe. So there is no real separation between individuals on the soul level either. The entire possibility space can be interpreted as a structure of pure consciousness, in which more or less individualized “beings”, which are still aspects of the same whole, create different levels of reality.

7.2 God Is Empty

Here we question the biased term “God” and find that the highest level of consciousness – which might be designated with this term – on the one hand, contains everything that exists or could exist but, on the other hand, has no structure at all. Structure is created by consciousness filtering individual realities out of the superposition of all possibilities. We are all part of this highest level of consciousness – the difference between a human and God is merely the perspective of perception.

7.3 The Game of Creation

This section is a daring attempt to describe the process of creation from a “divine” perspective – beginning with the all-encompassing emptiness, from which increasingly differentiated realities are created by a gradual introduction of the observer concept, culminating in the “humanity experiment”, in which our souls tied themselves to material bodies so strongly that their divine origin fell into oblivion. Reincarnation is covered in this section, too.

8 Planet of the Apes – The Origins of Human Suffering

8.1 The Problem Spiral

Why do we have so many problems, even though we could – theoretically – create any reality we want? This section explains how we keep re-creating the same problems over and over with our conviction that we “must” solve them. Even advanced problem solving strategies involve the risk of slipping into such destructive compulsions.

8.2 A Survival Computer Going Astray

This section explains why we find it hard to turn an apparent problem into a challenge. The reasons can be found in our biological survival system, specifically our brain, whose functions are described here. Our civilization confronts this system with situations it was not designed for, often leading to unconscious thought errors with far-reaching consequences. Almost all our “problems” are based on imaginary dangers that our instincts believe they detect in actually harmless situations.

8.3 Things that Don’t Exist

Guilt, diseases, security and love – these “things” play a central role in our landscape of problems. In this section, these terms are examined in detail, and some fundamental misunderstandings are cleared up.

9 Happiness is Doable – Creating a Positive Reality

9.1 New Programs for the Survival Computer

We usually make our happiness dependent on external circumstances, even though all that actually matters to us are emotions. This section not only explains how our instincts create “problems” from harmless situations, but also presents some simple, but important insights that can reprogram the computer in our head so that it suddenly creates positive emotions under the same circumstances – which makes it a lot easier for us to manage and change the situation.

9.2 The Spiral of Happiness

The opposite of the problem spiral: If we focus our attention on things that trigger positive emotions rather than on problems, a positive feedback loop will cause more and more pleasant things to appear in our lives. At some point, this process starts running by itself – happiness becomes almost unstoppable then.

9.3 Beyond Thinking

This section is about the experience of pure consciousness, which does not think nor judge, but only observes – a state that is referred to as “enlightenment” in its ideal form. It is possible to watch oneself thinking without identifying with the thinking mind. This is the first step to liberation from the illusion of isolation created by the mind, and towards the experience of an all-encompassing presence.