dump location for a working “model of reality.” Here I maintain my thoughts/opinions on what reality is, what it contains, and so on…
1 - Ontology
there are non-material components/aspects of reality that transcend material physics. by definition, they will never be explained or modelled by physics, since the latter is insufficient to penetrate beyond the material realm (bhautika loka).
this is easier said than explained or imagined, since our own senses and perceptions are designed for parsing bhautika reality (in general). but the implication of this is that models of reality based only on the general space-time paradigm are necessarily limited. to understand true reality we would have to transcend our own understanding of time, but that - as Einstein said - is a stubbornly persistent illusion.
fundamentally, i believe reality to be composed of 2 phenomena:
- Intent - analogous to potential energy/ purusha/ mind
- Instantiation - analogous to kinetic energy/ prakriti/ matter (these are loose analogs)
in sanskritic terminology, intent can be understood as “smṛta” and instantiation as “kṛta.” within each are several constituents, of course, but i consider this to be the most reductive essence of ‘what is reality’ - it is a flux-field of intent and instantiation.
2 - Nested Levels
as goes the mahāvākya:
yathā piṇḍe tathā brahmāṇḍe | yathā brahmāṇḍe tathā piṇḍe ||
or - as above so below, and vice versa. nested levels are a key characteristic of reality. the same patterns/phenomena instantiate at each level, proportionate to that level’s ordering. the infinite and still-expanding material universe is a petty matter when understood in light of nested reality. truly mind-boggling infinity is not in space-time but in instantiation levels.
this nested aspect leads us to a serious problem, one i call the insurmountable gap in human knowledge.
3 - Insurmountable Gap
remember, as a child, you might have asked - if god made us, who made god?
this is no pithy question. science itself is unable to escape it, for ever since the conception of the Big Bang we have asked - what happened before the big bang? Scientific pedantry reminds us that the question is meaningless. Since space and time were created with the Big Bang, and did not exist before it, asking what happened before the Big Bang is a meaningless query.
nonetheless our curiosities are not satiated with such a shutdown. this is because we are hard-wired to parse reality through causality. since we perceive the flow of time, and can discern ‘before’ and ‘after’ states, we can never stop asking - what was before this?
the problem is not solved with any level of imagination. in the simulation hypothesis we would ask - who simulates the simulators? in the world of the Matrix movies we ask - what lies outside the base reality?
this has serious ramifications. even if a reality-model is conceived that had no beginning and no end, and is thus simply a chain, we ask - why does the chain exist to begin with?
there is no end to this, no resolution that would actually bridge the gap. the insurmountable gap is hardcoded into the fabric of the universe.
4 - Thus There is No God
peers are unable to understand why I maintain I’m an atheist, despite the fact that I do believe in point no. 5 below. the fact is that with the nested levels and the insurmountable gap combined, I do not think there is any god-analogue mentality in reality. i recognize that this stands against the collective and reinforced wisdom of generations of ṛṣis, but it is what I currently believe regardless.
I believe that even Brahman, however we may define It, is also wrapped in nested levels and limited by the insurmountable gap. even Brahman wonders - what lies before it? who created it? what are its own origins?
in fact, it’s possible that the material reality we live in, is a dream/ experiment/ research/ simulation by Brahman to answer these very questions.
5 - Entities Exist
one way to understand my reconciliation of atheism with a subscription to large parts of dhārmika ontology is to reframe “devatās” as “entities.” there are countless variations of minded-bounded-self-aware-hood across all the nested levels. in our material reality, the minded-bounded-self-aware-hood manifests as all the species of flora and fauna we see around us (including us.)
but beyond that is a variety of analogous conscious phenomena across all levels, non-material from our POV but as “real” as we are. ancient cultures have always known this, and continue to engage not only with other levels but also with the diversity of entities in them. devatās are one kind of such entity, perhaps the “highest” that we are in engagement with. but at their own level, reality for devatās is as limitless, confounding, nested and insurmountable as it is for us.