Someone once told me that the world is upside down but our minds correct this and we see the world right-side up. Sky side up. This is not true. The world is right-side up and our eyeballs are curved like a crystal ball that focuses light onto the retina. The resulting image is a projection of the world-oriented upside down because of curvature. The brain does not care that the image is physically disjointed from reality because it can represent the data in almost any orientation. It just so happens that the most adaptive way to represent this data is in a way that doesn't disorient us and lead to injuries; right side up.
What if I told you that the world around you was actually made up of large waves. The floor that seems so flat and straight that you stand on every day is actually undulating and flowing like a steady wave swishing against the rocks. That your mind, from birth, has been correcting for this odd state of nature by filtering out the extraneous oscillations of matter and straightening the world out. Making it useful. Coping with reality for pragmatic purposes the mind manipulates and interprets the universe in a way that "makes sense".
What if I told you that as your mind was forming in the womb you began to see the world as it is; an infinite amalgam, a gelatinous kaleidoscope, a soupy stew of chemistry in motion. Molecules bursting and reforming. Absorption and osmosis. Cell division and quantum entanglement. All there before your eyes. Your skin was not a barrier but instead, it was a fine cheesecloth where molecular bodies eloped. In your ears, you heard the soft whispers of reality as it vibrated and cajoled.
Then, as time went by and the mind developed you slowly morphed the world around you by integrating and discerning inputs. Separating and combining elements and discovering patterns. Your mind, like the universe, churned and moved, creating its own perception of reality. And after birth, you continued to straighten out the world. Soon you learned a language, making the whole endeavor more complicated, rewarding and troublesome. Some are better than others at interacting with reality. Some attempt to probe its deepest mysteries. Some reach for the stars. Most don't care.
None of this is true, of course. You were never able to perceive the quantum world or cell division. As the brain developed it slowly began to perceive the environment from a more macro perspective. Our sensory organs are limited to certain biological parameters. These dictate the range of sensory data we can imbibe and modulate its representation. The size and shape of an eye, for instance, limits its magnification and focusing of light, its field of view and the number of and type of components, ie rods and cones, and potential nerve sites.
But reality is an undulating molasses of possibilities flowing about in front of your face. Our bodies are made up of the most complex set of biological structures, which are all composed of undulating quantum probabilities. Sometimes, with the help of drugs or other tools, we witness a bit of what the world would look like if we could perceive the quantum world. Reality would bend and sway. It would disassemble and reassemble before you.
Too bad.
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