Quantum Realism Part II. The Observer Reality
Chapter 7. Being the Observer
Brian Whitworth, New Zealand
“I am because I am”
Download Whole of Chapter 7 Part 1
Mystical claims about the nature of reality are often ignored by science, as they involve inner experiences that others can’t see. Science isn’t restricted to things, but it does judge by physical results, not inner experiences. Yet if we live in an observer-observed reality, where science studies the observed to get knowledge, why not study the observer as well? If observer and observed are part of one reality (6.3.15), why not study both??
The physical view is that the observer can never be observed because a thing can’t observe itself. The other view is that the observer isn’t a thing, but it can be experienced. If the observer experience is real, then to study it is to study reality, so did mystics acquire knowledge by being the observer?
This chapter explores the idea that science and mysticism are alternate ways to explore reality (Figure 7.1), by studying outer things and the inner observer experience, respectively. If so, both methods are based on results, whether physical or experiential, that can reveal reality. This proposal, that science and mysticism complement rather than contradict each other, is now investigated as follows:
1. Premises. What are the premises of mysticism?
2. Possibilities. What possibilities arise from these premises?
3. Practices. What practices does it advocate?
Each part leads to the next, as premises lead to possibilities that in turn imply practices.