Donn,

Then again, a large part of reality is perception. The real question is why and why it’s a problem.

We live in an ideals based culture, where we think there is some elemental state, from the material to the true, but even the physical is more a tension between polarities, than any fundamental medium. Reality arises from things bumping into and pulling against each other, than this being an inconvenience. As for truth, math is supposed to be the arbiter of modern reason, but it finds itself out on the straggly ends of strings and multivereses.

The dichotomy I see as most informative, is between energy and form. Energy manifesting form and form defining energy. Galaxies are energy radiating out, as form coalesces in. Our bodies have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems procssing the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system processing the form/information guiding our actions. Motor and steering. Society has the organic social energies bubbling up, along with the civil and cultural forms coalescing in, then all the feedback loops inbetween. It’s thermodynamics all the way down. And up.

Consider the premise of God; Logically a spiritual absolute would be that essence of sentience, from which we rise/bubbling up. Not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. More the new born, than the wise old man. The consciousness seeking knowledge, than any particular configuration or brand of it. The light shining through, than the images on the screen. But those cultural forms have to do the defining, in the most reductionist way possible and that’s a long discussion….

Then another of my pet peeves is the issue of time. As mobile creatures, we have this sequential perception process, in order to navigate our environment, extended to narrating tales to one another, so we think of it as the point of the present, “moving” past to future, but it’s change turning future to past. Potential, actual, residual. There is only this physical state of the forms being manifest by the energy and time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. Energy goes past to future forms, as forms go future to past. The feedback between these processes and the patterns generated is reality.

Thermodynamics all the way down.