Archive for May, 2010

How Lost illustrates our difficulty in understanding our quantum reality

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about how the reaction of fans to the TV show Lost shows the choice we make in living life.  The fans’ reaction to the storylines also shows why it’s hard for people to grasp how both the new science and the new spirituality say we create our reality.

While Lost’s plot line over its six years is one of the most complicated I’ve seen (if not the most complicated), I want to focus on one aspect.  Supposedly an ‘incident’ took place 30 years before the plane crashed in the pilot episode of the show, and the fallout from that incident led to the plan crash that was the start of this series.  At one point, some of the characters in the show travel back in time 30 years and do something to change that incident. Their hope is that they will prevent the plane from crashing and so prevent the suffering all the survivors went through in subsequent years.

The thing is, when they do this, they don’t ‘reset’ the timeline.  They create a second, alternate timeline.  The first timeline with the plane crash continues on with these characters, and there is now also another alternate timeline where the plane doesn’t crash and the same people go on with their lives in the ‘real’ world.

This has caused great consternation and debate among fans as to which is the ‘real’ timeline.  There’s huge debate over this on the internet.

In truth, there is no ‘real’ timeline.  Both are equally real, and this is what the fans have difficulty understanding – and the difficulty most people have with our everyday reality.

The fact is, in a quantum world, every time we make a decision, there is another quantum reality that is created where we made a different decision. There are an infinite number of alternate quantum realities in existence, all in parallel, where different choices have been made, one after another.  No choice is right or wrong.  No choice is better or worse.  They are just different.

And the truth in the above paragraph is incredibly tough for most people to grasp.  Truth to tell, it makes my head hurt trying to grasp the infinite number of realities that have come into existence over time.  And yet, this is what the latest science is showing us.  It’s not just when big things are done like in Lost to change the ‘incident’.  It’s everyday choices that manifest new alternate realities every day.

The reason people have difficulty getting this is that we are in a transition from classical, Newtonian-type thinking to quantum-mechanical thinking, and also from moralistic ‘right-wrong’ thinking to seeing each choice as just a choice, not right or wrong.

Hollywood has also trained us to think there is only ‘one’ reality with movies like Back to the Future and innumerable episodes/movies of Star Trek and much more.  In Back to the Future 2, Biff (the ‘bad guy’) went back in time and gave his younger self information that let him change the world.  Marty (the ‘good guy’) had to go back, straighten out what Biff did, and make things right, as if there was only one timeline.

The reality is, the first two movies of this trilogy would have created at least 4 timelines. There was the original timeline before  anyone time traveled. Then there was the one after the first movie, where Marty made some changes.  Then there was the one where Biff corrupted the ‘present’.  And finally, the one where Marty ‘corrected’ the present.  All 4 of these timelines would continue in parallel, and all are equally ‘real’.  You can’t go back and ‘reset’ the past.  You can only create a new reality.

So what does this mean for day-to-day life?  Well, we often struggle with choices – what’s the ‘right’ choice in a situation?  We can think and anal-yze until the cows come home and still be troubled for years afterwards, if not our whole lives.

To me, this says that, once I make a choice, live it fully.  There’s another reality where I made another choice, and that experience will happen there.  Here, I have to commit to the choice I make, and double-guessing doesn’t do any good.  It also is another aspect of how we create and manifest our reality every day in every choice we make. We literally do create a new reality based on how we act and how we think every single day.  What reality do I most want to live?  What feels most right for me?  I’m not living some other reality.  I’m living the one I create each and every day.  How can I live that to the fullest?  That’s my choice.  What’s yours?

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What Lost can teach us about life

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

After six years, the television show, Lost is coming to an end.  It is an amazingly complicated show, with a devout fan base, and the reactions of that fan base, especially as it comes to an end, show us the two choices we have to living life.

Those who haven’t watched Lost for six years generally just shake their heads and are totally, well, lost.  It started as a plane crash on a deserted island.  Then it incorporated flashbacks into the lives of the passengers before the crash, then flash-forwards into their lives after some of them escaped the island, time travel, flash-sideways into an alternate timeline and a deep pseudo-science/mythology that’s slowly being revealed after many mysteries and hints over six years.  If you haven’t followed it for most of its run, it’s a tough show to get into.  Kind of like life (although we only time travel in one direction).

At the same time, Lost is a powerful character story, delving into the lives and personalities of the core characters who you really come to care for and about.  It’s amazingly well-written.

The primary cast of the fifth season in a prom...
Image via Wikipedia

Over the six years, the show has created mystery after mystery, and much of the fan base is looking for answers as the show ends.  AndI think that’s totally the wrong way to look at this show, as it is the wrong way to look at life.  The show is not about the answers to all the mysteries – it’s about the journey.  How did you feel over the six years of the show?  Did you get excited?  Did you get angry?  Were you sad?  Lost has created some incredible hours of drama (many of them in this last season – episode after episode blew fans away).  That’s the value of this journey – not the answers to all the riddles, but rather the ride itself.

Just like life – it’s not the goal that matters.  We never will end life with all the answers.  It’s how we lived each moment. Did we live each moment sucking it to the marrow for everything it gave us, or were we focused on some undefined future that we may or may not achieve – and if we do achieve it, that passes in moments?

The value of Lost is in the amazing journey it afforded us, and kudos to Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (known to Lost fandom as ‘Darlton’) for creating such a landmark series that has already left television changed for all time.  I’ve enjoyed the journey and am delighted to live these final few hours out for all they offer.  Hats off to you, gentlemen!

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