The terrifying truth!!! There is no objective reality. And that means...that what we thought everything means, might not mean anything at all.

What's up homies?  I'm going to update my status with what I've been thinking about lately.  I hope some of you take the time to respond with any insights you may have about this.  If you get to the end there will be a picture of kittens doing impossibly cute shit.

Speaking of impossibility:

Let's examine the impossibility of explaining phenomenological consciousness.  We can explain the physical states of the universe with language because language is a tool, based in functional physical reality.

This thing here?  That's a rock. 

That rock, it's brown, it's made of various minerals, it weighs a pound, it's cold.  Easy using words to describe objective third person reality.  Boom.

When we try to explain what something feels like we can only attempt to express it using words.  Words are nothing more than physical tools used to describe the physical world.  The words themselves are created by physical means and interpreted in our brains in terms of the actual physical vibrationsof air molecules.

But behind this we all have experienced consciousness that is not physical.  When I say to you "I am happy"  what does that mean?  Words can help us describe the act of being happy.  They can create sentences that describe physical situations that often lead to happiness.  I can say that "my heart was racing, I was sweating and I felt short of breath."  This explains a physical set of circumstances that might be correlated to Happiness. But it does not describe what it feels like to be in a STATE OF happiness.

This is the basic proof that consciousness, the state of FEELING happy, is not a physical state.  It is something beyond the physical reality.  And we cannot use the physical to describe the non physical.

It seems to go without saying that there are phenomenological states that exist outside of physical reality that words are useless for. Again we are talking about  what if FEELS like to be happy.  Words cannot easily or accurately describe this.

Hence we are all familiar with the term "words couldn't describe it"  Certain feelings constantly arise in us that are unable to be described by words.  Because these feelings (consciousness) do not exist in a physical reality.

Some people "feel" something when viewing abstract art.  I usually feel angry.

This is why we admire writers, artists, photographers and musicians.  These people, through practice and clever manipulation of words, light or sound are able to create the effect of feeling in us.  The best writers are able to create this effect and even leave the impression of having descried the feeling itself.

In reality great art leaves us with the impression of having something revealed to us.  But it's merely a trick.  It's one of the few times we are forced to examine the nature of our feelings.  Great art demonstrates our utter lack of understanding, and only further exposes the complete inability to describe consciousness with physical representations.

The dominant view of our current scientific zeitgeist is that all of consciousness is explainable in physical terms.  The idea is that we've demonstrated how the brain creates physical states.  Once we map the brain down to the atomic level we will be able to explain everything in terms of objective, measurable physical reality. 

There is a fundamental nearly fatal flaw in this reasoning however.  While heart rate, sweating, physical responses can be measured by objective third person observation.  How I FEEL WHEN I AM HAPPY is entirely first person objective.   You need to ask me to explain how I feel.

As a crude example.  I am at a party.  At this party I laugh and joke, I shake hands and mingle freely.  To all outside observers I am clearly happy.  And in fact brain scans will show lighting in the "drinking rum and laughing" centers of my brain.  However I can be truly miserable.  The outward physical actions I am taking and the behavior that can be objectively measured do not for certain align with my internal first person subjective mental state.  They are not measuring the same thing.

The subjective nature of consciousness was perhaps best described by the 20th centuries
 great philosopher "Smokey Robinson and The Miracles" in
 their  seminal philosophical treatise "tears of a clown"

Interestingly much of quantum physics relies on the presence of an observer to create an objective reality.  We cannot know where the quanta will go until we witness it.  Experiments over and over show a single quanta simultaneously going through two slits in a barrier.  But when an observer is present the quanta goes through only one.
The "Double Slit Experiment" as well as the famous thought experiment demonstrated by "Schrodingers Cat" are only two of many examples of the materialist objective reality worldview being shaken by advances in the findings of quantum mechanics.

This is still a dangerous and puzzling mystery to mainstream materialist orthodoxy.  The presence of the observer should have no effect at all.  And the fact that is does is a massive hole in the materialist worldview.

This shit here is completely ridiculous.  Luckily it's so hard to understand that
 people barely register the implications.  If it was any easier
to understand our heads would all explode.

The specialization of our society has made it harder and harder for people to synthesize findings across fields of study.  But the findings of quantum mechanics seem to assume that there is a difference between objective reality when there is an observer present.

This leads to the conclusion that consciousness is a force of nature.  And believing this leads to whole mess of very difficult implications for what is and is not possible.

Also I totally lied about the kittens.  (You really need to watch that video.  Consider it a reward for getting through this.  Wow.