
What we really know or our favourite social games
The main ideas of the chapter are:
1. Doubts about the certainty of knowledge: the author reflects on what people really know and how they can prove the truth of their knowledge.
2. Relativity of perception: He points out that commonly accepted truths, such as the shape of the earth or the position of the sun, are actually more complex and change with new information.
3. Skepticism toward absolute statements: The author expresses distrust of people who claim to know something „exactly“ and points out the potential bias in their claims.
4. The concept of time and day: Questions the real existence of time and days, suggesting that they are constructs created by human society and do not correspond to any physical reality.
5. Existence of only the present moment: the author argues that the only real moment is „now“, while the past and future are only concepts in our minds.
Thus, the author invites the reader to rethink their assumptions and realize that many things we take for granted are in fact only abstract concepts or distorted memories.
_____
Another frequently used question in many of the training sessions I have conducted has been „Please try to think calmly and tell me what you really, 100%, know“. I meant clearly demonstrable facts, i.e. not something we were taught in school, because de facto we „don’t know“, we have read or heard and learned…just how do we prove or demonstrate it?
And so there was mostly silence for a while and then suggestions were made, such as the Earth being spherical. Well…only it isn’t, it’s „conical“, it’s a bit shrunken at the poles – that’s why it’s called (or used to be called – I don’t know, I’ve been out of school for a while) a geoid. Or = I can see the sun over there, so I know it’s there! Sometimes I’ve been shouted at a bit angrily by clients 🙂 Well… the light has been coming to us from the Sun for about 8 minutes, so where we see it was a few minutes ago, so now it’s not there… Silly, isn’t it? That’s really why I’ve been so fascinated since I was a kid by people who know exactly what something is, and why they also inspire distrust and wariness in me – is that just weird or don’t you find it so?
And now to the games already mentioned. I don’t know exactly why, but a picture of a cartoon published many years ago has stuck in my mind. There were two fish in a fish tank and one was saying to the other „I can’t get used to it being Tuesday.“ Quite a primitive, almost silly joke, isn’t it? But do we realise there are no days? That the Universe, nature – everyone – doesn’t care? But say „Friday“ or “ damn it, it’s Monday again“ 🙂
A little provocation (perhaps to think about) = has it ever happened to you that you woke up yesterday or tomorrow? Isn’t it strange that when I wake up in the morning, it’s today again! Hey yeah, I guess you’re right – I’m definitely out of my mind! 😀 It’s just that there really is only NOW – nothing else really exists. The past is distortedly stored or more accurately – distortedly recalled from our memory and the future doesn’t objectively exist yet or? 😉
So too, for example, is time. Does time even exist? And what does it look like? When and where did it originate? Can we even imagine that it ever existed or ceased to exist? Again, very simplistically speaking – we have adapted to the „Universal Rhythm“ in the past and started to determine time by observing the celestial objects. First dawn, noon, twilight…then by the hour (have you noticed that there is only a small hour hand on an old clock?). Then we „added“ minutes and now seconds – but again a bit of a provocative question = why actually? Have you ever made an appointment with someone at 10:03:15? So what on earth are we doing? You can see where this is going, right? We’re always „rushing“ time, always „running behind“, etc. But time doesn’t exist – it’s just a game of our minds and our society. Don’t you agree?