NOTE:  Expanded explanation to prevent confusion as promised yesterday

Dear friends, for the next few posts, I shall address the difference between what is called reality and that which is Actual. By Actual, I am referring to the essential, underlying structure of this universe–as it is, in and of itself. Such structure encompassing the totality of existence–both physical and aphysical.

Reality is not the same as Actuality. Actuality is the Absolute Primary, while, our reality is no more than a useful secondary phenomenon generated by an animate, human mind-brain. Moreover, your personal reality is present when you are actively dreaming and during normal wakefulness.

During wakefulness, sensory data constantly impinges the surface of our bodies, such surfaces being the interface between what is within and what is without. The eyes, the ears, the tongue, the nose, and the skin are all interface organs.

From this richness of sensory information, the central nervous system filters out all data which is not immediately relevant to the matter at hand; interacts with our several memory systems, and generates a virtual map which is back-projected onto the appropriate physical objects providing the sensory data. Subsequently, during wakefulness, the sum total of each the physical world generated from sensory data is merged so to form a local virtual world image filled with animate and inanimate objects. There is no ‘theater of mind’ in the human brain.

These mind-brain virtual worlds generated from similar physical surroundings by individuals are amazingly consistent with each other on self-report (barring hallucinations). Moreover, each responds similarly to specific optical and auditory illusions. The reliability and predictability of science is the strongest evidence for validating the overlay of a realized physical world upon a primary existing physicality.

Type I Reality is defined by the general mental overlay of the virtual physical with the actual physical during wakefulness. As we shall see tomorrow, it is not exactly accurate to say that our acting-receiving egos are present in the physical, as our bodies are; rather, our egos exist solely in the virtual physical.

Before moving ahead, it is important to understand that there exists an unsurmountable experiential barrier between the coordinate mapping manufactured by the sensory-evaluation neuralware and the images we perceive in our mental space.

For instance, neuroscientists have embedded microelectrodes into the hippocampi of rats and allowed such rats time to acclimatize themselves to a new environment. By observing ‘discrete on-off’ neuroactivity of individual hippocampal neurons in single rats, as they moved about their allotted territory, the experimenters discovered that each rat had constructed a new functional map correspondent to the actual geography of the enclosure. Such geoneuronal maps being sufficient, in and of themselves, to guide successful motor behavior of the rat, suggesting that the capacity to produce visual images in our minds is not necessary for biological functioning.

Robotics investigators have shown that robots can be constructed so to functionally navigate through rooms containing interfering solid objects using computer maps and not actual images.

Whenever, a computer scans a colored photo all that it does is decompose the scanned page into very fine squares and attaches a set of numbers to each pixel denoting hue, contrast, brightness and so on. Each pixel corresponds to a spatial point on the page, and such coordinates are later used to reconstruct a new map (meaningless in and of itself) onto your computer screen.

While, we are aware consciously that an image is associated with the pixel mathematical array, neither the scanner nor the monitor screen realize such.

Moreover, the immediate, external, three dimensional world is reduced to a two dimensional, discrete visual array on our retinas. Such punctate information being temporally processed and evaluated within several brain centers so to create a spatial map which is overlaid upon the physical (including reintroduction of the last depth dimension) so to allow accurate motor interaction with our surroundings.

From my perspective, it is irrelevant as to whether the one-to-one spatial mapping is accomplished using silicon circuit boards or neuronal nets, as both are purely physical apparatuses.

Subsequently, we are not incorrect in stating that the totality of the physical world is simply a mathematical mapping of one local part onto another in space. The physical world has no essential need for any kind of mental awareness, it only needs to transmit spatial and property information from point A to point B.

If the human central nervous system is not directly the source of the image we experience, then from whence do our images arise? Such question has been discussed for as long as philosophers strolled the earth surface. The most parsimonious explanation being that of the ancient mystics and magi, who postulated that we are actually twin beings composed of a corporeal body and a correspondent incorporeal body (the psychoempyreal, kesdjan, or astral body with its own set of organs. Even more amazing is the presumption of the existence of an incorporeal world overlaid upon the physical which our incorporeal mentality can recognize.

However, in the empyreal world, we experience the information conveyed as images generated by the imago operators I discussed previously, rather than the discrete mapping of the physical operators.

I do want to stress, dear readers, that my comments as to the operation of the empyreal world and its inanimate and animate entities are not proven–it is just one intellectual possibility. Fortunately, it does not matter as far as spiritual work is concerned. And you can thank the Higher for that.