The “Everything Is” Project
This is a demo project based on the Bubbles and Tubes platform. Like the platform itself, bubble projects also include their own ecosystems and constituencies of collaborators
Where Bubbles and Tubes is a platform to host many kinds of bubble projects, Everything Is is the first bubble project proposed for it. In fact, Bubbles and Tubes was inspired by the need of the Everything Is project for a vehicle that could meet its particular innovation and communication needs.
Everything Is a personal belief about the nature of reality that posits that every possible reality exists at once as in a singularity. And I (and we) live in that ambiguous reality with minimal confusion because my senses evolved only to experience that which is critical to the survival of my sense of self. I am (my self is) an ongoing construction and maintenance project that is radically ephemeral in the face of an overwhelmingly pragmatic feeling of being physical.
My world is a space full of bubbles representing an infinite number of ridiculous and conflicting realities (momentary experiences of Now). Fortunately, since everything is, there is also at least one reality that makes sense to me while I unconsciously filter out all the others because they don’t make sense to me.
Everything Is is a sense making project based on solipsism, the idea that the only thing we truly know is real is what we think Now. The idea has never been refuted but it has been universally dismissed as too unwieldy to be useful or meaningful. Since no other philosophy or religion seems to offer anything much better, we are betting solipsism may indeed offer a coherent way of understanding realities.
If there is no inherent meaning, then we must make our own meaning in order to stay sane (i.e. make sense or maintain a coherent sense of self.)
Everything Is as basis for new belief systems
We think there is a need for a coherent new belief system, one that provides its followers with the emotional support and inspiration they need to make sacrifices for the benefit of their physical and mental environments. Traditional religions are failing because of their anti-scientific history of actions based on absurdities and tribalistic alignments. Rationalism, although based in science, is also failing because it seems to be a cold and remote altar to materialism. It denies all of the magic that builds and binds spiritual communities and offers nothing coherent in return.
Everything Is takes the proposition of the Many Worlds Theory of Reality and asks “If reality is a matter of infinite realities, how can we work with that to find our own meaning and purpose? How can we make sense of anything in a realm of total ambiguity?”
A few authors and philosophers provide worthy perspectives that may support the proposition of Everything Is, most notably Eckhart Tolle and Richard A. Watson.
The point of Everything Is is not to offer ready-made answers to the big questions but to offer a heuristic upon which people can explore, build and share their own sense-making belief systems. It’s a framework that will allow people to reflect on and engineer their own personal worldviews. Even so, within this new philosophical framework, they may still come back to their traditional religion and its community, if that’s what works for them. Others may cobble together their own new belief system helped by contributions of a community of like-minded seekers. The only caveats are that any newly framed reality must recognize there is not one single reality; that any reality is a mental construct; and that beliefs of reality must be logically self-consistent.
Constituents of the Everything Is Ecosystem
Spiritual Thinkers: Religious and Secular
The danger of any new belief system is that the best elements of traditional religions may be thrown out like proverbial babies with the bathwater. On the other hand, some traditional religious organizations today are recognizing the ineffectiveness of preaching absurdities, especially when those absurdities undermine the truly valuable learning at the core of their beliefs. Today’s most critical philosophical tension is not religion versus science but rather, dynamic resilience versus fundamentalist dogma whether the dogma issues from magical or atheist thinking.
Philosophers
Traditional Western philosophers have been charged with a cover-up. While the goal of eudemonia is commendable, philosophers since Descartes have sidestepped an inconvenient truth in their quest to find paths to happiness and well-being. When Descarte said “I think therefore I am”, he did not say what he was other than a thought. With that and with the extremely convincing effectiveness of a Newtonian physicality processed by our very limited sensory apparatus, philosophers and the rest of us happily rushed to embrace materialism, scientific or otherwise.
Consciousness Researchers
Neuroscience is providing tantalizing glimpses – sometimes counterintuitive - into the ways that humans sense, process and construct their mental models of their worlds. Brain physiology meets evolutionary psychology.
My personal bubbles as a demo and invitation gambit
While researchers, philosophers and others may contribute bubbles of experience or knowledge, the aim of Bubbles and Tubes is for individuals to share the ways that they integrate such information (Phi) in their own thinking and maintain integrity. The hope of Bubbles and Tubes is that it may actually help people make positive change in their lives. To that end, the most helpful thing individuals can share to help others is their own candid revelations.
I have a story to tell with Bubbles and Tubes that shares my frustrations, learning and failures in life as I seek to change. I learn from philosophy, science and art how I might improve my thinking. In other words, I am using Bubbles and Tubes and Everything Is as a form of self-therapy. And I’m using it as a way to make friends with others willing to also engage the platform candidly in the belief that self-revelation will help others as well as themselves.
My Singularity: First bubble video and demo for a series
The plan is to produce a series of short videos that introduce the Bubbles and Tubes format and uses it to tell my personal story of Everything Is.
A draft of the script for My Singularity is attached as are a couple of rough video tests providing hints of the look and feel for the video in production.
This doc is a little dated now; some of my ideas and plans have since evolved. But I'm pleased that it still captures the overall concept, and reminds me that the primary promise is entertainment.
I've decided, instead, to go with a demo concept that is not so challenging or grandiose. This story can wait for awhile. The idea behind 'Everything Is' is to provide ground for engineering of a secular religion like Alain de Botton envisions in his book Religion for Atheists. The working title of the demo underway now is My Mind (link to script at bottom).