Does a spider exist in the same universe as a human being? In one sense, yes, we can splat them. They can scare us. So in some physical way we exist side by side in the same world, the same universe.
But does this extend to our appreciation of reality? Does a spider intuit the same universe as a human? Does it inhabit, experience and understand in the same way as us? This, we have to conclude, is doubtful.
There is an important point here.
Much of the way we see the universe is based on our knowledge of it. Indeed, reality is a compromise between how the universe thinks it ‘is’, and how we appreciate how it ‘is’.
Reality – the universe – becomes a subtle construct based upon our consensual view of it, combined with universal realities that help to fashion the consensus. When a scientist talks about ‘laws of nature’, he isn’t exactly being honest. Some can be obviously seen as such – things fall – but other ‘laws’ are based on theory, and are the laws of ‘man’.
Consensual realities are not exact.
The human race itself lives in a cauldron of conflicting consensual realities, the most obvious being the ‘scientific’ and the ‘religious’. In either case, the ‘realities’ of our knowledge confirm the paradigm.
It is almost as if reality is like a vacuum – and knowledge abhors a vacuum, if I may paraphrase a famous scientific ‘law’. ‘Reality’ is flooded with how we think it ‘is’. And the ‘observer’ becomes intrinsic to the ‘reality’ we think we experience.
Let’s go back to the spider.
We can now see that it is feasible to say it doesn’t exist in the same reality as us, and the religionist doesn’t live in the same reality as the scientist. Rather, differing realities co-exist, intermingle, but are fundamentally different.
It is almost as if there are societal ‘bubbles’ of knowledge. But we can complicate the subject even more than this. I’ve written in the past of how the ‘law of large numbers’ leads to greater order dependent on increasing numbers involved.
I’ve applied this to the universe.
In effect, the universe could be made of layered constructs, with a lifeform being less ordered than a species; a species less ordered than a planet, a planet less ordered than a solar system, etc.
This is actually understood in ecology. Existence is constructed of interlaced ecosystems, each reliant on the other, and extending from the planetary ecosystem to the fungi between your toes. And it is unlikely that it understands its existence causes the higher function of a human scratching it because it itches.
The ‘systems’ of ecosystems can, I think, be transferred to the argument I am raising here. We can exist in our own ecosystem, which we recognize both physically and intellectually, but we could also, unbeknown to us, also exist in an ever-increasing number of ecosystems both parallel to ours, and larger with higher function.
We may well appreciate some effects ‘physically’ from those higher systems – for instance, we experience wider influences such as light and gravity (whatever they are), but this does not mean that our ‘understanding’, based on our own little ‘system’ is anything like as high as the larger interlinked systems ‘appreciate’ and react to.
Rather, from differing paradigms, thru lifeforms, to the nature of the universe itself, we could be part of an interlinked web of existences, which we have barely begun to experience and conceive. Existence, good reader, could well be ‘bubbled’.
© Anthony North, December 2008
GURU TONY – On gangs and things
This occurred in the 18th century, and is famous for characters such as Dick Turpin. However, again, minor trivialities led to horrendous crimes.
WATCHING CLOSELY – Fiction
PROF ISAAC GALISTEIN – On faddy stuff and us
That is to eat a little of everything. A fully balanced diet has to be the commonsense way. So why do so many ignore this good advice? I think it is to do with fads.
A TRADITIONAL WAY – Fiction
POLLY TICKS 
Somewhere along the line ‘service’ became known as a profit-making enterprise, and in being so, it allowed a huge expansion of what is termed middleclass.
A PERECT CHRISTMAS – Fiction
TECHIE WITHOUT A CLUE
It should be a mantra. Mindst you, what kind of a mind will the elderly have with constant video game playing? For instance, it seems the young gamers have a different kind of mind to the norm.
WHERE’S THE BODY? – A Cass Nova Detective Thriller
But how, when you consider the government has done everything in its power to increase social mobility? The answer lies in their hatred of privilege. Thirty years ago every area had a Grammar School, which took the top 10 per cent of kids.
WAXY AND THE XMAS TREE – fiction
DR ILLYA NESS
As gender traits merge, it could reduce fertility. Indeed, I’ve often argued that, if we destroy ourselves through environmental vandalism, we won’t go out with a bang, but, with no new babies, a fizzle.
ULRIKA VISITS EARTH – Fiction
With the advent of deep theorizing upon the ‘unexplained’ from the 1940s onwards, an old term was given new definitions. This is the ‘pseudoscholar’, a term heaped on many from Immanuel Velikovsky to Erich von Daniken.
Or so much of academe claims. Yet how ignored are they? Consider the new discipline of reconstructive archaeology. Here, experts build ancient structures to learn how they were done.
There is a distinct politicism in this. 
PAPPA RAZZI – on success, or not
It’s that you never knew how it looked in the first place. Indeed, most people who are different become different precisely because of this ignorance. But is it true that you can make it at present in this way?
BEHIND THE CURTAIN – Fiction
But a series of laws that guarantees the human rights of everyone is nonsense. The simple fact is, if everyone can claim abuse under the act for anything, we end up with no one being able to do anything.
THE THIRTEENTH STEP – Fiction
BEYOND THE BLOG 