In the West, we use the analogy of a glass half empty or half full to determine perspective and world view.
And there are many plays and derivative analogies online;
In the East, they use the cup full or empty to resemble the mind and teaching. Someone with a full mind has no room for new things without losing either the new or the old. The idea of the cup comes from that of meditative or martial arts relating to tea cups, and can be used often in the decorum and society of Eastern culture.
If you were to combine the two analogies, the perspective of our five senses fills our mind with information. Thus the way we look at our glass is filtered and stored in the cup of our mind. Perhaps, the glass and the cup are one and the same, thus the thing we look at is a reflection of our internal representation as well as a metaphorical representation.
Meaning;
We can see a glass, but it’s not really a glass, and it’s not just a glass.
We can see a cup, but it’s not really a cup, and it’s not just a cup.
When we see a glass or cup, the light goes into our eyes and is processed into our mind, and that is the information of the glass appearing before us in our mind.
A simple packet of photon can be viewed as a bit of information, and we may be aware of all the photons that pass into our eyes, but we can only consciously process a limited amount of the bits per second. Therefore even mechanically our hardware of biological limitations filters our perception.
Of the bits that are processed, the photons and material information is perceived through our senses, and then when it enters our mind we have meta-cognitive filters to assign judgment labels and thoughts and correlate the perceived subject or object with our own internal mechanisms or subconscious underpinnings.
Meta-cognitive filters are things like, good and bad, or ideas and concepts. We assign a sort of judgement value on things based on our comparison of the thing we perceive with this idea or concept in our head.
At the same time, the glass/cup is a representation for our mind, whether it is empty or full and what we can focus on and what we saturate our awareness to. If we focus our life and being and essence into one thing, we won’t focus on other things or overlook other smaller or finer details unrelated.
When we think of the item or the ideal form or the ‘meaning’ of a word, we have for it it’s connections and relations with other thoughts and things in our own mind. The whole glass half empty, half full, nonexistent, etc. are the superimposed labels that we give using our language that shapes the perspective from a ‘software’ standpoint. Adding the layer of our thoughts and perspectives from pessimism to optimism to whatever underpinnings we might have.
So we perceive the thing, and then we reconstruct it with our own perceptions/labels in our mind.
Our biological hardware filters what we actually see to a distinguished form. Then the distinguished form is further filtered by our own internal meta-cognitive filters, things like ‘the water looks hot because it has steam’ or ‘the water looks dirty because it’s discolored’, etc.
In Eastern Meditative practices, there is an idea of a ‘beginners’ mind. To look at the world as they are or as it is, without assigning immediately a judgement or label, like that of a newborn watching things, or that of a person just being aware of an abstract light show without assigning meaning to the abstraction.
From a nu-age spirituality perspective
I was exploring Reality tunnels, and how those might be correlated with what we perceive and filter. We, our minds and our ego, are sort of the judges that determine parts of the choices that we make to alter our reality. Our perception and our choices and our labels thus create a form of reality for ourselves.
I use different terms and definitions.
We create Reality Tunnels, where our existence and life is in a flow state much like a tunnel. We live in this moment, here and now, and with each movement and passing of time, we enter a new here and now. Moment flows from one moment to the next, this is our timeline (even though it’s more accurate to say Space-Time-line).
Our specific timeline is just one that we can choose to be on. It’s like a single train track from a bunch of infinite train tracks that we can go down, with each choice we take, we enter specific train tracks of time and space. Specific versions of ‘here and now’.
Each Train Track has it’s own tunnel, but these tunnels overlap with other tunnels and aren’t exactly barriers. It’s sort of a tunnel in the sense that it guides your awareness in a tube to a field of things that are near you. The more perceptible probabilistic routes of a train track, those become the span of the tunnel, showing you the next likely train tracks or timelines that you can be in. Note, I say ‘likely’ as in higher probability.
Again, there are infinite train tracks, but the tunnel sort of guides you (and your perception) towards seeing your ‘probable’ options and not your possible ones.
You can technically break the ‘walls’ of the tunnel by inserting a wild improbable thought pattern and habit that steers you off course, essentially you defy probability by introducing chaotic entropy. Even when you break the ‘stasis field’ of probability, you are following a track of possibilities that branch off, thus shifting your stasis field to follow with your new set of possibilities. The Stasis field being the Tunnel.
A stasis field is by definition a static field, a field that doesn’t move. In this context, I am referring to this static field of probability as something that has a fixed pattern that activates per version of ‘here and now’ that you’re in. So the given field of probability is static (based on your specific here and now), and your choice to go beyond that field is your own. As time and choices move you forward, you enter into a new stasis field, consider it just one of an infinite numbers proportional to the infinite possibilities. Thus – When you break out of a reality tunnel, a new tunnel emerges.
The things within the tunnel are within a stasis field of interaction and are able to be interacted with. Things within locality of time and space, to include your interactable environment (which has greatly expanded due to the internet), and the degree of possibilities that are within a highly probabilistic field, all of which can be considered the ‘stasis field’ of probabilities. Each choice with time and space, with objects and people, and internal decisions, all of which result in a path.
So the stasis field is static to your given time and space in the here and now. Within it, you can interact with objects, environment, people, or do nothing. Each interaction is a possibility, and the things within your probability are the more probable possibilities.
Or in another way;
You are moving through time and space. Each specific moment of time and space has infinite possibilities, and the most probable possibilities are shown in a tunnel or a probability stasis field. Each Probability stasis field is static to each moment. You can choose which possibility you want to entertain, but the likely ones are the probable ones in the ‘tunnel’.
Technically speaking, there are layered stasis fields based on time and space. Like there is a higher probability that you’d interact with things in your room that you frequent like the bed you sleep on, then the office you might work at, or in another country that you don’t live in. But this view works for a meta-stasis field, something beyond the ‘here and now’ and is focusing on interactions between various timelines. (various timelines like you today versus you in five years)
Some ideas for seeking improbabilities. When’s the last time you called a loved one for no reason at all? If it’s infrequent, try doing that. How about saying hi to a random stranger or even making friends and going off course. Or making a fruit basket and gifting it to neighbors. Or searching online for a random article then cross referencing it with a search algorithm app like Instagram for ideas to manifest into your life. Essentially you are breaking the routine of your life by doing things that you ‘normally’ wouldn’t do. Consider it fickle or spontaneous or impulsive from the outside observer. Imagine if you were playing a character, and you decided to do something ‘out of character’.
Even in a seemingly deterministic flow, there is room for creativity and intentional deviation. The question of Fate vs. Freewill is still up for debate, the answers are one or the other, or both, or none. And I don’t explore that in this article, I’m merely presenting a model.
Our choices we make narrow down the probabilities of the infinite possibilities. If we decide to jump in the air right now, there’s a few infinite possibilities of us -not-jumping- that aren’t happening because we crystalized a discrete moment in time to our past.
So our repeated choices and patterns and synchronicities keeps us in a defined set of train tracks or tunnels. This is tailor made and carved out via our own intention and further solidified by our choices. These are habits or routines that keep us within a cycle of looping train tracks spinning in a circle/cycle forward through time and/or space.
The Glass Cup of Reality Tunnels
Combining both ideas above, we have the ability to be aware of our observation and then to properly distinguish observations in our habits, actions, thought loops, and environment.
Then we can make a conscious choice to interact and engage with reality to self-determine the direction of our life and it’s flow to a discrete value or tunnel and live a life following the con-sequence of our actions/decisions. The Con-sequence, being ‘with sequence’ meaning what flows next in the sequence. (This happens, therefore this happens. A chain of actions to reaction, or cause and effect. A causal flowpath or journey or a Dao)
To Play the Game
If we imagine the above, as a game, here’s how the rules of life would ‘look’ like;
You are Here and Now. With each passing moment, is a new Here and Now.
Your ultimate goal is simply to live life, but you can have your own personal mini-game type goals. Things like getting married, making money, buying a home, building a business, or whatever side-quests you want to take. If you want to accomplish a specific goal, please guide your life towards that direction.
(One of) your most important tool is the ability to perceive things clearly, like glasses and cups. Your ability to see things clearly and filter your mind, will allow you the opportunity to see your opportunities. You can see your habits, your environment, your own thoughts, and most importantly your available options/choices. You can think of this as your rudder for which you guide your decision making.
You get to choose what habits and things you want to do, to include your thought loops and (by extension of thought) your emotional loops, and those things will lead you down paths.
When you stay in the same pattern and routine of life, you can guess and predict where you’ll be in the future.
If you decide to change your life to do something that breaks the loop or cycles, or if something else changes your life for you, then your new life and routine will be much different.
Time Space Prison
This is a sort of example to help solidify the concepts above.
There is another type of stasis probability field, a trap. Being imprisoned.
If you get sent to prison for five years for whatever malarky, then know that you are confined to a discrete space for a discrete amount of time.
So during those five years of imprisonment, the probability for you to do other things outside of prison are very low. Things like Going to Japan, Gambling in Vegas, Going to your favorite world event for your favorite hobby, watching other people’s achievements live and in person, etc.
Likewise there are a few probable things that are going to happen when you’re in prison. You’ll probably eat the same food, or sleep in the same bed for a while before moving, you’ll also probably get into a fight or unwarranted interaction, etc.
The chances of you committing a violent crime in prison when you’re not in prison is very very low. Likewise, the chances of you enjoying your time on the beach in Cancun while locked up in a US Penitentiary is also very very low. They’re at odds- and odds are probabilities.
The stasis field of prison captures you into a matrix of (perceived) limited possibilities and limited probabilities. In this context, to break the stasis field or the walls of the tunnels to your reality, would quite literally require you to break out of prison. You technically still have infinite possibilities, but it’s limited in the sense that a lot of those possibilities aren’t as probable or plausible.
So, a Prison is a Time Space prison and it also has a very strong stasis field. This is probably the best way to describe Stasis field that I am talking about, hope this clears things up.
Epilogue
Something worth checking out is Robert Anton Wilson’s ideas on reality tunnels
In writing this, I was using Quantum physics jargon, but realized it wasn’t conducive to the explanation because people would be stuck on the words. I find it funny that people strongly debate their misunderstanding of quantum physics. The whole ‘if you think you know it, you’re wrong’ and there’s parallels with quantum physics and the Dao. That the more you speak about and describe the Dao, the more you’re wrong because it’s ineffable.
“Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.” -Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching
Anyways, this article was weird writing. I don’t know if there’s a rule or something about starting a subject with a weird beginning and then laying down some weird (potentially lifechanging) philosophical thoughts. Maybe it’s to kick out the people who aren’t meant to view the information. I just wasn’t expecting to go down reality tunnels when I started talking about glass cups. So, consider that an interesting filter, that for whatever reason I felt compelled to require a starting torque to gain the momentum of insights within.
Hopefully I made it clear about all this reality tunneling jazz, not trying to ‘bore’ your mind, let alone your reality. It’s definitely a murky and fringe subject, but I’m sure by me posting this article, the idea is going to proliferate the noosphere of thought and be further refined by some remote person or entity.
Just slinging some words here and there. Also I hope I cleared up the meaning of a Stasis field. There is an immediate one locked statically with the present moments of ‘here and now’s and there is a meta-stasis field that is locked with space more than time. Meaning some spaces (and timelines) have higher probabilities for things to happen, to you or to others. Like the chance of getting hit by a car is much higher on the road than in your living room, but it’s never zero. . .
Your choices to shape and ‘take’ your reality tunnel is yours alone. Let words be the helpful tools or ‘signs’ that help you navigate and guide your reality tunnel experience based on feelings, logic, synchronicities and what ever else rings true for you. You know, because
Words Mean Things
(Additionally, I argue that all things are words or the logos. That all signs and symbols are words, and that each interaction with an object is an interaction with a word or discrete being or thing. But that’s a topic for another day. Also worth noting, our perception of the glass cup being half empty or full is similar to that of a looking glass. The glass or lens we perceive things. It’s relatable and the coincidence is surely a cosmic pun)
Words Mean Things 
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