Always a new rabbit hole

In cleaning up the manuscript of Rita’s World – getting ready to get it to Bob Friedman – I noticed a major loose end, and today’s response from Rita indicates that it involves a major revision of what she has been giving us. Eventually, though, not yet. It’s amazing how we never run short of rabbit holes to fall into. I start with the question and response from March 4th.

Freewill or illusion?

[John’s question:

[Can we (both our 3D and non-3D parts) in the process of experiencing the 3D part of reality actually make, or even influence, a change to that reality, or to anyone else in it? Or are all possible changes built in to the scripts we can choose from, giving us the illusion of changing the reality or “helping” others, but in the end all we do is change ourselves?

[To simplify for the sake of clarity:
At some point a stray cat wanders into my yard.
Script A I take the cat in, feed it, care for it, and give it a good life.
Script B I take the cat to the humane society, they can’t find a home for it, and have it euthanized.
Script C I shoo the cat away.

[There are a very large number of scripts, each of which we could discuss the possible effects on the molding of my soul. And we’ve already learned that alternate versions of me will take all possible paths, so the end result on molding John-in-all-iterations looks like it would be the same. But do I, or any alternate version of me, really affect a real cat, or is that illusion?

[I would expect that Rita might readily understand the issue and reword the question as necessary to bring clarity to it.]

I’m sorry, but this question is so shot through with misunderstanding as to serve chiefly to illustrate how one can misinterpret these illustrations if one attempts to force them into previous understandings. I am not chastising the questioner or criticizing the asking of the question. I am pointing out a specific pitfall that from time to time is going to entrap nearly everyone. (And, when you have fallen into a pit, the productive thing to do is not to berate yourself for having fallen into it, nor to bemoan your fate, and certainly not to blame another for misleading you, but simply – climb back out again, and proceed anew.)

So –

The model we have constructed (and remember, models are constructed for a purpose, and to match a specific situation — different purpose, or different situation, different model) that model is of a reality in which all possible versions of the reality spring into existence as potential “paths” not as the path is trodden [that is, not sequentially] but ab initio. From the beginning. Inherent in the nature of the creation. So where is the scope or possibility for adding to reality – which, in context, is what changing reality would mean.

But this question contains the roots of many a disquisition that we don’t have time to even fairly consider here, in these few minutes remaining. Perhaps we should resume with this question, so let me finish saying where it is wrong, and next time we’ll look at where it points us that may be productive.

Don’t allow yourselves to be confused by the question of which version is “real” They are all equally real, which means they are all equally theoretical. Think about that.

And there we will have to leave it, till next time.

All right. This has been an interesting session to experience. I felt even less “with you” in your explanation yet even more “with you” in its transmission, than before. There’s always a new rabbit hole, apparently.

You will notice, looking back, that this newer sense of things did not manifest during our discussion of the first question, only of the second. And perhaps we will discover why, as well.

So you’re into cliff-hangers. Are you writing for television, too?

Till next time. Don’t cling to [doing] this.

Okay.

[But, inexplicably, we never came back to this question! So, in reviewing the manuscript for the book, I decided to try to tie off this loose end.]

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Rita, I made note to pursue our subject of March 4 that we inexplicably dropped. Can we go into that now? If I get something to transcribe, I will include John Wolf’s question, for reference.

[John’s question was, do we actually change reality, or can we only change ourselves?]

Several questions are worth pursuing.

1 Changing reality. His instinct is right, what we “change” isn’t quite right, in context. I know that “choice” seems to imply “change.” This is true in the sense that a traveler choosing to go to St. Louis changes what happens to him – hence, who he is, in essence, eventually – by choosing not to go to Cincinnati. But it isn’t true in a more drastic or dramatic sense. It would be closer to say you chose to experience this set of circumstances (outer and inner, or so it must appear) rather than others. They both sets exist. You aren’t creating or hanging anything, exactly. You are changing what you experience.

However –

Your lighting up one version of you rather than another, at the particular time you do it, and in the particular circumstances surrounding you, does change the momentary flavor of things, for you, [and] for the universe. It is as if you were the program director for a TV network, choosing to show this film rather than another that was also available. For the time that the film is played, you will have changed the overall scheme of things. You will have lit up the sky in blue rather than green; affected everyone around you (like a stone dropped in a pool) to one effect rather than to other effects you might have chosen to produce. In that sense, you changed things. In another sense — the composition of things, call it – you didn’t and couldn’t have done.

But that is enough on this for now, for we are still building a model, and there is good reason not to contradict the model prematurely.

I will insert this after the March 4 entry, even though I’m receiving it June 16, for the sake of the book.

A better way might be to put it at the end, chronologically, so as not to interrupt the flow.

Yes, but the series has a natural ending point as is.

Your decision. Every decision has the drawbacks of the advantages.

Thanks, Rita. I assume you know Bob sent me a contract for an October publication.

I do. Good work, all concerned.

And we’ll talk to you later, or, as you used to say, “talk to you soon.”

Both true, just a point of view expressing.