151. Advanced Observer

Section 51 First update 1.23.2026

Materialist Ontology Against the Awakening of Thought

Materialist ontology is implanted in the minds of common thinkers—who are, at first, all people. Later, when some become enlightened, they begin to question the ontology they were given at birth. They start to realize that the world as they understand it and the world as they observe it may not necessarily coincide. Even so, it is extremely difficult to grasp how the world I see directly in front of me is not actually what it appears to be—or, more radically, how the world outside my mind is not what I take it to be.

In the latter case, it is easier to accept that my thoughts about the world may not correspond directly to what the world actually is. Thought and world are disjoined through space and time. What happens in my mind, or what I believe happened in the world—or especially in history—may not be what actually occurred. My conception of history may simply be wrong. I may be living in a reality that I believe to be one way, while in fact it was another.

Most people live their entire lives without ever becoming enlightened in this sense. They believe the world is a certain way and never discover that it might be otherwise.

Materialist ontology presents a world of “stuff”: lifeless objects that simply happen to exist without explanation. We encounter a world of objects, while being—or life—is treated as something scarce, rare, and anomalous. Life is said to arise randomly, through abrupt mutations or uncertain principles. Yet we do not question this uncertainty; we accept what is given without asking why or how it came to be, so long as we can see it directly. This is a “monkey-see, monkey-do” ontology: what appears is accepted as sufficient explanation.

However, reality is far more ordered, structured, and alive than this worldview allows. If we examine the world empirically and analyze the deeper strata of each object, we repeatedly discover environments of observers—of living beings. If we reverse our ontology—if we suspend the materialist assumption that the world is fundamentally composed of lifeless objects—and instead see a world composed of beings, of observers, the situation begins to make sense.

When we look at the same entities that materialism declares lifeless, but instead recognize them as forms of being, the world no longer appears as a random collection of inert things. It appears as a coherent, inhabited, and meaningful structure. The world is not primarily a world of objects in which life accidentally appears; it is a world of beings in which objecthood is a secondary abstraction.

Footnotes

1. Natural ontology: The idea that people inherit a default worldview aligns with Heidegger’s notion of everydayness (Alltäglichkeit), where the world is initially taken for granted.
2. Appearance vs. reality: This distinction echoes Kant’s separation between phenomena (appearances) and noumena (things-in-themselves), though your argument moves beyond Kant by questioning objecthood itself.
3. Historical misapprehension: The claim that one may live within a false historical reality resonates with Nietzsche’s critique of received histories and Foucault’s analysis of epistemic regimes.
4. Materialism as object-ontology: This critique parallels Whitehead’s rejection of “simple location” and the idea that reality consists of inert material bits.
5. Life as anomaly: The description of life as rare and accidental reflects a common modern scientific narrative, which philosophers of biology and process philosophy have criticized as conceptually incoherent.
6. Monkey-see ontology: This phrase captures what phenomenology critiques as naïve realism—the unreflective acceptance of appearance as ultimate reality.
7. World of observers: The shift from objects to beings aligns with phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty) and process ontology, where experience and observation are fundamental.
8. Being over object: This reversal mirrors Heidegger’s claim that Being has been forgotten in favor of beings understood merely as present-at-hand objects.

Being First, Object Second

Another fundamental difference between seeing the world as constituted by beings rather than by mere objects lies in priority. Whether we speak of objects as beings, beings as objects, or being as the object of inquiry, the implication is the same: being is primary, objecthood is secondary. Being comes first; objectification follows.

When mere objects are taken as the basis of our worldview, no genuine qualitative distinction exists between them. Matter, understood purely as “stuff,” is everywhere the same. One object differs from another only quantitatively—by size, position, mass, or arrangement—but not qualitatively. All objects are equally and equivalently identical as instances of the same underlying substrate. Difference is reduced to numerical variation.

Once the notion of the observer is introduced, however, this flat ontology collapses. What was previously non-qualitative suddenly becomes qualitative. The observer does not merely register differences; the observer institutes difference. Differentiation itself becomes a function of being. Things are no longer inert presences that simply exist; they appear as meaningful, functional, and distinct within an ordered field of experience.

In a world of beings, qualitative difference is unavoidable. This means that time itself cannot be understood merely as a neutral quantitative sequence. Events are not simply ordered by “earlier” and “later,” nor does history necessarily move from a primitive origin toward increasing advancement. The Darwinian narrative of linear development—of life progressing from simple to complex, from inferior to superior—rests on assumptions that may be mistaken from the start.

Indeed, how convenient it is for any worldview to place itself at the pinnacle of history. To say that we are the most advanced beings of our time subtly becomes the claim that we are the most advanced beings ever. Yet it is entirely possible that the world has moved from being to being in non-linear ways—forward and backward, inward and outward, collapsing and re-emerging. Evolution may not be a straight ascent but a complex oscillation.

Evolutionary principles typically assume that development must always move forward in time, that history exhibits a general “upward trend.” But this assumption does not follow necessarily from the evidence. Progression in time does not automatically imply improvement, advancement, or superiority. A step forward in time may represent degeneration, regression, or exhaustion rather than development. Even extinction, from the standpoint of the organism, is still counted as “progress” in evolutionary narratives simply because it occurs later.

What evolution actually demonstrates, at minimum, is not advancement but continuation. Nature records events as they occur. What matters is not whether life improves, but that life happens. Time preserves these happenings without judgment. The mere fact that something occurs is taken as its justification.

This record of events—this accumulation of happenings—is stored in the spacetime continuum itself. Information is not external to reality; it is inscribed within the very substance of spacetime-matter. Space and time do not merely contain events; they are the medium through which events persist, overlap, and inform future configurations of being.

Thus, life does not develop only forward in time. It develops backward as well, in the sense that present forms reinterpret, overwrite, and reorganize the meaning of the past. Being does not advance toward a goal; it differentiates itself through observation, memory, and relation. What endures is not progress, but the unfolding of difference itself.

Footnotes

1. Being prior to object: This reversal reflects Heidegger’s critique of traditional metaphysics, which privileges present-at-hand objects over the question of Being itself (Being and Time).
2. Flat ontology of matter: The notion that matter lacks qualitative difference mirrors classical materialism and mechanistic physics, where all matter is fundamentally homogeneous.
3. Observer as differentiator: This aligns with phenomenology, particularly Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, where meaning and differentiation arise through lived experience rather than passive registration.
4. Critique of linear evolution: Nietzsche famously rejected teleological and progressive histories, arguing that “development” is often a retrospective projection of values onto time.
5. Evolution as continuation, not improvement: This echoes Stephen Jay Gould’s critique of evolutionary progress narratives, though your argument extends it into ontology rather than biology.
6. Time as record rather than goal: The idea that time “keeps” events without preference resonates with Bergson’s durée and Whitehead’s process metaphysics.
7. Spacetime as information-bearing: This anticipates modern discussions in philosophy of physics, where spacetime is treated as an active participant rather than a passive container.
8. Backward development: The claim that life develops backward as well as forward parallels hermeneutic philosophy, where meaning flows retroactively from present understanding to past events.

This latter option seems to contradict a teleological ontology, in which history necessarily tends toward some goal. However, whether history is moving toward an ultimate goal is a separate question—one that lies beyond the former claim and beyond what our inquiry can definitively establish as true.

Although Aristotle famously states that all things tend toward a goal—toward their telos—he is clear that these ends are multiple and diverse. To say that all things ultimately tend toward a goal is not the same as saying that all things tend toward the same ultimate goal. Aristotle’s claim is that each thing tends toward the actualization of its own proper end. Teleology, in this sense, is diverse in determinations of attaining ends.

Nevertheless, every end or aim of every being ultimately relates in some way to every other—if not through direct correspondence, then at least by sharing the same reality, or even the same absence of reality. In either case, they remain bound within a common ontological horizon.

History, then, may indeed be progressing forward toward the actualization of a goal. Yet what that ultimate goal is remains unresolved. Determining the nature of that final end is itself the ultimate task of our inquiry.

Who is the most advanced observer? This is, in fact, the decisive question for determining our ultimate goal—or, more precisely, for understanding what the ultimate goal of history might be.

The phrase “advanced observer” contains a conceptual tension, almost a double contradiction. The term advanced refers to futurity, to forward movement in time, while observer suggests passivity, retrospection, and reaction rather than action. The observer is the one in whom the process is contained, as though the passive aspect of history encloses its determining active part.

The observer is the state in which history is apprehended from the past. In this sense, those who belong to the past may in fact be the most advanced observers. First, they have had more time of being—or at least more time has passed through them. Second, we do not know the magnitude of development they may have undergone, nor the extent to which they may have observed and comprehended the universe.

It is the people of the past who therefore present the most profound questions for our inquiry, precisely because we know almost nothing about them and are largely deceived regarding their true condition. The advanced observer, in this sense, would be a being from the past who can see farthest into the future.

Whether we ourselves are merely the remnants of this past advancement becomes an evident question when one looks carefully at the artifacts we use today, as well as those we attribute to antiquity. Both share a striking commonality: we cannot replicate them, nor can we fully understand their function or how they were constructed. They appear as anomalies within our thinking—as though our own minds are unable to grasp their function because we lack an understanding of their nature. We lack the worldview necessary to comprehend their reality.

This is analogous to a chimpanzee confronted with a car or a bicycle. Such an object does not belong within the chimp’s world. As a result, the chimp cannot apprehend its function, and therefore can scarcely grasp even its form.

Atom Spheres

The question of what atoms are has been discussed earlier, and the conclusion we reached is that atoms are the bare form of conception itself. Let us say that they are the void insofar as it takes on the most minimal possible shape: the sphere. This bare form has no identity of its own other than being the substrate—what philosophy has traditionally called matter—that which endures throughout change. The “change” here refers to potentiality: the capacity to take on any shape whatsoever. Yet a change in shape does not alter the form of the atom, because its form is fundamental. The atom remains a spherical void of some possible thing or things.

The changes that occur are not changes of the atom, but changes disclosed within it. These changes are the contents revealed by the outline of its shape. In this sense, the atom consists of tiny, minute grains of itself.

More precisely, the atom consists of more atoms—or rather, a single atom discloses an infinity of them. Within this disclosure, orientation, position, size, density, volume, mass, and similar determinations are all alterable. They change their configuration within the atom’s conception, that conception being its circumference. What occurs within this circumference changes; the circumference itself does not. This answers not only the question of what the atom is, but also the question of where the atom is.

When we ask, “Where are atoms located?” the question is typically met with a rudimentary materialist answer motivated purely by quantity. Classical atomists and their modern equivalents respond by saying that atoms are very small. Yet this naïve answer fails to account for the methodology by which atoms are empirically studied as ultimate and absolute principles of nature. The very aim of empirically examining atoms is to gain a limited glimpse of them as universal principles. Atoms lose this universality if they are reduced to nothing more than minute building blocks of nature.

This materialist response misses the point because it defines the atom by a specific quantitative measure—smallness—thereby contrasting it with the observer as something not large. We say atoms are small only because of the method by which we have come to grasp an image of them. We employ advanced magnification technologies that enlarge a tiny region of ordinary perceptual experience in order to reveal details not accessible to unaided perception.

Yet in any object we observe, we encounter a series of discrete measures in which further objects are disclosed within it. This does not mean that a single object is composed of many smaller objects. Rather, the atom is the object in which an event is disclosed, and within this event appear what we ordinarily call objects of sensation. It is not that things are made of small individual atoms arranged together; instead, atoms are forms that disclose an event in which objects come together as objects.

The event discloses the object, but the event itself is an object among other objects within a broader and more general dimensional framework that exceeds it. It is not necessarily the case that tiny atoms compose larger objects; rather, atoms are fundamentally events. If one were to “enter” an atom, one would encounter objects. Through any single atom, one could in principle access the rest of the universe—an infinity of objects. Atoms are passages of nature, or more precisely, passages into nature: portals through which an observer enters the world.

What we see under a microscope appears as objects similar to those of ordinary experience, but this is only because our resolution is poor. Our technology is so limited that it cannot grasp the full extent of the atom. The atom is so distant from our instruments that it appears glossy, covered with gleam, like a dusty surface. Yet as we move closer and enhance resolution, infinite details and qualities are revealed. This is analogous to observing planets from afar: they appear as dry, lifeless rocks, but closer examination reveals color, texture, valleys, mountains, perhaps even water and life.

Atoms are events because any object, in order to be known as an object, must be experienced by an observer. Without experience, there is no object—only nonappearance. Observing atoms is like watching millions of television programs playing simultaneously across countless screens. Atoms are events of time: all possible events.

These micro-events are discrete forms that disclose innumerable objects. They may be called event-particles, which constitute the essence of the atom. In other words, atoms are essentially these particles. These particles exist in parallel dimensions relative to one another, oriented in such a way that they do not directly interact or penetrate one another. They interact only indirectly, coming arbitrarily close—through gravitational or field-like relations—never touching, but forming an equilibrium of space.

Space itself emerges as the in-between of these particles: that which both separates and binds them. Space is determined by the particles just as much as it determines them. Space arises from these particles as an event that discloses them together, and this interaction is the event of time.

Time is not independent of the events that constitute it. It is not merely a schema in which events are placed; it is identical with those events. The events presuppose time as a principle disclosed within them. Relativity expresses this insight by stating that different events entail different times, or, as it is commonly formulated, different spatial locations entail different temporal measures. Location, once again, is a quality of the event.

The formation of planets mirrors the way atoms take on events. The difference between planets and the atoms they are said to be composed of lies in their immediacy in time. One operates at the shortest, most minute scales of time; the other unfolds across vastly extended durations. Planets are more general in time—larger, therefore slower; atoms are more specific—smaller, therefore faster. This process continues infinitesimally, and somewhere along this continuum lies the present of consciousness.

If we move outside the present, or beyond what can be conceived within a single stable framework, the physics of reality changes. The same reference frame that once disclosed a finite set of mutually limited objects transforms into an elongated stretch of spacetime. The conception is no longer stabilized by the speed of light but stretches into a wormhole-like duration of time.

Footnotes

1. Substrate and potentiality: This usage draws on Aristotle’s concept of hylē (matter) as pure potentiality that persists through change (Physics, Metaphysics).
2. Atom as universal principle: This echoes pre-Socratic atomism (Democritus, Leucippus) while departing from its materialist literalism.
3. Event ontology: The identification of atoms with events aligns closely with Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, particularly his notion of “actual occasions.”
4. Observer and object: This claim resonates with phenomenology, especially Husserl’s insistence that objecthood is inseparable from modes of appearance.
5. Parallel dimensions and non-penetration: This recalls Leibniz’s concept of monads as non-interacting substances coordinated through relational order rather than causal contact.
6. Space as relational: The view that space emerges from relations rather than existing independently parallels both Leibnizian relationalism and modern spacetime interpretations.
7. Time as identical with events: This position rejects Newtonian absolute time and aligns with both Bergson’s durée and relativistic spacetime.
8. Scale and temporality: The idea that size correlates with temporal immediacy echoes Plato’s Timaeus as well as contemporary discussions of scale-dependent physics.

Form and the Event of Observation

The question of the shape of objects in space follows a different logic from the way we perceive differences here on Earth. Objects within a planet are directly accessible to us; they interact within close proximity of space and time. However, when we consider objects—or more precisely, relations of objects—at astronomical scales, we encounter a different order of form.

Groups of objects fall outside one another, clustered at vast distances, forming distinct constellations that occupy the same general region yet remain separated from other groups. What is striking is that the outlines of these relations are neither random nor scattered. At certain distances, relations between components coalesce into a single discernible form, as though each component itself possesses a form in its relations to other forms.

Despite the scale, there remains a recognizable distinction between things. These forms are not arbitrary, just as the common objects of perception are not arbitrary. Each has a distinct and unique form. Yet form here is not identical with shape. Shape exhibits discrete differences, whereas form reveals a hierarchical structure of fundamentals. Some forms are more fundamental than others, and this hierarchy carries qualitative value.

At the most basic level, groups of relations exhibit spherical or circular form. This is because form is first a relation to itself: it must be one with itself before it can be differentiated from another. Space, which often appears as sheer externality in which we become lost, is simultaneously the unity that holds these distinct forms together.

Planets, by their nature, exhibit a fish-lens–like physical form.

Void and Entry

It is not that objects exist in nothing, as though they were merely placed into space. Rather, it is the nothing—the void—that exists within objects. This is why objects can be entered. The void is the infinite dimension through which consciousness moves, zooming into and out of form.

For example, one can land on a planet, and in principle enter into the molecules of its material, and further still into atomic structures. The atom is said to be infinitesimally small not because it is merely tiny, but because the void is the motion through which consciousness enters the dimension of the object. The atom is precisely this threshold-dimension through which consciousness passes via the void.

Clustering and Stellar Form

As one moves outward from a planet, then beyond planets into solar systems, and farther still, the motion away from objects accelerates. At these scales, the rate at which objects cluster increases, and this alters our conception of size. Stars appear larger and larger the farther outward we look into the universe. We are told that there exist stars billions of times larger than our own sun within the Milky Way.

These supermassive stars are not individual stars in the simple sense. Rather, they are the culmination of light from an immense number of stars appearing as a single luminous form. From a great distance, this collective light feels intensely hot and radiant, and the observer interprets it as a single star.

In reality, the observer’s reference frame has accelerated toward the speed of light. This is why it is called the speed of light: at this threshold, the extension of the reference frame itself becomes visible, filtered through streams of light that appear as stars rushing past.

Time Dilation and Parallel Events

As this process continues, the phenomenon known as time dilation begins to appear. The space between stellar objects warps, revealing differences in elapsed time between two clocks—or between any entities with duration. Time no longer appears as a single continuous flow. Instead, it fragments into parallel events, each with its own length, rhythm, and historical depth.

What we call a “black hole” is described as a break in the fabric of spacetime. In this framework, that break is a passage of nature into another temporal domain. Because these temporal domains are parallel rather than contiguous, the black hole mediates between them. It is not an equilibrium between objects in space, like a planet and a star within a gravitational field, but an equilibrium between two events in time.

One event is excluded from the other. They do not touch, do not directly interact, and do not occupy the same space. Attempting to pass directly through a black hole would dismantle an object, because the black hole is not a spatial corridor but a purely temporal threshold. An object that does not belong to a given time period cannot simply enter it without having undergone the necessary events that constitute that time.

Light, Singularity, and Identity

The speed of light is always occurring throughout space. A black hole discloses this process as a singularity. It is not that an observer reaches the speed of light; rather, the observer joins it. To reach the speed of light is to become identical with an event already present in the universe.

At the level of the speed of light, infinity appears as an indeterminate principle in which everything and anything is possible. But when the observer enters motion at this threshold, consciousness begins to differentiate time periods that can be observed. Infinity begins to take on particular form. Infinity is not something we aim to reach; it is already presupposed as the ground of appearance.

Objects cannot physically pass from one time period into another without traversing the necessary duration. This is why direct entry into a black hole is impossible. Within the black hole is an infinitely dense singularity—a motion occurring at the speed of light. An object attempting to enter would not be able to synchronize with this motion and would be torn apart.

Event Horizon and Observation

The outermost extremity of the spherical form that discloses an event—its duration—is the event horizon. This is the site of interaction between two parallel events. As an object approaches a black hole, it warps along the curvature of space corresponding to one event rather than another.

Although an object cannot physically enter a black hole, an observer moving at the speed of light would become identical with the singularity and thus with the black hole itself. Identity, not traversal, is the mode of entry.

We do not need to move at the speed of light to perceive black holes. They can be observed from Earth as distant phenomena. The first image of a black hole, for instance, was produced by combining thousands of images of the same region of space, eventually resolving the light emitted around the event horizon and translating it into pixels.

If an observer were to move at the speed of light toward a black hole, they would not approach it as an object in space. They would become identical with the event horizon itself—a stretched wavelength of light, extended across duration.

Footnotes

1. Form vs. shape: This distinction reflects Aristotle’s concept of eidos (form) as intelligible structure rather than mere geometry (Metaphysics).
2. Self-relation of form: The idea that form must first be one with itself echoes Neoplatonic and Hegelian accounts of identity and differentiation.
3. Void within objects: This inverts classical spatial ontology and aligns with phenomenological and Buddhist accounts where emptiness is constitutive, not privative.
4. Atom as threshold: Similar to Whitehead’s “actual occasions,” where reality is composed of events rather than substances.
5. Clustering and perception: The claim that scale alters perceived unity resonates with Kant’s insight that magnitude is conditioned by intuition.
6. Time dilation: Here treated ontologically rather than mathematically, aligning with Bergson’s critique of spatialized time.
7. Black hole as temporal boundary: This parallels speculative interpretations of black holes as horizons of information and causality.
8. Speed of light as identity: This recalls Spinoza’s notion that knowing something adequately is becoming identical with its order.
9. Event horizon: Interpreted not merely as a physical boundary, but as a limit of disclosure between parallel temporal events.

The question of whether the Earth is flat or spherical is not merely a problem of classification or categorization; it is fundamental to perception itself and to consciousness. The circle is often taken to be the most fundamental shape, yet it is not the most fundamental determination. More basic than the circle are linear and planar determinations—the line and the plane—and more fundamental still is the period or interval. These relations are the conditions through which a circle is formed; they are the forms that give rise to circularity.

The Earth appears spherical as a complex object because the human mind, when confronted with overwhelming complexity, cannot comprehend all details simultaneously. Instead, it reduces complexity into simpler, more fundamental forms—such as linearity, circularity, or sphericity. Because there appears to be infinite darkness between planetary bodies, and because these bodies are separated by vast distances structured by gradations of attraction and repulsion, they seem to be isolated entities moving through empty space. Yet it is possible that they are not “moving” at all, but are instead fixed within a larger form—a broader relational structure to which they belong as constituents and components.

The Earth appears spherical when viewed from a sufficient distance, as a straight line folds back onto itself into a sphere. Yet from the immediacy of lived perception, the Earth appears flat—perhaps because, at that scale of experience, it truly is flat. When we are on the Earth, it may be flat; when we are removed from it, it may be spherical. What the Earth is cannot be separated from the relation between object and observer.

Being, in this sense, is dynamic rather than fixed. Form is not an absolute property of objects but emerges in relation to perspective, distance, and the structure of consciousness itself.

Joining the Stream

Unless an object reaches the speed of light—at which point it would become identical with the singularity and enter an infinitesimal wormhole, a duration in which “the stars are whizzing by”—it cannot enter a different time period. Only at this threshold could an object pass into another temporal domain, because it would have undergone the time necessary to arrive at that point in time. However, reaching the speed of light is extraordinarily difficult and is generally regarded as impossible for physical objects.

If no physical object can reach the speed of light—or at least, as far as we know, none can—then the question arises: what other method exists for conceiving a different period of time? How can two entirely different temporal domains interact with one another at all?

We have said that a physical object cannot reach the speed of light, but we have not said that a non-physical object cannot. An abstract entity—such as an event, a thought, or consciousness itself—may be able to operate at the level of the speed of light in a conceptual sense. A mental process, insofar as it can conceive the speed of light, can also conceive time dilation. In principle, such a consciousness could perceive through a rupture in spacetime—what is metaphorically described as a black hole—into another temporal dimension.

Within this framework, it is conceivable that an advanced rational intelligence could be vastly distant from us in spatial terms, not because it originated far away, but because time itself has stretched space. As evolution progresses—from worm to mammal, from mammal to human—the celestial bodies that host these developments are no longer in the same spatial position they once occupied. The Earth, the solar system, and the galaxy drift continuously through space as time advances.

Thus, when a bacterium becomes a human, the location of that human is not spatially identical to where the bacterium once existed. This displacement occurs relative to all other possible and parallel universes as well. The simultaneity of space across divergent timelines renders objects within one temporal event increasingly inaccessible to objects belonging to another.

Yet between these parallel events, there may exist observers whose mental development far exceeds ours. Such observers need not move at the speed of light physically; rather, they may be capable of thinking at the speed of light. This does not mean acceleration in the ordinary sense, but a mode of cognition in which temporal separation collapses into intelligibility. These observers could remain within their own dimension while nevertheless perceiving others—peering through, rather than entering.

In speculative traditions, such observers have sometimes been referred to as “the greys.” Within this theory, this term does not denote a biological species in the conventional sense, but a class of observers advanced enough to perceive the spacetime continuum at the threshold of the speed of light. From that vantage point, they can distinguish particular events within the continuum and observe what unfolds there.

It is conceivable, within this framework, that advanced humans from a future epoch could be observing earlier periods of history—not through physical travel, but through abstract perception. They would not be able to interact directly, nor physically enter those time periods, because their bodies would be destroyed by the rate at which photons operate at that scale. But their minds, operating at the level of light-speed cognition, could apprehend those events.

For such observers, spacetime itself would appear as a fabric stretched to its limit. Parallel time frames would be visible simultaneously, not as places to be reached, but as events to be distinguished.

Beyond Speed: Approaching Everything

When one approaches the speed of light, “going fast” no longer means acceleration in the ordinary sense, nor does it mean being faster than other objects. Instead, one reaches the boundary of the light cone. At this boundary, the structure of motion reverses its meaning.

Initially, one moves away from everything. But at the limit, this relation inverts: one begins to approach all things at once. The light that contains all events appears to converge into a single point directly ahead. From this point, parallel points begin to emerge, and from among them, one can discern which realities are accessible—not by speed, but by intelligibility.

At this level, movement is no longer about “getting there.” Speed becomes irrelevant. What matters instead is conception—the determination of which reality one can enter or observe. Entry is no longer spatial but epistemic. It is not a matter of travel, but of alignment.

The Past and the Future in Contact

There may have been moments in human history when ancient peoples encountered advanced humans—not through physical interaction, not through direct contact or exchange, but through abstract connection. These encounters would not have involved handshakes or shared space, but resonance across time.

In this way, the people of the past may have indirectly interacted with the people of the future. The past and the future do not meet directly; they interpenetrate through perception, symbol, myth, and abstract transmission. This is how different epochs contribute to shaping the present.

The present, then, is not merely the result of what came before it. It is the point at which multiple temporal currents intersect—where memory, anticipation, and observation converge. History is not a linear sequence but a braided structure, held together by observers who, at different levels of development, are able to see further into the stream of time.

The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Psychological and Historical Interpretation

This is one among many possible interpretations of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Here, the story is approached not merely as mythology, but as a psychological account of the people of that time. In this sense, even if the events are not historically accurate in the modern empirical way, they are taken as literal accounts of lived experience as narrated by ancient humans.

Moreover, this interpretation does not treat the epic solely as myth in the symbolic sense—where figures and events stand in for abstract meanings—but also as history expressed through symbolic language. Mythological elements are understood as psychological or experiential descriptions of real phenomena, much as a term like “bush” might, in a modern context, be interpreted as a reference to a psychoactive substance. In ancient narratives, language often functioned metaphorically to describe experiences for which no technical vocabulary yet existed.

Unlike modern historical records—for example, events such as September 11, which are documented with precise dates, times, locations, and named individuals—ancient histories, such as those from Babylonian, Hindu, or Buddhist traditions, were not concerned with exact chronology. Instead, they focused on archetypal structures drawn from repeated events. Whether the king was literally Gilgamesh or another ruler of that era is less important than the fact that the story reflects patterns of human experience that occurred multiple times and reveal something fundamental about human nature.

Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Structure of the Psyche

Enkidu represents the animal, instinctual, or natural side of Gilgamesh—what modern psychology might associate with the id. Gilgamesh, by contrast, represents the ego and superego: the socialized, self-conscious, and governing principle. Early in the story, the two contend with one another before forming a deep companionship. Psychologically, this reflects humanity learning to confront and integrate its animal nature.

In the narrative, Enkidu tempers Gilgamesh’s tyrannical tendencies by presenting himself as an equal competitor. At the same time, Gilgamesh serves as Enkidu’s introduction to civilization and social order. Enkidu is brought into society to acquire a superego, represented by Gilgamesh himself. His transformation begins when he is initiated into human life through sexual union with a prostitute. This act symbolizes the taming of raw instinct through satisfaction, integration, and awareness. Through this experience, Enkidu is said to be “awakened,” his mind clarified and his consciousness expanded.

The story is often written as though Gilgamesh himself is recounting these events, lending it the quality of a reflective, first-person account of psychological development.

Death, Shadow, and the Confrontation with Mortality

Gilgamesh becomes preoccupied with his own mortality and the meaning of life. Before facing the monster Humbaba, he is advised by the elders of Uruk to rely on Enkidu’s survival skills—his connection to the wilderness and instinct—in order to succeed.

The journey beyond the gates of Uruk is extreme and superhuman in scale, emphasizing that this is not merely a physical expedition but a descent into the unknown. The mutual encouragement between Gilgamesh and Enkidu reflects the cooperation between ego and instinct in the struggle against death.

Shamash, the sun god—whose name is related to the modern Arabic word for “sun”—represents light, clarity, and wisdom. Humbaba, whom Shamash opposes, is associated with darkness and terror. In Jungian terms, Humbaba can be understood as the shadow: the repressed fear, particularly the fear of death, that the individual must confront.

The battle with Humbaba begins in confusion and fear. Through mutual reassurance and the aid of a transcendent principle (symbolized by Shamash), the monster is subdued. Even then, the shadow attempts to manipulate the ego, pleading for mercy and offering servitude. Enkidu urges Gilgamesh to destroy it completely, warning against compromise. Gilgamesh hesitates but ultimately agrees, and Humbaba is killed. Symbolically, this act represents the attempt to overcome mortality and establish a lasting name in history.

Myth, Memory, and the Question of History

Some interpretations extend this narrative further, suggesting that the epic encodes altered states of consciousness, visionary experiences, or encounters mediated through symbolic “gateways” of the mind—what later cultures might describe through planets, rivers, or other cosmological structures. Within this speculative framework, such elements are interpreted as psychological or experiential “dimensions,” not literal astronomical travel.

This raises a deeper question: are such ancient stories purely fictional, or are they records of genuine experiences interpreted through the symbolic language of their time? If we assume they are factual accounts of what people experienced, then we must ask why a civilization would encode crucial knowledge in the form of myth unless that form was the only viable means of transmission across generations.

The common modern assumption—that ancient peoples were more primitive and therefore their stories merely fanciful—may itself be a bias. Labeling these narratives as “fiction” aligns with a worldview that prioritizes entertainment over truth and dismisses the past as naïve. Yet if these stories were attempts to convey truth—psychological, experiential, or existential—then dismissing them outright may obscure valuable insight.

Seen this way, the Epic of Gilgamesh is not a singular or isolated account. It is part of a recurring pattern: a story retold across cultures and eras in different forms. Humanity, then, is not merely Homo sapiens as a biological category, but an ideal principle—a rational, self-questioning being capable of organizing the world through reason.

Humans, understood as a universal principle, may appear in diverse forms across time, each reflecting the developmental stage of its era. What we currently call “human” may be only one prototype among many. If we see humanity as a product of time rather than a fixed endpoint, it becomes conceivable that different forms of human rationality have existed, and may yet exist, at different periods of history.

What Did the Ancients Witness?

What have the ancient peoples of the past witnessed—let alone what have we truly witnessed of our own ancient past? Our history tells us, at the very least, what ancient people believed they had seen. They transmitted their experiences through myths, monuments, architecture, tools, and symbolic systems, many of which we are still uncovering through archaeology today. Yet much of this evidence is either ignored, explained away prematurely, or filtered through modern assumptions that prevent us from seriously confronting its implications.

The information transmitted from ancient peoples is often stark—if not in literal detail, then in meaning. It suggests not merely primitive survival, but periods of remarkable conceptual, symbolic, and technological development. We tend to group all ancient civilizations into a single, undifferentiated “past,” but this may be a profound oversimplification. It is entirely possible that countless civilizations have risen and fallen in succession, each inheriting fragments of the achievements of those that came before.

What appears repeatedly in the historical record is a pattern of inheritance without full understanding. Some civilizations may have come into indirect contact with a more advanced past through the discovery of ancient technologies, structures, or knowledge—much as we today encounter the remains of earlier cultures whose methods we cannot fully replicate or explain. In other cases, there may have been intermediary civilizations: less developed cultures that came into direct contact with more advanced ones.

Across myths, legends, and symbolic histories, there are recurring claims of encounters with advanced beings—figures said to have descended from the sky, emerged from the sea, or crossed thresholds between worlds. In speculative interpretations, these beings are sometimes described as having guided human development, accelerated evolutionary processes, altered genetic lines, employed humans as laborers, or transmitted advanced knowledge and technology. Whether taken literally or symbolically, these narratives consistently point to sudden leaps in development, rather than slow, linear progression.

History itself appears to support this discontinuity. We see abrupt moments where cultures emerge with sophisticated architecture, mathematics, astronomy, and social organization that seem disproportionate to what immediately preceded them. Likewise, we see the sudden disappearance or collapse of advanced cultures, leaving behind ruins whose construction and purpose later societies struggle to explain.

Natural Growth and Artificial Acceleration

This pattern introduces a crucial distinction: the difference between natural development and artificial—or rational—development.

Natural development unfolds slowly. It proceeds through intermediary stages, each step building upon the last, guided by functional necessity and adaptation toward specific ends. This is how biological organisms evolve and how ecosystems stabilize over time.

By contrast, rational beings—beings capable of abstraction, planning, and technological creation—produce what might be called artificial reality. This mode of development does not proceed gradually. It accelerates rapidly, often unnaturally fast. Within short periods, rational cultures can transform their environment, reshape social structures, and alter the conditions of life itself.

Yet this rapid acceleration comes with fragility. Artificial development is unstable. A civilization that advances too quickly may outpace its capacity for integration, balance, or sustainability. As a result, such civilizations may collapse suddenly—through environmental catastrophe, technological misuse, internal conflict, or self-induced annihilation.

Thus, human history may not resemble a smooth upward curve, but a series of sharp rises and abrupt falls. Civilizations flare into existence, achieve remarkable heights, and then disappear, leaving behind fragments that later cultures reinterpret as myth, symbol, or fantasy.

Reframing Human History

If this perspective is taken seriously, then human evolution cannot be understood solely as a biological process unfolding in isolation. It must also be understood as a temporal and cultural process, shaped by inheritance, contact, loss, and rediscovery. Humanity may not be a single continuous project, but a repeating one—restarted under different conditions, at different levels of knowledge, across different epochs.

In this sense, ancient myths may not be naïve fictions, but distorted memories—records of encounters, transitions, or developments that exceeded the conceptual frameworks available at the time. The question is not whether these stories are “true” or “false” in a modern scientific sense, but whether they preserve insights into experiences that later ages have forgotten or misinterpreted.

If so, then studying ancient history is not merely an academic exercise. It is an attempt to recover fragments of a much larger story—one in which humanity’s past may be far stranger, more discontinuous, and more advanced than we are usually taught to believe.

How can a world that appears so foreign, barren, and empty of life simultaneously exhibit so many remnants and traces of ancient advanced life? This question sits at the heart of our unease about existence. On the surface, we find ourselves in a universe that feels overwhelmingly silent—vast stretches of space, lifeless planets, and an apparent absence of intelligence beyond ourselves. And yet, everywhere we look, we encounter anomalies, residues, and structures that suggest continuity rather than isolation, inheritance rather than origin. The contradiction is striking: we experience ourselves as alone, yet we live among ruins.

This sense of aloneness may not be evidence of uniqueness, but of lateness. We may be arriving after something has already passed. A world emptied of visible life does not necessarily mean a world that never hosted it. It may instead be a world that has outlived its former inhabitants. Just as ancient cities on Earth become deserts over time, so too might entire civilizations—planetary or cosmic—fade into silence, leaving only fragments behind. What we call an “empty universe” may be one that has already exhausted its most visible forms of life.

Our planet itself reflects this paradox. We inhabit a world layered with remnants: buried cities, unexplained monuments, artifacts whose construction exceeds the technological narratives assigned to their creators. These remnants do not announce themselves loudly; they require interpretation. And interpretation is precisely where modern assumptions intervene. We are taught to see the past as primitive, and so whatever does not fit that expectation must be reclassified as coincidence, exaggeration, or myth. In doing so, we may be mistaking absence of understanding for absence of intelligence.

There is also a temporal asymmetry at work. Life, especially intelligent life, may not be evenly distributed across time. It may arise in bursts, flourish briefly, and then vanish—either through self-destruction, environmental collapse, or transition into forms no longer recognizable as biological. If this is the case, then the universe would not appear continuously alive, but intermittently so. Vast stretches of apparent lifelessness would separate epochs of intelligence, making coexistence rare and contact even rarer.

This would explain why evidence seems to point in two directions at once. On the one hand, we find mathematical order, fine-tuned constants, and structures that suggest prior organization. On the other hand, we find no obvious contemporaries. The evidence around us may not be pointing sideways—toward neighbors—but backward, toward predecessors. We may not be sharing the universe with others now, but inheriting the universe from those who came before.

The loneliness we feel, then, may not be cosmic abandonment but historical amnesia. A civilization that loses its memory of prior intelligences would interpret itself as the first, just as a person born among ruins might believe the ruins were always there. In such a condition, remnants become background noise rather than signals. They are seen but not heard, observed but not understood.

In this light, the universe does not contradict itself by appearing empty while bearing signs of past life. It behaves exactly as one would expect of a world shaped by cycles in time. Life emerges, organizes reality, leaves its mark, and disappears. What remains is structure without explanation, order without authorship, and meaning without an obvious speaker.

We may not be alone in the sense we usually mean—but neither are we accompanied. We may be participants in a much longer story, one where intelligence does not endure continuously but recurs, each time forgetting the last. The unsettling possibility is not that no one else exists, but that many have existed—and that we are living among their afterimages, trying to understand a world that was not originally built for us.

last updated 1.24.2026