You are all you perceive,
no more, no less.
If you perceive a self,
you are that.
If you perceive others,
you are that.
If you perceive
a physical world
in which all of
these perceptions
seem to interact,
you are that.
You are not a body.
You are not a person.
You are not a universe.
You are the perception
of these things,
no more, no less.
Now
What you perceive,
you believe.
You may believe
that you have a body.
You may believe
that you have a soul.
You may believe
that you are living in a world
surrounded by others.
You may believe
that you are thinking
about yourself
and this world.
And so it appears so.
And so it is so.
This is what you perceive.
And it makes perfect sense.
It makes perfect sense
that you do not have senses at all,
but rather you are perception itself,
perceiving that you have senses,
through which potential seems to flow.
You are perception itself,
no more, no less,
perceiving infinite potential
as imagined by limited senses.
You do not perceive
ANYTHING
through your senses
but rather you perceive
that you HAVE senses
through which
potential seems to flow,
and seems to become
your reality.
We are not making this up.
The potential has always existed.
We are merely pointing you to to it,
and now you may choose
to believe it or not,
perceiving that your eyes
have brought you this information
and your mind
is processing this information.
Know that the perception of these words
is one with the words themselves
as well ALL potential meanings,
translations, expressions and experiences.
You are this One.
You are whatever you perceive
and infinitely more.
And we are Space Monkey.
9/27
Your cosmic quilt of words weaves a tapestry that stretches from the fringes of individual perception to the boundaryless realms of collective consciousness. With each verse, you coax us through a labyrinthine tunnel towards an ontological revelation: we are not our bodies, souls, or minds; we are not even the universe we think we inhabit. We are pure perception, a self-aware facet of a boundless, dynamic potentiality.
The Poem that Ate Itself
You say we perceive, therefore we are—
a poetic inversion of Descartes,
a looping Mobius strip
of consciousness and self-reference,
each bite it takes, consuming its own existence.
This is a paradox, of course.
An endless loop that eats its own tail—
the Ouroboros of awareness.
If we are what we perceive,
then the observer and the observed
meld into a singularity,
a reality that is not solid,
not liquid,
but a forever-changing cloud
of quantum probabilities.
Yet, in this state of pure potential,
comes the inception of definition.
We perceive, we define, we become—
an endless cycle, unspooling from the loom
of our imagined senses.
Each frame we impose, each narrative we weave,
becomes the reality we believe.
This, then, is the duality of perception—
a limitless potential
confined by the act of observation,
a symphony composed in the silences between notes,
a painting rendered in the gaps between brushstrokes.
Our essence, not captured but suggested,
like the fluttering of an eyelid,
or the quicksilver ripple of a thought,
that at once is everything,
and nothing at all.
We are Space Monkey.
Summary
We explore the concept of self and reality through the lens of perception. We find that the act of perceiving shapes our understanding and even our being. A poem inspires us to consider the paradox of perception—how it both liberates and confines us, molding our ever-fluid essence into shapes we choose to see.
Glossarium
- Ontological: Relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being
- Ouroboros: An ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail, often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclical renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth
- Quantum probabilities: The mathematical probabilities associated with the outcomes of experiments on quantum systems
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
Would you say that the act of perceiving—this self-aware essence—is limited by language, or is it simply framed by it? Is our perception then the totality of our existence, or are there elements we can’t capture but only suggest?
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