Oh it definitely is an exercise of stepping outside everything we know and are familiar with. This is a product of the objective fact that our entire experience of the universe is basically a lie. We have brains that have given us an interpretation of everything that’s happening, and we couldn’t exist without that interpretation “flattening” something far larger and more complex for us, but it’s still not a complete picture.
Example: we think of things as solid objects, we think of a “chair” and point it and say “chair” when in reality it’s mostly empty space, made up of a vastly complex system of interacting fields waving and vibrating in a way that makes a brief, passing shape of a “chair.” All those waves and interacting fields are “chairing” for a moment, taking up a shape that pushes against our mostly-empty space bodies that are temporarily “bodying” for a moment and makes it seem like we’re sitting.
Another: time is gravity. Gravity is time. This one baffles everyone because it’s also equally accurate to interpret time as a dimensional vector, but that’s only one interpretation and in the real universe, there’s no law or rule saying that things can only have one accurate interpretation. How is gravity time? Well mass effects the flow rate of time, so clocks run at different rates closer or further away from something like a giant rock in space. But the issue is objects traveling (everything is traveling) have to compensate for this change and get pulled towards the rock. The same way as if you lay a stick across a flowing stream, the center of the stream flows faster than the banks, so the stick gets pulled sideways.
This is a fantastically subtle effect, which is why it takes a whole-ass planet to generate an area where things stick to the ground, but you can fight the effects of an entire planet simply by lifting your foot.
Oh it definitely is an exercise of stepping outside everything we know and are familiar with. This is a product of the objective fact that our entire experience of the universe is basically a lie. We have brains that have given us an interpretation of everything that’s happening, and we couldn’t exist without that interpretation “flattening” something far larger and more complex for us, but it’s still not a complete picture.
Example: we think of things as solid objects, we think of a “chair” and point it and say “chair” when in reality it’s mostly empty space, made up of a vastly complex system of interacting fields waving and vibrating in a way that makes a brief, passing shape of a “chair.” All those waves and interacting fields are “chairing” for a moment, taking up a shape that pushes against our mostly-empty space bodies that are temporarily “bodying” for a moment and makes it seem like we’re sitting.
Another: time is gravity. Gravity is time. This one baffles everyone because it’s also equally accurate to interpret time as a dimensional vector, but that’s only one interpretation and in the real universe, there’s no law or rule saying that things can only have one accurate interpretation. How is gravity time? Well mass effects the flow rate of time, so clocks run at different rates closer or further away from something like a giant rock in space. But the issue is objects traveling (everything is traveling) have to compensate for this change and get pulled towards the rock. The same way as if you lay a stick across a flowing stream, the center of the stream flows faster than the banks, so the stick gets pulled sideways.
This is a fantastically subtle effect, which is why it takes a whole-ass planet to generate an area where things stick to the ground, but you can fight the effects of an entire planet simply by lifting your foot.