To Believe: A Man’s Quest to Understand Reality

by M I A Harba

  The next thing he awoke to, was the absolute quietness and the sunshine that drifted into the bedroom from the eastern window. Then he remembered his guest and wondered if he was up, or still asleep.

  He crept slowly and silently into the living room to check on his guest. But like the last time, the guest was no longer there. The sleeping bag and blankets were tidily folded and placed at one side of the sofa. The man had disappeared.

  He opened the outside door and looked. It was a beautiful day with fresh wind that smelled nice and clean. He looked for footprints that should indicate the guest had walked away from the building, but there was none. It was as though the man had flown into the air, leaving no marks behind. He pulled the chair out of the living room, placed it on the patio, and sat. He wondered again whether what he saw last night was real or imagined.

  That man seemed to know about the ghost caravan and even his own thoughts. He regretted he didn't persist with his questioning about the nature of this caravan, and why it was there. That man seemed to know the purpose of his stay here, as well as the confusion that contaminated his mind about reality. A Bedouin thinking about the nature of reality! Sam was a little amused.

  He went in, prepared breakfast, and brought it outside to eat in the fresh air. The recent events dug deep in his soul and increased his confusion. First, it was the ghost caravan, then the UFOs, and then this mysterious man appearing out of nowhere. These events happened when he was alone. He didn’t experience any when the camp was full of people. And the elusive visitor always disappeared leaving no trace behind. It must be his imagination.

  There's no logic behind this, at all. He had decided to keep a diary, and these little events went into it. He wanted to make sure he was not going insane, that these things did actually happen.

  He went out to inspect the area around the house, and to his surprise, the puddles of rainwater had all but disappeared. Those remaining were going that way, too. The pickup fared well although, at the back, a puddle of water had accumulated. He opened the back door to let the water run out.

  He went up to the roof of the house to inspect the solar panels, and he was glad they were all in place. Their fixtures proved sturdy enough. He looked up at the lightning rod and could see dark streaks running down the length of it. The copper surface had suffered a little, and it was proof that lightning did hit the lightning rod. He was again very glad he had it installed.

  People from Rawa would flood the desert after a thunderstorm when the soil bloomed colourfully, and truffles became in season. He would go truffle hunting, too.

  While sitting outside in the fresh air, the words mentioned by the elusive visitor rang loud in his head. In his mind, he was convinced that consciousness was the prime mover of evolution and the real reason why the universe and all living things were here. Consciousness is an eternal and fundamental feature that exists at all times. It precedes the Big Bang and is likely to stay here forever.

  But isn't this concept similar to what religions have been advocating about the single divine Creator? When you ask a religious man, or a sheikh, they will tell you that the Creator is always there, has always been there, and will continue to be there. He created this universe, and it doesn’t matter whether it was from a Big Bang or a gradual creation.

  Scientists are now saying consciousness is the reason for the existence of the universe. It preceded the Big Bang and will always be there. Therefore it has the same characteristics as the religion’s divine Creator.

  But the problem with religion is that what it advocates is without proof or evidence. Miracles at the time of prophets happened a long time ago. Those miracles were reasons good enough for people of the time to believe the messages the prophets were spreading. But that was a very long time ago, and the historical documentation of what happened appears vague and not well written.

  The religious faith is imposed upon the people, who are expected to take those miracles, as reported in history, as facts that need no investigation. One has to believe in the divine Creator, and if one didn't, they will face unfathomable torture in hellfire, in the hereafter.

  Religion does not give you evidence or proof to support its argument. It's just that, and if you don't believe it, you're in big trouble.

  What happens if your brain does not allow you to believe it? Many people are 100% convinced of the messages of the prophets and the existence of the divine Creator, and their mind is at peace with that. To tell them the Creator might not exist is a big insult to them and their belief. They will not take it from you kindly. They will be extremely surprised that you don’t see it the way they see it or the other millions or billions of believers out there.

  Sam had religious traits when he was a child and in his early youth. That continued until friends started talking about how religion might have gotten it wrong. His brain became totally confused. He wanted to believe but couldn't find a branch to grab in the tree of belief. It was not his fault, he thought, that he had an inquisitive mind. He wanted to find the truth one way or another and didn’t care what it was.

  Why is consciousness fundamental? If consciousness is fundamental and has always been there, then who created consciousness? Isn't this the same question that atheists throw at the religious domain? Who created the Creator? The same question is now being asked, who created consciousness?

  Consciousness exists at all levels, some theories believe. It continued through evolution from extremely low levels, at the elementary particle level, up to the atoms and the molecules, to insects and animals, and then humans. They say the universe has its own consciousness, and, somehow, it is related to the consciousness of all things. But it's a theory, not an absolute fact that if you don't believe it, you will go to hellfire in the hereafter. If you didn't believe it, fine, come up with a different theory.

  This theory is gaining acceptance by scientists as a viable postulate for explaining reality. Like all theories, it is valid as long as nobody can come up with something better. You will not be punished for not believing it.

  Sam came to a cul de sac in this line of thinking. Even the Simulation Theory has its drawbacks. Who wrote the programme of the simulation? And is that programmer simulated himself? If true, this implies a simulation within a simulation. You might end up in an infinite chain of simulations within simulations. Surely, this will come to an end somewhere, and something must have created the first simulation. Who created this first simulation?

  Those people who believe in the Simulation Theory don't seem to care about this. They care about how it explains the perceived reality, and the other ambiguities are all unnecessary in their argument. But some, like Sam, couldn’t accept this argument outright and wanted to have a firmer ground to stand on when testing the theory.

  What is the reality within the Simulation Hypothesis? This hypothesis does not suggest what we see is a user interface to the hidden objective reality. What you see is something that the simulation computer has created. There is no other reality but the simulated reality. This hypothesis takes a simpler approach than what other scientists have been trying to postulate. Also, it is much easier to comprehend than a world existing in multi-dimensions, for example. The Simulation Hypothesis does not get into these very complex arguments. One cannot accept it first-hand, however. There must be something else.

  Sam wondered if he would ever be able to reach the absolute truth of why we exist. He had his doubts about religion, with the Simulation Hypothesis, or the concept of consciousness being the reason behind everything that we see and feel. Every theory had its holes and ambiguous parts. But could he come up with his own theory, or own logic to explain the unexplainable?

  Well, that was the purpose of coming out here, to clear his mind and understand nature better. They say the greatest of philosophers came up with their revolutionary ideas when their minds were clear and when they were away from their society. It was exactly the reason why he opted to come out here, to the desert.

  Before finding
the solution, he perhaps needed to clarify what he was after. What was he trying to find or prove?

  Then it hit Sam very hard that he hadn't really defined what he wanted to achieve. In the beginning, he was saying he wanted to know. What did he want to know? Did he want to prove one theory against the others, or come up with a different theory? He needed to dig deep in his soul, to understand himself first.

  That gave him another objective, to understand himself before trying to understand the world. He must understand what made him the person he was, what made him different from others in this world. Why did he have an inquisitive mind that wanted to know? Why do billions of others have faith in religion and don't wonder about such matters?

  Deep within, he envied those who believe 100% in religion, and are happy and convinced with the explanation it presents. He wished his mind were like theirs, as this would be the end of his calamity.

  To Believe

  He needed to dig deep in his soul to identify what he was after. He was aching for anything convincing, to cling to and believe. He didn't care which theory it was, whether it was religion, the Simulation Hypothesis, consciousness, or anything behind reality and existence. His troubled mind wanted something tangible, something convincing enough for him to be at peace and to sleep deeply at night. His search had now shifted to something to believe in. He no longer cared what it was, so long it had enough evidence to convince his doubtful mind.

  There must be plausible and detectable attributes to explain the reasons why we are here and how we came to be. All these matters seem to be in the mind. Religious people, for no obvious reasons, believe in the divine Creator, without further questions. They don't need convincing, and they don't need evidence. Maybe it is fear of what awaited them of torture in the afterlife. What they heard and what they read about their religion was more than adequate. But people like Sam, with their inquisitive minds, need clear proof that has a reputable witness or evidence.

  This was Sam’s dilemma. People are different from him in the matter of belief? His wife, for example, was a strong believer in the divine. She cringed at the ideas he briefly explained about the Simulation Hypothesis and repeated, this was a heresy that he should keep away from their house. She didn't want their daughter exposed to such outrageous ideas at her age. If Sam believed it himself, then this was fine so long as he never spoke about it in the house. Maybe this was the reason why he built a house in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to influence no one with his ideas, and no one might want to be influenced by his ideas, neither.

  How can one come to terms with ideas that are purely in the mind? Many don't need physical evidence or proof to believe in something. It must depend on the kind of person one is. Take Salam, for example, he is, for some reason, a strong believer in the Simulation Hypothesis. Even if one argued with Salam for days on end, to explain the fallacies inherent in the Simulation Hypothesis, Salam would not be convinced or deterred. Salam found his belief, and Sam envied him now for that.

  Scientists still don't have a firm understanding of consciousness, and, therefore, the concept of consciousness could perhaps be equivalent to the divine Creator. It is still in its infancy, and although many philosophers over the years have addressed and attributed many aspects of our existence to consciousness, the jury is still out, undecided on the significance of consciousness on our being.

  His observations of the UFO in the last few days had prompted him to read more about this phenomenon. His interest in UFOs dates back to his life at university. He collected a few books written by various authors about this rather unusual phenomenon, to make sense of it.

  One book, in particular, was Operation Trojan Horse, by John Keel who wrote a series of books about UFOs. He read that book a few times and was intrigued but the thoroughness of the author. In this book, the author included the testimonials of many witnesses who experienced UFOs first-hand. Many of these witnesses saw UFOs up close and personal or saw similar formations to what he had seen before. Some went as far as saying they met with the aliens who piloted these UFOs. He included reports about many such encounters, and it makes one wonder whether these people were telling the truth, were delusional, or simply lying.

  The author himself, at the end of his investigation, experienced intense UFO activities in the area where he lived. He was eventually visited by ‘the aliens’ themselves. They gave him predictions of events that would happen, and some came true while many others didn't. He went into a state of psychological instability because of this and almost lost his sanity.

  One very important contexture in that book was the conclusion reached by the author. He was given predictions by these ‘aliens’ that he found identical to predictions given by spirits in seance sessions. What made these predictions so pretty much identical, although the mediums were different? There was only one possible explanation, that they originated from the same source.

  The UFOs and the spirits in the seances were but the same thing. They belonged to a phenomenon that manifested itself in different ways, depending on the nature of the receiver. If the receivers are séance participants, then it manifests itself as communications with their dead or some other entities. For those who believe in spaceships, the phenomenon manifests itself as aliens in spaceships, coming from the faraway universe.

  It was a remarkable finding because it proved that there was something out there, and it was neither the dead communicating nor spaceships or aliens from outer space. It is a phenomenon that is yet to be understood by science.

  Mr Keel concluded in his book that it is best to leave this phenomenon alone, and never interact or play with it. It seems to have its own agenda and we, humans, are unable to understand it. Some manifestations of this phenomenon could be malicious, dangerous to the people involved. Religion has its own definition of this phenomenon, evil satanism, which it advises against and calls upon the divine for protection.

  Sam’s belief in the UFOs is similar to what Mr Keel had concluded. We don’t yet understand this phenomenon, and perhaps it’s better to be left aside.

  The UFOs he saw over the last few weeks could come within this category. Because he himself believed in spaceships, he saw the phenomenon as spaceships. The majority of the population believe in spaceships, due to recent advances in rockets and spaceships, and this phenomenon manifests itself as spaceships from deep space, to draw them in.

  He was not going to be drawn in, Sam decided. He was determined to leave this phenomenon alone and not play with it. It might be nice to observe and to look at its formations, beautiful and mysterious, whether in the day or at night, but that was it. He wasn't going to take it seriously.

  Few weeks after the thunderstorm, the desert bloomed into different colours. Out of the seemingly barren land, green vegetation started appearing. In some areas, there were yellow flowers, white, red, purple, etc., a beautiful colourful carpet spread over the terrain. It was like painting by an artist with a tender imagination.

  He sat outside to watch this beauty evolve by the day. He wondered why city dwellers didn’t come out here to enjoy this beauty of nature that was not paralleled by anything in the city.

  It was at such a time that people went out to search for truffles. As local folklore had it, truffles grew near one particular shrub, known locally as Jreida. And not any, but only those where a snake had crawled on the soil next to that shrub. It is interesting folklore, but obviously, Sam did not believe it.

  What he learned in Rawa about truffles was that they made cracks in the soil. The locals sometimes refer to truffles as Fagaa, which translates from Arabic as an explosion of the soil. It is as though the truffle explodes the soil and creates cracks. So, he should be looking for cracks in the soil.

  He took a spade, a sack, a few home screwdrivers and knives for truffle excavation, and drove his pickup. He made sure a sleeping bag and a tent were already in the pickup, just in case he stayed the night out in the beautiful desert.

  It was a beautiful day, with a ra
y of warm sunshine and a soft breeze that smelled fresh and mixed with the scent of the green flowering growth across the terrain. He didn't know where to find truffles, so he drove to wherever he could find Jreida shrubs or spot cracks in the soil.

  He drove with the pickup windows wide open to let in the fresh air and the beautiful scent of the blooming desert. It was so refreshing, so relaxing, as he took deep breaths. He needed this outing for the remedy of his soul. Let his subconsciousness, for the moment, work over the matter of belief and reality, and let him focus on truffle and where to find it.

  He went truffle gathering once in his lifetime. It was in his youth when he was invited by a friend in Rawa, to stay with them for a few days. They went to the desert area around Rawa to gather truffles. It wasn't difficult to learn how to identify the truffle spots and the cracks in the soil, it took only 15 minutes.

  He reached an area with fresh growth and an abundance of the Jreida shrub. He parked his car, took his screwdrivers, and went looking. It might be too early for truffle, he thought, because he couldn't spot any. He searched meticulously for about 15 minutes and decided the area was not good. He walked over to another area, leaving the pickup where it was. To his absolute amazement, he stumbled again upon the area where he found the clay fragments.

  He stopped and looked for more fragments. There were a couple of clay fragments resembling those he found earlier, so he picked them up and put them in his pocket. He also registered the GPS coordinates of the location; he wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

  He also found the cracked tell-tale signs of truffles. With his screwdriver, he dug and, only a few centimetres deep, he found his first truffle. It was small, the size of a golf ball, but that was an achievement at that moment. It meant he was in the right area and could find more.

  It became late in the afternoon, and he couldn’t decide whether to stay and pitch his tent at that location or go back to his house. The weather was calm and beautiful, with a mild soothing breeze. He had food and water, so staying the night there was feasible. It gave him more time to search for truffles that afternoon. So, he decided to stay the night at that location.