Eye of the Beholder

Afterword

After I finished writing this story, I became a bit uncertain that it was really complete, that I had said all I wanted to say. This uncertainty finally convinced me I would have to review it from the beginning, to make sure it really was satisfactorily complete and consistent.

Within hours of reaching this conclusion, I opened my tablet to the Kindle library and found this book: The Universe Green Door, by Andrey Cherepanov.

I read the free sample, and immediately felt that it might help me answer some of these nagging questions. So I bought the Kindle book (for three virtual dollars).

Not only did this book have some answers to the questions I was asking myself, it lent some credulity to my belief that these stories I have compiled may in some sense be fundamentally true. Here, in a short work of philosophical speculation, was an interesting nonfiction agreement with some of the speculative basis of my stories. If you have read my stories and wished they could be true, well, maybe they are.

Not that my stories aren't fiction, and largely fantasy (or metaphor if you want to be generous). But they represent a view of our shared reality that I think may be more real than the reality itself. I must leave that for you to judge.

There's more.

While I was in the process of reading over both And We Will Have Snow and Eye of the Beholder, I picked up and read a couple of Rupert Sheldrake's more recent books about the shortcomings of the materialist convictions of modern science. His books have lent and continue to lend credence to some of my ideas.

Like me, he retains his respect for science and the deep understanding of physical reality that it offers. But he has learned to value many ideas that established science refuses to accept (chiefly what he calls "morphic resonance"). He would like to see science broaden its horizons, and become willing to investigate phenomena that elude materialist explanations.

If you have read my books, I think (hope) you will know what I'm talking about.

A further note: Sheldrake talks about the subject of gratitude, or simply acknowledgement of the reciprocity of life. I think I have that covered but is it presented clearly enough?

A related topic is abundance, the sense of living in the midst of plenty. The Ravens rely on this and trust in it. The Eagles are wary of that trust, and seek to assure that the abundance isn't lost. This may be the missing piece, or the best way to express it. (See reply in the Epilogue.)

Still more:

I'm a fan of Roger Penrose. He's a British scholar and Nobel laureate who goes his own way. He often acted as a foil for Stephen Hawking's ideas. But he's had plenty of his own. He's had particular interest in the nature of consciousness, and how it relates to quantum physics. I barely understand his books. He could easily have written mine if he had a mind to.

While I was busy writing my stories he wrote and published a series of books, always expanding on his views of the nature of physical reality, and the conscious mind. I recently discovered that he's published some I haven't read yet. I've made a start on them. One is Consciousness and the Universe. The other is How Consciousness Became the Universe.

So the ideas in my stories seem to be in pretty good company.