What is reality? — Rudy Rucker

"Gödel shared with Einstein a certain mystical turn of thought. The word “mystic” is almost pejorative these days. But mysticism does not really have anything to do with incense or encounter groups or demoniac possession. There is a difference between mysticism and occultism. A pure strand of classical mysticism runs from Plato to Plotinus and Eckhart to such great modern thinkers as Aldous Huxley and D. T. Suzuki. The central teaching of mysticism is this: Reality is One. The practice of mysticism consists in finding ways to experience this higher unity directly. The One has variously been called the Good, God, the Cosmos, the Mind, the Void, or (perhaps most neutrally) the Absolute. No door in the labyrinthine castle of science opens directly onto the Absolute. But if one understands the maze well enough, it is possible to jump out of the system and experience the Absolute for oneself."

"The public revealed its single most predictable trait: fickleness."

"So what is reality, one more time? An incompressible computation by a fractal CA of inconceivable dimensions. And where is this huge computation taking place? Everywhere; it’s what we’re made of."

"Im not a brave man. My self-image is of a very small and weak person. In point of fact, Im almost six feet, and solidly built. But I was a late bloomer. I spent those formative early high-school years as a pudgy little science whimp. Im still scared of big men with deep voices."

"Anyone who’d volunteer for alien domination doesn’t really deserve to have his or her freedom."

"“That’s the problem with immortality,” mused Jack. “You never live long enough to get there.”"