The minute we name something we begin to misunderstand it. Reality is a continuum of things and motions that is infinite in size, precision, and interconnection. In order to comprehend reality we need to tear it apart into discreet things and events. We divide things up into containment units and give them names. This helps us make sense of reality, while at the same time brings us further away from its true form.
This symbolic expedient can be seen when we are asked to draw something. An untrained person, if asked to draw a face will draw an oval for a head, a couple ovals for eyes, a line for a mouth, etc. An artist that is trained in depiction learns first how not to draw a face, but sees past the iconic features of the face they are depicting. That is a difficult thing to do, as our thinking demands organizing reality into a hierarchy of discreet things.
Time too is a continuum that we must divide up into discreet units. Time is the medium of change, and we measure one change by comparing it with other changes, usually ones that are cyclic events in nature. So a day is the amount of change from one sunrise to the next. If we are thinking machines, that is our thoughts are manifestations of changes in our brains, thoughts, too, are subject to time. So we often thing of time as flowing, and yet in reality it is our thoughts that are flowing as the changes that bring about our thought are measured in comparison with other cyclic events. We often speak in terms of the future and the past, and yet these are simply artifices that we use to describe change relative to our thoughts 'at the moment'.
Reality is essentially chaotic in nature, and yet we find pockets of organizations within this chaos. The chaotic nature of reality means that it can never be comprehended in it's entirety. It is the pockets of organization that we can use to make predictions about change. This chaos of reality is a measurement of the infinite inter-connected-ness of reality, the lack of boundaries of cause and effect. We find places where the interconnected-ness becomes so sparse as to be negligible. A discreet change and it's effects can be seen as a ripple in water, caused by a pebble being tossed into it, the change emanates out in all direction becoming smaller as it's circle of influence becomes wider, until the size of the ripple becomes smaller than the other influences that alter the surface of the water, and we consider them to 'disappear'.
So we understand things by misunderstanding them. We build up ideal models of things and events that reflect reality to a certain degree of precision. We tear up reality into chunks that are comprehend-able and assign them names. But just like the artist that sees past the features of a face they are trying to depict, we can understand reality better by seeing past the names that we give things, and see how all things are one. We can see that events are simplifications of the interconnected-ness of reality, and time is an abstraction that we use to compare one event to another. These names that we use, person, planet, minute, day; and the verbs that we use, to move, to strike, and even to think are artifices that we used to describe elements of a single indescribable thing: reality. We can circumvent the problem of defining reality by being all-inclusive: all that ever was, is, and will be. But that is it's definition, not it's description. It is the 'granddaddy of all abstractions'.
Our ability to think serves one purpose: to predict the future. To understand change, and how it might affect us. We have a built in desire to understand change in general, as the more we understand about change, the more we may be able to protect ourselves from it, or use it in our favor. But because it is a general desire, and not necessarily one aimed at understanding of any set of events, we think about many abstract things that may or may not have an impact on our future. This has give rise to thinking from a purely utilitarian process that evolution has given us to this grand ability that us humans distinguish ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom. Right now I am thinking about the nature of reality, not because it may help me to survive, but because I cannot help but think about something. The only time I am not thinking is when I am in an altered state of consciousnesses, such as deep meditation or deep sleep. Even while I am in light sleep, I think about things in the form of dreams. When Rene Descartes uttered his famous phrase 'cogito ergo sum' it was not to indicate that thinking somehow brings us into existence, but that this continuous stream of thoughts is inextricably linked to what we call consciousness.
But again, we give something a name: 'consciousness', and then precede to stop thinking about it. It simply becomes a word we use (or misuse) to communicate some partition of reality to others that may be commonly understood or mis-understood. It is this set of nouns and verbs that allow us to think, and to communicate our thoughts. Language and thinking leap-frog each other in an upward spiral of knowledge and the precision in which we understand reality. But the more common a noun or verb is used, the less inclined we are to think about it's precise meaning. Again, Rene Descartes describes throwing away all pre-conceived ideas and starting from scratch to build up a more perfect model of reality. Unfortunately, he then uses this method to simply re-enforce his own pre-conceived ideas, so he had the process right, but was simply unable to execute it. It is the nouns and verbs of language that allow us to build up a model of reality, but then interfere with our ability to refine it.
As a software engineer, I face this problem very often. All useful software models something, be it a business process used by businesses, some alternate universe of a game, or a book or library with it's store of knowledge. If I can identify some ill-conceived model or concept commonly used in a business application, it is an uphill struggle to re-define it, because there are so many people that need to be convinced that there is a better way. Typically the only way to push forward a new concept it to demonstrate it, which could be so difficult to implement, or so subject to rhetorical argument, that it sits unused.
Expanding our knowledge I consider akin to molting. We must throw away the things that restrict us before we can grow. On a personal level, this is difficult for some people because it would imply that they are wrong about something. For me, it is not as much of a problem, as I believe that all of our knowledge is an imperfect reflection of reality, so therefore I am always wrong to a certain extent, and can always refine what I know. I often say that if I can't look back ten years ago and say to myself 'how stupid I was', then by definition, I have not grown. On a societal level, I once read, but cannot attribute the source: 'Science progresses with every funeral'. Even one of my greatest heroes of thought, Albert Einstien spent the last years of his life trying to refute quantum physics, unable to reconcile the injury it had done to his theory of relativity. One can only imagine the malice that Issac Newton might have felt towards Einstien had they been contemporaries when Einstien spliced in his own bit of knowledge into Newton's 'laws'. However, the work that Einstien did in trying to refute quantum mechanics, and coming up empty, makes for a good argument that there is some truth in quantum physics.
So at once we are lifted by our language and abstract ideas, and hindered by it's imprecision and our own stubborness. Even if we try to use precise language such as first order logic, we can only prove abstractions, and fail to achieve perfection once we apply concrete nouns and verbs which themselves are by definition imprecise (since the things they attempt to describe are infinite in precision and interconnected-ness). Of course, most people don't resort to first order logic, and are plagued by the multitude of cognitive biases evolution (or a capricious God) has saddled our untrained thinking with. We find that while we are the most complex creatures in terms of our behaviors, we are hopelessly ignorant when our ideas are juxtaposed with reality (hence the old cliche 'the more we know, the more we don't know').
Our understanding of reality will never be finalized, unless we delve into the realm of meta-physics and believe our awareness, consciousness, spirit, or whatever are somehow facets that transcend reality, and that given the right circumstances (perhaps through meditation, or perhaps in an after-life) we can see everything about our reality in all it's precision. However this begs the child's question when told that God created everything: but what created God? If our 'spirits' transcend reality, that implies some other reality that we must transcend to. And then if you define reality as 'all that was, is, and will ever be', this higher level reality simply folds into the original definition.
Is it futile to think about reality? Perhaps. But I can't help it, it's ingrained in who I am, it's a biological process like the beating of my heart. I see the world around me and I want to know it's secrets. This nagging voice within that tells me: 'perhaps with a little more thought it will all come to you' keeps me alive, and looking forward to each day to learn a little more, or unlearn some false concept. Thinking isn't my purpose in life, making the world a better place is. But perhaps I can think up of something that will make the world a better place, and I will have fulfilled my goal.
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