The weight of inanimate objects never changes, merely our perception of them.
This statement is obviously true yet it begs the question, why is it that sometimes objects are perceivably heavier than other times? Occasionally the weight of the world seems to drag down your very being. Do objects appear heavier when you are tired? Of course they do because you are not at full strength. Objects also feel heavier when you are depressed. It is odd that emotions can twist perceptions, it’s almost as if depression is weighing you down. Does this mean that when you are happy everything is lighter, literally suspended by the height of your happiness? But this is not the case.
Logic suggests that weight remains the same; it also suggests that the earths gravitational pull on the moon effects the weight of objects on the earth. When you weigh yourself directly under a full moon you will weigh less. Based on this fact above, this is logical, but it’s still hard to comprehend.
Why is it that our perceptions of weight change with our moods? How can object feel heavier when it weighs exactly the same? Think of atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders, does the weight ever vary? It cannot, otherwise sooner or later he would have to drop it. Yes this is only mythology, but logically speaking it still shows obvious facts.
Weigh the facts out, objects weigh the same all the time and occasionally they vary, just as occasionally our perception of their weight varies.
Nietzsche says there are no absolute truths; perhaps he is right, everything is just perceived speculation.
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I was reading something today that explained that we don't perceive the world "as it really is" because we're not actually capable of it. What we see/hear/smell/feel/taste is mostly just what our brains present our consciousness with, in order to give us some vague idea of what's going on around us. Colour, for instance, is not a property possessed by anything we look at. Nothing about a rose is "red", "red" is simply the paint our brains apply to the mental image of a rose.
How this applies to our perception of gravitational pull is another matter, I suppose. You're half-right about the moon thing - it's not the fullness of the moon that's relevant, though, it's how close it is to earth at the time. It doesn't have a particularly noticable effect on our weight, but it does move entire oceans and change the way plants grow.
And anyway, weight is just the relationship between mass and gravity. Only on earth do things weigh what we think they weigh. Anywhere else, with any other level of gravity, the mass doesn't change, but the weight on the scales does.
Not everything is perceived speculation. The world is exists, is real, we just can't hope to understand, or truly know it as it is. So everything we experience is perception, and therefore true only for a given value of "truth" *g*
By that logic, it makes sense that our perceptions of weight and the concept of "heaviness" would vary according to our moods. Moods are just one more filter that we apply to the information we take in about the world, and they can influence things even on such a seemingly illogical physical level.
Perhaps the weight of the world seems like nothing to Atlas if he's happy.
Argh. Don't make me think so much *holds head* I have GOT to stop reading stuff like this that makes my brain go warpy when I'm ALREADY having headspins...
very interesting... now everything is about perception. Two people can read your post and interpret it differently... two people can have a conversation and each one comes away with a different perception. My perception of my childhood is different to the one my parents perceive I experienced... and mood certainly affects the weight of everything. Feel bright and breezy and there's a spring to the step... feel down and depressed and you can barely lift one foot in front of the other...
a very interesting post shadow
lotsa luv ann xxxxx
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