The World according to Bill Hicks

The comedian Bill Hicks had a comedy routine in which he said, "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration — that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death; life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves... Here's Tom with the weather." Its a funny line and the mundane reference to the weatherman really sells the inability of man to perceive the universe where we depend on the television to portray our world, but perhaps what Bill Hicks was saying is actually pretty close to the reality of the universe, at least on a subatomic level.

Kate and I were watching a science program on the National Geographic channel in which a scientist explained that an atom is predominately nothingness, through which the electrons, neutrons and protons move as energy. Understanding this, we are nothing more than bits of energy moving around. When we interact, we don't actually touch, but our magnetic fields created by the energy of which we are constituted, move within proximity of each other. I suppose it is possible that one could argue that our magnetic fields interact to the point where they meld with each other and become one, although I am not really sure that a scientist would accept that statement. However, since we are predominately nothingness through which energy particles are moving, then why couldn't our magnetic fields meld with each other?

Listening to the lecture from the scientist on the program, it was a spooky way of looking at matter and even more spooky when you apply it to individuals. When we think of individuals, and just by labeling them as individuals I have defined them in that way, we pronounce the lack of similarity, the specificity and individuality of people. Perhaps it is best to refer to them as "people" because that term does not rely on the individuality of the people to whom we are referring and, instead, refers to their collective being.

Nevertheless, when we talk about people, we often define them in terms of their individuality. Their fingerprints. Their footprints. Their DNA. All of these ways of defining them rely on their differences and their individuality.

But when we define them in terms of their quintessence, their atoms, we get to a completely different, almost metaphysical level. Using the science explained by the scientist on the National Geographic show we watched, all of the atoms which comprise you and all of the atoms which comprise me, and even the atoms which comprise the air and the insects and sunlight and anything else which would lie around we two and which might fall into the area in which we are situated, is predominately made of space or nothingness, through which the energy identified as electrons, neutrons and protons move.

In some sense, at this level it might be helpful to consider all of this geometrically. Like a biologist might create a slice to place within his microscope, we can use the geometric concept of a plane to describe the essential concept of matter. For instance, lets assume two people are sitting on chairs in a room. In the room are any number of objects based on what the individuals or even someone else may have placed in the room. From a causation level, it might even be possible to say that some of the objects were placed by an unknown third party, even God.

But that is another discussion altogether. Getting back to our example, within the theoretical room, there are any number of items at any given time. From our limited understanding of the items in the room you might have the following: individual one, individual two, furniture, knick knacks, hydrogen, oxygen, certain chemical elements, sunlight, dust, mites, insects, the detrius of pets. It would be very difficult to quantify everything in the room completely.

But using our concept of plane geometry, lets cut a plane from the room, just like a slice on a glass plate on the microscope. Cutting our plane through the room, we might get a broad crosssection of what is inside the room. Looking at that plane on an atomic level, the first thing we have to say is that no matter what is within the plane, most of it is nothingness. As the atoms comprising that section interact, the magnetic fields created by the energy particles comprising the atoms flow around one another.

It is difficult to say that these energy fields 'touch.' Instead, the energy fields on our plane move around the room and bump up against each other. At the same time, it is important to remember that most of this is nothingness through which the energy particles are moving. If we could look at the plane as God might, what we might see within the plane was actually nothing through which energy was moving. At that level, what we were looking at was essentially the same thing, no matter what comprised the elements on the plane.

In this sense and at this level, what lies within the plane is essentially the same thing and bears no individuality that is meaningful. Just like Bill Hicks' depiction of the universe in his joke, at the atomic level, and actually the subatomic level, we are simply energy moving in concert, so that our lives are really no more than a "dream comprised of the imagining of ourselves". In his statement, Hicks took a subatomic level concept of life, then expanded it back to our "reality" or level of perception.

When Bill Hicks created his "joke", he began with a subatomic understanding of the universe, then expanded it to the level upon which we live our lives, the level of personal or subjective perception. The statement is muddled with the imposition of drugs and the reference to the weatherman. However, the truth of the concepts is still there. At the smallest level, everything in the universe can be defined as energy vibrating. Given the concept of various items as vibrating energy, all life is a "dream" or "imagination." The twist in the joke lies in expanding the atomic level definition of life to our own level of perception of the universe.

Taking our slide from the theoretical room, we can define everything on the slide as energy moving in concert. However, as we step back from the slide, we realize that the individual items do have integrity much as the solar system is comprised of celestial bodies moving in concert with one another. Looking at the various component bodies comprising the universe, we see various celestial bodies moving in orbit, spinning on their individual axes, and moving, as a collective body, through the universe. Just as the sun sits in the center of the system and the other planets spin and revolve around the sun, and each revolution has integrity and moves through magnetic and gravitational orbits, so the individual components on our slide seem to retain their integrity.

In this way, on the level of our subjective perception, the two individuals in our room do not meld into one another. They also do not become one with the table or the chairs or the flies flitting through the room like some subatomic replication of the movie, "The Fly." No, they are perceived, even at the atomic level, as retaining their structual integrity and identity. The ability to perceive the identity of being at the subatomic level and then perceive the individuality of the items is perhaps best understood at the level of God's perception of the items. Seeing as God might sees them, as a metaphysical scientist examing the slide cut through the plane in the room, we see the singularity of everything in the universe as energy vibrating, but also understand that there is an integrity of identity as well.

We obviously don't perceive the world as God does, on every level, from subatomic to the level of consciousness. It is difficult to see life and the universe at such diversely divergent levels. But it is probably important that we look at the world from both perspectives to truly understand it. It may even be important to state that you don't have to be under the influence of lsd in order to see the world from both ends of the telescope.

But I think that Mr. Hicks was very perceptive to be able to see the universe as the vibrating energy from which it is comprised and be able to take that concept and extract a humorous extrapolation of the idea and place it within the context of the mundane world in which we find ourselves. In that sense, he was very accurate in his understanding of the universe and the iconoclasm of the statement is quite telling on how we look at ourselves and the world in which we live and perceive the world.