History, religion and reality.
Were ancient people living in the same style of physics as we understand it?
This is a strange and even silly to some question. But I have always been struck by how people in the past described their world in ways that seem to contradict our understanding of reality. There are many simple answers to this question that do not require reality altering. However I have never been stuck by ancient people being stupid. Often I have found them to be even smarter than we are today. This is just a exploration of a idea not my definitive idea of what actually was happening in the past. The question is basically are physics as we understand them just a localized effect of where we currently are in space and time.
Everything is always moving and changing this is a commonly held truth to our current understanding of the planets, galaxies and us. When ancient people talked about magical or divine events. Were the laws of physics at the time functioning under different rules? This is actually related to a idea in physics where if we were to travel to a different part of the universe our understanding of how reality functions may actually not hold up to our current understanding of the laws of physics. Our sample size is actually fairly small in the scale of space and time. To me as a Christian I often wonder if multiple realities like heaven and hell for example are actually alternate dimensions and if these spaces can and do intersect into our reality at times. The multiverse theory isn't actually just concept of fiction like in Marvel or the Mist by Mr King. When Herodotus talks about giant ants, or the Romans talk about men with faces on their torsos and no head, are these actually layers of alternate realities intersecting with our own. I don't discount that entertainment is a big need in people and those are fascinating stories so they spread. But I also have to wonder if people were just describing what they actually saw and how do you reconcile what they saw with our objective reality. I often am struck by the things people have done to preserve these types of tales and the sheer amount of effort to took to carve these things in stone and why was it so important to pass these on to later generations. The bible is filled with all sorts of strange stories and examples of things we don't recognize in our world today. If these things happen though wouldn't you want to tell later generations as a warning about these phenomena? Just food for thought I hope this idea is as interesting to you as it is to me.
With gratitude and love,
Fox
The Blemmye people with faces on their torso mentioned by both Greeks and Romans.
