Thank you. So the “next step” for me seems to be what we are witness to in what we refer to as “reality” is not so much “Plato’s Cave” or even Kesey’s “Movie Theatre” but something infinitely more complicated. Mass and distance are almost illusions connected by light. Something very strange is going on here. And think about the constraint you mention in regard to “it seems the photon can’t move until it has a place to land”. So photons that left stars in galaxies billions of light years away left that star before our planet, much less my retina, were even created? Sort of smashes our concept of time.
So, at least the heat from that star continued to reside where it was until our eyes caught it.
But the photon was allowed to move, without bringing with it the heat.
I agree that “something very strange is going on here”.
Science’s demand for strict materialism is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Consciousness may well permeate many things that we believe have no consciousness—and may be an integral part of all that is...