May 13th 2026 - Experience and Models: Our Only Reality

General relativity and quantum mechanics have not been reconciled. I believe the reason for this is that as humans we can't understand anything outside of our experience without using mental models. We claim to understand reality through our senses and scientific discoveries but a lot of that understanding is really just interpretation of data we've collected.

In reality there are only 6 things we can truly know for sure, our experiences of:

  1. Seeing
  2. Hearing
  3. Smelling
  4. Tasting
  5. Feeling
  6. Thinking

David Hume writes about this in his A Treatise of Human Nature where he logically shows these are the only things that are possible to know and anything we claim beyond that is just speculation. The Buddha states the same thing in the Sabba Sutta:

Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

"As you say, lord," the monks responded.

The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."