Mystinomicon:
The Reality Carnival World Question Center

In which we explore reality and the furthest reachest of mind. New questions added each month. Your input welcome and updated the moment you post.

1. Can drugs like DMT reveal a true, valid reality, or do they simply distort our perception of reality? Discuss. [Reference]

2. Do you think that lucid dreaming lets us glimpse valid realities or that it allows us to interact with our own reality in new ways? Discuss. [Reference]

3. Can you escape? You wake up one morning to find yourself on top of a mile-high telephone pole that has a 12-foot radius. With you is a German Shepherd dog, a can of unopened chicken soup, a tube of very strong epoxy and a half-mile long rope. Is there any way you can reach the ground safely? (The telephone pole consists only of a smooth, cylindrical column. It has no additional structures.) Click here to add your comment and see others.

4. Here is a CARTOON at excitementmachine.org. Can anyone explain what it MEANS?

5. Please add to our growing collection of links to images relating to Goa trance, Goa trash, Burning Man, and Psychedelics. Post web sites here. Do you enjoy the contributions so far? [Reference]

6. Do you agree with this Heinlein quotation: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."?

7. I'm a big fan of impressive-looking equations like THIS, THIS and THIS. Can you FIND anything cooler than these on the web?

8. Captivating woman in front of mysterious animal corpse, for no apparent reason. (Readers can GUESS what animal it is.)

9. What is the strangest, coolest book title you can find at Amazon.com?

10. Wikipedia, an open-source Encyclopedia, educates and delights. Enlighten us with knowledge. What are your favorite articles?

11. This is your Reality Carnival Editor speaking. What are your favorite past articles at RealityCarnival.Com? Are there any particular ones that you really enjoyed? What KINDS of topics would you like me to continue posting in the future?

12. Who are you?

13. What are you reading?

14. Haven't you ever wondered why so many country names, or names of US states, end in "a"? Quite a mystery.

15. Discuss the awesome mystery of earthworms. When growing up, so many of us learned that if you cut an earthworm in half, both halves will live. But if you walk down your street and ask your neighbors if this is actually true, I'd wager that none could give you a satisfying or coherent answer. This mystery, this lack of solidity, is a metaphor for all that is unknown in the world and all that will never be learned or be learnable by the mind of man. Why is this a question for which no ordinary person has an answer? Ask your friends, and you'll see what I mean.

16. Discuss the mystery of Brooklyn. We all know so much about New York City. Many of us have been to the main part. We've walked down Fifth Avenue, seen Central Park, Trump Tower, the Empire State Building. We've seen Soho and Greenwich Village. We've been to the famous museums and wandered through Grand Central Station and Times Square. Yet Brooklyn, a term which we hear so often, remains a mystery. Few of us have ever been there, seen its buildings, or even know what is there. It remains an archetype of something that has meaning and supposed importance but can't quite be imagined in a concrete fashion. We think of it as a breeding ground of so many famous Jews like Asimov, Sagan, Gould and countless others -- but few of us can say where it is or point to in on a map, or articulate how Brooklyn has changed over the years and why someone would want to visit it today. Why did so much greatness come out of Brooklyn? Brooklyn is a true mystery.

17. Discuss the mystery of the spleen.The Spleen is the ultimate symbol of mystery. We've all heard the word, but I'd wager that virtually no one knows its purpose or could point to its location. We have a sneaking suspicion that we can all live without it, but not a single one of you could draw it. It is as if the spleen is a ghost, an evanescent object that hardly belongs to this world or the world beyond.