The Frame
Our perception of reality is intricately tied to the 'frame' from which we view it. Change the vantage point—shift the scale, the context, the coordinates—and the truths we hold self-evident can warp or even invert. What appears indisputable from one perspective may be incomplete from another. Reality, therefore, is not fixed; it is an elastic fabric that stretches, twists, and folds depending on where—and how—we observe it.
In the familiar terrain of human experience, “now” feels absolute. It is the synchronized present, stitched together by the assumption that everyone shares the exact moment. Yet “now” is not universal. Imagine two people passing each other on the street, each moving at a slightly different speed. Their respective slices of spacetime tilt just enough that they perceive a distant event in Andromeda entirely differently. In our ordinary frame, the present is a shared truth. In the vastness of the cosmos, it is a localized illusion.
The same fragility surfaces when we examine free will. On a large scale, our ability to influence events is negligible. From a celestial vantage, the notion of control feels almost comical. Something remarkable reappears if we narrow the frame to our immediate proximity: agency. Within our immediate surroundings, we can choose, act, and alter outcomes. What is immutable at a galactic scale becomes pliable within the confines of our human sphere.
Without acknowledging the frame of reference, debates about absolute understanding collapse into absurdity. However, with such a frame, the conversation about reality becomes richer, opening the way for countless perspectives to coexist and thrive.
This question of framing is not just theoretical. Today, as we go agentic, the distances between our realities will only grow. Truth will fracture into microcosms—localized worlds with their internal logic, each as convincing as the next. In such a world, the frame is not optional. It is the anchor that keeps us from mistaking our corner of reality for the whole of it.
