As I'm reading this essay by Rebecca Frankel, it occurs to me that I don't know whether everyone, the author included, is aware: We map the universe around us in hexagons, not circles or even squares.
(If I'm reading this study right. But I also remember a conversation on the Skeptic's Guide to the Galaxy where Dr. Novella was pretty psyched to learn this. They're tabletop gamers, and I guess he's been arguing for hex-grids to be the norm for a while. He's right – squares suck my butt. Diagonals are too weird – and we move and think and model the universe to include diagonals – hexagons.)
So when we're talking about how we don't know that we're on a hypersphere because we don't know we're on a sphere because we think we're on a flat plane – we don't even think we're in a circular plane. We think we're on an hexagonal plane.
It's amazing to think that we could think that our sensory information is valid when the very computer which interprets it is so fundamentally flawed. We're literally talking a hexagonal peg in a circular hole. It works – but there will always be gaps and edges that have to be subtly shaved off.
Take this paragraph: “Suppose a flatlander wished to view structures on a sphere from his comfortable planar home. He could arrange for a transparent sphere to sit on the plane with a light placed at the top, so that all the circles drawn on the sphere would cast shadows down onto his plane. Now these shadows would be distorted images of the original circles, so the images would still seem unnaturally large in the distance, but angles and approximate shapes would be preserved. The flatlander could sit well away from the point where the sphere rested, and watch the play of shadows as the sphere rotated”
This is exactly what Plato is describing with his Allegory of the Cave. Nearly word for word, the meaning is the same. I am blown away.
By Ms. Frankel's work, yes – but also by how this helps me visualize, even model what reality is in four-dimensions.
If a hypersphere can be described as a sphere within a sphere – or even as a sphere made of spheres – then our three-dimensional reality as we understand it is a hypersphere. We live on an oblate spheroid with its own concentric spheroids of magnetosphere, atmosphere, satellites, empty void of space, and the concentric spheres of the planets as they make their 2-dimensional courses along a 3-dimensional plane inside the greater sphere of the galaxy. ...Have I gone macro enough?
Micro is the same. A molecule is a sphere of atom-spheres. And atom-spheres are the Heavens of the spheres of the Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons, and they are the Heavens of the smaller stuff. The Quarks and Gluons and other oddly named bits of the stuff that makes the mostly empty void appear not so empty or void.
As above, so below.
So what is the “fourth dimension”?
I'm not sure I know specifically. I know. Stop the presses. We all thought that's what this was going to be. My big reveal. Sort of.
I think we assume the Fourth Dimension is time. So you've got length, width, and space, right? Time makes sense as the next dimension of measurement.
But what if we're thinking about it all wrong? What if we're thinking about ourselves all wrong?
What if the Fourth Dimension is everything that has to be for the Universe to exist as it does? Like the code in the Matrix. Like Thoth-Hermes Trismegistus says in Chapter 4 of The Hermetica:
Ask Atum to flash a ray of his illumination into your awareness, giving you the power to grasp in thought his sublime Being. For the invisible may only be seen with thoughts – which are themselves invisible. If you can't see thoughts, do you expect to see Atum? Look with your mind, however, and he will appear to you, manifesting himself without reservation throughout the whole universe, so that you may see his image with your eyes and hold it with your two hands.
Do you think Atum is invisible? Don't say that! Nothing is more visible than Atum. He created all things so that through them you could see him. This is Atum's Great Heart – that he manifests himself in everything. Everything can be known, including the insubstantial. Just as Mind is known through thoughts, so Atum is known through his creation.
Atum is the all-encompassing author of entirety, weaving everything into the fabric of reality. Because creation is visible, we can see the Creator, and this is the purpose of his creation. Since he is always creating, he can always been seen, so we should think and marvel and realize that we are blessed with Knowledge of our Father.
To know Atum's being, contemplate him in thought. To see him with your eyes, look at the exquisite order of the Cosmos; the Necessity which governs everything you perceive; the Goodness of all that has been, and that is coming to be. Look at matter filled full with Life, and see Atum pulsating with all he contains.
Contemplate the Cosmos as his ancient body, which is ever prime and new. See the planets circling in eternal time. See the spiritual fire of the Heavens turn to light by the sun and shed as Goodness upon the world. See the ever-changing moon, which governs birth, growth, and decay. See the constellation of the Bear which never rises or sets, but stays ever a fixed point – an axle around which the circle of the Zodiac revolves. See the comets which are called 'Prophet Stars', for when some future fate awaits the world, they emerge for a few days, from their invisible home below the circle of the sun. Who is it that maintains such exquisite order?
The sun is the greatest god in the heavens – a king to whom all the others pay homage. Yet, this mighty god humbly submits to have smaller stars circle above him. Who is it that he obeys with awe? Each star travels its appointed range of space. Why don't all stars run the same course? Who is it who has assigned to each its place? The Bear revolves around herself and carries around with her the whole Cosmos. Who is it that appointed her this task? Who is it that fixed the Earth, and confined the sea within its shores? Someone must be the maker and master of all this. It couldn't just happen. All order must be created. It is only that which is out of measure which is accidental. Yet even disorder is subject to the Master, who has yet to impose order upon it.
If only it were possible to grow wings and soar into the air – poised between Heaven and Earth, you would see the solid ground, the flowing rivers, the wandering air, the penetrating fire, the circling stars, and the encompassing Heavens. What joy to see all this, borne along by the one impulse – to perceive the unmoved mover moving in all that moves. He who is hidden, manifest through all this works.
Consider for a moment, how you were created in the womb. Think of that skillful workmanship, and look for the craftsman who made such a beautiful God-like image. Who traced the circles of your eyes? Who pierced the nostrils, ears, and mouth? Who stretched your sinews and tied them fast? Who built your bones and wrapped your flesh with skin? Who separated your fingers and flattened your feet? Who shaped your heart and hollowed your lungs? Who made your beauty visible, and concealed your guts within? How many crafts have been employed, and how many works of art created to form one human being? Statues or portraits don't just happen without a sculptor or painter. Has such sublime work no creator?”
This is not a synchronicity, but when I opened my copy it was already on the spot I was looking for.
I could have started and stopped at the emboldened verses. But I think this Chapter is beautiful. And I think you should be forced to have it in front of your eyes. To confront your cognitive dissonance as you read it. This was written some 4000 years ago. Maybe longer.
So much of the Modern worldview started with these words. It is this last paragraph that was in the mind of the author when he has his God answer Job (38):
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limbs for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?
“'Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth?
Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'? Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?
Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?”
The book of Job continues on in that vain for a... while. But you saw them, right? The references to Thoth? The Bear and the ibis. The Bear is the same North Star that Thoth described, and the Ibis is his sacred animal.
This has gotten off the rails a little bit. That's how things go for me.
One day I don't know if I'm ever going to feel like doing this again, the next day it's falling in my lap and I'm overwhelmed with trying to digest and articulate it all. In football, they call that the football catching you. I guess life is catching me right now.
Let me jump right to the end of what I want to say, then.
I don't think the Fourth Dimension as such is time. Nor do I think that Material Reality is only three-dimensional. I think that Time-Space as it seems to be occupies maybe more than four dimensions, and there are objects or entities which can be said to only exist in or when observed from certain dimensions.
What originally got me on this rant, if you like, was the idea that the material and spiritual worlds are entirely separate – that there is a membrane, a Firmament, separating them.
This is observably false.
You know where I'm going with this. You have to at this point.
The altered state of consciousness is one that allows you to see into that other place, that other version of reality. I've heard of DMT and heroic doses of LSD taking people to entirely other planes of existence, where they didn't even have a material body, but the world and the beings they were talking to were all very real. And, frankly, watching videos representing what fourth dimensional objects look like sounds exactly like what Rob was describing when he was wherever he was after touching the Rod of Wadjet. We joke about it. But if there is something to the out of body, Astral, Near Death Experience, et cetera, phenomena, then the suggestion isn't that there's a membrane.
It states outright that our material senses are a lower form of reality from the natural state of our consciousness. Consciousness as such is whatever the Experience of the Other is, and this – this is the illusion.
That's what the Gnostics were trying to tell us.
About them.
I originally wanted to talk about the definition of Science, when I sat down to write about this. And now I'm ¾ of the way through again and I'm only touched on a handful of the topics that were clogging my brain in the shower. Why does this always happen to me, I bemoan in the voice of that gecko wailing about his flat tire.
Science as a word arrives to us from the Latin Scire – know. You may be familiar, but Science as such is not a thing. Science as such is a Method. A way of knowing. More importantly, a way of knowing for sure what you know. And more concisely, a way of knowing for sure what we don't know.
I own Thomas Aquinas' works. I'm working my way through them. So much to consume, so little time or pay.
Again, you may already be familiar, but – Gnostic comes to us from the Greek Gnosis – knowledge.
But not just any kind of knowledge. See, if you want to know why Materialism is materially flawed, you have to understand what it was reacting to. Gnosis is a very particular kind of knowledge. Specifically, experiential knowledge of Everything – that is, everything outside the dome of the Firmament. Everything outside this three-dimensional reality as we understand it.
Consider the Gnostic mystery poem, The Thunder, Perfect Mind:
I was sent from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourself.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter.
I am the members of the mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons....
But that's probably enough ancient poetry for one day, don't you think?
The first time I read the title You are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience, I didn't even need to read the book. (I did.) It clicked for me, then.
The reasons this sensory awareness feels so insufficient is because it is.
I'm going to finish by trying to describe what reality is kind of like.
We know that reality is a Schrodinger's Box. We know that electrons just appear where they need to be when they need to be there. We know that a tree very likely doesn't make any noise in a forest with no one around to observe it because it doesn't exist to fall. It was already fallen when you observed it because it was more probable that it would be than that it wouldn't. A certain number of trees need to be fallen in a forest for it to seem “real” to you.
There is something about humans that's different. But when we talk about what is God and what is it that makes us us, we have to talk about Complexity. And I'm running out of space, and I haven't said anything completely insane for a few days, so just stick with me for a few thousand words more, I promise I'm getting there.
DNA has to be aware. To what degree, it is impossible for me to tell. But DNA has to be aware of the environment.
It is too easy to describe an animal's body during the evolutionary process as “thinking” and “reacting” to changes around it. And it's frankly too convenient that the necessary mutations to keep a species alive are accidents. DNA is solving extremely complex problems in order to remain alive and we play it off like it's random chance.
Billions and billions of living creatures had to live and struggle and succeed at propagating for, what, a billion years? for you to feel entitled to scoff at me right now.
I love the idea that the Anunaki came to this planet, found our Wild ancestors, and domesticated them. I love it as a story, but I also love it as a metaphor for what might have actually happened.
But I realize I'm about to step on Rob's toes. He's told me all this and is going to tell you all this. So I need to just leave this alone and get to my model.
We are each a cylinder on the sphere of the world. Some of our cylinders have winder diameters than others, maybe, but we're all an infinitely tall cylinder of light on this sphere in space and time. That cylinder is the opened part of the Schrodinger's Box. But we aren't aware of all of the cylinder. Our awareness is a cone coming out of the lowest part of our cylinder. And there's the obligatory invisible systems of sphere's capping us to the earth, but also to the higher realms of thought and spirit and pure being. Our cylinder extends past the invisible domes of our awareness into these hierarchical Realms, like the Chakra and Prana systems describe.
We are not this body.
This body is a third dimensional thing. An animal. Meat and chemicals and electricity. We, the pilots of these meatbags, are something else. Something maybe entirely spiritual, maybe the confluence of the self-bisection of overlapping Hyperspheres.
I don't know, yet.
But I know how to think about it.
Maybe this helped you, too. Or maybe you're tired of hearing me talk for a while.
Who knows.
All I know is I'm going to make a cup of coffee and call Rob and see how upset he is that I talked about this stuff before he could. Which is kind of my fault, after all.
Comments
Post a Comment