What is Your Reality?

 

We believe We Know Reality

 

I am beginning to wonder if pride is the root of most evil, other than the love of money; which I believe is used to support pride.  I struggle with self-righteousness and pride from time to time, daily.  I wonder what I would have to do to overcome this nemesis of humility, once and for all.  It perverts truth and prevents honest self-reflection and repentance.  And thus, it prevents true spiritual growth.  It can also lead to injuries. 

            In the winter of 2008, my daughter Shawn adopted Jasmine, a rescue mutt that had been picked up off the street.  It was an extremely energetic mix of something.  We both were injured as a result of that dog.  She tripped over Jasmine and pulled her shoulder out of its socket.  I ran to investigate the dog’s barking and flipped up into the air, landing on my left gluteus maximus injuring the nerve at the pierformis.  It stayed injured for over two years.  “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

            It would be helpful to have an accountability partner or group which can be brutally honest with me about me; but mine are all grown up now and I don’t see them on a daily basis (my children.)  I am no longer a teacher and am not subject to “reviews”.  I must now rely on conviction of the Holy Spirit in my reading of scripture.  “Oh Lord, you mean me?”

            Every individual believes what they believe is real; otherwise that individual would experience epiphany, repent and become different.  If you honestly believe you have reality and the truth, than you need to read this book.  There are principles in it that I remind myself often.  They help me with self-righteousness and pride.  They help me be more tolerant of different people and ideas.  They help me believe God for the impossible.  They help me grow.

            When I was working on my Master’s degree in General Science, I took classes in which I wondered how I was expected to apply the information gained.  Modern Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity and Cosmology were three of those.  I wanted to understand nuclear decay and those classes were the closest I could come to Nuclear Physics at Eastern Michigan University.  I did what every Christian should do.  I prayed that God would show me what was important.  I believe my understanding comes as His response.

 

 

 

 

 

Sensual Reality          

 

Blaise Pascal gave up science because he wanted to devote the remainder of his life to theology.  He became convinced that every individual needed the revelation of God.  Science could only take one so far.  One needed serendipity and the revelation above the human scope of understanding.  We humans are limited by our senses, and in modern times, to the extent of technology.  Microscopes and telescopes opened up new vistas of understanding but also revealed how limited we were and still are.

            When the Hubble telescope was pointed at a blank space in the universe and light gathered from billions of light years away, an abundance of galaxies was recorded.  Stop to ink. How large is the world?  How large is the universe?  How small are you?  How large is your God?  What could you be missing?  What else do you not understand?

            For the majority of people, the sense of vision impacts understanding the most.  How limited is that?  What is being misunderstood?  Let us explore vision.  If you are physically blind, the application can just as profoundly be applied to any other of the sensory organs.

            My daughter Robin became a retina surgeon.  While she was still in school, I asked her what the little light specks in my vision represented.  Did everyone see light specks in their field of vision?  She said I had the entoptic effect which meant that I could see the photons being emitted from the molecules of the vitreous humor. Just for a little perspective, my near vision was a -2.  The vitreous humor is the gel-like substance that makes up the bulk of the interior of the eye.  Not everyone can see the light specks.  It is of no importance unless you are in Modern Physics trying to conduct the Millikan Oil experiment.  In which case, the oil drops can be confused with the light specks in the field of vision.  The knowledge that some people could not see what I was seeing led me to think about vision as personal and daunting.  I am certain that my lab partner thought I was making the whole thing up to avoid staring into the microscope for hours on end.

            In Physics, students learn that everything that refracts (bends) light has an index of refraction that is based on how much light is “bent” from its normal path.  Air is n=1.  Water is n=1.33.  Glass is n= 1.52.  The classic example is to look at the straw in the glass of water and see that it appears disjointed at the surface where air and water meet.  The vitreous humor is n=1.337.  Light passes through the cornea (n=1.376) into the aqueous humor (n=1.336).  It then passes through the lens (n=1.406 at the center to n= 1.386 in outer layers - a gradient index).  It must then pass through the vitreous humor before impacting the retina; which is a thin tissue coating the inside globe of the eye.  So light is bent!  So what!  So, are you seeing what is really there or some version of it (since the light from the object has been bent, or does all the bending smooth out?)

 See the following website for clear presentation of the eye’s interior:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/eyescal.html

 

            For a person to see an object, the light must travel its indirect path to the retina where receptors called rods and cones gather light emission and transmit that to the visual cortex of the brain, via the optic nerve.  The optic nerve is in the back of the globe of the eye.  Where the optic nerve comes into the globe, there are no rods or cones.  Let me repeat that – there are no rods and cones!  Any light falling on that spot cannot be relayed to the visual cortex.  This is what is called the blindspot.

            Yes!  We all have blind spots – one in each eye.  It isn’t merely a philosophical opinion.  And now, we will digress and perform the blind spot experiment in order to try to cement the idea into the subconscious that we all have blind spots.

 

 

While looking at the above image of a card, close the right eye.  The card should be in the center of your vision (do not shift your head right or left.)   Your head should not be tilted up or down but be parallel to the page (hold the page up and look straight ahead.)  Hold the page about an arm’s length away and slowly draw the page to your face while focusing your gaze (from the left eye) onto the RIGHT edge of the card (away from the black spot.)

If you have done everything correctly, the black spot disappears at about one foot from your face.  Be sure to FOCUS your entire attention on the right edge of the card.  Then take a moment to reflect on what you “saw”.  Since no light at that spot is being processed, you should still see “nothing”.  Yet, the card behind the black spot mysteriously appears.  The exact focus point may need to be shifted depending on how good your peripheral vision is.

Hopefully, you have correctly concluded that what you see is not real but a fabrication of your own brain.  And no matter what your mind tells your brain, it will process the image in the same way, always.  The brain will do its own thing, regardless of your wishes and commands.  The brain does not like blind spots and so it gathers data from around the spot and fills in the details.  Think about shadows and what your brain might do with missing information from the shadows. 

In one of my favorite movie scenes, Indian Jones looks out upon a chasm.  He holds a small book that has written in it “leap of faith”.  He sees no other way to get to the Holy Grail he is seeking and so he takes the leap of faith and steps out into the chasm, into what he believes is thin air.  His foot finds electron repulsion and the ledge he could not see holds him up.  He scatters dust upon the ledge so he can see it.  He could not see the ledge because it blended into the cliff face ahead.  The brain could decipher the ledge once it knew that it was there.

 

 

What else does the brain fabricate?  Well, what about memories?  I gave my psychology students, 10^th and 11^th grade students, a memory assignment.  I specifically requested that they recall an incident from childhood.  Like many students, they didn’t follow the instructions and some brought in incidents from the prior year. Perhaps they considered that still childhood.  I had each student write, in as much detail as they could recall, an incident in which they could get another individual to also recall.  They were to have the other individual in their incident also write as much detail as possible about the incident.

You probably can guess what happened.  It has probably happened to you.  A vivid memory you have was not shared exactly by someone else who was there, exactly the same way as you.  If not, do a test run and when you are with a childhood friend or sibling, ask them to recall an incident in as much detail as they can.  Compare notes.  Who is right and who is wrong?  No one.  You each remember the incident differently because the neural pathways connecting the bits of information regarding the incident were joined to the data bits differently.  There are two different brains at work.  There are two different opinions.

Vivian and Andrea recall being in the basement of Vivian’s home.  One of them picked up a pillow on the couch and both of them were surprised by an insect. However, one of them remembered it was a spider while the other distinctly recalled it was a roach.

My daughter Robin recounts an event in which she plunged through the ice (of a swamp) and was trapped under it.  I remember seeing her approach the back door of the house after the supposed plunge.  Her shoes might have been a little wet and I recall telling her earlier that I didn’t think the ice was safe yet.  She and her younger brother Todd and the next door neighbor went on an adventure out on that ice.  I later saw the neighbor’s bicycle stuck in the swamp about three feet from the bank.  The water level was never more than three feet there.  If anyone was under the ice, it would have been Todd.  He ambled up to the house a minute or so later, wet but all right.  I am certain if her brother was under the ice, Robin would not have been so nonchalant about his whereabouts.  What mattered was that she saw herself as a survivor of an almost impossibly difficult situation.  And through the years, she has survived difficult situations without giving in or giving up.

            I was mistakenly under the impression that childhood memories change over the years because neural pathways are not yet “cemented” until the age of nine.  Scientists now know that new neural pathways are created throughout a human lifespan.  Of course, I discovered that with my psychology students who last year’s details had been altered.

            In the book, Unlocking the Secrets of Your Childhood Memories, Dr. Kevin Leman and Randy Carlson discuss the idea that many of our memories hold only the bits of truth. What is important is how the person views self in that memory.  In my earliest memories, I remember myself analyzing what is happening.  Can a three-year old analyze anything?  I don’t know.  But I do have a tendency to analyze.  What is important, the authors say, is to come to peace with your memories, since they really aren’t the total reflection of the truth.  They are, in fact, somewhat “refracted”, or the brain has bent the truth.  If you are a parent of a young child, journal with as much detail as possible.  When the child is older, you can compare notes.  I am certain your child will be astonished at the actual details recorded.

What else does your brain fabricate?  Very few of us are good observers and tend more to opinion than fact.  Sandy was a good observer.  Having been in my living room for all of five minutes, she could recall minute details.  In childhood, her father always tested her when she was out on errands with him.  He probably had his two children observing “everything” in order to keep them out of trouble.  She and her brother were expected to notice any changes at the bank or stores they went to.  “What was that new painting depicting?  Was Eleanor there that day?  Notice that a teller had a new hair color?”  And so it was a game her father had her play with her brother as competition.  She would make a good eyewitness.  The brain can be conditioned.  It is a muscle organ that should be exercised.

However, the brain is selective about the information it stores.  Some information is only recalled when there is a trigger signal given it, like recognizing a copper penny is a true penny.  Most of us could not recall all the details on the coin but we can recognize a real penny when we see it.  Imagine yourself having to pick out a criminal in a lineup.  You might not be able to give the detectives details about the criminal until you see him or her in a lineup.  But is that the actual criminal or is your brain filling in missing information?  Better not to convict anyone on the testimony of one witness.  “"Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."  2 Corinthians 13:1 and “One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Deuteronomy 19:15

 I had this discussion with my youngest son Jason one day.  Several months later he came home and asked me what I was working on as I typed.

“I just remembered something I forgot to write in my journal of my Brazil trip.”

“Are you remembering, “said Jason, “or are you creating?”

Even today, I do not know if I was creating.  Certainly, it should have been in writing in my journal if it actually happened.  There weren’t any new events, just new “details.”  We all laugh about the fisherman who tells tall tales of the giant fish that got away.  Perhaps, the fisherman or fisherwoman isn’t deliberately fabricating.  Perhaps, in that individual’s brain, data bits have been “recemented” where wishes have replaced actual facts.  Einstein was said to have taken copious notes, which were discarded but saved.  Scientists refer to that as “fuzzy data”.  Of course, his fuzzy data was of great interest to the other scientists. My children’s stories become more interesting as time passes.  I wish I had kept fuzzy data.

Can you appreciate the meticulous rigor of scientists who record minute details?  Knowing what the brain does with details, should give us all new incentive to journal daily, in pen; so when senility does set in, actual facts are recalled and not fabrications.  Just don’t go back and embellish with details in the margins.

Dr. Robin Ross said that children’s vision isn’t set until they are 9 years of age.  We had this discussion because when Jason was 8 years old, I discovered he was partially color blind.  He doesn’t see pastel shades but different shades of gray and white.  Robin tested his vision and found that his depth perception was under normal.  That is why he made a good running back instead of a great running back.  His mind had to process the depth of field, which should have been automatic and wasn’t.  And in any sport, fractions of seconds determine success.  All children should be tested for depth perception before the age of nine.  Robin said after that age, even if their eyes are perfectly normal, the brain cannot be trained to see in depth.

The brain processes stereoscopic images from both eyes and translates it into depth.  That is how Illusion pictures are transformed into 3D images.  For some fun discoveries, go to:  http://www.scientificpsychic.com/graphics/

For a good stereoscopic image that you can see in 3D, go to:

http://www.sito.org/cgi-bin/egads/showart?show=moc.0003

Jason came home angry one day and asked me what was the color of the apartment that his grandmother Matra lived in.  I said I thought it was a sandy or blue color.  “Why?”

He had argued with his friends that she lived in the white apartments by Lumen Christi High School.  They argued that there were no white apartments.  I have to remember that when giving Jason driving directions, not to include the color of buildings as landmarks.  He has a difficult time remembering that he sees things differently.  And I have to remember that he sees black distinctly as shades of red, purple, green, brown, etc.  He is my “go to” guy for fashions in black.

I had an epiphany that day when 8 year old Jason and I stood at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum by the color vision board.  I asked him jokingly, “and what numbers do you see?”

It was a board colored with pastel bits of pale pinks and blues or greens.  Embedded were two grouping of numbers.  If you were color blind, you saw one set of numbers.  If you were normal, you saw the other group of numbers.  When Jason answered my question I was dumbstruck. I went back to the board and asked him to show me where those numbers were.  After he pointed them out, I could see them.  I pointed out the group I saw and he saw them.  Then, I read the board’s instructions.  After all, I had to find out which one of us was color blind!

To this day, I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my gut that maybe, I wasn’t normal!  Maybe, I wasn’t seeing “right”.  Of course, I know that.  I am nearsighted and have astigmatism and need glasses to correct my vision.  But I always thought it was my husband who had a weird sense of color fashion, and for a few seconds realized, it might be me! No wonder there are different styles of fashions and colors!  We all see things a little differently; even “normal” people.  Think about it.  Is your retina exactly like everyone else’s?  Is your optic nerve exactly like someone else’s optic nerve; exactly the same thickness or density or length?    Is your visual cortex exactly like everyone else’s?  Is your brain exactly the same as everyone else’s?

We might agree that a red rose is red, doesn’t mean that we are seeing the red the same way.  That is probably why the landscapers put in a bed of magenta red roses in Robin’s garden instead of crimson red roses.  She made them replace the entire bed because at some point, they looked magenta pink.  And pink is not allowed in her landscape.

What have you learned so far?  The brain can manufacture details so that the “reality” you see may not be real at all.  The brain must receive external data and then thread the bits of data together via your neural pathways which might change over time if “cementation” doesn’t take place immediately.  If cementation doesn’t occur immediately, memories might be altered.  We don’t all see, or hear, taste or feel exactly the same things in the same ways.

I once met a student at Eastern Michigan University that changed his major from music.  He said he loved music but failed miserably in music theory.  One professor had him tested and the finding revealed that the student’s brain was mixing the frequencies backward so that what we, “normal people”, hear as high tones, he heard as low tones and low tones were heard as high tones.  He knew then that he didn’t understand what other people heard as music and would never be able to write music that others would enjoy.  I have since, never thumbed down anyone else’s music choices.  Each of us, I believe, resonate to different frequencies.

 

Resonant Reality

 

Speaking of frequencies and resonance, get out your wine glass.  Make certain it is absolutely clean.  Wet the glass and run a very clean finger around the rim.  This will only work if you and the glass are clean.  As you run your clean finger around the wet, clean rim of the wine glass, it will begin to vibrate and you will hear a distinct tone.  The more liquid you put in the glass, the lower the tone will be.  The glass is resonating to the speed at which I run my finger around the rim and the size of the space it contains.  If you don’t have wine glasses, watch Miss Congeniality.  She played water glasses as her talent in the beauty pageant.

Your body is an electric circuit.  Each year, I had my Christian Physics’ students hold hands.  Even in the 10^th grade they are reluctant but do as I request.  I have an “energy ball.”  It looks like a ping pong ball but contains a light bulb.  On the outside, are two metal leads.  The last two people that have open hands in the circle each touch one of the leads.  That “closes” or completes the circle or electric circuit.  When that happens, the bulb lights up and some make sounds.  If any student breaks the circuit by untouching the next student, the circuit is broken and the light goes out.  Each student can light the bulb by connecting to the next student but it takes all of them in cooperation to make it work.  The circuit is as strong as the weakest link.  That is my team building commentary.  You can purchase the energy ball online or at Sears.

Light is an electromagnetic frequency.  Electricity is electromagnetic.  As electricity runs through a wire or your body, it generates a magnetic field.  The electric field and magnetic field are not confined to inside the body.  Fields are a little like clouds in that they are not contained.  The concept of resonance is that one object can generate a vibration or frequency so that a second object is influenced by the frequency “cloud” and begins to vibrate at the same frequency.  It is possible to physically “resonate’ with another human being!  It isn’t merely a philosophical metaphor. 

Electricity and light parallel another important concept.  My 10^th grade students didn’t have to like each other or agree with one another’s opinions to give light to the room.  They illuminated it with the agreement to hold hands or touch one another.  If they were afraid of germs, they could touch someone else’s shoulder.  Scripture tells us that there will be disagreement so that truth can be revealed.  That isn’t important to the concept of unity.  We can agree to disagree.  In a marriage, God has set the male figure as the decider.  Women can disagree with their spouse’s opinion but God has made the male figure the decider.  By abiding with God’s decree, unity is maintained.   If the male figure is wrong, he alone will bear the sin as long as the woman has tried her best to put forth the right truth respectfully.

Christians can lose power in the church by refusing to be part of the body because of some disagreement.  The flow is stopped; the circuit is broken.  In electrical circuits, when batteries are joined one to another in a circle, the power adds up increasing the capacity for more voltage than if only one battery was used.   “Where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is.”  He is always present in His people, but they might not realize it until there is enough “juice” to “feel” His presence.

The Alain Aspect experiments in Quantum Physics involved splitting light photons.  Two paths of light were created out of one.  One of the paths of light photons was reoriented using a polarizing instrument. Both paths were then measured for the polarized orientation.  It was assumed that one of the paths would retain the reorientation and the other path would be unchanged.  No matter how many times the experiment was conducted or the measuring instruments set up, the same result was obtained.  BOTH paths of light had been changed.

The results had a dynamic influence on theorists.  At one time, it was assumed that you could not have action at a distance; contact of some type had to be responsible for change.  The Aspect experiments changed that belief. Today, it is believed that when subatomic particles are involved, they retain their affinity for near subatomic particles no matter how far they are separated.  Distance on a subatomic level cannot be treated the same as distance in our visible world.

Physicists are now rethinking the Big Bang theory. The idea that if all life and what we know of the universe began at one point in the Big Bang, than all of life and substance had a common origin.  If it all had a common origin at the subatomic level, than everything affects everything else no matter what the intermediate distance is.

What implication does this have for Christian thinking? Does it further explain what we know of God?

A careful reading of the Old Testament reveals that God held the individual responsible for his/her city. He held the city responsible for one person. Why?  God saw humanity as a single entity.  In the beginning we were one with God.  Humanity chose not to be one with God but to be its own individuality and so the course of its future was set by its own choosing though God did have a plan to reestablish that unity thousands of years later in his son Jesus Christ.

 We retained our unity with one another longer than we retained our unity with God. We see the city of Babel united against “the rest of the world” to the point of disobeying God’s command to go out into the entire world and care for it – multiply in it and bless it.  God dealt with that arrogance by taking away the ability of the people at Babel to fully understand each other.  We see languages developing as group isolation separated people into “island” communities. This was the direction that humanity chose; it was the development of individuality or what they thought was individuality.

Today we understand unity better.  We know that if the rainforests continue to be burned down that the weather will be affected across the globe. We know that as the Midwestern United States continues to dry up its aquifers that will have global implications.  We know that if the “civilized” world does not care for the rest of the third world countries, poverty will lead to anarchy and anarchy lead to a global breakdown as our economies become more intertwined.

In our families, we see the devastation of individuality.  We have seen and are seeing an increase in divorce and abuse and illiteracy.  People feel isolated amidst the crowds and are losing the social grace that existed in small communities. God created us to live in community, and as community; as long as we live our lives counter to that, we affect the entire world adversely, according to the Aspect experiments.  What we choose to do individually has profound implications for the future of humanity because that’s the way the world is.

In our arrogance, did we not think that nuclear bombs would not affect our earth, our universe, and our humanity?  We will never know the entire implications of those years; the variables are too many. At the same time, we cannot know for certain how the lives of individuals like Gandhi or Mother Teresa have sustained us all.  But somewhere, sometime, we need to begin making decisions with global humanity in mind, each of us individually and collectively.

What was God’s plan for restoration?  Jesus. He came to tear down the dividing walls of hostility and make out of humanity one people. He opened the floodgates of heaven.  He came to restore women to their rightful place, to heal the sick and bind up the wounded. Most of all, Jesus came to restore us to God.  We now have the means to restore our spirituality; to restore our authority and dominion over the earth.  God gave us back the ability to reconcile and restore our world.  If we do not do that, He will hold each of us individually and corporately responsible.

Humanity made a decision years ago.  It decided for nuclear power rather than solar power. We will feel the effects of that for decades to come. We make decisions for war rather than peace. Political activism is a choice and so is silence. The knowledge of evil is a choice.  We make decisions day by day and choose moment by moment what we will expose ourselves to, what we will think, what we will believe, and what we will pursue.  Like it or not, we affect the universe and God will hold us responsible for our choices.

What will we take out of consciousness and make concrete in our physical world?  Good or Evil?  Joshua said it many thousands of years ago, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.  As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

I’ve thought about this more concretely since reading Mitch Albom’s book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Mitch spoke to the topic of universal consciousness through a warm and endearing story. He reminded me of my obligation to choose wisely. We may never know how we affect the future of our world; we can only be certain that we do.

 

 

 

 

Our Relativistic Reality

 

The three advanced Physics courses I had covered Einstein’s theory of relativity.  In it I learned that the speed of light is constant throughout a medium.  Most constants are in reality ratios or comparisons of numbers such as Pi.  Pi is the comparison of a circle’s diameter and its circumference.  The dimensions of a circle can change but not the ratio Pi.  Therefore, it is referred to as a constant.  The speed of light is the ratio of distance over time.  Most speeds are not constant, except perhaps a car when its cruise control is on.

A famous experiment using the entire globe of the earth revealed that it didn’t matter which side of the earth you were on, the speed of light didn’t vary.  Whether the earth was rotating away from the sun or whether it was rotating toward the sun, the speed of light from the sun was the same.  Other experiments verified that the speed of light was constant in space.  It varies only from medium to medium such as when refraction occurs.  It slows down in some materials such as glass and that is seen in the amount of bending of the light.

Imagine that you are neck-to-neck with another car on the highway.  Both cars are traveling the same direction.  The two cars have cruise control activated at 65 mph (miles per hour.)  Point a radar gun at the other car and it will register zero; because distance between the cars is zero.  Have the other car come from the opposite direction with its cruise control activated.  The radar gun will register 130 mph because the gap between you is closing at twice the cruising speed.  Similarly measure the speed of light; it will always register approximately 3 x 10⁸ mps (meters per second.)  Physicists do not have an explanation for this anomaly.  They merely say that it is because light has no mass.  It is pure energy.  Might I suggest it is because light is not confined to our four dimensions of space and time?  Some physicists have postulated that it is because light is from a higher dimension.

Light, unlike everything in our world, is not three dimensional.  It only manifests itself as three dimensional in our world when it enters our world.  It originates beyond our world and is multidimensional.  We only understand it within the confines of our dimensions.  Jesus referred to himself as light.  If so, he was once multidimensional and when he manifested himself in our world as an infant, he confined himself bodily to four dimensions, three of space and one of time.

Dr. Edwin Abbott wrote a book called Flatland.  In Flatland, a protagonist attempts to get two dimensional creatures to understand what a sphere (God) is by creating a one dimensional world.  I did an exercise with student groups and had them draw a two-dimensional world and its creatures.  I explained that in this world, there was no top or bottom, just two directions such as front and back or left and right, length and width.  It takes some thought because even an amoeba is three-dimensional.

They were to consider what they would miss if they had to reduce themselves to two dimensions.  Some students drew only the ‘top” of a head which looked like a sea urchin.

“Top?”  I said, “there is no top.  Like the Mobius Strip, there is no top and bottom.”

Some students drew some type of “eye”. 

“What is there to see?”

What would light be like in a two-dimensional reality?  The energy portion or movement of photons would be understood separately from the magnetic counterpart.   Perhaps color would be missing and only warm and cold sensations felt.  The 2D creatures would not understand the connection between electricity and magnetism.  In our reality, we don’t understand the connection between all the forces and gravity.  We don’t have a theory of everything and are not likely to because we cannot see beyond our world.

We do not even have an explanation of gravity.  Some physicists postulate that it is governed by “gravitons” but none have ever been detected.  Einstein’s view was that space and time were interwoven into what he called the fabric of spacetime.  Gravity was the result of bending the fabric.  Would you like an illustration?

Use a flat bed sheet.  This is your 2D representation of our 3D space.  Have other people hold the four corners taut.  Put a heavy object such as a bowling ball in the center to represent the earth.  Roll a marble across one edge of the sheet.  If the speed of the marble is slow, the marble will start too circle than fall in toward the bowling ball.  If the speed of the marble is fast enough, it will escape the “gravitational” pull of the bowling ball and hurl itself off the sheet (into outer space.)  If the speed is just right, it will circle the bowling ball much as the moon circles the earth.  God got it exactly right.

            What is God?  He is a multidimensional reality whose complexity we cannot understand.  He is cosmic energy from beyond this world.  Jesus sacrifice to return us to right standing with this cosmic energy did not begin with his ministry on earth.  It began when he confined himself to our world.  He was “with the Father, in the beginning.”  He knew the glory of God and so he also knew he must keep in touch with God while he was in our world.  Blaise Pascal wrote that he needed the revelation of God.  Because there is truth beyond this world.

            People who have had a near death experience speak about light.  They also say that colors are more vivid.  Light beyond this world is not confined in it.  Light is multidimensional.  There is no way we can fathom what God is preparing for those who love Him.  It is beyond this universe, not left at the farthest star.

            Pastor Ron gave a sermon in which he criticized the scientific world because it had postulated the relativistic worldview.  I went to his office and explained that the theory does say every reference frame has its unique point of view, but it had one absolute, the speed of light.  It wasn’t the theory that was wrong.  Society rationalized the theory into every individual’s right to a personal view. Relativism is the belief that all philosophies have validity and are equal.  It is referenced in many books such as, Jesus Drives Me Crazy by Leonard Sweet. The philosophy is regarded as influenced by Physics’ discoveries such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  Because discoveries in science have tended to influence the direction of society, an explanation of the theory is essential.  Einstein did not say that all reference frames are equal. He did not say that there was no absolute. 

The absolute in the theory of Relativity is the speed of light.  Only because of the absolute value of the speed of light can physicists understand one reference frame to another. They use what is referred to as a factor of gamma.  The factor looks like the following:

Velocity of the reference frame is represented as ‘v’.  When ‘v’ approaches 0, the fraction goes to 0 and gamma goes to one.  That is why in everyday, visible activities, we don’t need to use the relativistic equations because multiplying by one doesn’t change anything.  However, if the velocity is ½ that of light, or v = .5 c then the factor changes the value of the expression. Mass, speed, and time can change depending on the speed of the reference frame.  Experiments show that time slows down as the reference frame speeds up.  We who are over sixty years of age have slowed down and time is speeding up!  The years whiz by.

Culture in the postmodern era finds itself heavily influenced by “relativism”.  If society is going to be influenced by relativity, let it be influenced by its truth.  It shows us that we need some way to understand one another. For me the factor of gamma is Jesus Christ, the light of God. Only through Christ can I understand other people, not through my own eyes or understanding, but through his wisdom and guidance. And if I can gain an understanding of how others see Christ, I gain a fuller understanding of the ideal.

The more we share our own vision and understanding with each other, the better holistic view we develop. Understanding other points of view produces a broader reality. Of course, until we are in eternity and see the face of God, we will never have the whole truth. Even Science knows it can never know the whole truth.

            We are like the blind men and the elephant. Each sees only a limited view.  Even if they compared notes, the blind men might not understand the whole animal.  We who have sight don’t understand the whole elephant.  We can shout all we want that we know what we know but we know only a limited amount – what we have individually experienced.  There is a limit to what our senses reveal, there is a limit to what our brain does, and there is a limit to what is given to us to understand. We don’t understand much that happens in our universe.  We know nothing of what lies beyond.

 

 

The “Beyond” Reality

 

            I put the word beyond in quotes because it is difficult to fathom that it is beyond since God who dwells in heaven is ever present.  He is like the electric and magnetic fields to which there are no boundaries.  But I believe that heaven is a multidimensional space. It is as distinctly different from the earth as a box is different from the flat cardboard it was made from which is distinctly different from the fibers that formed the flat cardboard which is distinctly different from the molecules that cling together to form the fibers which formed the cardboard which formed the box.  However, the box can help to illustrate multidimensional space.  Think about what happens to a box when you are breaking it down to recycle the cardboard.

            In the very beginning of time, the unformed reality was energy and peculiar things began to happen as the energy cooled and solidified into matter.  Whatever physics was employed, objects solidified into three dimensional matter.

A one dimensional object would not have length and width.  It would have one dimension made up of stuff that could not be measured, not even in nanomicrons.  But imagine a dot on this paper that is so small it cannot be measured (the smallest particle in our world reduces to a vibration of energy.)   The dot is lonely and hooks up with a whole string of like dots so that the string has length.  There is the law of attraction at work.  The string is one dimensional.

            The dots at the end of the string are unbalanced and vibrate strongly toward each other forming a circle so that all dots have two partners.  Circles are two dimensional.  There is an outside and an inside.  There is a circumference and a diameter and it fills two-dimensional space.

            As the circle cools further, dots began to superposit or fill the same space because the law of attraction is at work: the circle becomes kinked as corners form.  It would be kinked at exactly even spacing so that it might form a cross.  It is still two dimensional. However, the planar space which the line filled is now getting smaller.

            I suggest that after the dots have superposited or filled the same space, the same thing would happen to entire line segments of dots.  Where matter is densest, dots have superposited or filled the same space, more attraction occurs.  Line segments become superposited so that a three dimensional box is formed.  Of course, imagine there isn’t material between the lines but the lines form a box which fills three-dimensional space.  And the planes are getting smaller as volume increases.

            The next to superposit would be two planes of dots, the next higher dimension.  This would happen at the densest point which would be the corners.  Imagine at each corner, an inverted triangular pyramid is formed from the three imaginary planes superpositing.  I suggest they are planes of strong attraction like fields of vibration resonating with one another.  The face of each side now looks like a hexagon.  After dots, came planes.  After planes, what is there?  There is only space or three-dimensional fields of vibration resonating with one another!   This is where volumes get smaller and the higher dimension would get larger.

            What we have is a type of Big Bang in reverse.  Reverse is contraction and a move toward unity.  It is a move toward singularity.  Black holes are like the densest corners of our universe.  If our universe is expanding, perhaps someday we will see black holes becoming less dense.  If heaven is multidimensional, perhaps it is not beyond the physical dimensions of our world but within it.  After all, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within.  There are theories being postulated in the scientific community that suggests multidimensional realities are like curled up energy strings within our space.

            Space in general is just as hard to imagine.  I am not referring to “outer space” but inner space that is with us and in us.  How can one space fit within another space?  How much denser can an object get?  If the nucleus of an atom was as large as the period at the end of one of these sentences, electrons in the outer shells would be approximately 50 meters away or over 150 feet away.  And if the law of repulsion wasn’t at work, 10,000 electrons would fit in between the nucleus and the electron shells.  Our eyes do not detect the space that is there because the electrons are vibrating too fast.  All of life is mostly nothing (99 percent nothing) besides being an illusion!  I hesitate to call it a vacuum because that would mean that life “sucked”.  Vacuums always draw everything into itself.

            For Jesus to walk on water or walk through walls, he needed only to control the attractive and repulsive forces of the electrons. And since he knows the theory of everything, he did know how.  Today we know how to generate magnetic fields and use magnetic fields to generate electricity.  We can use the repulsive force of electrons to levitate objects.  Perhaps someday in the future, with super super computers, we can walk through walls or walk on water by controlling the electrons within atoms.

 

A Mobius Wormy Reality

 

            Wormholes are fun to think about.  I use a Mobius strip to explain wormholes to Physics students.  I also use the Mobius strip to illustrate the faulty ability of reason.  Reason is based on what we know and it usually involves how we habitually think.  You can perform the experiment with a roll of calculator paper strips.  I once bought an entire box of the rolls at an outlet store before graphing calculators and Quicken became popular. 

            Hold a strip of the roll with arms outstretched and cut that length, approximately three feet. Hold the ends together.  Tape the ends together but first twist one end.  Put tape on both sides.  If you have done it correctly, you do not have a circle but what looks like a figure eight or the symbol for infinity: ∞

            Draw a line down the middle of the strip all the way along its length.  The end should meet the beginning of the line because there is no difference between top and bottom.  You could consider this to be a 2D reality.  Next, predict what will happen if you cut along that line.  Test your prediction and cut along the line.  Were you right?

            In science, experiments are repeated hundreds of time.  Here, repeat it at least once more.  Draw the line. Next predict what will happen when the next cut is made.  If you do not want to, read the conclusion. Otherwise, pause and do the experiment.

            The first time, the strip becomes a larger strip.  The second time, the strip separates into two distinct strips interwoven with each other.  Why is the second time different from the first if you did the same thing to the strip the second time? The strip was changed by the first experiment.  It had two twists in it the second time.  Still, I leave it to the reader to understand why it separates.

            Most people will not observe well and therefore do not make good predictions.  This goes back to the limitations of our senses and how little we have trained our brains to observe details.  This also has implications for scientific experiments and research.  Interpreting results could be faulty due to poor detailing.  The more fuzzy data, the better the possible conclusion will be.

            Back to wormholes.  My students take the 2D reality of the Mobius strip and draw ants on one side.  I then tell them the story of how Edgar Ant couldn’t follow the leader.  Of course, the ants are 2D and live in the strip.  The leader follows a trail around the strip to a point midway where food is found.  Good ants follow him.  Edgar gets lost; however, when the leader ant gets to the food, he finds Edgar is already there.  How did Edgar get there first?  He did not follow the middle path but “fell off the edge”!  He went through a wormhole.

            If future travelers are going to cross the vast expanse of the universe, they most likely will have to find the wormhole.  If the universe is not just a giant blob of matter thinly dispersed, but has a definite shape such as a saddle, the entire universe could be traversed more easily if the spaceship could warp out of the edge of the 3D reality’s saddle shape and through the multidimensional space back again into the 3D reality’s other side of the saddle. 

            We save time traveling by plane when we take the shortest route.  If you wanted to fly from North Carolina to California, the shortest route is west.  The plane could go east across the Atlantic Ocean, Eurasia, and the Pacific Ocean, but that would be far longer.  The shortest route to the other side of the universe is most likely to try to find the edge and use that route – perhaps through a black hole or through wormholes.

            It most likely would take an enormous amount of energy but according to quantum mechanics, it is possible to “tunnel” out.  In nuclear decay, the weak alpha particles manage to escape the strong force and get out of the nucleus of the atom because it is such a jittery world that things are constantly in flux and in delicate balance.  If the alpha particle is also being jittery, it will eventually be propelled out by the combination of attraction and repulsion.  Nuclear decay substances such as uranium are highly unstable and more jittery than stable atoms.  The alpha particle manages to escape through a weakness created by the flux of attraction and repulsion forces within the nucleus.