Previous posts (this is meant to be continuous): Rebooting the Notes at the End of the Deconstructed Universe - Breaking Probability Waves - Within the Paradox of Time - Heretic Papers II- Beyond the End of the Universe - Blackouts and Multidimensionalism: Lenses, Interruptions and Shadows - Measure all things together - Spaces in time: Contentedness and Cataclysmic Changes - Rivers of life flowing behind the scenes: Faucets, Eternities, and Probabilities Undefined - Outtakes, Golden Paragraphs, Degrees of Relevance, Each a Marvel> - Until Yesterday: Experience, Existence, Whose Universe, Co-Existence
Knowing something's existence [potential] without actualizing it is to potentially see it from many angles at once and let it grow outward into a shape no single reality can contain or hold. It becomes too big or complex to be defined by or limited to any single version of possible events, single Universe, or single timeline. It grows outside of time and across dimensions and can only exist partially in them at once. "Seeing" the potential of anything this way is to "see" the potential of anything and everything else as well. The pattern of things that could be beyond how they only can, will, do, or seem to exist only at once, or in one Universe's history of time.
August 2003
Everything that exists is a figurehead, a beach head of much or everything else and nothing more. It is merely a part which for the moment and by one perspective has broken above something else's surface. Beneath they are always connected. All roots of anything and everything are intermingled, and reconnect ahead again. Only from angles within it do things seem separated, or as separate things.Spring 2004 (Notes Part 2)
It is not what people are which captures my interests and imagination or attention, it is what they have the potential to become. What they are is just a moment in time which anyone can see in any number of ways. Trying to straighten that 360 degree present into a path of or for the future over many times, that is what we try to see when we come across others who we think we can envision that future by or with them. It is to stand in or run concurrent with their stream over many times, and see more of them than anyone could by just seeing or knowing them at one time or (for) a shorter time. What people are is constantly changing and always is in flux. To see the degrees of variation and what they orbit around [a common ground or sense of identity which is mostly or more unchanging] is to find out who they are, but that can take many times or a lifetime depending on how much they can vary from what they see as themselves, how long it takes to complete a single orbit or revolution.June 26, 2004 (Notes Part 2)
People think you can understand the Universe and explain everything via one timeline and one definite reality. This is perceptual. It is a lake, but calling the surface of the lake you see in front of you, and think that surface is the whole lake. If that plane is the lake, then imagine many lakes beneath it stacked. The real lake would be all of those "surface" lakes crisscrossing in ways you cannot imagine seeing it only as a 2D sheets. The same with a 3D plus time universe, you must see that as only as the surface of the lake crisscrossing in ways you cannot imagine viewing only one timeline as real. Since I try to know the whole lake at once, all possible timelines, I still pay attention to the surface, but know that surface is not what I seek to understand and instead focus on how to think in terms of the whole lake I can still even yet only see parts of it at once, though gradually finding new organizations or ways to understand or relate to "depth" dimensional ideas as well, which I am beginning to comprehend.Early 2005 (Notes Part 3)
Holding back time like a beaver with a dam
I gather up the past hoping that what I am
will stay in place
Nothing escapes me yet nothing do I hold
except the present you for memories of old
die upon our lips as they are told
Let our lips be still once they've done their jobs
by letting us express the feelings in our breasts
and letting us taste each other's best
Together or apart whether at the end
or at the start
we are we and will always be opposites united
together in the heart
Excerpt from "Together in the heart"
Continuing on now with writing about April 2003, the way that I know I am doing that now is because after writing the section below this, I dated it: April 2003 at the end of it. Sometimes when I was quite satisfied or pleased with something I wrote, I would add the date at the bottom when I wrote it. This was not usually done or at least done effectively. In going over the larger sections of the Notes (Parts 1-6) which this is meant to frame, and which the excerpts above were pulled from, I sometimes put down the time but not the date. Or even more frustrating to me now, I put down the date of the week and nothing else so say what week or even month that day of the week was in. That would be helpful if any other dates were put anywhere near to that one, but instead it might often go months without any dates added, yet here and there, something like Thursday- 2:45 pm.
However anal it may seem for me to keep going on and on about what the dates were, or about trying to get the order right, it is something I have tried hard to do as best I could, and since I am now coming up to the time in 2003 when the dates, however sporadic, were added, and when my notes became as what was to me a distinct set of writings, thankfully now getting the order right gets much easier. After finishing up "Deconstructing the Universe" with what was to be the final section, "To Co-exist", already covered here in the last section, I shortly thereafter (within few days) wrote something about that work which I would later put as the "Introduction". But it did not end. Like with the notes which I ended up calling "The Heretic Papers" written immediately after writing "Toward Tomorrow", my mind again was still racing, thinking up good short bits of things yet not wanting to develop them fully, and yet still wanting to add them to "Deconstructing the Universe", so I later tucked them onto the end as "Terms".
These terms or short bits were to evolve over the summer and fall of 2003 into what would later become the Notes (or 5D Notes), as I now referred to them, once there were many more of them done later (2003/2004). This fairly long, 10 plus posts/sections, leading up to the Notes is now almost complete and I can more or less just cut and paste the bulk of subsequent posts/sections from the previous Notes pages at Polsci.com. However, it will not be totally that easy as simply just cutting and pasting text, as I will also be including here other things written at those times which relate to them. This will be more work, but, for me writing it anyway, will make it more fun to begin to tie the strands of the whole thing together.
What follows below is a slightly longer version of that mentioned Introduction and some of the Terms section, in mostly chronological order as written, probably around May/June 2003.
Introduction
If I had read Einstein and Buddha, The Parallel Sayings (Edited by Thomas J. McFarlane, 2002 Ulysses Press [Publishers Group West]) before having written "Deconstructing the Universe" I most likely would not have bothered to write it. That so much of what is said here has been said not only before, but so often by so many others was surprising to me. Not that I am surprised by some of the sources of similar ideas to what is written here such as Chuang Tsu or the Buddha.
Indeed I well consider myself and my outlook a mixture of Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism: a) Buddhist in that to understand the Universe or God you must first begin by understanding yourself or that part of God which is inherent within you. If you understood everything else in the Universe but not yourself, you would know literally nothing, but if you understand yourself you have the magic decoder ring or Rosetta Stone for understanding anything else. b) Christian in that the highest ideal or achievement one can attain or aspire to is forgiveness. To know when cruelty or harshness is “justified” that it is still more right whenever possible and far beyond just whenever prudent, to let go of such right or supposed right to vindication or retribution and let it be to start the healing process or at least let it even have the slightest chance to begin. Even if it is not seized upon by others, that is not the point. c) And Taoist in that the Universe is not a thing or a collection of things but an experience best understood when, by, and how it is experienced, and beyond that it has no definitive shape or means of definition as “actuality”.
What I originally thought was fairly interesting in this work was how the notions of potential versus actual took shape, and how one person or mind only seems to stand apart from all others or all else. The notions of pre-existence and viewing the Universe as a standing wave of probability I thought were fairly new, but I guess my notions of newness are outdated, not that I necessarily believe that time is linear, so in that case maybe they can be new.
In the aforementioned book, Einstein and Buddha, there is a good quote (I will not repeat it verbatim here) where Einstein puts forth that he believes the past, present, and future are merely illusions. Obviously if anyone has even the slightest familiarity with Eastern philosophical or religious thought, they would know such beliefs have been around for thousands of years, yet it still was surprising to see it as a literary quote from Einstein. One has to suppose it might have been something his reasoning, suppositions, or theories gave him reason to believe that such might actually be the case.
In the appendages to this work I muse over time being repetitive and cyclical, and therefore ultimately paradoxical. What I thought to be a new twist on the “Flatland” (Edwin Abbott) Physics example of how more dimensions than we can perceive may be limited or filtered down to this reality using the ocean to represent potentiality and the surface or air to represent non-existence, space, or the absence of potential, and what we perceive as reality as the thin plane between the two, also I found has been around somewhat in various forms for a long time. Though I have found no parallels yet, I will probably find the lens, obstruction, and shadows descriptive use to better understand or explain notions of multi-dimensionalism probably relates well to something some scientist or sage said long before no doubt.
That this work is not so far from what others more renowned have said and thought is more pleasurable than displeasurable to me. And that more and more are seeing and writing about the parallels between New Physics and old religions is refreshing. That genre which began with 1975’s The Tao of Physics (Fritjof Capra, last updated in 1999, Shambhala Press [Random House]) has continued to evolve both through new works and recompilations of old works to possibly take up a whole shelf of the Physics section of bookstores or libraries one day. I hope that this new 1.8 version will stand as the definitive one. All other ideas I hope will find their own homes rather than be continually tacked on to this work.
My initial complaint with the Einstein and Buddha book was its use of many different physicists and Eastern thinkers. To call quotes from people born after Einstein's theories like the Dalai Lama as examples of old or ancient thoughts which preceded modern physics are similar to modern thoughts is stupid, especially as they have modern physics (concepts) as a part of their experiences and educations, as well as how the scientists (of today) knew of ancient philosophies in theirs (educations). To point out similarities of thought between Einstein and the Buddha as the title suggests is intriguing. Far less surprising is how Western and Eastern thinkers of the Twentieth Century sometimes agree with each other. That complaint is further born out that by widening the net (of examples) to include any modern physicist and any famous Eastern religious writers of the past or present, (then) you would undoubtedly find similar quotes (which basically would be influenced by knowledge of the ones they are similar to.)
That being said, and I believe (this to be) just (meaning valid) criticism of an otherwise good book, were it not for such inclusions (, then) I would not have discovered a host of other such interesting writers and thinkers of the Twentieth Century, such as Sir Arthur Eddington or bother to read or listen to the Feynman Lectures, which I fully intend, or at least hope to find time to do now.
As far as time not being linear, my perception of time hinges upon understanding two different states existing as one, just before and every time after. Whenever you can unite these two times or states of being within your mind, you begin to see the world differently.
There are songs I like very much (Hawaiian music, IZ, [Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole] John Cruz, etc.) and have listened to often, hundreds of times probably, yet which I discovered recently enough that I can remember quite clearly hearing each for the first time saying “Wow, who is that, that is really good, I have to find out who does that and get a CD of it.” Those moments still exist for me every time I listen to them, yet that moment led to many more similar moments which I value also, listening to each, finding joy in hearing them at many times and points in my life since over months and years. When you can have the history but find means or ways to preserve the moments when it was new or just beginning you are richer in ways.
That moment you just discover the potential for or in something and every moment thereafter (, they) are linked in ways too deep to fully understand or describe. They are one.
Many think that you must trade one for the other, that you must give up the freshness for the history but that is a misconception. By many measures the past does not exist and everything in existence must continually be creating itself anew, especially living things. We get jaded to the wonder inherent in things and begin to take them for granted, merely because we forget when we first discovered them and they were new. Even life itself can for some begin to seem tiresome since they can no longer look at it from the other side of discovery. The moments which come after or spring out of something can be wonderful and you might not wish to trade them for anything in the world but they are inherent within that first moment of discovery, and do not come after as time portrays it. They happen simultaneously or not at all.
Though it is difficult to envision this given our current perception of time, think of every possible event we can do today as a seed and within that seed is every possible effect which can come from it from now until the end of time existing now but in a different state than we can perceive now, but by limiting our view to one point in time we can save for discovery in the future, panning our view across a larger frame existing now in every way except in our minds. The seeds and everything that can come from them are inseparably one, for an acorn is not an acorn unless it has the potential to become a tree as surely as a tree is not a tree unless it was once an acorn. What something is now, and all the potential it can be thought to have, and all that it can become, ([added later but not included:] and all that can or only might come from by, out of, or developing in relation to it,) are one in the same thing. It is only our deficiencies in perception and our misconceptions which see them as separate.
When our perceptions expand, our misconceptions about this fade. A mind is only as complex as the world it perceives. The more complex the perceptions, the more expansive the mind must become to try to explain, understand, or make sense of those perceptions. More impetus for growth is always there whenever one chooses not to close ones eyes to what is difficult to comprehend, accept, or explain.
Have respect for everyone you meet. Each is a part of the reason why you are here, as you are a part of the reason why they are here. Everything in existence arises together out of everything that is not and all which could be, and only have existence by defining each by each other, or by being real in conjunction to anything or everything else, also for the moment to be currently real.
Jared DuBois
April 2003
Multi-dimensionalism – Multi-dimensionalism simply defined is that things or energy can exist in multiple dimensions at the same time. This is not a new idea. The pen I am writing with exists in at least three physical dimensions plus time, so everyone can conceive of the same object existing concurrently in more than one dimension. But this seems like cheating. We readily understand these four dimensions and commonly use the term dimensions in the science-fiction sense of alternate realities, or in the same realities or dimensions we perceive plus some we cannot yet understand. Indeed science has reduced mathematically and conjecturally the four dimensions we perceive to a single dimension, space-time. So rather than expanding on the dimensions we can perceive or conceive of, we are in a period of compacting what we know in terms of how the dimensions we perceive relate to each other, yet also speculate about other dimensions we can as yet only deal with hypothetically or hint at vaguely.
As used here, multidimensionalism represents the notion that one can conceive of more than three or four dimensions using ideas of how they may overlap or line up to the dimensions we can perceive. The three-dimensional shadow description is one idea of how to conceive of such a complex idea. We know how three-dimensional forms create two-dimensional shadows, so using similar concepts can force ones mind to think what could cause a three-dimensional shadow. Also how things seem to line up in more than one dimension yet appear different from another can push one to think in terms of seeing separate things as united from a different angle or dimension we cannot perceive. From a different dimension or perspective we cannot imagine, perhaps multiple states of an object in different possible timelines seem the same or seem to line up, or that all life actually comes from the same source. That there may be dimensions of existence which, as adding depth or width to something which seemed something else from only one or two dimensions changes the fundamental interpretation of its existence, is something we ought to consider as a possibility if we are ever to recognize them using logical, geometric, or mathematical models as a way to grasp or explain them. With imagination, we need nothing to start, merely the willingness to begin again in wonder.
Fuzzy Time – If all points in your life are simultaneously occurring at once, it should be possible to blur your focus on the present and, not remembering nor anticipating, but simultaneously exist in more than one time frame at once and experience a combined state of consciousness with multiple time versions of oneself.
Fuzzy Consciousness – similar to Fuzzy Time but with another or other consciousnesses other than oneself. Since all experiences ultimately are indiscriminate as to what happened to whom, one is not necessarily limited to ones own experiences or self in dealing with fuzzy time and can move beyond it to mix in or with other points of view or perspectives beyond ones own timeline, and beyond oneself. Beyond you and your current timeline, other persons can be more similar to you than alternate versions of yourself, both potentially equal in distance and proximity. Both are the you which is currently the not you, both slightly further off the mark of direct experience as the now and currently you.
Reformation – Single-celled organisms can combine to form a new kind of life. It may be very rare but they can become stuck in each other or together like conjoined twins, share nutrients, and share existence. This new type of life is stronger and better able to survive. If this bonding is not fatal and happens early enough before reproduction, the offspring can possess a tendency or ability to make such a connection with another single-celled organism or even divide into a two-celled organism itself.
This mutation or different kinds of life separate combining to form new kinds of life is an undercurrent or driving force behind all biological life, and on a different level, consciousness works the same way. Everything living is mutating into something else and those mutations or changes constantly get updated and repackaged into its offspring.
When the new and larger multi-cellular organisms get large enough, they can do something just as amazing as the first conjoining to create a new type of life. The combined multi-cellular lifeform becomes able to replace or reproduce individual cells and remain intact and alive. This too extends the time or the lifespan of the entity. The longer it lives, the more mutations and growth or changes can be imparted or impressed upon each successive generation. Once the more complex multi-cellular organisms are able to timely replace their individual single-celled members into another generation within the same lifetime of the organism, they can become able to reproduce damaged ones ahead of schedule or at will when some become damaged or lost due to an accident.
Like all of these organized cells working for a common purpose of continuing the life of a multi-generational larger organism, consciousness is a combination of individual sources or building blocks working for a common purpose or life. It can be thought to arise from or with these combined in purpose multi-cellular living machines, or it can be thought of as a new lifeform in and of itself, growing out of its combination or growth just as the first two single-celled counterparts produced a new type of life when they first combined into one.
Consciousness to a single biological lifeform can guide it and keep it alive through helping it adapt to changes in its environment and find new food sources or new ways to remain alive and intact as the combined mutating group entity which comprises a multi-cellular individual lifeform. And consciousness can begin to form its own goals beyond just the individual lifeforms they inhabit or form around. They can have aspirations for other lifeforms beyond their own, goals or intentions for them they wish to impose upon them. These goals or intended states can spread to other individual lifeforms aspirations and be thought to be a new form of life or consciousness which can survive the deaths of individual members as a multi-cellular being can survive the loss of individual cells.
These higher forms of consciousness depend upon individual lifeforms as multi-cellular lifeforms depend upon individual cells, yet they can and do advance themselves by reproducing their aims and intents in others or seek to eliminate others which do not ascribe to or accept them. It may seem strange to speak of goals, aspirations, or intended states of being as living things or consciousnesses but they fulfill the same requirements; they are a combination of individual biological entities or components and seek the advancement of a continuation of a particular design or life of something, in this case an idea or state of being for a group rather than for an individual existence.
Everything in existence, on an individual level, a group level, or a conceptual level, must build itself up from components of its environment. It must take the energy or potential it finds from what is around it and reformulate it into something in its design or intended state. Whether consciousness arises out of cells living for a common aim of perpetuating itself, or of a group or species perpetuating its existence, beliefs and culture, each requires something else to take it to make or remake itself into its design or build itself out of.
The life of anything individual or conceptual must draw life or potential to itself to further its design, intended state, or further its own existence. That potential comes from a variety of sources of all which came before freed up when it is no longer used recycling itself again and again in perpetuity. To see it clearly one must go beyond time, that there never was a before state when it was what it is not now, nor an after state when it will be more than it is now. It is like a circle of potential in a donut shape with everything moving out of and away from itself, and back into itself in the center, or the act of kneeding (as in bread) something into something else out of a variety of different sources into something new. It is not the ingredients or the product which is important or real, but the act of transference or transformation from one state to the other which is in essence the only reality and the (after) bread and the (before) ingredients are only for the process of something to be acted upon or made into something else.
Evolution and Mutation – What is funny about science-fiction movies about the future is the idea of mutants. Everything about life, you, your species, is constantly mutating into something else. In the long run we call this growth or evolution, but it is mutation. Travel back a few hundred years for some or a few thousand for others and see yourself for the mutant that you are. Others can gawk at your bizarre height or enlarged head size, and traveling further back, your lack of body hair or fur in certain places. Everything alive is a work in progress.
Some tend to see humanity as the end product of our evolution. In many ways they are right. Any species always so close to annihilating itself is also just as close to being the most definitive and advanced end model of all it could have been.
Go back several million years and what would eventually become humans you might see as something more like chimpanzees or other large monkeys. Go back a hundred million more and they might seem nothing more than rats or chipmunks. If the dinosaurs did not die off they might never have gotten much further beyond that, were they even to progress that far.
In those realities, if any, where humanity does not oft itself, a few million years from now (right, a hundred would be too much to expect now, and every decade requires ever more luck to make it through) were humanity to survive that much longer, what would have become of humans would appreciate being compared to us no more than we would appreciate being likened to monkeys or rats. But we don't have to worry about that because; one, we would long be dead anyway, and two, we would most of the time or most likely never advance significantly beyond where we are at now without destroying ourselves completely long before we could ever look that bad comparatively speaking.
Whether humanity or another species evolves far enough for what we are now to look like mere rats or monkeys in comparison to what they can see, know, or become is unimportant. That there is time enough and life enough left for a species to get to that point is what is important. What every species is now is merely a single point on the road, and not any place in particular. Should we go the way of the dinosaurs, depending on how we do it, not far down the line there will be new intelligent species somewhere, possibly right here on Earth, that will put us to shame in how far they will make it beyond where we quit or petered out. Today's hamsters could evolve into explorers of the galaxy millions of years from now, the future is that wide open and changeable. If that sounds bizarre to you, find what would become humanity, 10, 20, or 30 million years ago and see if you would ever have thought it would invent air conditioning or go to the moon.
The only end result of evolution is an evolutionary dead end. Anything that is living is on its way to becoming something else, individuals included. If you only are what you were yesterday you are either trapped in time or dead. People in comas can come close but even they too are changing, though probably not for the better. And neither necessarily are we. No one says the road to the future runs only to shinier and brighter versions of what we are now. People can on the aggregate become less intelligent, more arrogant, hostile, close-minded, and bigoted or xenophobic or nationalistic than a generation or two before. If you don't believe me just turn on the television and watch everything that is on.
If those individuals and species that see their ability to mutate into something else in a positive light, as an opportunity to become more intelligent, compassionate, evolved, they can while time allows get pretty far. The future is full of possibilities and potential which can be tapped into by anyone who dares to try. Growth and change is inevitable. Nothing is what it was even a moment ago. People have the ability to direct that change to where they want it to go. As I said before, anyone who does not know they are more or different than what they were yesterday is not accepting or realizing time for what it is. They are holding on to something which no longer exists. The harder you try to cling to a past notion of what you were, the more you cease to live and you slide faster to death because then, like it or not, you will be changed. To try to keep yourself unchanged from now until then is simply to make all the points in-between irrelevant. You may as well just grease the tracks.
Living is changing, you and your world both interacting and redefining. Death is just wiping the chalkboard clean and starting again. The potential is still there, if not used by you, then by something or someone else. What won't be done by you perhaps will get done by someone else. Something not discovered or invented by humanity, well there's always the potential space hamsters of 50 million years from now. But if the potential is not you, you might say, why should I care? If more potential is created for someone or something else yet to be when you die, why should you care if it is not you? You don't have to. If you are so wrapped up in your own ego thinking what you are now should continue the same unchanging until the end of time, that is really your own problem.
And it is to fundamentally misunderstand time, to cling to thinking you are only what you were before. You are not the same as what you were yesterday, and time is not repeating itself exactly over and over again. It is different, you are different, whether or not you wish to recognize it as such. Some people think that everyday they are one step further towards death. If you understand that everyday you are one step further, death is really meaningless. Everyday, every moment you are changed. Everyday and every moment you exist you are reborn and every day or moment after you die. The big final death is not who you are now, who you are now is dying now. Who or what you will be when what may be the final you dies, is for you now only what you can hope and dream might come from or spring out of who you "were" now. And what you are now is dying every moment to create that which you will become five minutes, five hours, or five years from now, but that "you" will also be living and dying every moment to every moment. You cannot pick any one of those moments and say that is you because each will be different in many ways. It is just like you cannot say humanity is what it is now in other times. Millions of years apart what we call humanity resembled bacteria or amoebas, fish, amphibians, rodents, monkeys, what we call humanity today, and whatever stages it might appear as could it continue to exist millions of years from now.
Which of these was really humanity? As much as scientists think they can draw lines in the sand and come up with new names and dates for this sapien and that era, they are all the same line of the same species, just different points on the same road. You can see each seemingly different stage as something new but it is also really more a continuation of the same direct lineage or line. Yet as much as they are on the same line from the past into the future, everyone can also see each point is unique along the way. So too is each and every moment's version of yourself completely new and completely different along the same line of a slower, yet faster for you, evolutionary journey of your own. What you are is always evolving or changing into something new whether or not you choose to recognize it as such. When you do recognize it, it gives you the chance to take hold over it and direct it as you will. None of those new and improved versions of yourself will be you either, but you can experience the sliding to or through them, the transition or leaping from one version to the next. That is experience, that is you. It is not reality, it lies in-between different or successive realities, but it is what you choose to make successive realities seem to become, so it is you, somewhere between one moment and the next.
The Uncarved Block – The Uncarved Block is an idea in the oldest Taoist literature, the Tao Te Ching. To be like the Uncarved Block, in its simplest meaning is to shift ones attention or focus to a potential state rather than the actual. What you want to be becomes a process of removing that which you wish not to be from yourself, or the filtering down. It really can be thought to be far more reaching than that. For anything to be, you, your world or anything which also exists which is not you, for it to be thought to exist at all, one must start with taking away from it conceptually what they think it is not. The potential for anything in existence, for everything in what it exists as now if at all it can be thought of as separate from anything else, to be or be interpreted as anything else, the literal potential for everything, is omnipresent and without limits. Everything's existence begins with removing from it what you think it is not. Without that, it could be or be interpreted as anything else one currently thinks it is not.
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