The Direction of Evolution
YEAR 2023
NOW CAN BE THE TIME
TO START TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
Consciousness at best is the experience of love.
Proposition: only by understanding the principle of love and applying it to all situations, personal and global, can the world be saved from self-annihilation.
The world seems more polarized now than ever before, factions living in entirely different universes where even facts disagree. One part of a possible solution: extend scientific inquiry into the realm of compassion. That is, perform controlled experiments and correlate international research to determine the shapes, textures and mechanisms of consciousness; rethink string theory as a window into consciousness; and imagine how the subluminal physical spacetime part of the universe and the conscious superluminal part interact.
A truly unified theory. Space. Time. Consciousness.
And if consciousness is real and fundamental, it cries out the question: What about love?
Love can be scientific. Thus: The science of compassion.
The Direction of Evolution
YEAR 2020
NOW CAN BE THE TIME
TO START TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
Consciousness at best is the experience of love.
Proposition: only by understanding the principle of love and applying it to all situations, personal and global, can the world be saved from self-annihilation.
The world seems more polarized now than ever before, factions living in entirely different universes where even facts disagree. One part of a possible solution: extend scientific inquiry into the realm of compassion. That is, perform controlled experiments and correlate international research to determine the shapes, textures and mechanisms of consciousness; rethink string theory as a window into consciousness; and imagine how the subluminal physical spacetime part of the universe and the conscious superluminal part interact.
A truly unified theory. Space. Time. Consciousness.
And if consciousness is real and fundamental, it cries out the question: What about love?
Love can be scientific. Thus: The science of compassion.
1. SPACETIME
The physical universe comprises space and time. Dimensionally, that’s x, y, z, and t, although the singular time dimension seems nothing like the three spatial dimensions.
Nothing at all.
Space. Time. We readily understand the three dimensions of a cube, say, front-to-back, side-to-side, top-to-bottom. We look out and we see shapes and colors and signs everywhere. We see things to horizons in all directions, but time?
Time is something completely different. We really only have NOW; but we also remember and we plan. So we say that time has a duration, past memories, present moment towards an uncertain future. But that’s different from the solidity we assign to spatial objects.
Yet with all their profound differences, we know that space and time interact, and noticeably so as velocity approaches light speed.
1. SPACETIME
The physical universe comprises space and time. Dimensionally, that’s x, y, z, and t, although the singular time dimension seems nothing like the three spatial dimensions.
Nothing at all.
Space. Time. We readily understand the three dimensions of a cube, say, front-to-back, side-to-side, top-to-bottom. We look out and we see shapes and colors and signs everywhere. We see things to horizons in all directions, but time?
Time is something completely different. We really only have NOW; but we also remember and we plan. So we say that time has a duration, past memories, present moment towards an uncertain future. But that’s different from the solidity we assign to spatial objects.
Yet with all their profound differences, we know that space and time interact, and noticeably so as velocity approaches light speed.
2. QUANTUM PHYSICS
At subatomic scales, the 3-dimensional matter we encounter as solid and extensive demonstrates strict probabilistic behavior, and the manifestation of the energy as particle or wave depends on factors outside the realm of the internal reactions—the presence of an observer, say, or at least some intentional factor.
Once a decision is made about the nature of the experiment and a measurement is taken, only then does the so-called probability function collapse into particle-of-some-sort or continue on to display as wavelike.
Though it caused initial dread among physicalist scientific establishment, probability and uncertainty are now grudgingly accepted as fundamental, at least at submicroscopic magnitudes.
2. QUANTUM PHYSICS
At subatomic scales, the 3-dimensional matter we encounter as solid and extensive demonstrates strict probabilistic behavior, and the manifestation of the energy as particle or wave depends on factors outside the realm of the internal reactions—the presence of an observer, say, or at least some intentional factor.
Once a decision is made about the nature of the experiment and a measurement is taken, only then does the so-called probability function collapse into particle-of-some-sort or continue on to display as wavelike.
Though it caused initial dread among physicalist scientific establishment, probability and uncertainty are now grudgingly accepted as fundamental, at least at submicroscopic magnitudes.
3. THEORY OF EVERYTHING
In the nineteenth century, electricity and magnetism were merged mathematically by James Clerk Maxwell, and the concept of a field to extend the magnet’s pull through space was validated. This idea of an extensive, emanating field was a speculative idea prior to that time.
Since then, scientists have demonstrated that, at extremely high energy levels, electromagnetism merges with the weak force inside the atomic nucleus, and at even higher levels, the electroweak merges with the strong nuclear force. They all fit into the same equation compatibly.
Only gravity remains unincorporated in the grand theory as of the year 2022.
Scientific researchers, in an attempt to create a complete and unitary theory, have calculated that, at scales much smaller than that of quarks and electrons, the direction toward unifying gravity with electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces suggests the necessity of six dimensions (or more) in addition to the four of space and time.
What happened here is redolent of 1928, when the young Paul Dirac initially discovered evidence for antimatter. His equation for the electron worked to high precision, he found, but the solution to a square root problem carries a plus-or-minus sign. So Dirac imagined a ridiculous, counterintuitive result. It was as if there could be a positively charge counterpart, identical in all other ways but opposite in charge to the electron—an antielectron. A positron.
Well you know how that story turned out. Antimatter was discovered experimentally four years later. Theory followed the math and was subsequently proved valid. Several years later Dirac was awarded the Nobel Prize at age 31.
And so now with string theory we have six more dimensions to consider.
3. THEORY OF EVERYTHING
In the nineteenth century, electricity and magnetism were merged mathematically by James Clerk Maxwell, and the concept of a field to extend the magnet’s pull through space was validated. This idea of an extensive, emanating field was a speculative idea prior to that time.
Since then, scientists have demonstrated that, at extremely high energy levels, electromagnetism merges with the weak force inside the atomic nucleus, and at even higher levels, the electroweak merges with the strong nuclear force. They all fit into the same equation compatibly.
Only gravity remains unincorporated in the grand theory as of the year 2022.
Scientific researchers, in an attempt to create a complete and unitary theory, have calculated that, at scales much smaller than that of quarks and electrons, the direction toward unifying gravity with electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces suggests the necessity of six dimensions (or more) in addition to the four of space and time.
What happened here is redolent of 1928, when the young Paul Dirac initially discovered evidence for antimatter. His equation for the electron worked to high precision, he found, but the solution to a square root problem carries a plus-or-minus sign. So Dirac imagined a ridiculous, counterintuitive result. It was as if there could be a positively charge counterpart, identical in all other ways but opposite in charge to the electron—an antielectron. A positron.
Well you know how that story turned out. Antimatter was discovered experimentally four years later. Theory followed the math and was subsequently proved valid. Several years later Dirac was awarded the Nobel Prize at age 31.
And so now with string theory we have six more dimensions to consider.
4. STRING THEORY
These new dimensions, determined theoretically necessary by string theorists, need have neither spatial nor temporal characteristics; we indeed experience space and time very differently from each other.
The added string theory “dimensions” may manifest in ways completely different again. As different as space is from time. And with six dimensions interacting while doing the dance with space and time, the interplay must be extremely complex.
Indeed, with merely the four dimensions of Spacetime we conceive the entire physical universe from mathematics, to physics, to chemistry, to biology.
But wait. At that last stop we’ve encountered a problem. Biology: What is life? What is consciousness? What is the experience of joy and despair? Beyond the physics and the chemistry, there are those experiences: sensations, thoughts, emotions, and even seemingly transcendent experiences of connection with something larger, like a drop of water finding itself in an ocean.
This remarkable development of awareness may surely merit the six more dimensions added to our model of reality.
4. STRING THEORY
These new dimensions, determined theoretically necessary by string theorists, need have neither spatial nor temporal characteristics; we indeed experience space and time very differently from each other.
The added string theory “dimensions” may manifest in ways completely different again. As different as space is from time. And with six dimensions interacting while doing the dance with space and time, the interplay must be extremely complex.
Indeed, with merely the four dimensions of Spacetime we conceive the entire physical universe from mathematics, to physics, to chemistry, to biology.
But wait. At that last stop we’ve encountered a problem. Biology: What is life? What is consciousness? What is the experience of joy and despair? Beyond the physics and the chemistry, there are those experiences: sensations, thoughts, emotions, and even seemingly transcendent experiences of connection with something larger, like a drop of water finding itself in an ocean.
This remarkable development of awareness may surely merit the six more dimensions added to our model of reality.
5. THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM
And then there’s that other problem from a physicalist standpoint. It is the measurement problem.
The issue here is not “the measurement problem” according to quantum theorists: When, how, and/or why the quantum wave function collapses during measurement.
No, this measurement problem distills to these basic questions: “What are the units of measurement? Is there some as-yet-undetermined Consciousness Constant? How do we measure (and thus quantify) the six dimensions introduced by string theorists?”.
We know time is seconds and minutes and hours and millennia. Space spreads in all directions in inches, kilometers and parsecs. That’s physics. We can count, we can calculate, we can correlate. Even derivative science has measurement, whether in calories or farads or newtons.
From the small numbers like electrical charge of the quark or π or the number that a dozen of anything comprises, to the immense distance from right here to way over there, we have ways with which to calculate and replicate everything to the ever-expanding edge of epistemological science.
We have numbers. Measurement.
But not this consciousness thing. No. It all seems so subjective. One cannot measure mood swings and those reported encounters with the so-called supernatural. One cannot calculate and titrate experience into a series of numerical models. Fear factor. Flights of fancy. Emotional resonance. Gastronomical delights. Spiritual epiphanies.
One cannot prove objectively that there is some god out there (or deep inside somebody’s perceived universe) or verify someone else’s experiences out of body, near-death; of a presence, of ghosts or angels or demons.
What is this, you ask? Maybe astrology and tarot are not far behind.
5. THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM
And then there’s that other problem from a physicalist standpoint. It is the measurement problem.
The issue here is not “the measurement problem” according to quantum theorists: When, how, and/or why the quantum wave function collapses during measurement.
No, this measurement problem distills to these basic questions: “What are the units of measurement? Is there some as-yet-undetermined Consciousness Constant? How do we measure (and thus quantify) the six dimensions introduced by string theorists?”.
We know time is seconds and minutes and hours and millennia. Space spreads in all directions in inches, kilometers and parsecs. That’s physics. We can count, we can calculate, we can correlate. Even derivative science has measurement, whether in calories or farads or newtons.
From the small numbers like electrical charge of the quark or π or the number that a dozen of anything comprises, to the immense distance from right here to way over there, we have ways with which to calculate and replicate everything to the ever-expanding edge of epistemological science.
We have numbers. Measurement.
But not this consciousness thing. No. It all seems so subjective. One cannot measure mood swings and those reported encounters with the so-called supernatural. One cannot calculate and titrate experience into a series of numerical models. Fear factor. Flights of fancy. Emotional resonance. Gastronomical delights. Spiritual epiphanies.
One cannot prove objectively that there is some god out there (or deep inside somebody’s perceived universe) or verify someone else’s experiences out of body, near-death; of a presence, of ghosts or angels or demons.
What is this, you ask? Maybe astrology and tarot are not far behind.
6. CONSCIOUSNESS
So now we have space and time and these six more dimensions to account for.
We also have current scientific mysteries such as the prevalence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter in the universe we otherwise can explain so well.
And we also have as yet unexplained phenomena namely personal experiences. Qualia. What does it feel like to us to be alive? What is the experience of the color red? What is the taste and smell of an lemon? Why do we become sad? How do people dream of things that actually seem to come to pass later? What about when I heard a voice, clear as day, and saw a figure that then vanished, leaving my life forever changed? How can we prove or debunk scientifically the reality of that part of us which is conscious, i.e. subjective, intangible, unavailable to any other—yet profoundly evident to each of us?
A humble start can be made by simply conflating all these unknowns and seeing what patterns or insights can evolve.
Maybe these six other dimensions with unknown connections to space and time can be the key to consciousness.
Maybe gravity interacts with the six or more dimensions to create an effect greater in total than all the mass in the known physical universe.
Maybe the effect of consciousness on time is an expansive push, so-called Dark Energy.
How these things can be is a problem we can subject to the collective imagination of the artists, mathematicians and physicists of the planet. What are the shapes, textures and measurements of consciousness? How does consciousness connect causally to space and time? How does the subjective part play into the objective universe?
It may well be that each person’s universe is unique, sharing the spacetime part but with deep and fundamental internal differences: god, gods or no god; ghosts roaming restlessly; angels to protect and heal; demons that torment dreamtime.
Every person’s touch from their bubble of consciousness is different, yet each real and imminent. Navigating through currents of consciousness in a timeless existence without physical bodies.
Some with a seeming gift.
Others with nothing. Blind to it all. Deaf to celestial music.
Each person with his or her own doors to perception with different degrees of access to such numinous realms—or none.
My experiences and my beliefs effect each other. My universe is unique to me.
6. CONSCIOUSNESS
So now we have space and time and these six more dimensions to account for.
We also have current scientific mysteries such as the prevalence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter in the universe we otherwise can explain so well.
And we also have as yet unexplained phenomena namely personal experiences. Qualia. What does it feel like to us to be alive? What is the experience of the color red? What is the taste and smell of an lemon? Why do we become sad? How do people dream of things that actually seem to come to pass later? What about when I heard a voice, clear as day, and saw a figure that then vanished, leaving my life forever changed? How can we prove or debunk scientifically the reality of that part of us which is conscious, i.e. subjective, intangible, unavailable to any other—yet profoundly evident to each of us?
A humble start can be made by simply conflating all these unknowns and seeing what patterns or insights can evolve.
Maybe these six other dimensions with unknown connections to space and time can be the key to consciousness.
Maybe gravity interacts with the six or more dimensions to create an effect greater in total than all the mass in the known physical universe.
Maybe the effect of consciousness on time is an expansive push, so-called Dark Energy.
How these things can be is a problem we can subject to the collective imagination of the artists, mathematicians and physicists of the planet. What are the shapes, textures and measurements of consciousness? How does consciousness connect causally to space and time? How does the subjective part play into the objective universe?
It may well be that each person’s universe is unique, sharing the spacetime part but with deep and fundamental internal differences: god, gods or no god; ghosts roaming restlessly; angels to protect and heal; demons that torment dreamtime.
Every person’s touch from their bubble of consciousness is different, yet each real and imminent. Navigating through currents of consciousness in a timeless existence without physical bodies.
Some with a seeming gift.
Others with nothing. Blind to it all. Deaf to celestial music.
Each person with his or her own doors to perception with different degrees of access to such numinous realms—or none.
My experiences and my beliefs effect each other. My universe is unique to me.
7. NOETICS
The science of noetics covers the field of thinking and knowing, thought and knowledge, as well as mental operations, processes, states.
There is worldwide scientific interest in consciousness studies. From distant-viewing experiments, to out-of-body experiences, near-death, and a variety of blind studies of a variety of so-called psychic abilities, and further into inquiries of the effect of conscious intention on inanimate substances like water, there is a growing interest in the transpersonal dimensions and relationships to physical reality.
Civilization may realize great advances from a continuation and expansion of such lines of inquiry and discovery, as well as a comprehensive correlation of global data in order to grasp parallels and nexuses between data in an effort to further the understanding of the subtle interworkings of the conscious entity.
7. NOETICS
The science of noetics covers the field of thinking and knowing, thought and knowledge, as well as mental operations, processes, states.
There is worldwide scientific interest in consciousness studies. From distant-viewing experiments, to out-of-body experiences, near-death, and a variety of blind studies of a variety of so-called psychic abilities, and further into inquiries of the effect of conscious intention on inanimate substances like water, there is a growing interest in the transpersonal dimensions and relationships to physical reality.
Civilization may realize great advances from a continuation and expansion of such lines of inquiry and discovery, as well as a comprehensive correlation of global data in order to grasp parallels and nexuses between data in an effort to further the understanding of the subtle interworkings of the conscious entity.
8. THE LAWS of BECAUSE
Imagine this: that the subjective, yet verifiably real, experiential, six-dimensional part of the universe—consciousness—reacts with objective spacetime events, and does so according to the interplay of four agencies: Karma Chaos Will and Grace.
Why is my life what it is right now? Karma, Chaos, Will and Grace.
On the non-personal end are Karma and Chaos.
Karma is analogous to Newton’s Third Law of motion in spacetime. Action produces equal pushback. That which you reap, that shall you also sow. Karma.
Chaos comes from the idea of the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions involved when energies converge, both physical and psychic—moving objects, heat, sound, hormonal reactions, radioactive decay, as well as your limp and the insecurities you feel because you limp.
Chaos is the force of ensuance. Everything comes to this point in space and time, and whatever ensues comes as a result of the chaos of the moment. Chaos suggests that, regardless what kind of life you lead, what kind of person you are, regardless what your lifestyle predicts to be your future, often the unforeseen happens. There is tragedy and there is seemingly undeserved benefit. (Although, the agency of Karma is subtle and deep, and explanations for outcomes may require looking more deeply into the past, where antecedents may yet be found.)
At the other end of the consciousness spectrum, the personal end, the ego component to consciousness joins the interplay by exhibiting Will and Grace.
Will is the “I want that. I plan to get it. I overcome obstacles. I get it” of consciousness. Will projects, analyzes, plans, acts in its own perceived interest. Will is the direction of the ego. It is wish fulfillment, acting on desires, moving intentionally toward some imagined future. Will is expression.
Grace is Will’s opposite. Grace is bent on remaining present in the moment. It is gentle in nature. Grace is realized most deeply in a meditative state. Grace results from tuning in to the universe, it is the intention to merge.
Will and Grace are like Yang and Yin. Will creates Karma, and Grace goes with the Chaotic flow. We are alive.
8. THE LAWS of BECAUSE
Imagine this: that the subjective, yet verifiably real, experiential, six-dimensional part of the universe—consciousness—reacts with objective spacetime events, and does so according to the interplay of four agencies: Karma Chaos Will and Grace.
Why is my life what it is right now? Karma, Chaos, Will and Grace.
On the nonpersonal end are Karma and Chaos.
Karma is analogous to Newton’s Third Law of motion in spacetime. Action produces equal pushback. That which you reap, that shall you also sow. Karma.
Chaos comes from the idea of the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions involved when energies converge, both physical and psychic—moving objects, heat, sound, hormonal reactions, radioactive decay, as well as your limp and the insecurities you feel because you limp.
Chaos is the force of ensuance. Everything comes to this point in space and time, and whatever ensues comes as a result of the chaos of the moment. Chaos suggests that, regardless what kind of life you lead, what kind of person you are, regardless what your lifestyle predicts to be your future, often the unforeseen happens. There is tragedy and there is seemingly undeserved benefit. (Although, the agency of Karma is subtle and deep, and explanations for outcomes may require looking more deeply into the past, where antecedents may yet be found.)
At the other end of the consciousness spectrum, the personal end, the ego component to consciousness joins the interplay by exhibiting Will and Grace.
Will is the “I want that. I plan to get it. I overcome obstacles. I get it” of consciousness. Will projects, analyzes, plans, acts in its own perceived interest. Will is the direction of the ego. It is wish fulfillment, acting on desires, moving intentionally toward some imagined future. Will is expression.
Grace is Will’s opposite. Grace is bent on remaining present in the moment. It is gentle in nature. Grace is realized most deeply in a meditative state. Grace results from tuning in to the universe, it is the intention to merge.
Will and Grace are like Yang and Yin. Will creates Karma, and Grace goes with the Chaotic flow. We are alive.
9. COMPASSION
In addition to the attempts to qualify and quantify consciousness and to integrate it with space and time, another crucial direction of inquiry must be into the healing power of compassion and its overall effect on outcomes. Personal outcomes, but also global outcomes.
Compassion could be defined as the sense of empathy with another, and it can induce an oceanic feeling of connection with the unitary in all.
What if the value of compassion were acknowledged and if it were clinically studied? I think of compassion as a healing, merging force, at the interface between unique personal worldviews of individual ego-beings.
You may experience the presence of a personal God shining light onto your path through life, but not believe in ghosts; and another person may feel the agency of a different god and experience definite luminous beings communicating directly during dreamtime. A third person may not believe in god per se but call upon “angels” that help and heal others in distress. And a fourth may engage in some deep shamanic ritual that brings about a connection to the entire animate universe.
We all share the same spacetime; but there are a variety of possible expressions from within the conscious “field” that envelops everything else.
Each individual’s universe is thus unique because it is uniquely experienced. Can you empathize with someone that experiences things completely differently than you, and thus acts in ways that seem unfathomable to you?
“What the world needs now is love sweet love.” What if questions of compassionate response were added to practical and political calculations going forward?
Is not compassion the high-water mark of human interaction?
Can we not make it work for the betterment of all?
9. COMPASSION
In addition to the attempts to qualify and quantify consciousness and to integrate it with space and time, another crucial direction of inquiry must be into the healing power of compassion and its overall effect on outcomes. Personal outcomes, but also global outcomes.
Compassion could be defined as the sense of empathy with another, and it can induce an oceanic feeling of connection with the unitary in all.
What if the value of compassion were acknowledged and if it were clinically studied? I think of compassion as a healing, merging force, at the interface between unique personal worldviews of individual ego-beings.
You may experience the presence of a personal God shining light onto your path through life, but not believe in ghosts; and another person may feel the agency of a different god and experience definite luminous beings communicating directly during dreamtime. A third person may not believe in god per se but call upon “angels” that help and heal others in distress. And a fourth may engage in some deep shamanic ritual that brings about a connection to the entire animate universe.
We all share the same spacetime; but there are a variety of possible expressions from within the conscious “field” that envelops everything else.
Each individual’s universe is thus unique because it is uniquely experienced. Can you empathize with someone that experiences things completely differently than you, and thus acts in ways that seem unfathomable to you?
“What the world needs now is love sweet love.” What if questions of compassionate response were added to practical and political calculations going forward?
Is not compassion the high-water mark of human interaction?
Can we not make it work for the betterment of all?
This is not intended to be a deep explanation of the topic, but a call to the imagination. Is it not time to look into this?
“Imagine all the people sharing all the world.” — John Lennon