THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL UNIVERSE
John Szilard, M.Sc. Ph. D.
Recently on TV I saw a documentary program on the universe in which scientists discussed different new ideas, theories, suggested to explain some observed facts after dismissing the Big Bang, partly because it meant something happening without a cause. One of the interviewed scientists said, the average life of new theories is about one year, because by then someone finds out what’s wrong with the new theory. One of the new ideas mentioned, was, perhaps there are other universes parallel to ours.
In another TV documentary Stephen Hawking talked about the M-theory, that the smallest elements of the basic particles of atoms are made of small strings, which can vibrate in 10 dimensions in many different ways and the way they vibrate, make different particles. His conclusion was that there must be billions and billions of parallel universes, but we can only observe the one in the physical dimensions we are in.
In another TV documentary Stephen Hawking talked about the M-theory, that the smallest elements of the basic particles of atoms are made of small strings, which can vibrate in 10 dimensions in many different ways and the way they vibrate, make different particles. His conclusion was that there must be billions and billions of parallel universes, but we can only observe the one in the physical dimensions we are in.
This latter idea made me think further and here is what I ended up with. However, I must stress that my thoughts were only inspired by what I saw on TV, but are quite different, not based on, neither related to those theories.
Our known universe can be described in 3 dimensions, to which time is often added as the 4th dimension and we can’t see or experience anything outside this, let us call physical, space. However, mathematicians can carry out calculations in any number of dimensions.
We often think and talk about non-physical things, like emotions, love, hate, fear, confidence, conscience, values, information, etc., etc. What is non-physical, we may call beyond physical or metaphysical. By this expression we actually mean that these things are only in our minds, not in the physical world, therefore in the true sense they are not real.
Now consider this: if something has real, observable physical effect, can we say, it’s not real? The above listed and many other metaphysical entities can influence the chemical/biophysical processes in the brain cells and through their functions influence a person’s physical actions. So they must have some sort of special reality. The physical and metaphysical can interact in both ways through the functions of brain cells. When, e.g. a boss makes a plan and communicates it to an employee either through spoken or written words, then the employee acts according to the instructions of the boss, so there is a metaphysical link between the physicochemical processes in the brain cells of the boss and the muscles of the employee. Such phenomena happen all the time in society all over the world.
Another example is hypnosis. Some people have the remarkable ability, again through some metaphysical link, to control another person’s muscles.
Communication, i.e. connecting two physical brains through a metaphysical link is not restricted to humans. Some communication is possible between an animal and its cubs. Animals that live in packs can communicate with each other. A group of meerkats e.g. always has one of them acting as a lookout and when it sees a danger it signals to the others, what kind of predator is approaching, like leopard, hyena, snake or a bird of pray and from which direction. Then the whole group reacts according to the kind of danger. When a pride of lions spot a herd of herbivores, they plan an ambush. Some of them hide in convenient places, away from the herd, while others approach the herd from the right direction to drive them towards the ambush.
I got to know of a remarkable incident of a dog’s metaphysical connection with his owner. A long time ago I new a widow called Martha. Her children have grown up, left home and her dog was her only companion. Martha became seriously ill with cancer and she was admitted to hospital, while her neighbours took care of her dog. Martha’s daughter told me all what happened. When Martha died in the hospital, her dog must have sensed it somehow and was grief stricken, howling in distress all day long for three days to the annoyance of the neighbours. The dog was even louder during the time when Martha’s body was taken from the hospital to the cemetery and the poor animal calmed down only after her burial.
Another physical mystery is navigation without any instruments. Most animals and many people can do this and the question is, how is this possible? The usual explanation is that somehow they can sense the earth magnetic field, i.e. they have some sort of “biological compass” and they also watch the position of the sun in the sky, or at night watching the stars. Indeed, when scientists mounted tiny magnets on homing pigeons, they became disoriented. When night-flying migrating birds were kept in a large hall and the starry sky was projected on the ceiling, the direction of the projected picture influenced the direction they attempted to fly. However, this is not the full picture. It only shows that the navigational ability was disturbed by these factors. For observing the position of the sun to be used for navigation, you also need an accurate time-piece, far more accurate than any “biological clock”. Besides, if you keep a close watch on the sun, your eyes will be damaged. Before the GPS mariners used the sextant for this.
In many situations the position of the sun is not visible, not only when there is a persistent cloud cover, but when walking in a forest, like when hunter-gatherers walk long distances.
Sea turtles as soon as they hatch, begin roaming the high seas for about 10 years, never seeing the accurate position of the sun and when the time comes to lay their eggs, they find their way back to the same beach were they came from.
When I was very young, around 4 years old, in a foreign country my mother often took me to places following main roads, but on the way home she thought there must be a much shorter way through a maze of side streets. Soon she got hopelessly lost. Then in despair she thought, perhaps a young child might have an unspoilt homing instinct and asked me, if I were here alone, which way would I go home? Every time I led us home easily. I have no idea how I did it.
On one occasion in my teen years, then later at the age of 19 I experienced other inexplicable things, too long to describe here.
How can we fit the above into our world-view? My conclusion is that the physical universe is a part of the total, which exists in an unknown number of dimensions and the metaphysical realities exist in dimensions other than the physical three. Although we don’t know how the interactions happen between physical and metaphysical realities, we can see many, many interactions happening all the time.
The criterion or principle that if something has any physically observable effect, then it must be real, even if it is metaphysical, should be extended to anything metaphysical not mentioned here.
Once we realized that there are metaphysical entities, which can and do interact with things physical, can we expect any life in the metaphysical dimensions? A vast amount of money and effort already went into trying to find any sign of intelligent life, or at least some life elsewhere in the Universe, but nothing was found so far. Now let us look for any sign of life in the metaphysical dimensions. This would be much less costly.
Millions and millions of people, including myself, have found countless physically observable effects of spiritual beings living in the metaphysical dimensions, like God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and angels, also of Satan and his evil spirits. Physically observable effects were also found resulting from interactions with them through prayer. I am talking about physically observable effects, which cannot be explained on the basis of any law of physics, or even defy some laws of physics.
You must draw your own conclusions.
I would be interested to know what you think and see the list of metaphysical realities you found.
