THE NATURE OF REALITY

 

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF REALITY?

This is not a trivial question; and I would argue that sooner or later, in this world or the next, every one of us will have to think about it, and try to answer this question for our self. With the craziness that is going on in the world today, maybe now is a good time to have a look at this question and make a serious effort to answer it.

Let’s start by thinking about what is behind the question: It assumes that there actually is something called reality, and that it is, to some extent, independent of whatever we may think about it. If this were not the case, then each of us would be adrift, alone, like a vessel on the surface of an endless ocean, below an endless sky, with no polestar, no lighthouse beacon, no land, nothing to relate to. But our individual awareness of the physical world, and interactions with others in it, strongly suggest that there is a reality independent of our thoughts and actions. The question also assumes that reality is knowable. This is important, because if reality is unknowable, we are again in a world of ultimate uncertainty, grasping at straws of an elusive reality, that continuously dissolves and slips through our fingers!

In fact, the history of modern science up until 1900, resembles this concept of reality: Holding an object in his hand, a physicist could grasp it as a solid reality, made up of structured molecules of definite size and shape, but when he looked more closely, the molecules were made of atoms, and looking deeper into the atoms, he found that they were almost nothing but empty space. Then, these tiny bits of matter, that he had thought of as the indivisible elemental building blocks of reality, turned out to be made of negative and positive electrically charged bits of matter, which he named electrons and nuclei, whirling, around very far apart, with nothing solid in between.

Probing deeper still, he discovered that the nuclei were also not really solid, but were made of electrically charged protons and chargeless neutrons. Surely, in them, he had finally found the building blocks of physically reality! But no! These “proto” particles were made of even smaller spinning bits, whimsically called quarks, which decayed rapidly when separated from the nuclei. With the decay of quarks, solid physical reality had literally dissolved into energy, and slipped through his fingers. The solid object he held in his hand was exposed as an illusion. And of course that meant that the solidity of the hand holding the object, made of cells, molecules, atoms, etc., was also an illusion. And what about his brain and reasoning mind? Could they also ultimately be something very different than they seemed to be? Could the analysis be carried on indefinitely, like an infinite descent into nothingness, or did it stop somewhere?

Even though, in the world of daily experience, a physical object can be only be divided into separate parts a finite number of times, that is apparently just a physical limitation of the instrument of division. Conceptually, the dividing of objects could conceivably go on indefinitely. Interestingly, this is exactly the conceptual basis of the most useful mathematical tool of modern science, called infinitesimal calculus, or as it is commonly known: “the calculus”. However, between 1900 and around the year of my birth, Three very important discoveries changed everything. Those discoveries were:

·       Max Planck’s discovery that energy only occurs in exact multiples of a very small amount of energy called a quantum of energy. This marked the beginning of Quantum Physics.

·       Albert Einstein’s discovery that time and space have no absolute existence of their own. This marked the beginning of Relativistic Physics.

·       Kurt Gӧdel’s discovery of proof of the Uncertainty Theorems, which, when combined with relativity and quantum physics, marked the end of the belief in finite axiomatic determinism.

What do these three discoveries mean in plain English? The first tells us that there is a bottom to the infinite descent in the energy of the decaying quarks: one quantum. The second tells us that, because of the equivalence of mass and energy (E=mc²) there is a bottom to the division of objects: one quantum. The third tells us that the logical structure of reality is infinite, because no finite model is complete. What do they tell us about the nature of reality? Together, they hold the keys to the paradigm shift that led to another new discovery. The new discovery was made  possible by the development of a truly quantized calculus called the Calculus of Dimensional Distinctions (CoDD), using a quantum equivalence unit based on Large Hadron Collider data. Application of this new calculus and consistent mathematical procedures led to the discovery of the existence of a non-physical quantity that is necessary in addition to mass and energy for the existence of a stable physical universe.

What does this new paradigm tell us about the nature of reality? It has already told us far more about the nature of reality than was possible to learn within the current mainstream scientific paradigm. It has logically explained things that were inexplicable in the current mainstream paradigm, such as why quarks only combine in threes to form protons and neutrons, why the Cabibbo quark-mixing angle has the exact value it has, and why the proton and neutron have the exact masses they do.

I can only present a summary here. More detail can be found in “Reality Begins with Consciousness” by Dr Vernon Neppe and me, available in e-book form at www.BrainVoyage.com, in several technical papers published in the journal of the Exceptional Creative Achievement Organization (ECAO), and in Vol. 8, No. 3, of the IQNexus Journal: https://www.iqnexus.org/mag.htm , in “Is Consciousness Primary?”, Vol. 1, published by the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS Global), in other posts on this blog, and in “Transcendental Physics”, and “Secrets of the Sacred Cube, A Cosmic Love Story” books by me, available on Amazon.com.

In summary, the reality we experience consists of an extensive domain of nine finite dimensions containing  a distinct number of dynamic finite objects made up of relativistic quantized energy, inertial mass, and individualized conscious beings, all embedded in the infinite field of Primary Consciousness. The logical structures of individual consciousness, quantized energy, inertial mass, and the nine-dimensional finite domain, are conveyed from their origin as ideal distinctions in Primary Consciousness, into physical reality, embedded in three dimensions of consciousness, three dimensions of time, and three dimensions of space.

Nine finite dimensions of reality are definitely indicated and specifically defined by the mathematics, and you may be surprised to learn that we can actually naturally relate, at least conceptually, to seven of them, not just the three dimensions of ordinary space: length, width, and depth. When the mathematical description of the rotation and projection from a 3-dimensional domain to the next dimensionally larger domain, a 4-D domain, using the Pythagorean Theorem, which you may remember from your high school geometry, is accomplished, an additional number of a new type must be used to represent the location of the unitary projection into the additional dimension. I call this procedure of projection from a lower to a higher dimensional domain Dimensional Extrapolation.

For example, points in the 3-D quantum domain are exactly located by three integers, and a point located one unit into the fourth dimension must be represented by four numbers: 3 integers plus an imaginary number (the square-root of minus one, which is the fourth root of unity) After each set of three, the next dimension must be represented by a new type of number, otherwise, the point to which you project will still be in the same dimensional domain. The location of all projections out of 3, 6 and 9-D domains require additional new numbers that are sequentially higher dimensional roots of unity.

As the description of reality is expanded into domains with more dimensions, we find that we can explain more and more of our experiences as conscious beings. As we expand our awareness of the nine dimensions of reality through dimensional extrapolation, with each added dimension, the reality we perceive becomes more complex and richer, with additional subtle qualities, because each dimensional domain contains all of the domains of fewer dimensions within it, and the domain of nine finite dimensions is embedded in the infinite field of Primary Consciousness. Each dimension adds more subtle inter-dimensional relationships to the total experience of reality, and expansion beyond each of the sets of three dimensions with the same type of numerical units, is an entry into a higher dimensional domain with much more subtle qualities. Time is more complex and subtle than space, and consciousness is more complex and subtle than time.

To understand this mathematically invariant feature of dimensional domains better, it is helpful to perform the following thought experiment in quantum geometry, using the concept of dimensional extrapolation:

In quantized reality, a point is not a mathematical singularity, it is a single quantum of extent. It then follows that a line of quantum points forms a 1-D domain, and conversely, this 1-D domain contains, potentially, an infinite number of zero-D domains (quantum points). Similarly, a 2-D domain (a quantum plane) has the potential of containing an infinite number of 1-D domains (quantum lines); and 3-D domain (a volume filled with quantum points), potentially contains an infinite number of 2-D domains (quantum planes), and an infinite number of 1-D domains. Continuing to extrapolate into the next dimension, i.e., into the first dimension of time, a 4-D domain, we find that it has the potential to contain an infinite number of 3-D domains.

But, as pointed out by Einstein, this logical structure of dimensional domains only exists because of their content, And because reality is dynamic, the configuration of the mass-energy-consciousness content of each 3-D quantum domain on a given quantal timeline may have changed by quantal amounts from one quantum of time to the next.  Such a sequence of dynamic 3-D realities defines a specific finite timeline as experienced by a specific conscious individual. Finally, each individual conscious being experiences one quantum of consciousness in the seventh dimensional domain, which contains experience of all of the dimensional domains contained below it. So the invariant rule that holds for all finite dimensional domains is that every n-dimensional quantum domain contains within it n-1, n-2, n-3, … and n-n= 0-D domains like potentially infinite sub-sets.

Even though we are aware of one dimension of consciousness, most of us at this time in the spiritual evolution of consciousness on this planet are so focused and identified with the 3S-1t body, that we are oblivious of the 2-T and 3-T dimensions (n = 5 and 6) domains, even though partially aware of the 7-D domain! A conscious being fully aware of his or her domain and all of the sub-set dimensional domains below it, would be a very aware person in today’s world, That person would not only be aware of his or her own timeline, but also those of others, as well.

Because while using dimensional extrapolation to move from lower to higher dimensional domains, we shift our thinking from plane geometry to solid geometry, to hyper-dimensional geometry, I think it is appropriate to describe the quantum geometry of nine-dimensional reality as dimensionometry.

The discovery of the third quantifiable essential aspect of the content of reality, a variable represented by gimmel, the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, allows us to include representation of experimentally verifiable non-physical phenomena in the equations describing the reality we experience. As conscious and self-conscious beings, we can conceive of, and thus potentially perceive at least two dimensions of time and two dimensions of consciousness in addition to the three dimensions of space. This potential should be a powerful motivation for us to expand our consciousness as rapidly as possible during this lifetime. For the betterment of the world, we should also want to help each other and others to understand how to do this too.

 

ERC 9/14/2020

TDVP IS NEW SCIENCE AND NEW MATH

WHAT IS TDVP?

© Edward R. Close, June 28, 2018

Science is not now, and never will be, a complete, unchanging body of knowledge. Our understanding progresses slowly, for the most part, by incremental discovery of the details of reality, but, occasionally science leaps forward, with the sudden discovery of a new and more productive way of thinking about reality. Thomas Kuhn, physicist and historian, in his insightful treatise, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, called these sudden changes paradigm shifts.

A paradigm shift occurs when there is a complete overthrow of one or more of the basic assumptions of science. For example, the classical assumption that space and time are the same everywhere was overthrown by Einstein’s discovery of the mathematical relationship between the motion and acceleration of the observer and the measurement of space and time. And Planck’s discovery of the quantization of energy and mass overthrew the notion of the apparent infinite divisibility of reality. What basic assumption does TDVP overthrow? The assumption of scientific materialism. With the discovery of the mathematical necessity of the existence of a non-physical aspect of reality, TDVP puts consciousness into the equations of science, and refutes the assumption of scientific materialism, held by most scientists for centuries.

German physicist Max Planck, saw past scientific materialism and started the revolution culminating with TDVP. In the early 20^th century. He said:

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." – Max Planck

Einstein added to the developing revolution with his special and general theories of relativity. For the first time in the history of modern science, the state of the observer relative to the dynamics of moving objects was found to affect the observations and measurements of physical reality. Did Einstein, like his personal friend Max Planck, believe that there is something real beyond physical reality? His spirituality is revealed in the following statement:

“I want to know God's thoughts - the rest are mere details.” – Albert Einstein

A paradigm shift always brings new science, and new science requires new math. Just as in every other paradigm shift, e.g., Newton’s laws of motion, relativity and quantum physics, TDVP requires new math. That new math is the Calculus of Dimensional Distinctions (CoDD), a mathematical system logically prior to conventional mathematics, adapted for application to quantum reality.

In answering the question “What is TDVP?”, I would be remiss if I did not emphasize and clarify the point that the logic of TDVP shines a bright light on the primacy of consciousness. Why is this important? Because recognizing the primacy of consciousness is the key to understanding how and why applications of the logic of the CoDD answers questions and resolves paradoxes that have persisted unanswered and unresolved for decades in the current mainstream paradigm of scientific materialism. This fact about TDVP may sound amazing, and you might expect its answers and proofs to be complex and difficult to comprehend, but the logic is so basic that I believe that I can explain it in simple terms that anyone can understand.

Because the experience of consciousness is primary, it is best to start with a brief discussion of consciousness. Everyone experiences it, but no one is able to define it completely satisfactorily because it is the essence of what we are, the essence of being itself. Expecting the human mind to analyze consciousness is like expecting an eye to be able to see itself without a mirror. Whatever consciousness is, without it, there simply would be no awareness, no knowledge of this, or any other world. Everything we do, know or think depends upon it.  To define something means to compare it with something already known, but consciousness is unique; there is nothing with which to compare it, and all analogies always fall short. As the primary experience of self, consciousness simply is the essence of self-aware existence. As Max Planck observed: “we cannot get behind consciousness”.

We can, however, identify and describe the actions performed by consciousness: The actions of consciousness arise from within consciousness itself as the desire for experience. That desire is propagated sequentially from self to other-than-self in three stages: 1. The realization of Identity, 2. The formation of a conscious Intent and 3. The actualization of intent as an Impact on other-than-self. Consciousness thus becomes an observer, and a participant in reality by the actions of drawing distinctions and organizing those distinctions into logical patterns.

All possible forms of reality knowable by a conscious observer, arise from the initial act of separation: i.e., the creation of the distinction of self from everything else. Any distinction is triadic, consisting of: 1. That which is distinguished, 2. That from which it is distinguished, and 3. The conscious self that draws the distinction. For the purpose of differential experience, the conscious self must consider itself to be separate from that which it is able to distinguish, and thus the distinction of self from other is the first distinction. All forms of objective reality arise from this initial act of severance, and while it may seem that we may separate reality any way we please, the logic of the CoDD shows us that the basic forms arising from the act of separation are the same. The framework of reality is that of embedded dimensional domains, much like the layers of an onion. The basis of all conceivable symbolic representation, all logic, language, and all knowledge of, and understanding of any reality, is the conscious action of the drawing of distinctions. This is why the CoDD provides a powerful tool for analyzing reality.

The most basic description of reality possible, is a multi-dimensional mosaic, a picture of reality composed of multiples of the most basic distinction possible; and the most basic distinction possible is the smallest possible quantum of the substance of reality. In the TDVP, that smallest quantum of mass that can be distinguished in the three-or-more dimensional reality we experience, and used as the basic unit of distinction, is the electron.

At this point, I must ask you to accept an a priori assumption, an assumption that is the basic foundational hypothesis of TDVP. The proof that this assumption is valid comes in the form of answers to questions and resolutions of paradoxes in the current scientific paradigm that cannot be obtained in any other way. A number of these have been published under the authorship of Close and Neppe or Neppe and Close. The assumption is the proposition that there is a single elementary measure which applies to all aspects of reality; a quantum equivalence unit to which all quantifiable aspects of reality can be mathematically related. In TDVP, we call that quantum equivalence unit the Triadic Rotational Unit of Equivalence (TRUE), for reasons that will become clearer as we proceed.

This is a significant departure from the current methods of mathematical physics, and a deliberate extension of Planck’s discovery of the quantization of energy to include quantization of all observable and measurable aspects of finite reality. Planck started down this path by developing a system of “natural” units that became known as Planck units, with five universal constants set equal to unity, making them natural units of measurement, and Einstein carried the ball a little farther by showing us the mathematical equivalence of mass and energy with E = mc². In Planck units, c, the speed of light, is one of the five universal constants naturalized to unity. Notice that when c is naturalized to 1, Einstein’s famous equation becomes simply E = m, making energy and mass equivalent in Planck units. In TDVP, we naturalize all of the measures of reality, mass, energy, space, and time to unity, which naturalizes c, but not the other universal constants which were naturalized by Planck for computational convenience.

The TRUE is the basic unit of the calculus of distinctions, a system of mathematical logic designed for application to quantum reality. I use the word “calculus” here in the broadest possible sense, to mean a system of logical processes by which expressions representing a distinction or a combination of distinctions are transformed to other, equivalent distinctions by the fundamental operations of mathematics re-defined for quantum mathematics. Defining the TRUE based on the electron, links the CoDD to reality, so that the the logic of the CoDD correlates directly with the structure of reality. Application of this new quantum math across all scales of measurement, from the quantum to the cosmos reveals the true nature of reality. With TDVP, we not only get to know God’s thoughts, we get a glimpse of how God’s mind works!

I do not claim to have created this major scientific paradigm shift single-handedly. The new science of TDVP is built on foundations laid by many scientists; notably, it stands on the infinities of Georg Cantor and the Diophantine equations of Pierre de Fermat; and more recently, on the work of Planck, Einstein, Pauli, Von Neumann, Gӧdel, and others. I have been blessed to have the support of a number of brilliant people, including Dr. David Stewart, PhD, a geophysicist who was my roommate in college, and for that reason, has listened to my ideas about math and science for more than 60 years, my wife Jacqui, whose unwavering support I’ve enjoyed for more than 40 years, and I’ve been working in equal collaboration for more than 10 years with Dr. Vernon Neppe, MD, PhD, who, without question, is the most brilliant and accomplished polymath alive today.

Recently, TDVP is being considered favorably by an increasing number of scientists, including Dr. Adrian Klein in Israel, Dr. Gary Schwartz, PhD, a respected author and professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and several members of the Academy for the Advancement of  Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS). Further exploration and promotion of TDVP has been energized recently by the enthusiasm of Dr. Surendra Pokharna, PhD physicist visiting from India. The only question I have now is whether this paradigm shift from the dead end of materialism into the expansive realm of consciousness and spirituality will be accepted by mainstream scientists in time to save humanity from the materialistic path to self-destruction. I am optimistically hopeful that it will happen within my lifetime.

With the discovery of gimmel, the indifferent particles assumed to exist in sub-atomic physics and galactic cosmology are gone, replaced by vortices of energy spinning in multiple planes of rotation. I think it is fair to say that TDVP is like a colon cleanse for the body of modern science: The lifeless dirt and grime of materialism are flushed out and swept away by the living energy of dynamic vortices infused with conscious meaning and purpose.

Edward R. Close  6/28/2018

COSMOLOGY REDEFINED

COSMOLOGY REDEFINED

Copyright © Edward R. Close 5/10/2018

CLOSE-NEPPE COSMOLOGY

The standard definition of cosmology found in on-line Wikipedia, is:

“Cosmology (from the Greek κόσμος, kosmos "world" and -λογία, -logia "study of") is the study of the origin, evolution and eventual fate of the universe. Physical cosmology is the scientific study of the universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and its ultimate fate, as well as the scientific laws that govern these areas.

The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount’s Glossographia,^] and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff in Cosmologia Generalis Religious

or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology

Physical cosmology is studied by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists, as well as philosophers, such as metaphysicians, philosophers of physics and philosophers of space and time. Because of this shared scope with philosophy, theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions and may depend upon assumptions that cannot be tested. Cosmology differs from astronomy in that the former is concerned with the Universe as a whole while the latter deals with individual celestial objects. Modern physical cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which attempts to bring together observational astronomy and particle physics, more specifically, a standard parameterization of the Big Bang with dark matter and dark energy, known as the Lambda-CDM model.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology

Comments on the Definition of Cosmology

It is interesting to note that this definition distinguishes between cosmology as a general subject and “physical cosmology” in an ambiguous way: In the first paragraph, physical cosmology is said to be “the scientific study of the universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and its ultimate fate, as well as the scientific laws that govern these areas”. While, in the last paragraph, it states that “theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions and may depend upon assumptions that cannot be tested.” This suggests, contrary to the first statement, that physical cosmology is not completely scientific.

To be clear about what cosmology is, we must first answer the question: What is scientific and what is not? As the definition above implies, the scientific method requires hypotheses that can be tested, but the physical cosmological model of current mainstream science contains elements that cannot be tested. The most significant one is the big bang theory itself. While scientists like to think that the Standard Model of cosmology and particle physics is scientific, it depends in large part on assumptions that cannot be tested, and therefore the current Standard Model is theoretical and not strictly scientific.

But, this is not an unforgiving criticism, because science would never have progressed very far if it adhered strictly to the scientific method. This, however, raises a crucial point that was discussed in detail in the Neppe=Close book Reality Begins with Consciousness, available at www.BrainVoyage.com. That is the importance of scientific feasibility, which we call LFAF: Lower-Dimensional Feasibility, Absent Falsification; the basis for including logically feasible concepts in hypotheses that may not be falsifiable in the space-time 3S-1t dimensional domain of physical observation. This brings us to what I will call, for want of better terminology, Close Cosmology.

CLOSE COSMOLOGY

I’m calling this early form of Close-Neppe Cosmology Close Cosmology because it was developed during the years 1985-1988, more than 20 years before Dr. Neppe and I began working together in 2008. This cosmology was developed using the Calculus of Distinctions, a calculus developed and expanded from G. Spencer Brown’s Calculus of Indications, published in his book Laws of Form, and it was published in the book Infinite Continuity in 1990.

The calculus of distinctions differs from Brown’s calculus in that it depends on the concept of a quantum unit related to physical reality as the basic unit of measurement, in that it relates true with real and false with conceptual or non-existent, and in that it includes the functioning of consciousness as a part of reality that is every bit as real as mass and energy.

Like the calculus of indications, the calculus of distinctions can be used to evaluate the logical truth or falsity of any statement that can be described in the calculus. This means that, because it is directly related to the physical universe through its basic unit of measurement, the quantum unit of quantized reality, the mathematical structure of the calculus is identical with the logical structure of the universe. This also means that it can be used to test scientific hypotheses to see if they are logically consistent. In Infinity Continuity, published in 1990, I applied the calculus of distinctions to several cosmological problems, including the expanding universe as indicated by the red shift in the spectrum of light from distant stars and relativistic time dilation. This application of the calculus of distinctions revealed several important basic truths about the nature of reality that require a complete revision of our understanding of science, and a redefinition of cosmology.

Replacement of the calculus of Newton and Leibniz with the logically prior calculus of distinctions as applied in Infinite continuity, revealed that consciousness, not matter, is primary, that there is no absolute beginning or end, and the universe is much larger than astronomers and astrophysicists estimate.

A further refinement of this understanding was obtained when the calculus of distinctions was refined with the definition of the quantum equivalence unit, the triadic rotational unit of equivalence (TRUE) in 2011, and the discovery of gimmel in 2012. The addition of dimensionality to the calculus of distinctions made it possible to describe quantum phenomena, and the new refined calculus became the calculus of dimensional distinctions (CoDD).

Applying the CoDD to the description of quantum phenomena with variables of extent, content and conscious intent, or impact in the 3S-1t domain of physical observation, produced new revelations and explained phenomena not explicable in the current scientific paradigm. Here are a few of the revelations:

·       The physical universe is only a small part of reality. The part represented by gimmel in the structures of physical reality is far greater in volume and in effect on the logical structure of reality than the mass-energy, space-time portion.

·       Mainstream science has avoided dealing with the vast majority of reality by limiting its focus to the material aspects of reality and the physical universe.

Application of the CoDD to reality requires a redefinition of the term cosmos. The specifics of this redefinition are as follows:

·       The cosmos consists of the entirety of reality, of which the physical universe is a very small part.

·       Beyond the 3S-1t physical universe, the cosmos consists of the dimensional domains of nine finite dimensions, three trans-finite dimensions and an unknown and unknowable number of infinite dimensions.

·       The first six dimensions are quantized, the next three are measurable in flexible, relative variables.

The new definition is: Close-Neppe Cosmology is the study of everything that exists, from the smallest quantum of mass to the entire expanding universe, seen and unseen, to the transcendental cosmos, into the infinitely continuous Primary Conscious Substrate in which all things and all distinguishable domains are embedded, as well as the mathematical laws that describe the dynamic relationships between all parts of the physical and non-physical cosmos.

Thus, it becomes cleare that the science of the future must transcend the limited materialistic science of mass-energy, space-time. When consciousness is included in the equations of science. This is the point of my third book: Transcendental Physics, available at Amazon and bookstores everywhere. This new definition and the application of the CODD yields some very practical results both for science and for individual physical, mental and spiritual improvement and progress.

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

WHERE DID EVERYTHING COME FROM?

My Answer, or Still Crazy After All These Years!

I am so Blessed! The most important person in my life has always supported my craziness! In 1996, when we attended our first “Toward a Science of Consciousness” seminar in Tucson Arizona, where I presented my derivation of the “non-quantum receptor”, as we entered the lecture hall for the opening session, Jacqui remarked: “We’re in a room filled with over three hundred people that are crazy just like you!”

In an informal talk given by Paramahansa Yogananda, the founder of Self-Realization Fellowship in the US and Yogoda Sat-Sanga Society of India, he told the story of encountering a famous Hollywood actor once while travelling in the US. The actor was openly critical, almost offended, by Yogananda’s appearance, including his dark skin, his ochre-colored robe, long hair and turban. Yogananda replied to the effect: “We are all crazy in some way, and I know about your craziness, but you don’t know about mine!”

Of, course, it turned out that none of the three-hundred and some-odd scientists and philosophers in that room on the University of Arizona Campus that day in 1996 were crazy exactly like me. A few were similar, but most were afflicted with a slightly different kind of craziness. But, I’ve been blessed to have at least three friends in this life, my college roommate, now Dr. David Stewart, my wife, Jacqui, and my research partner, Dr. Vernon Neppe, whose craziness was and is enough like mine to help me believe that there is some value to my craziness. 

As we walked out of one of the Tucson II sessions, a few days later, I happened to be walking next to a well-known physicist whose ideas had impressed me. I turned toward him and asked:

 “Have you started meditating yet?” 

He looked at me quizzically, and answered: “No. Why should I?” 

Before I could respond, he disappeared into the crowd.

I firmly believe that any serious thinker, scientist, philosopher or ordinary person, should learn to meditate. It could mitigate their inflated sense of self-worth some. Most scientists like to think that the thoughts they think, the ideas they put forth are theirs alone. I don’t think that is quite true. Many of the ideas that have proved valuable in my career as a scientist and engineer, came to me after periods of deep meditation. In my opinion, this reveals the fact that theories about the nature of reality, like quantum theory and the theory of relativity, or any idea, while ostensibly produced by one or a few, belong to no one. The truth about the nature of reality is available to everyone, and accessible by anyone who is willing to contemplate deeply enough.

Rene Descartes, revered by many as the father of modern science, famously said: “I think therefore I am!” Of course, what he actually said was: “je pense, donc je suis!” when he published this thought in his native language, French, as the primary axiom of his “Discourse on the Method”. Later he published the thought in Latin, the formal scientific language of his day, as “Cogito ergo sum!” in his scholarly work, “Principles of Philosophy.” Reading Descatrtes’ statement, most of us think, yes, that’s right! I am thinking, and that implies that I exist. But, as we all have done, from time immemorial, with this declaration, Descartes did not really start at the beginning, he started well into the middle of the story! His seminal statement assumes that we know What thinking is, and what being is. Do we? Really? Many, many books have been written about thinking and being, but do we really know what they are? Apparently not. We are writing, and we are still in the middle of the story. How do we start at the beginning?

You may be beginning to suspect that I am crazy enough to think that I can figure this out! So, how do we start at the beginning? What, when, where, or who is/was the beginning, the origin of all things? To see how we have tackled the question: “How did all this Begin?” in the past, let’s look at some answers from some of the Homo sapiens cultures of the Earth.

From the Middle East

“In the beginning YHVH created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of YHVH was hovering over the waters. And YHVH said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Then YHVH took dust of the earth and shaped it into the form of a man, and breathed life into that form, and it came to life.

From India

In the beginning there was absolutely nothing, Brahma thought, "Let me have a self", and Brahma created the mind. As Brahma moved about in worship, water was generated. Froth formed on the water, and the froth eventually solidified to become earth. Then Brahma created life, plants, animals and human beings.

From the West

Reality was at first endless space in which existed only Manito, the Creator. This reality had no time, no shape, and no life, except in the mind of Manito. Eventually the infinite creator created the finite, Kitchi Manito, as the agent to establish the nine universes. The finite manifestation Manito gathered together matter to make the solid worlds and gathered together the waters and placed them on these worlds to make land and sea. Then Kitchi Manito gathered together air to make winds and breezes on these worlds. And the fourth act of creation was the creation of life.

From the Far East

There was something featureless yet complete, born before heaven and earth; Silent—amorphous—it stood alone and unchanging. We may regard it as the mother of heaven and earth. Not knowing its name, call it “the Way.” The Way gave birth to unity, Unity gave birth to duality, Duality gave birth to trinity, Trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures. The myriad creatures bear yin on their back and embrace yang in their bosoms. They neutralize these vapors and thereby achieve harmony.

The Big Bang, a Scientific Answer

The current scientific answer is generally known as “the Big Bang Theory”. It was generated after the discovery by astronomer Edwin Hubble, of evidence that distant stars, once assumed fixed in space, appear to be hurtling away from us, implying that the universe is expanding in every direction. Applying Einstein’s theory of general relativity and imagining running the expansion backwards, cosmologists arrive at the conclusion that the universe exploded into existence from nothing, or nearly nothing, and evolved into the vast complex expanding universe we have now. Along the way, life and consciousness blossomed forth according to natural laws, not all of which we know or fully understand.

These “answers” were all generated during the past five to ten thousand years on this planet. They were spoken and written by human beings for communication to human beings. Notice that, even though they come from widely separated places on the Earth, and from different kinds of thinkers, they have some very similar elements: First there was nothing but an infinite nothing or mind or spirit, called by various names, all meaning in some way, the Creator. Then the Creator divided the infinity up into its various parts including our first ancestor(s), and Ba-da, Ba-da, Boom: Here we are today!

Even the Big-Bang scientific answer has some similar components. In it, there was virtually nothing, but then something caused it to explode into everything we have today. No one know what cause this to happen. The main difference between the scientific answer and the traditional answers is that no creator is assumed to be necessary. But, while that seems to be a reasonable assumption, is far from a provable fact.  

Are there other versions? Oh, yeah! Plenty. From Zachariah Stichin, to Erich von Dӓniken, to that wild-haired guy on the Ancient Aliens TV series, there are those who believe life originated elsewhere in the universe. There seems to be more and more evidence that there may be sentient beings from somewhere in the universe who are far more advanced than we are. Is that possible? Of course. We’ve seen before that thinking of ourselves as the end-all, be-all center of the universe is usually a blind form of self-centered ego-delusion.

My Answer

Believe it or not, the Calculus of Dimensional Distinctions (CoDD) mentioned so often in my posts and publications, plays a major part in my answer. To explain how this can be, I will start by quoting three short paragraphs from the beginning of the wonderful little book “Laws of Form”, by British Logician George Spencer Brown:

“The theme of this book is that a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart. The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside from an inside. So does the circumference of a circle in a plane. By tracing the way we represent such a severance, we can begin to construct, with an accuracy and coverage that appear almost uncanny, the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical, physical, and biological science, and can begin to see how the familiar laws of our own experience follow inexorably from the original act of severance. The act itself is already remembered, if unconsciously, as our first attempt to distinguish different things in a world where, in the first place, the boundaries can be drawn anywhere we please. At this stage, the universe can not be distinguished from how we act upon it, and the world may seem like shifting sand beneath our feet.

“Although all forms, and thus all universes, are possible, and any particular form is mutable, it becomes evident that the laws relating such forms are the same in any universe. It is this sameness, the idea that we can find a reality which is independent of how the universe actually appears, that lends such fascination to the study of mathematics. That mathematics, in common with other art forms, can lead us beyond ordinary existence, and can show us something of the structure in which all creation hangs together, is no new idea. But mathematical texts generally begin the story somewhere in the middle, leaving the reader to pick up the thread as best he can. Here the story is traced from the beginning.

“Unlike some superficial forms of expertise, mathematics is a way of saying less and less about more and more. A mathematical text is not an end in itself, but a key to a world beyond the compass of ordinary description.”

I wholeheartedly share and agree with professor Brown’s view of mathematics. In my opinion, mathematical description reflects the logical structure of reality. In his book, which I highly recommend as a good introduction to the CoDD, Professor Brown presents the logic leading from the conscious drawing of a distinction to laws governing the forms that make up the universe we experience. While I may depart from what I see as his sterile path of logic, into aspects of reality Professor Brown probably did not anticipate, I believe that his starting point is truly the beginning of the story, and it is my starting point as well, but the CoDD completes the story by finalizing the logical loop of triadic, spherical reasoning and reconnecting the consciousness of the individual with the Consciousness of the Cosmos.

The beginning of reality, as we experience it, is the distinction of self from other, and all description, all thinking (getting back to Descartes’ Method) is always expressed in terms of distinctions. This is why the distinction I have called the quantum equivalence unit, the basic unit of the CoDD which I took so much care to define based on the smallest mass of the elementary particles that make up reality, the electron, is used in the CoDD as the basic unit of observation, measurement and description.

Following this line of reasoning, I come to the conclusion that consciousness has always existed in some form and is the matrix or source of the physical universe, not the other way around. The basic triad: consciousness, distinction, and object, has always existed and will always exist in some form. The creation stories, even the current scientific one, are all about how the essence of reality changes over time, not about an absolute creation from nothing. The CoDD applied to quantized physical reality and infinitely continuous consciousness, shows me that matter, energy, space, and time are illusions created by a primary form of consciousness, and the attainment of oneness with Cosmic Consciousness Itself, is the goal, the purpose and meaning of all creation and all individual sentient beings.

To complete this post, I will quote some sayings of some of my spiritual guides:

“It is the Infinite, the Ocean of Power, that lies behind all phenomenal manifestations. Our eagerness for worldly activity kills in us the sense of spiritual awe. Because modern science tells us how to utilize the powers of nature, we fail to comprehend the Great Life in back of all names and forms. Familiarity with Nature has bred contempt for her ultimate secrets; our relation with her is one of practical business. We tease her, so to speak, to discover the ways in which she may be forced to serve our purposes; we make use of her energies, whose Source yet remains unknown. In science our relation with Nature is like that between an arrogant man and his servant; or in a philosophical sense, Nature is like a captive in the witness box. We cross-examine her, challenge her, and minutely weigh her evidence in human scales that cannot measure her hidden values.

“On the other hand, when the self is in communion with a higher power, Nature automatically obeys, without stress or strain the will of man. This effortless command over Nature is called ‘miraculous’ by the uncomprehending materialist.” --Lahiri Maysaya

“God is Love; His plan for creation can be rooted only in Love. Does not that simple thought, rather than erudite reasonings offer solace to the human heart? Every saint who has penetrated to the core of Reality has testified that a divine universal plan exists and that it is beautiful and full of joy.” --Paramahansa Yogananda

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30) “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). –Jesus

 “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalms 37:4)

“Names are unimportant; a rose by any other name is still a rose”. – William Shakespeare

“What is the difference if I wear a visible or an invisible wave on my ocean of Spirit?” --Babaji

The bottom line

Matter and energy, time and space, are temporary illusory distinctions. Reality is Eternal and Self-sufficient. Like waves on the surface of the Sea of Existence, we exist as part of the Ocean of Reality and unto it we shall return --fully aware of who we are and where we came from!