CHAPT15

~Chapter Fifteen~

FLAT LAND RE-VISITED---

"There is only one success--- to be able to spend your life in your own way."

---Chris Morley

Due in large part to recent discoveries in physics, there are 11 known dimensions besides our own. Since explaining how such an astonishing claim requires a fairly good understanding of mathematics, forget about it. I suppose we just have to take the word of the physicists that there are in fact, many other dimesions.

Comprehending any other dimension beyond the three we already know, is almost impossible. Why? There's this charming little story by Edwin Abbot called "A Stranger in Flatland." It might help to explain what it would be like if our dimension encountered some other one. In other words, a trip into the rabbit hole might make things a little easier to understand. Physicists are as familiar with the flat land story as a child is with Dr. Seuss, but I don't think it's ever been used to describe where a soul might hang its hat, once it leaves our dimensional bias. This story will also help explain to some extent, why we're so confused when encountering anything beyond our own, limited senses.

This is a tale about what would happen if a 2-dimensional denizen of flatland were to encounter a being from another dimension--- in this case, the third. The 3rd dimension is a place that we tend to take for granted, but that no flat-lander had ever been before. That's because all of them have lived out their lives in a world having only two dimensions of space. All they ever knew where the directions of right and left, or forward and backward. There was simply no such thing to them as what we would call "up" or "down".

Everyone was the same height here (they had no height whatsoever), and only length and width pulled any weight with them. They weren't a stupid lot, and in fact, some of them were quite brilliant. Some were as smart as could be in a world that was limited to just two dimensions.

There was this one flat-lander who was very smart indeed. He'd been speculating for years (their dimension still somehow included the dimension of time) that there must certainly be more to the universe than meets the eye. As three dimensional beings, we could easily attest to this, but to the flat genius--- it was only a theory. There was no possible way for him (sorry, but it was a "he" in the original version of the story) to prove that creatures such as us. To the curious flat lander, the 3rd dimension was just as mystical as the 4th is to us.

Most every person in this flat little world had much respect for this tortured, flat physicist. We'll call him Lineus for obvious reasons. He's just this flat looking fellow, little more than a line to we 3-d's. Flat as he was, just about everybody in Flatland agreed unanimously that he was the smartest person any of them had ever known. But Lineus was a peculiar fellow when he went through another one of his "spells," as everyone started calling them. That's what they called it whenever the idiosyncratic physicist began ranting again about that day of 2 years ago. The story was impossible to take very seriously, but he told it with such conviction.

Something unconventional had happened to him, few doubted that, but nobody could believe his claims of having been to another place. As convincing as Lineus was in his sincerity, he lacked the words to satisfactorily describe where he claimed he'd been. A few people out of pity for the man, humored his strange tale, and were even intrigued by it. Some even wished they could believe what he insisted that had happened to him. But each time the people of that flat land inquired as to where it was that Lineus had gone, that's where the story fell flat. The poor man would work himself into a tizzy trying to explain his weird trip into this place he called up. How frustrating it was that he couldn't convince them. Their laughs he could take. At least that was better than the indifference his tale eventually garnered.

He'd been transported there magically by a being from this unlikely place. Lineus had named the mysterious invader "Mr. Sphere." A sphere was a shape described by the physicists in Flatland that existed somewhere in another dimensional field. Such a shape was theorized to exist in what they called the 3rd dimension. Lineus was the first citizen to claim having actually seen such a shape, but couldn't prove it. Finally, very recently in fact, Lineus got tired of his fellow flatlings and their detached disbelief. The poor scientist felt ridiculed by his peers, and longed for proof of his claim. Even though there was no evidence to suggest that there was a god, silently he prayed for his stranger to return to flat land.

The three-dimensional onlooker couldn't stand it anymore, and took pity on Lineus. The sympathetic being decided to help the flat little guy out of his perplexing dilemma. The 3-d being (looking suspiciously like an apple) would pay another visit to the 2-d world. When the apple being descended into the 2-dimensional space of flat land, the tormented Lineus was understandably astounded. His prayers had been answered, for out of nowhere, and in the middle of his room, the strange red colored line materialized before him.

Lineus looked on in shock, as the line kept getting more and more widened as it spread out before him. Then the crimson expanse froze, and its width remained fixed in front of him. It was a good thing too, because the red line almost filled the room wall to wall by now. And as if the invading red line weren't enough to be processed, there suddenly came with it a disembodied voice. It boomed from everywhere and nowhere. It was this Sphere fellow again. Lineus walked around this fellow, enthralled by the perfect circle the stranger represented. He had returned at last.

"I've come to help," the voice said. This never happened before, 2 years ago. The mysterious stranger was trying to communicate directly now. Since Lineus was a man of science, he was more curious than afraid. He had questions needing to be answered. One of them had to do with how such an unflatly voice knew the flat language so well, so he asked, " How is it that you know our words Mr. Sphere, and how can a mere line be capable of speech?" At first the spherical being was confused, if not a little outraged to hear himself being referred to as a "mere line."

Then he realized that from the point of view of Lineus, that's exactly how he looked to him. He decided to avoid further misunderstanding, otherwise Mr. Sphere would have explained that to him at least, Lineus was just such a line himself. The sphere tried to ease the tension it felt coming from the confused flat man. "I'm not speaking to you in your native tongue, but you are hearing it as such. We of the third dimension have learned to communicate directly with anyone possessing consciousness."

Lineus instinctively knew what this meant. He'd always believed in the concept of telepathy. "I think I understand. While you cannot translate my language directly, you are somehow able to interpret my thoughts. But I'm not telepathic, not that I'm aware of anyway. How is it that I can understand you?" The line shifted slightly before answering. "Language is just a tool. Forgive me for saying this, but words are primitive. They're only an instrument for communicating the thoughts and feelings that are universal to all thinking creatures.

The stranger explained further, "Words identify various stimuli that are shared by all. But these vocalizations are not necessary once you've evolved into what you call telepathy. Though we are worlds apart, our feelings are the same. With this mental link, words can be replaced by pure thought. That's what you're hearing now, my thoughts to yours. And while you may not be aware of this, your thoughts are made real to me as my mind processes them into my own perception."

The flatlander delighted in this conversation. He could hardly wait until his friends and family heard about this. Maybe they'd believe him now. Finally, there was something more coherent to go on. He could finally share with the others, this magnificent event.

More questions came pouring out of his dizzied mind. Curiosity couldn't be contained for long. "Whenever I try describing you to my disbelieving comrades, all I could come up with was "Mr. Sphere. Would you mind too terribly much if I could call you by your actual name? I'd like to call you friend, but feel that Mr. Sphere won't do at all. What are you actually called?" The red line moved a little to the right. "My friends call me Mac. I didn't mean to deceive you. Given that your own name is Lineus, I guess I jumped to a wrong conclusion. I took your name to be more of a description than a name, so I gave you the same in return, hence, Mr. Sphere. There's no more need for that
nonsense then!

You must understand that I see you as a sort of line, a geometrical universality. I thought that your namesake, Lineus, must therefore be a form of the abstraction called that we here call "line." To me, that's what you are. I see now that I'm mistaken, and I'm sorry. Likewise, I projected into your mind the word Sphere, for from my dimension, that's what designates my own shape. Lineus heard a stifled chuckling. "Is something that you find amusing?"

"Again, sorry about that. It's just humorous that you're actually called Lineus. To me, it's rather like a cloud introducing himself as "Cloud," when the very air is covered by them. Initially, Lineus felt insulted, until Mr. Sphere's metaphor finally stuck. A sky full of clouds, and one of them calling itself Mr.Cloud! Funny!"

Both of them laughed a good while before getting serious again. The laughing felt good, as did the realization that in both of their respective dimensions, there were somehow, clouds.

"No, it's Lineus thank you very much. So, what you're saying then is that a sphere best describes your physical shape? What in flat hill are you saying, that you're something shaped like a Sphere? I don't understand what you mean. What's a sphere?" The line shifted again.

How could Mac explain? "Even though there are certain things in the universe which both of us can understand, there are some things that will keep us forever apart. You see, I can't tell you what a sphere is, because we'd both need a common reference point. In your world of but two-dimensions, no such thing can exist." Now Linus was starting to get slightly agitated.

"Hey Mac, I admit there are many things I don't know, but I'm no dummy. Maybe you can let me decide that for myself. If such a thing as a sphere can exist in your world, then why can it not in mine? We have observed that the universe is the same wherever we choose to look. Our telescopes might still be fairly weak, but the stars tell us that everything is rushing outward in the large expanse. Are you telling me that our observations are wrong, and that there are natural laws which lie beyond our understanding? Don't tell me the rants of the fundamentalists are true. I'm beginning to wonder what you really want with me. You're starting to make me feel quite inferior.

"I'm here to help you, like I said, and want to give you some of the answers you've been searching for. Actually, I've been feeling guilty about revealing myself to you ever since the first time. We've been studying your dimension for decades now, and it was originally decided by our council that you should be left alone. But then I heard your prayers, and felt how you yearned to discover those worlds which you knew must surely exist. Maybe I was mistaken. I shouldn't have interfered, and I apologize."

"I know how hard it's been on you, trying to convince your friends about my dimension. Just in trying to introduce myself, I've apparently made your life miserable. For that, I'm truly sorry." Disappointment must have been another universal emotion, because that's what Lineus now sensed coming from Mac. "I'm sorry, but I pride myself as being a scientist, and am not accustomed to having my ego bruised. It's never happened to me before, and I guess I'm having a hard time accepting that I don't know so much as I used to think."

Mac felt an undefined sense of sadness. "Well, it's too late to turn back now. Besides, I couldn't help but notice how much trouble you've been having in trying to convince your fellows that there exists this other dimension. I thought you could use my help in convincing them...."

Although it wasn't easy, Lineus tried staying cool. "Are you telling me then, that you actually are from some other dimension?" Lineus knew the answer even as he asked it. " I mean, I've always felt confident that such a place must surely be, but to be standing here now with its voice in my brain...well, my very sanity is in question now. How can I be certain that this isn't another one of my dreams?"

"Specifically, I'm from what's called the third dimension." The sphere felt his flat friend's puzzlement, as Lineus became even more excited. "How can you be from this third dimension? You look the same as me, except that you're red to my green. That, and you're a little more wide than me, no offense."

Now it was Mac's turn to be confused. "I don't understand. We're not alike in the least. Are you blind? Look at me. The difference should be obvious, in that you're flat and I'm round." Now, Lineus was even more bewildered, until it dawned on him that his own perceptions were limited to only just the two dimensions of space he knew. The apple being made this connection simultaneously in their link.

He explained this phenomenon as best he could. "I think I know what's going on here. The only part of me you can actually see, are in my cross sections. That's why I must look like nothing more than a red line to you. All you know, through no fault of your own, are the concepts of length or width. You've never heard of the directions up or down, because in your world, they don't physically exist. You see then, the only part of me you can grasp is that part of me which is revealing itself to you in 2-d. Here, watch this."

The apple being then started to move up and down, which of course are two directions that didn't exist to the on looking teacher turned pupil. All Lineus could see was a red line becoming alternately wider and narrower, as the apple slid through his two dimensional space. To those of us in 3-d, it would be like Lineus was seeing only thin slices of the apple. Actually, infinitely thin slices, since in flat land, they'd have no height whatsoever.

Lineus was getting dizzy watching this dazzling display, and couldn't take much more of it. "Stop doing that! What are you trying to prove anyway?" Mac froze. "Sorry about that. I was only attempting to show you how my dimension works. That's the best idea I could come up with." Feeling bad about his outburst, Lineus asked a favor of his spherical visitor. He regretted asking it, even as the question left his flat mouth. "Is there any way you could take me into your world again? I want to learn of this third dimension, so I can describe it better to my doubting friends."

Without giving it a second thought, Mac scooped Lineus up into his hands (we can only assume that the apple being even has hands). Therein lied the terror for the poor flatlander, because up is a place where he'd only ever been to once before. And just as before, there was only the bright light, so bright in fact, that it's all he could see at first. It was overwhelming. Lineus tried to yell out in protest, but there was no sound here.

Other than the sound of his own thoughts, there was nothing. He tried thinking as loudly as he could to this stranger now turned abductor. He didn't know how, but Lineus felt as if his thoughts weren't escaping his own mind, and they only seemed to be bouncing right back to him. Then something even more strange happened, as Lineus could now see images flashing at him from out of this inundating light. At last, Lineus could hear the comforting words of Mac once more. That's when a joy like he'd never felt before began to wash over him. "Mac! Thank the creator. Where were you, and why did you abandon me like that?"

"I didn't ever leave you. It must have been the effect of crossing the barrier between your world and mine. Are you O.K.?" Other than pure elation, Lineus felt nothing. "Actually, now that you mention it, I feel great. I'm starting to adjust to all this light. Hey, I can see something now. What's going on here? Are those my friends I'm seeing ?" Mac figured out what must be happening. "Welcome to the third dimension friend. You can see things from my point of view now. Yes, those are your friends. We can survey your entire world from up here" The heart of Lineus leaped, and the sense of joy grew even more powerful, if that was possible. This was a peculiar thing indeed, because Lineus could feel his heart all right, but not in the place where it was supposed to be beating.

It's beating could be felt not right, not left, not in back, or not in front. He could feel it pumping from someplace altogether new. Then something happened that he never thought was possible. "Thank you so much Mac. You were right, we do look different, don't we? It's nice to finally meet you face to face my round friend. Everything's so clear to me now." Lineus didn't feel so strange anymore, but the feeling of joy remained. But how overwhelming this all was. As much as he liked being here, Lineus was already starting to miss home. "Is that how we look to you Mac? Are those my people I can see now? They look so worried."

Just then , inside his head, he could hear their pleas. All of flatland called out his name. Lineus looked to his friend and smiled. "Well, Mac, I think we've given them something to think about, don't you? I feel changed. I'm somehow different, and feel that part of me belongs here. Can I go back to my friends?" Mac smirked wisely. "You're still there. All of this you see now is only illusion. It's just that you've just been given insight into this new perspective." Now Mac could feel true joy in his newly enlightened friend, but he also felt something else. "Lineus, why do you still feel inferior to me?"

"I feel no such thing," Lineus lied, until he remembered how his thoughts were linked so with Mac's. "Well, it's just that from where I'm standing, you're magical. You have the power to take me to this place, and I can see now that it's so much loftier than even my instincts had told me. Here I am after all. Yet, when I return to my own kind, I think I'll miss this place. Going back home will leave me feeling small and alone again. Even though the link will always remain between us, I'm just so darned flat in the end. "If it makes you feel any better Lineus, we're more alike than you think. In my world there was this very wise man who said, "there's really no such thing as a straight line. Take any line far enough, and it curves along the path of space. You see then, you're actually more spherical than you'd ever imagined."

Lineus grinned, and knew what Mac meant by that. No wonder he always felt like this place must exist. Just as part of him had always been on Flatland, another part had always been here too. Subconsciously, his soul had always known this particular truth. "Yes, but if this is true, then why do my friends miss me so?" "Because, from their perspective, you're really gone. To them, you've disappeared from Flatland." "Then I wish to re-appear. That should be quite a surprise for them. Imagine what they'll think if I should suddenly appear right in front of them, and out of thin air!" After all those years of being mocked and ridiculed, well, I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when I pop out of nowhere, right in front of them..." Mac felt a twinge of sadness. He was going to miss his flat friend. "Lineus, do you think they'll believe you this time?" "Oh, I should think so, but there's only one way to find out I guess."

Despite all the joy, Lineus felt tears on his face. That's understandable, because somehow, he knew this would be the last time he ever saw Mac again. What was surprising though, was where the tears were going. They flowed away to somewhere else, and Lineus knew now what that place was called. It wasn't forth or back. It couldn't be left or right. His tears fell off his chin, and landed in a place "below." Lineus laughed to himself, and understood. After saying goodbye to Mac, he said something he never believed he ever would: "Thanks again Mac my friend, but I think it's time to go. Think you could find it in your heart to put me..." His grin broadened to a full on smile. "Could you put me back--- "down?"

The flatland story helps us better to envision what it might be like as 3rd dimension creatures to experience planes beyond our own level of perception. If we were suddenly snatched like Lineus had been, up into another dimension, I expect that we'd be just as confused as he was at first.

Even more so actually. In the story just recounted you're just as limited in 3 dimensional space, as the flatlanders were in their two dimensions. To put it more bluntly, we are just as ignorant as Lineus was. This is so because, just as 2-d beings couldn't comprehend up or down, we're unable to grasp the equally confusing place which exists beyond our 3 dimensional perspective.

There are other places in spacetime which we (you) don't yet have the words to describe. You should feel no more ashamed of this than those trapped in 2 dimensions. This is a reality that lies beyond mere perspective, because even your soul must bend to the laws in this space. But the restraints are themselves illusion in that your soul is still in touch with the parts of itself that are free in parallel realities. In the same way that Lineus knew instinctively how there were other dimensions, so it is for you.

But unlike our flat friend, no one has yet plucked you out of your plane of being (not that has been proven at any rate). There is however, the possibility that you can travel to other realms using nothing but the mind. The body might be fooled into thinking there's nothing but left, right, backward, forward, up or down, but are there any such restrictions placed upon the soul? As we said earlier, physicists of this world have proposed the existence of at least 11 other dimensions.

If there's 11 others, it's a safe bet that there are a great many more than that. But of what possible importance is that to your average human? The average person would be perplexed by this. Hell, I'm perplexed by this.

Sorry, but it involves more than just intuition in this case. For a visual person, there's way too much number crunching involved. There is visual evidence, which we'll discuss shortly, but even this will leave many people out in the cold I'm afraid.

The "gut feeling" people are mostly made up of right brainers. Such people are generally predisposed to seek answers through means which could best be described as intuitive. That's why individuals like Einstein are so intriguing, since he too depended almost exclusively on what his gut told him. His special theory was conceived in a manner which made it impossible to be proven in his own lifetime.

Well, that's not entirely true, when you include the atomic clock tests done while Einstein was still alive. Two clocks, accurate to within billionths of a second, were sychronized with each other. One stayed on the ground, while the other was put aboard a high altitude air craft. The idea was to see if the clocks were still in synch once the plane had flown around the world at the snail's pace of 500 miles per hour. Hey, compared to light speed, that's painfully slow.

Later, when the 2 clocks were compared, the one on that had been on the plane had indeed slowed down a few billionths of a second or so. That was proof enough that time does slow down, the faster you're traveling through space. Einstein was reported to have wept when he heard the news. All his life, nothing could discourage him from believing whole heartedly how the mechanics of time worked. Scientific proof only fueled the fire. But the fire of time had already consumed his physical body.

In spite of any further ability on his part to demonstrate his hunch empirically, Einstein's faith never wavered. He knew he'd glimpsed a truth that would stay with him until death. Fortunately, and by his example, we know that intelligence resides throughout the whole of the brain, even if there's a leaning to one side or the other. We can learn about ways to understand other dimensions by converting abstract mathematics into visual imagery. Complex equations can be replaced by pictures formed in the mind's eye. That's where we all live.

We're referring to the "hyper-cube." It's one of the ways in which we limited humans have taught ourselves to see, at least in part, the fourth dimension. I don't even want to go beyond that right now. All we can say here is, since we can't yet observe it directly, the hyper-cube could best be described as a "finger print" or a residual trace left in our own dimension as it encounters the fourth. I learned how to visualize this phenomenon while making shadow puppets on my wall as a kid (does it surprise you that I did this?). With a healthy dose of imagination (along with too much free time), the animals can come to life with the simplest gestures. The figures I saw represented in shadow, became living entities to me.

If this sounds far fetched, consider little kids when they first see their own shadow. Here's this dark and menacing stranger following them wherever they may go, and it won't leave them alone. Children fail to make the connection at first that it's only a shadow. As far as kids can tell, there's a separate being that's chasing after them.

The point is, a shadow can come pretty close to resembling a 3-d image, while remaining 2-d. The shadow that's cast by your hand is a two dimensional representation of the real thing.

Such is the case with a hyper-cube, which is a 3-d ambassador to the 4th dimension. If a fourth dimensional object can cast its "shadow" onto the wall of a particle accelerator (or more accurately, can be detected by photo-collector cells), the resulting image is a hyper-cube. It's very much like a regular 3-d cube, only it has incorporated into its design--- all of the right angles of itself. But that'll be enough of that. This isn't my forte', and my brain's starting to bleed.

Bravo for the effort. Particle physics is a maddening affair. Take some comfort in knowing that only a handful of dedicated people have been dabbling in this field for less than a century.

Even such a small peek into the sub-atomic realm is enough to tell us that a new reality lies in wait for us to seize it. The virtue of the kind of change that's so important to the scientific method lends itself well to a time when we'll be forced to finally acknowledge the existence of the metaphysical. Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves now. It seems that before we go waltzing into the metaphysical world, we should concern ourselves for now with more pressing problems.

Maybe there's a connection between science and metaphysics. It's always been a dream of mine to connect these two seemingly opposing fields of study. Actually, I hope it wasn't only a dream.

It doesn't end there, because of how all things are so tenaciously connected. Matter, energy, it doesn't matter. This connection transcends all dimensions as well. So you see then, even scientific skepticism must eventually evolve, and adapt to change. It must give a tip of the hat to the metaphysical. Our view of how the universe is put together will then follow suit. That's why it's important that people must have at least a rudimentary grasp on science, given that it will be technology alone that's sure to force our hand. You're at the point in your development as a species, where machines have already transformed the face of the world.

If you think there's been a lot of progress in the past century, wait until you see what's just around the bend. This is the stage of growth that all intelligent (but not necessarily wise) beings must eventually come to live with.

The same adolescence that makes a teenaged boy wrap his first car around a utility pole, can also put an entire species on the brink. It's hard to ignore the most obvious example of this "boys with toys" theme, the Manhattan Project. It, as everyone hopefully knows, led to the development of the atom bomb. This is the most illuminating testament to how we take an idea that could change the world for the better, and make it much worse.

Instead of using such power to energize the world (and ultimately, have a renewable energy source that will take us to the stars), we turned it into the most destructive controlled force weapon yet devised. But even this wasn't good enough, was it? Less than a decade later, humans (the militaristic ones) learned not only to split the atom, but then to split the heart of the atom.

Atomic bombs weren't destructive enough, so even more energy was violently released by splitting the nucleus of the atom. Not many people seem to be aware of the difference. The atom bombs that mercifully cut short WW II, had the explosive yield of only one, one hundredth of a single megaton. Fat man, dropped on Hiroshima, and Little boy, which actually almost missed its target of Nagasaki, were fire crackers next to the thermal-nuclear warheads of today. Let's say it again, for the sake of clarity. The blasts that decimated two cities were only 1/100th as powerful as a single megaton air burst from the average yield thermonuclear bomb.

Today's arsenals collectively contain over 300,000 such devices poised at the tips of the missiles that will guide them to their targets. Mind you, this is just a conservative estimate. Now we've got other nations wanting to get in on the action, so the number is certain to rise. Each of the larger weapons contain an average yield of at least 8 megatons, with some having individual charges of up to 20 megatons.

That's our technological adolescence, and as a society, we're still handing over to those teenage boys, our collective car keys. Even with the cold war officially over (which is in a way, even scarier with our threat spread world wide), the nations of Earth continue to stockpile more and more weapons of mass destruction. Why? Because the power of any nation has always based on military supremacy. It might well be a tremendous way to keep those tax dollars rolling in, but really, how much more "security" does this planet need?

This world must be alive with people who have important things to contribute, but have simply never been given their due. How can we create a venue for those who want to make the world a better, and safer place?