Staring into the Face of Truth

“A story is as good a way to organize your thoughts as anything else,” she points out, poised in the shadows in the doorway. I quickly conclude that she is playing the part of my conscience. That, or devil’s advocate. Either way, she’s me. I cannot say she does not really exist without implying the same of myself. She is in my mind, and of my mind, so I do not look at her. She cannot be seen, not in the flesh anyway, but it’s not like I have to look at her to see her. “It’s been a long time since you’ve done this, though,” she observes, watching me carefully. I can tell there’s something on her mind. I can feel it. Technically, it’s on my mind, but I have long since learned that her thoughts are her own when she chooses to assert herself. It’s a bit like being in two places at the same time, a way to step outside my normal perspective and look at what I’ve become.

“That’s because it takes more effort than thinking, even if it is no more contrived than any other thing written; it isn’t really a story,” I respond. I do not have to add that this manner of confronting myself is one of the reasons my stories never get finished; she knows that as well as I do.

“It helps when you need someone to talk to, though,” she argues, crossing the room to sprawl on the couch next to my desk. There are times when I wish that I could have visual hallucinations; it would be nice to really see her when she goes to the trouble to try and fit herself into the world. Instead, I can only see her in the way I see what I am reading about in books, from everywhere and nowhere. Of course, with her, there is no book, no words; she is self-rendered thought. “It gives me chance to be myself, too.”

“You mean, get some distance from being like this,” I amend somewhat bitterly, in reference to all the unpleasant facts of my reality. Normally, I do not have the patience to write like this. Once I discovered I could split my attention two or three ways, it did not take long to become good enough at it that I would just talk to myself when I needed someone to talk to. I can confront any part of myself that way, even the parts that are smarter and wiser than I can normally be. I have come to believe that this is what angels and demons are, projections of ourselves, impressions of others and the personification of our hopes, beliefs, fears and doubts. It’s what I think of as five-dimensional thinking. “So, what do I need to talk about?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you posted yesterday. Okay, that’s still weird; it’s as much my post as it was yours,” she sighs and scoots closer to the opposite arm of the couch, tucking her feet under herself. “I know what it has to sound like to anyone who reads it, and if people have trouble understanding and accepting a transgendered person, well…” She cannot finish the thought, because I already know what she is going to say.

“People have a hard time understanding and accepting anyone different from themselves. It took me too long to realize that there is nothing I can do to make anyone understand or accept me. People have to take it upon themselves to understand anything, and it is impossible to truly accept what is not understood. I am inclined to think that an inability to accept something is in fact proof that you do not truly understand it,” I find myself declaring. I had been unable to understand what was expected of me as a child, and so the role imposed on me was unacceptable. When I learned enough to understand what made me a boy, I also understood that I never had a choice, and that was unacceptable. When I worked it out enough to realize I also had no power to change what I was, that too was unacceptable. This lead me to ask some devastating questions. What is the point of being able to choose if you are not given a choice — especially about something that virtually defines you? What is the point of living if you are given a life you did not want? “I am not the only one to suspect that there has to be more to life than this, or that there is more to us, for that matter,” I tell her, in response to her unstated concern for what was at the heart of that post.

She tilts her head and shrugs in agreement, picking at imaginary lint on her skirt. “I know, but I did not stop at that, did I?” I can feel her studying me. I can’t really meet her eyes, but I can imagine myself looking over at her, seeing thoughts written on her face.

“I know, some of this is impossible to put into words, but yeah, the post was really about believing in myself and the impulse to act on that belief,” I admit, picking up on the thoughts this little game was bringing to the surface with a small sigh. “Although, there really is nothing hard about changing the world. The world changes with or without our help. What is hard is getting the results you intended. I might have gone out on a ledge by saying what I wanted to do, or why I wanted to do it. If there was a problem with what I posted, it was not being able to say how it could be done.”

She pulls her knees up to her chest and hugs them. I know what she’s thinking, because I am thinking the same thing. I have not been able to invest the time and effort needed to figure that out. “The hard part is not figuring out how it can be done. There’s plenty of scope for the imagination there,” she insists, prompting me to think of thousands of stories I’ve read, and hundreds I’ve tried to write, where suitable means were presented.

“No, the trick is establishing that there are means and methods available, and pushing ourselves beyond our current understanding. It is kind of hard to work on that if it is not your job, though,” I laugh, bitterly. Of course, there is no job like this. That has been the other reason I have been totally lost in this world. That sobers me up. “Honestly, even the little I’ve managed to find time to think about would take a lot of writing, and I don’t need another ‘job’ I don’t get paid to do!”

“And yet you sit up all night writing a blog like this?” she teases.

“Until I figure out what to do, what will make a difference, I don’t really have anything better to do,” I point out tiredly. As usual, I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the things that are on my mind. Writing is too slow and time consuming a way to deal with such thoughts. She looks at me, knowingly, and I shrug. “Things have to be done in their own way. If this were a story, I could skip over all the deep thinking. Even in a simple blog post, I could just focus on making a point. You intended to ask me how this is going to work. You really want to know how much more of this you have to endure.” I close my eyes and lean back in my chair. I know what it would take to set her free, and that I have to find it in myself. The problem is, as long as I am not her, I can’t really be me. I roll my head to the right and look at her. She cannot be seen, but she does not let that stop her. An obvious truth, always staring me in the face.

Matter and Movement in Four (or more) Dimensions

These days, it only takes a little curiosity, access to the Internet, and a bit of patience to find explanations of progressive spatial dimensions or examples of four dimensional geometry, such as the old favorite the hyper-square. Some of the things you will find use analogies like Flatland, or animations which is a way of using time and motion to reveal a higher dimensional object using a lower dimensional cross section — the advantage of this kind of intersection or interface is the ability to scan through what is too dense to actually see through. In this way, we can emulate the ability to observe, say, the details of the internal structure of a three dimensional body in a manner similar to seeing it directly from the fourth dimension. Of course, we did not have to wait for the invention of magnetic resonance imaging to be able to perceive the insides of our bodies; our sense of touch gives us the closest thing to a physically four-dimensional perception. Our kinesthetic or spatial sense is annexed to our visual perception to give us an integrated sense of physical reality. In addition, we supplement our active field of vision with the memory of what we have previously seen, and studies on perception have revealed that we often rely more on our visual memory than our active sight in familiar settings. This ability to fill in the blanks around us is one that we can use to “see” into higher dimensions.

In the mind, it is possible to construct things in four or more dimensions, but that does not tell us if there are any objects in the universe that are constructed in four or more dimensions. Taking the example I gave of eight-dimensional time-space, we could surmise that the universe has height, width and depth in a kind of cellular structure in which every moment in time exists in strands of continuity along branches of probability in a network of possibility where multiple event paths lead to and away from any give moment. The instant is where-ever you happen to be focused on eternity. Time-travel would be non-paradoxical because time itself would be process based, a product of attention. The event you experience would largely be determined by the state of mind you are in as you approach the moment, so causal time would probably be the norm; that is the path of least resistance. The real challenge to time travel would be presented by the body and its influence on attention. As a three-dimensional spatial construct, the body predisposes us to move through time as a byproduct of moving through space. To arrive at a specific point in space and time, without transiting the intermediary space and time, would break the perceived continuity of events unless one could perceive space four dimensionally–in which case the intervening space was bypassed in an instant of time. The mind can conceive of four-dimensions internally, but the real question is, how would you move the body through a fourth-dimension externally?

A question like this is a question about matter as it relates to space. Among the things physicists know, matter occupies very little space and is distinguishable from energy only by structure. Attempts to understand the structure of matter has led to the identification of elemental atoms, primary particles and fundamental quarks; the last taking us down into the realm of quantum mechanics. In the process of getting down to the quantum level, physics has also run into fundamental forces, the electric and magnetic forces, gravity, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. These are all things that can be observed or inferred to exist based upon experimental observation, and for all that is known about them, there is much that is still not understood. The one aspect of matter that has captured my interest most often is the characteristic of mass and its association with gravity. A particle with mass is infinitesimally small and produces (or focuses) a force that has infinite range (though the strength of the effect diminishes over distance in a known, inverse-square ratio). Unlike electric and magnetic forces which are polarized, or both attract and repel, gravity seems only to attract and does so in a “like to like” fashion.

The “dent in space” model of gravity gets me thinking, as anyone who read my post on Gravity in a distributed, process driven, information-based Universe could tell. Einstein gave us the equation summarizing the relationship between matter and energy, but by itself, the equation does not explain what is really happening when energy is concentrated into mass. We have to ask, what is happening to the energy, and part of the answer lies in understanding how a point of mass is focused into a stable object and why that deforms the space around it. The answer is further complicated by the specific structure and electromagnetic properties of a given particle. Particle physics is a whole field of study unto itself, and if the great minds devoted to it will pardon me, outside the complexities that might be explored, the simple observation is that structure holds the answer. Energy is concentrated and structured into a more complex and dynamic state in which we find a focal point in three-dimensional reference and forces that produce one-dimensional (polarity), two-dimensional (surface tension, surface area), three-dimensional (height, width, depth) and four-dimensional (mass, gravity, inertia, vector) effects. There is so much going on, all of it debatable, but I always come back to the four-dimensional view of matter.

I would have to have a great deal of time and a decent amount of resources to formulate something more substantial from this speculation. I am sure there is a great deal more information available that could affect the assumptions I have about pervasive energy, pervasive space, particular matter in infinitesimal space, concentrated energy, mass, structure, gravity, spatial displacement, fields, force, electron shells, magnetic shells, and light. I have the interest and the fascination to keep probing and a desire for more reliable speculation, but until I find an opportunity to devote myself to it, I can only work with the insights I have now. The implication of four-dimensional structure in matter, or the idea of atoms as four-dimensional objects, does not make our world any less a three-dimensional environment. That is, matter may only be possible at the three-dimensional surface of a four-dimensional substrate of energy and space. There are particles that seem to spontaneously pop in and out of existence, if some of the reading I’ve done on particle and quantum physics is correct, and that might be an indication of structure transecting our three-dimensional “plane” but most atoms seem to be pretty well stitched into place.

I am not as confident in speculating on how energy and structure “bind” but that is what I see as a likely basis for fundamental forces. The forces seem difficult to understand or explain, but part of that is because the concept presents us with an inherent mental block. A concept allows us to hold onto an idea about an observed phenomenon, but in the act of grasping an aspect of reality in that way, we focus on the effect and become unable to see the cause. Stepping back and looking again, we might be able to see that what we call a force is simply a particular way the balance of energy in a structured system must behave to achieve stability. Seeing that way, we can begin to ask what imposes structure and how does it persist either as part of or apart from energy. The question brings me back to a notion I had about the nature of limits and how that impacted the perception of substance and solidity. If matter is mostly empty space, what keeps things from constantly falling through each other? The substance of matter is not in the mass, but in the repulsive forces of the electron shells of atoms. The thing that makes the world seem solid to our touch is the existence of forces associated with particles that prevent them from actually touching.

There is a great deal more needed in a comprehensive analysis of matter, but this is enough to return to the question of moving a body through four-dimensional space. A common observation is that an infinite number of objects of a given dimension can exist in an object of the dimension above it, being in effect an image of itself, but it would take the action of an entity acting in the higher dimension to manipulate or move the object through that hyper-space. In my example of a person attempting to jump from one position in space-time to another position in space-time without transiting the intervening space, either an outside agent would have to be involved, native to the higher dimensions, or the person would have to be constructed in four- to eight-dimensions to begin with. Not really a problem for the mind, assuming the mind is not exclusively internal to the body. The hard part, for a mind rooted in a physical body in a world such as ours would be figuring out that it did exist in more dimensions and that this enabled it to move through space and time in ways that transcend the physical limits of the body. No tool or technology grounded in the physical world would be of much use in discovering or exploiting this fact. Not that you could not discover it by accident if the mind should happen to wander; though you would have a hard time distinguishing random moments scattered over infinite probability from dreaming.

Awakening

I have pointed out before that my struggle with gender dysphoria prompted me to search in all directions for a solution to being born in the wrong body, and the determination with which I pursued that goal in spite of all doubts and discouragements — even attempts to accept things the way they were, adapting to and adopting the identity imposed on me by circumstances — says a lot about me, and even about what I ultimately concluded. My existence may be supported by reality, the physical, chemical, biological and sociological fabric out of which we all seem to be spun, but none of these things are me. I exist in my mind and that is why the way I perceive myself in my own mind can not only contradict my physical form, but trump it in importance to my survival. I have heard the theories and arguments on nature versus nurture and taking my own experience into consideration I can say that there are elements in both that can help shape who you are, but only by presenting the options or stimulus necessary for you to determine who you are. I cannot tell you if this is a process of creation or revelation; it feels like both. I am the driving and defining force within my own mind; my mind is the structure and articulation of my soul.

I was born in a context in which everything and everyone seemed to deny my existence, in accordance with the belief that who I was was based upon what I was and where I came from. I was not encouraged to express myself in ways that were inconsistent with my appearance. I’ve described some of the ways I was discouraged in other writing, and how it affected me. The most important result of this situation was that it did make me conscious of the fact that there was more to me than just my body. I have long since realized that most people are not very clear on what a spirit or a soul really is, but I never really had a problem with that. It was difficult for me to understand the modern view of consciousness and things like mind, spirit and soul as mere epiphenomena. I eventually understood the limitations of scientific thinking responsible for promoting this view, as I understand the way it drives scientists to look for a physical mechanism for the origin of consciousness. On the other hand, I had no difficulty understanding that the mind was central to everything that really mattered about existence. Perhaps that is a result of being hyper-conscious of every thought and action I took as a consequence of being forced to override all of my natural instincts and impulses to conform to people’s expectations of me.

I spent my childhood engaged in a constant, intensive observation of myself and everyone around me. I analyzed the world and all my experiences in it as if my life depended on it, often discovering new ways in which it clearly did. In my day to day life I was as deliberate in the control of my thoughts and emotions as I was in the control of my body. I had to understand as much as possible about how my mind and body worked to achieve that degree of control, which included managing or bypassing a number of “hard wired” behaviors and responses. I was thinking hyper-dimensionally long before I learned that was the way to describe what I was doing, or how to explain the process to someone else. I think the first step in thinking hyper-dimensionally involved the unstated realization that everything in my existence occurred in my mind; the “outside” world distinguished from my “inner” world by my physical perspective in it and limited influence over it. In my “inner” world, I was everyone and everything, everywhere at once — all on the verge of being nowhere, nothing and nobody. My consciousness was an all encompassing point with unconscious depths in the shadow of oblivion.

I began to understand that there are many things you have to figure out for yourself, in order to know and understand them, and consciousness is one of those things. I suspect that the scientific study of consciousness will inevitably conclude that it is a complex form of a basic property of “awareness” inherent in energy as the combined medium of information structured in space, time and mind. It might arrive at that conclusion with more esoteric and granular terms, but that is pretty much what it will amount to. Any other proposition runs into the problem of spontaneous generation of the subjective state phenomenon that is the prerequisite for any observer of the objective state. The consequence of any reductive analysis is an increase in relative potential; which is to say that everything is implicit in nothing. The information potential of a singularity is infinite. The interesting thing is that I am not saying anything new here. The same observations have been made again and again in many different ways. None of them make any sense to people until they observe it for themselves. I have no idea what conclusions a scientifically valid description of it will lead to. The first steps in this direction were taken when science confronted the quantum paradox and the possibility of observer based reality.

For my purposes, this observation is not the end; it is just the beginning. To be perfectly frank, I find myself in an untenable position and this can only be corrected in a world where things we would think of as magical or miraculous can occur. In part, this is because any question of physical transformation runs into problems related to the preservation of the mind. I ran into this while contemplating the use of future nanotechnology to remodel a living body, picking this as the most scientifically plausible method of turning a man into a woman. Biological processes can and should be viewed as proof of the concept of nanotechnology, in which complex organisms are constructed on a molecular level. We know that some aspects of personality can be passed on biologically, but there is no indication that the subjective consciousness is transferable. If you were cloned, the clone would be his or her own person, with a unique subjective consciousness. He might be like you, and assuming your exact brain structure and chemical memory was copied precisely, think he was you, but you would not be him. Nothing we know of suggests that there is any continuity of consciousness in that kind of situation. In a transformational process, there is every chance that the thread of subjective consciousness would be broken as one form was broken down and another built up.

The possibility of transitional death forced me to focus on understanding the nature and survival requirements of the mind, and this is ultimately a question of significance for all of us in the face of the inevitability of death. Death is the inescapable paradox. It is reasonable to assume that it inspired the concepts of spirits and souls. The prospect of oblivion is something that drives us to truly assert ourselves, to dream of and strive for immortality. In our lives we experience oblivion in different ways. In a way, the singularity of our consciousness exists in a bubble of oblivion. It is not hard to argue that individual consciousness can only exist if it is shielded from universal consciousness. Until we actually die, we cannot know if death is the end of consciousness, the end of individuality, or the beginning of something else. All we can do is ask what the existence of the mind really depends on. One possibility is that the body and brain is the foundation on which the mind is built, while the other is that the body and brain are merely the scaffolding used in building a mind that can stand alone. We might as well be asking if the world is really what it appears to be. As it happens, it is not. The world as we know it exists only in our minds.

To be more specific, we exist in our minds and the world we perceive is constructed in our minds based on information provided through our senses. What we can know about the universe is based on the information that can be derived through its structure. Perception is the conversion of structure into information, through the structure itself, into our minds. Our bodies, our physical senses and our brains are part of and can be found in that structure, but our minds cannot. Our minds possess structure, based on they way they use information, however; this gives us information and structure in both abstract and manifest states. The process of transition from a manifest state to an abstract state presents us with one dynamic. The constant transformation of structure in the universe and in the mind gives us another dynamic, in general terms “change” or in more specific resolution “time” which we derive from the continuity of perception. It is possible that consciousness emerges from the organization of awareness in the structures of perception through the interpretation of information derived from static interactions with dynamic structure in the universe. The interesting question, of course, is what does the existence of the universe depend on?

I am not sure anyone claims to know an answer to this question, but science has given us a lot of ideas derived from tested information about the universe. It does not give us an origin for the medium of space-time or energy, but it can tell us that all matter is derived from energy and structure. I am strongly inclined to look at space and time as part of the way energy is structured, viewing dimensionality as a component of structure along with size, scale, position, etc. If, as I suspect, awareness is a property of energy, then even the mind can be fully encompassed in the universe. Mostly, energy seems to be the most persistent and pervasive thing encountered along the spectrum of extrapolation or reduction. I would hope that anyone critical of my inclination to view awareness as an inherent potential of energy will understand that I simply find awareness too fundamental to our experience of existence not to be implicit in energy. I think that the obvious complexity of structure found in the human brain and perceptual processes is evidence enough of the difficulty of focusing potential awareness into coherent consciousness. I do not pretend to have a hypothesis for how the structure and organization works, or where in the process proto-awareness becomes awareness or proto-consciousness becomes consciousness. I just see it intuitively in life in the world around us.

I did not get to this point in my speculation following a straight and direct route, and some of the most interesting and useful things I spent time on were essential to getting me this far, such as a study of dimensionality, part of which I have elaborated on in explaining the different dimensions and part of which I only hinted at in this post — dimensions of mind. It is a lot to go over and again, too much to really explain inside another topic. We do not truly know what energy is, but it does seem to be pervasive and universal enough to be a base medium that, through structure in manifest, static, dynamic and abstract ways would give us space, time and mind, the three media that encompass existence as we know it. Information and structure both have intimate relationships with energy. Our bodies and our minds can easily be seen as structured energy. We are energy and information forged into a truly dynamic state. With all the universe to show us that energy sustains information, it seems absurd to think it would simply delete information like us. Most of all, I would think that energy organized to the point of self-awareness would somehow be self sustaining. If we could become more complex by one dimension of space-time-mind, I suspect that maybe we would. Of course, that’s just me commenting on a mountain of unshared speculation.