My Synthesis2

Time - The Ultimate Character of Passage

Time is the most confusing characteristic of our reality primarily because we think it is the easiest and most familiar to understand. We take time so much for granted in everything we do that we don't really think about it at all. But, it is an extremely abstract concept that is responsible for our confused perspective on reality.

We become aware of time because of change. We measure it in terms of changes in the inner workings of a clock, experience it through the aging of our bodies, and the relative positions we, and all matter, occupy in space throughout our conscious existence. But, like infinity, we really have no suitable frame of reference for time because we experience it only through these finite relativistic kinds of referents.

There is a significant body of literature devoted to attempts to explain time. The most reasonable and acceptable explanations for my purposes can be found in relativity theory, especially the contributions by Minkowski.

There are more exotic explanations to be found among the works of so-called "time-theorists," such as Ouspensky, Dunne or Priestley. But Relativity theory refutes their work, in whole or in part, on most aspects. In general, these "specialists" have taken an abstract creation that describes the core dimension of all "event entities" and tried to make it an entity with its own dimensions.

Ouspensky and Priestley ascribed three dimensions to time. Dunne was a little more conservative and only ascribed two dimensions to time. Essentially, the theories run aground when you try to "time" the motion of time along a time length to determine the "speed of time"!

Isn't it wonderful what can be achieved through specialization? I have nightmares about needing a surgeon to make a small incision in my throat to prevent my suffocating from an obstruction and he turns out to be a rectal specialist! (Some of my detractors will probably see nothing incompatible in such a combination.)

Relativity theory, remember, yields the conclusion that energy is merely matter accelerated to the square of the speed of light, essentially very "speedy" substance. If we suspend our incredulity for a bit, the universe could be viewed as a "flow" of energy at that speed. The perception of time, therefore, would be the result of seeing variations from the rate at which the universe "flows," essentially, "traffic jams" that constitute our visible universe. The universe probably does not flow in the normal sense (it is expanding), but the relationships are similar enough that it provides a convenient analogue for reorienting our perspective.

Waves: Wrinkles in the Fabric. A comparison between the flow of absolutely clear water through a completely smooth trough and the same flow through one with an impediment provides a helpful visualization. Since the speed of all particles of water is the same through a smooth trough, the flow is smooth and clear, i.e., no waves. Without a wave, there would be no perceptible change in the flow because all parts of the clear water would remain unchanged relative to all others. The beginning and end would be indistinguishable from any other segment and change would be undetectable. Time, as we discern it, would not exist.

The placement of a single impediment in the trough will cause some of the water to bunch together, and a wave is created. The level of water rises where the particles are slowed down from the normal flow by bunching, and the level lowers in the place normally occupied when the flow is uninterrupted. Now there is a segment in the flow - the wave - which is distinguishable from the rest of the flow, and any changes in it can be perceived.

These changes enable the perception of time. Without any other forces operating on the wave it would remain a wave forever. However, gravity acts upon the wave to accelerate it to the normal flow and it will eventually dissipate further down the trough. Therefore, by acceleration of the wave to the speed of normal flow, it ceases to be a wave. When the "water" is energy and the "flow" is our universe, the "waves" are matter.

As localizations of energy are accelerated they become less tightly grouped, representing less of a bump in the overall universe. The wave or "wrinkle" in the fabric of that segment of the universe approaches the smoothness that is the basic fabric. Removing a wrinkle from a sheet with an iron can be likened to accelerating the wrinkle to the basic "speed" of the fabric by adding heat energy. Thus, the wrinkle ceases to exist as a wrinkle. The mass of the wrinkle was once a detectable entity. Now, in one sense, it is less than it was, since it does not exist. But in another sense, its mass is now that of the entire sheet - an imperfect but simple analogy.

When matter is accelerated to the square of the speed of light, it ceases to be matter AS WE EXPERIENCE IT. It becomes pure energy, indistinguishable from any other energy, and therefore timeless.

Brain Waves: Ripples of Time. Our consciousness is a composite awareness superordinate to experiential constraints that accrues from the sequential acceleration of brain waves in the human cortex. This creates time and all of its enormous confusion for us.

I don’t know a simpler way to phrase it, except that the composite of brain waves comprising our thoughts attains wholeness or meaning ONLY in aggregate sequential parcels. For example, a word is a sequential parcel. We think with words sequenced into sentences or phrases in left-hemisphere processing. Right-hemisphere processing is more holistic, but any given "thought or feeling" is still some composite derived during a "sequence of quantum time." Since we cannot comprehend our existence except by our thoughts, and, since our thoughts only occur in sequentially accumulating "instantaneous lumps of awareness," we experience time.

Again, this use of common analogy is not intended to be precise and it certainly doesn't answer the difficulties suggested by Menger when he attempted to construct a topology without points (although his allusion to wave mechanics seems apt),

. . . For, by a lump, we mean something with a well defined boundary. But well-defined boundaries are themselves the results of limiting processes rather than objects of direct observation. Thus, instead of lumps, we might use at the start something still more vague -- something perhaps which has various degrees of density or at least admits a gradual transition to its complement. Such a theory might be of use for wave mechanics.

Each brain wave is its own ripple in the holomovement that is our reality. The individual brain waves exist at the speed of light(created “molecules” of awareness). The composite "instantaneous lumps of awareness" (substantive consciousness) exist at the square of the speed of the brain waves (molecules) that comprise them, in this case, the square of the speed of light or infinite becoming.

As noted earlier, it is our ability to create these sequential links with infinite becoming (to think) that enables us to apprehend changes or abstract a sequencing of becomings subordinate to or superior to our current level of becoming. In this manner, we can recognize our own incompleteness (and the very notion of incompleteness itself!).

Unfortunately, the sequential nature of the creation of these "lumps of awareness" continuously creates new reference points for the perception and experiencing of our reality. Consequently, from our vantage point, which is the succession of our thoughts, we perceive life moving through time.

Our perception of time is ultimately contingent upon the sequencing of stimulus situations subsequent to the passage of thought. "Before" is a stimulus grouping that was comprehended by an earlier "lump of awareness' or previous thought, and "after" is a grouping concomitant with subsequent thought. William James referred to it as the "stream of consciousness" (sort of like a "flow" through a trough?).

Remember it is change that enables the perception of time. It is the "accelerated" frame of reference constituting our awareness that makes possible, as well as creates, all the confusion. Essentially, our bodies retain a sub-light existence while our consciousness attains a light-squared level of becoming. As I said before, Plato described it as our Soul is

"dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders, and is confused."

To understand the confusing nature of our perceptions as created by our thoughts, we have to try to reorient our thinking from its usual patterns and reverse the relationships. Normally we think of frequency as the rate at which a wave changes position over time. The appropriate way to view it is not how fast the wave changes position, but how slow the energy wave event is relative to the "flow" of the universe. All the energy, of which the packet is only a part, can be viewed as changing its "position" by the square of the speed of light.

For the packet and all sub-light-square energy events, time is elapsing. The time we experience exists only for energy events at less than the square of the speed of light (C-squared). Consequently, we experience time because our bodies exist as matter at less than normal flow, as waves in the overall universe, but our Souls (Consciousnesses) exist as pure energy at C-squared, which is timeless.

Our consciousness exists at C-squared. Unfortunately, the process of using our consciousness, the mental fumbling we perform to reach conclusions, can be considerably less speedy. This might make it difficult for you to believe that your thoughts exist at C-squared. Therefore, you need to separate the "fumbling" from the energy transformation that enables us to fumble, imagine or solve problems. It is our consciousness, itself, not how we use it, that exists at C-squared. Existence at C-squared is existence as energy and is eternal or timeless.

Time Viewing. While you are considering the preceding and trying to solidify your understanding of the analogies I have presented, keep in mind that we can create waves in a still lake while there is really no "flow" of the lake to disrupt. The water in the lake establishes the field (hint, hint) determining the spatial and temporal properties of the metric space occupied by it.

You can see that we are in a unique and rather confusing predicament. Just as our ability to tune in a T.V. set enables us to see and hear the passage of electromagnetic emissions, so too, our ability to tune in to infinite becoming (to think) enables us to see and hear the passage of time.

The all too common psychological differences in the perception of time can be seen as stemming from internal differences in the aggregate frequency of the brain waves constituting a given awareness event ("lump"), e.g. watching the hands of a clock versus having so much fun that "time flies." When we go to sleep, we turn off the T.V. in more ways than one. By severing the stimuli from the base of reference we eliminate the perception of time. We turn off the Time Viewing.

Whitehead addressed himself to this sequential process and concluded,

. . . So far as sense-awareness is concerned there is a passage of mind which is distinguishable from the passage of nature though closely allied with it. We may speculate, if we like, that this alliance of mind with the passage of nature arises from their both sharing some ultimate character of passage which dominates all being.

The "ultimate character of passage which dominates all being" is the light-squared (C-squared) level of becoming. Existence at C-squared is what the creative advance of the universe and the passage of thought share in common.

This is certainly a telling abstraction to grasp. Our situation is rather like having a TV camera on the moon to watch ourselves trying to reach the moon to bring the very TV camera we are using!

Our TV camera is our consciousness and it produces our very distorted understanding. The clearest examples of this distortion can be seen in the rather illogical notion of discordant time series or the even more bizarre notion of objective indeterminacy.

Discordant Time Series. The real villains in our misdirections are our measurements of reality, in particular the inexplicable constant speed of light. Einstein used the inability of classical physics to disprove the constant speed of light as an indication that it was one of the ultimate and unalterable features of physical reality, which it is. This led inexorably to a complete restructuring of the foundations of physics - the two theories of relativity. The most spectacular implication of these theories lies in the purported impact of light speed on the passage of time.

In the Special Theory, the "dilatation" of time is seen as a reciprocal phenomenon of perspective. In the General Theory, it is believed that gravitational and accelerational considerations effect an actual dilatation of time within the traveling system.

The famous time-retardation space flight, voyage au boulet, focused attention on this particular characteristic of time-space. Many of you have read about the effects of a space-flight at or near the speed of light on the passage of time. Actually, Paul Langevin's Gedanken experiment is better left at that . . . a thought experiment.

It would make as much practical sense to speculate about the fate of a chicken egg yolk if you could stretch the egg to one thousand times its length, release it, and have it return to its original size unbroken. Surely in such a case the yolk would tend to be "dilatated." Do you know of any such chicken egg?

It might be enlightening in that regard to compute the engine output requirements necessary to generate a state of acceleration of any molecular mass up to a "substantial fraction of the speed of light." It would then be revealing to exhaust the spectrum of molecular substance searching for one that would retain its cohesion in proximity to such an engine or that could withstand the force necessary to decelerate from that speed.

Molecular structures, per se, probably could not exist in proximity to any such engine nor retain cohesion at the speed of light or any substantial fraction thereof. The parallel is unmistakable to the probability of encountering a chicken egg whose shell has the elasticity required for the stretching experiment.

Despite exhaustive ruminations about dilated time units and topological moments, wherein the “cosmic duration” is the same but the time is different, the bulk of such assertions are misguided by our failure to consider the role played by our thoughts in our measurements.

The confusion of metrical invariance with the topological invariance of Minkowski's "world interval" produces the relativity notion that the length of a time interval (even between two causally related events) can depend on the choice of the system of reference, even though it cannot become zero in any system and a fortiori cannot become negative (the event cannot precede its cause).

Naturally, our notions and measures of time at our sub-light level of becoming would not hold at the C-squared level of becoming. It is a quantum change, not a gradual one. We cannot achieve it and remain in our current molecular form (other than through our thoughts!). This is at least as certain as the fact that chicken eggs cannot be stretched to one thousand times their size or any substantial fraction thereof either.

You can save yourself a lot of computational headaches by reading the work of Dr. Edward Purcell, Noble Laureate in Physics, titled, "Interstellar Communication."

Whitehead attempted to explain discordant time series,

. . . The difficulty as to discordant time-systems is partly solved by distinguishing between what I call the creative advance of nature, which is not properly serial at all, and any one time series. We habitually muddle together this creative advance, which we experience as the perpetual transition of nature into novelty, with the single time series which we naturally employ for measurement. The various time series each measure some aspect of the creative advance, and the whole bundle of them express all the properties of this advance which are measurable. [Emphasis added]

Measurability -An Artifice of Thought

Far from only partly solving the problem, Whitehead's distinction is a more than adequate solution. In distinguishing between the "measurable" advances and the "creative advance," Whitehead overlooked the significance of the very nature of the phenomenon of measurability.
Paradoxically, it is this same phenomenon, “MEASURABILITY” (observation -- as it is referred to in quantum discussions), that produces all the interpretational difficulties in the indeterminacy debate.

Measures (observations) are an artificial aid to logical thought. That which is measurable is that for which there is a viable construct in the relativistic and sequential framework of thought itself. Every measure has meaning only when we can relate its representation of stimulus configurations to some standard configuration in our mind (as Dedekind so cleverly pointed out).

We ingenious creatures have created objective measurement devices to monitor the changes we perceive more accurately. But these objective creations have always been ultimately dependent upon our subjective assessments of existing relationships (e.g., time involved for a mainspring to unwind, and so on.) These assessments require some base of reference connected to the normal flow.

We simply fail to acknowledge that our consciousness possesses any tangible connection to the basic structure of the universe we seek to understand. But it is only because our consciousness is at the normal flow of the universe (is pure energy) that our "measurements" and notions of time have any validity. In Helmholtz's words,

. . . Events, like our perceptions of them, take place in time, so that the time relations of the latter can furnish a true copy of those of the former.

Paraphrasing Milic Capek, according to Helmholtz, time is the only feature which is shared by both physical reality and our consciousness. (This is extremely important to understand and remember) In all other things, perception is only symbolical and the dissimilarity of the stimulus and its conscious registration is striking.

For example, the impact of photons is translated into visual qualities, the impact of air waves into auditory qualities, molecular impacts as touch, taste, scent, cold, warmth, etc. Only time has a structural equivalence in the physical world and in our consciousness. Capek states the question clearly as he references Menger's "topology of lumps" notion,

. . . But if the time of our consciousness and the time of physics are both pulsational in their nature, can we obtain a better insight into "the topology without points" in exploring the structure of psychological time? Is it possible to find an adequate scheme sufficiently general and sufficiently flexible to be applicable to physics and psychology?

R.L. Wing suggests,

. . . Since the advent of quantum mechanics, . . . scientists have become intrigued with the link between human awareness and the workings of the universe. Quantum mechanics seems to suggest that the sub-atomic world --- and even the world beyond the atom --- has no independent structure at all until defined by the human intellect. . . . They suggest that we live in a participatory universe where all reality and physical laws are dependent upon an observer to formulate them.

What Wing should have said is that “ . . . we live in a participatory universe where all reality and physical laws as measured and apprehended by us are dependent upon an observer to formulate them.” Our thoughts provide us with the ability to measure and apprehend the relative incompleteness of our becoming in sequential fashion only because of our access to a frame of reference in infinite becoming that shares a temporal equivalence with the physical world.

Our unique perspective is responsible for such concepts as "measurement," "sequence" and "procession." Since our link with infinite becoming is created by the sequential accumulation of brain waves, we can only measure (observe) and model sequentially.

Unfortunately, as Dedekind pointed out, we too easily relegate Time to the penumbra of our deliberations as something "given in the inner consciousness," and we miss the vital reason it is impossible to "measure" simultaneously position and velocity, or energy and time. Heisenberg has demonstrated that such attempts are doomed to failure, and Zawirski has observed,

. . .If the instantaneous cut of the temporal flow according to Heisenberg's formula leaves energy completely undetermined, does not this prove that the universe needs a certain time to take on precise forms?

This confusion about what actually takes "time to take on precise forms" in the observation process (our consciousness), has provoked controversy because the artificiality of our mathematical models of our "measurements" leads us into absurd explanations of this "indeterminacy." We tend to completely overlook the nature and limits of the very phenomenon (our thoughts) by which we create models and mathematics.

Many mathematicians, physicists, and whatnot, tend to forget the artificiality of their models and ignore the need for introspection into the assumptions that underlie their use. It is very easy for a true grasp of the mathematical side of a theory to exist side by side in the same mind with serious misunderstandings or ignorance of the philosophical implications of the theory.

Our mental habits are strong and mathematics was created specifically to conform to those habits. Einstein opposed Weyl's attempt to justify the phenomena of quanta indeterminacy primarily because Einstein wanted to retain a strict adherence to a unitary field (free of discontinuities and singularities, something modern physicists seem less willing to do!). Admittedly, Einstein wanted that strict adherence because he recognized the limitations of continuous mathematics (only such changes can be modeled by partial differential equations). Clearly, Einstein was not unaware of the limitations and philosophical implications of our mathematical models!

Unfortunately, those physicists closest to understanding this vibrational nature of our reality, the String Theorists, are forced by their own entrapment in our confused perceptions and measurements to be equally absurd in their purely mathematical attempts to find a unified theory. In order to retain their "particle" (or at least some kind of “substance”) notions they created the idea of “strings” (something tangible to hold on to) instead of pure “vibratory events.” They posit extra dimensions, for reasons not dissimilar to those of the so-called “Time Theorists” discussed earlier, to try to make the artificial mathematical models correspond to our “measurements.” (I believe M theory currently requires about eleven dimensions!)

We reduce much of the current controversy, particularly if we are courageous enough to examine the sterile equations of physics with a decidedly theological, as well as, philosophical perspective. As St. Augustine said,

"Non in tempore sed *** tempore finxit Deus Mundum,"
(God made the world not in time but with time.)

The mathematical relationships and manipulations we use to model or represent the measurements and creations comprising the symbolic machinery of our thoughts have certain inherent limitations as Godel pointed out. When these are exceeded or ignored at the higher levels of abstraction, distortion is frequently the result. These distortions are what produce expressions of infinity, indeterminance, or logical paradoxes.

Trace the following algebraic procedure carefully and you should detect the simple misdirection that appears to lead to the absurd answer.

Given the Identity: a=b
The steps are :
1. multiply both sides by a; a2= ab
2. subtract b2 from both sides; a2 – b2 = ab – b2
3. factor both sides; (a – b)(a + b) = b(a – b)
4. simplify by dividing both sides by (a-b); (a + b) = b
5. and then substitute for a. 2b = b


Even though the algebraic manipulations follow our mathematical rules precisely, it is easy to see the basic error because the equations and the identity are so simple in form. In fact, if we "measured" the variable a and used its actual number instead of its variable notation, the mistake would never be made because we wouldn't try to factor out the zeros that the identity creates. For one thing, the effects of an identity cannot be avoided once "measurement" occurs.

When we try to combine different mathematically "measurable" ways of expressing an identity (eg. MC-squared = hf), we find that we can only get one result or the other (indeterminism) when we measure them, not both simultaneously. Because position is not something different from momentum, except for the "time component," our inability to measure both does NOT mean that an objective reality is therefore non-existent and is only a subjective, observer-dependent ("measured") reality!

The mathematics seldom give us a problem when we have only the equations and relationships among already "measured" entities (calculations on existing data). When we have only abstract functions, it is not that simple. The preceding kinds of errors are not so easy to detect when we are manipulating complex quantum wave functions ("quiffs"), performing matrix mechanistic resolutions, or manipulating multidimensional (parallel) mathematical universes.

Wave functions have two parts, a real part and an imaginary part, because of the conventions we use to represent things in our artificial mathematical language. Imaginary numbers, i (or the square root of -1) are consistent with our mathematical view of reality, but not with the true structure of reality. The concept of negativity is a useful fabrication in our models, but troublesome as a description of our existence, since there is no rewind button for life.

For example, an astronomer can determine the past "positions" of the moon simply by substituting a negative sign for time in his equations. This belies the fact that negativity is an imaginary replacement of reality. It is like tracing the progress of an infant from birth back to egg and sperm. The description is possible, but the process is imaginary. We stop real time, replace it with our imagination, and trace the development in reverse. Fortunately for us, reality is unidirectional. It is always becoming, never unbecoming!

The resolution of a wave function that occurs upon measurement, (collapsing the wave function from a wave of all possibilities to a single fact) requires multiplication by its complex conjugate (essentially this removes the unrealistic imaginary part, i).

In and of itself, multiplying two separate entities together to obtain a single result is not unusual. But because our abstract understanding of the actual phenomena being modeled (and any "identities" therein) is flawed and incomplete, the philosophical implications of the results can be misleading. The potential is great for similar kinds of identity problems to that shown earlier, despite flawless rule following in the abstract mathematical manipulations used in the derivations or solutions.

Our mathematical removal of the "reversed time component" (the imaginary i) when resolving wave functions should have automatically been suspect. We need constantly to remind ourselves of the artificiality of mathematics as emphasized by Dedekind,

. . . numbers are free creations of the human mind; they serve as a means of apprehending more easily and more sharply the difference of things. It is only through the purely logical process of building up the science of numbers and by thus acquiring the continuous number domain that we are prepared accurately to investigate our notions of space and time by bringing them into relation with this number domain created in our mind.

In short, mathematics is a domain that exists in our mind alone. Its rules are merely parts of a language arbitrarily created for its usefulness as a tool for communicating about certain aspects of our world. Its symbols are used to represent "measured" structural elements of reality. In fact, it is probably impossible to deal with the underlying concept of "how-muchness" without a mathematical language.

However, because we can “discretize” certain aspects of reality that are probably not discrete, we can quickly lose the correspondence between our symbolic representations and reality itself. Mathematics is only effective for describing our "measured" ( and ONLY the measured!) quantitative aspects of our world.

Our mathematics are ultimately constrained to the “measured” aspects of reality which are heavily dependent upon OUR consciousness, reflecting OUR sequential links with infinite becoming “measured” as Time. It is only because we have access to the infinite level of becoming (consciousness) that we are able to detect or abstract a sequencing of becomings, wherein "measurement," C-squared, time, and flow become useful conceptual models.

Fred Wolf tried to explain a provocative finding in biology that he believes supports an otherwise absurd idea in the transactional interpretation of quantum physics. The transactional interpretation suggests that a quantum wave of probability moves backward through time from the future to the present. The theory maintains that a physical system can only appear to an observer if the quantum wave representing it propagates BOTH from the present to the future and from the future to the present! In short, in order to explain a number of paradoxical results, a quantum wave would have to be allowed to have this absurd "science-fictional" privilege.

Actually, Fred may be closer to understanding this than he, himself, realizes. As he points out, biological evidence exists that we can be aware of things even before any actual signals have reached our brain. Fred describes his interpretation of this biological evidence from neurophysiologists thus,

. . .Put briefly, how can a subject be aware of a sensation, that is, be conscious of it, if the subject's brain has not registered the "awareness"? The answer may turn out to be a surprising new discovery. The future actually communicates with the present in the human nervous system.

Actually, prior to this neurological evidence, the fact that we must have this superordinate link to infinite becoming (future) in our consciousness was already revealed to us in our mathematical symbology. Without it, some of our meaningful formulations would be meaningless.

For example, Minkowski's formulation of the constancy of the world interval (a reassuring construct) illustrates the dependent nature of time, as we use it, on the square of the speed of light:

I = Squareroot{S^2 – C^2(T2 - T1)^2 }

where S = spatial distance; T2 - T1 = time interval; and C = speed of light. In words, the spatial separation of events is altered by a continuum of C for any "measured" temporal separation.

To grasp the philosophical significance of this formula, it is necessary to reorient your thinking from our "inside-out" perspective to an "outside-in" perspective. The expression actually reflects relativistic events arbitrarily "measured" within the illusion that comprises our internal view of reality. If a difference between two internally measured events (T2 - T1) in a system has an effect on a third event (S-squared) by a specified constant (C), that implies that the measurements were made using that constant as the ultimate base of reference! That is why it is constant!
We assess stimuli that exist at less than C against a base of reference at C, which is our thoughts. In fact, without such a reference at C, "measurement" itself would be impossible, which means that differentiation between T2 and T1 would be impossible and any multiplicative relationship with C would be meaningless.

The tendency to eliminate Time from our consideration of time-space, consciously or unconsciously, led Minkowski to use the expression "four-dimensional world" (vierdimensionale Welt) instead of "four-dimensional becoming." But, our existence is a complex system of "becomings" within "becomings" with each "sphere" of becoming pervading all those subordinate to it, yet distinct from them. Each "sphere" of becoming "flows" at its own "tempo" with the innermost spheres possessing the slowest "tempo."

The separate spheres can be likened to separate musical compositions. The separateness of experiential phenomena accrues from the harmonic or discordant nature of the relationships between pulsational elements within each level of becoming. The entire composite of infinite becoming "flows" at C

The use of quotes around "flow," "tempo," and "sphere" signifies their inappropriateness as descriptors. It will make little sense to talk about non-Euclidean "spheres" because in the non-Euclidean framework of existence the use of Euclidean constructs is problematic. Yet, imagery in the main, excluding auditory images such as melody (which most closely approximate our reality) is invariably Euclidean.

The basic Euclidean and Newtonian nature of our thoughts is formed by our encounter with the reality of our daily lives that is steeped in the middle ground of cosmological reality (between the Macro and Micro worlds). Consequently, we are handicapped by our own automatically Euclidean imagery.

Nonetheless, it is not really necessary to visualize anything to understand the significance of all these verbal aerobics. It is only necessary to recognize that our unique form of consciousness has characteristics that provide a scientifically supportable explanation for the features of time-space as we perceive and experience it.

We know that the human cortex, in the generation of brain waves to produce thought, generates its own field. Consciousness cannot exist without such a field. The speed of light is the velocity of propagation of our brain waves as we create consciousness. Consequently, our consciousness exists at God's "molecular speed" or as energy. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity suggests that time-space only exists as the structural quality of a field. The RELATIVE ABSENCE indicating a VACUUM in space is indistinguishable from an INFINITE PRESENCE . . . since BOTH conditions would give the same result to any instrument of detection we could create? In discussing dematerialization, Einstein described how such an effect could be achieved without there being any real emptiness,

. . . a superposition of two oppositely oriented local curvatures of the non-Euclidean time-space which would cancel each other like two waves of equal amplitude meeting at opposite phases and the result would be a local disappearance of the non-Euclidean curvature. That particular region of time-space would acquire the homogeneous and undifferentiated character which characterizes what we call 'void' or 'absence of matter.'

That sounds a lot like the merging of two "opposing" energy events, perhaps like the negative drive energy generated by our animal nature meeting an "opposing" positive drive energy in our consciousness generated by our soul. Think about it!

It doesn't seem like such an unscientific stretch to believe that the source of the universal field defining the structural and metrical qualities of our reality is a Cosmic Consciousness, infinite orders of magnitude greater than ours, usually called God.

In conclusion, there is more than adequate scientific support for the idea that something akin to a Cosmic Consciousness (Universal Field) MUST exist as the foundation of all our reality. I am comfortable with the idea that the aggregate consciousness of God is the Universal Field ordering our reality.