[deleted]
Greetings,
The concept dimension is defined as a measurable extent of any kind. Spatial and temporal dimensions exist only as the spatial and temporal demarcating relationships of events. They have no physical substance, but form parts of physical reality. Neither can be perceived as such: only the objects and events that fill them can be perceived and their respective relationships established.
Their extent can only be defined in relation to the events they delimit. All being relative to each other, there exist neither absolute spatial or temporal reference frames, nor absolute spatial or temporal units of measurement.
Dimensions do not move or flow or expand as such: phenomena are moving within them, according to the harmonies that characterise the particular universal level to which they belong. Spatial and temporal sequences are sensed and determined by the elements existing and acting within that space-time continuum.
It is a basically flawed way of thinking that attempts to eliminate a fundamental, sine qua non physical reality, like the dimension of time, because its absence would produce more favourable mathematical equations underlying an otherwise shaky theory.
Not less defective is to - instead of using mathematics to express thought-processes - manipulate mathematical assumptions in the trust of the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" and in the hope that one of the trials will come up with a right solution. Like in the Watson/Skinnerian Behaviouralism, results are met by "getting them by manipulation, shifting them about until a new pattern is hit upon", a procedure "controlled entirely by contingencies of reinforcement".
"I take the positivist viewpoint - wrote Stephen Hawking - that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality. All that one can ask is that its predictions should be in agreement with observation." Behold the 'positivist' viewpoint of a very negativist sceptic, with destructive effects not only as a scientific approach in research and theorising, but, through its untruthful scientific attitude towards reality, also as a false and corruptive life-philosophy.
I have dropped in on the paper of Dr. Julian Barbour, because he has a good spectrum of comments and because his statement that "the quantum universe is static. Nothing happens; there is being but no becoming" has touched a home note.
According to my cosmovision, expressed in my book Living Universe, ""Being" is the absolute, inherent and transcendent Life-Ground, Underlying Principle, of Summa Existence. Nothing can precede it, because "Non-being", the absence of "Being", is a contradiction in terms: a concept demanding a subject, the subject the concept is referring to is a "Being" by conceptualisation. As Space and Time are dimensions referring to spatial and chronological relationships of events, local references to position and precedence, and have no purpose to exist by themselves, without a content, they could not have preceded "Being", nor could "Being" be contained in, or be a function of Space and Time, because "Being" is timeless. Thus "Being" exists as an atemporal present, without beginning and end, without it ever having to have been created or appeared out of "Non-Being". As Being is the fount of all Becoming, it is a causa sui.
Being represents Life, Mind and Consciousness. Without life, mind and consciousness there can be neither being nor becoming. Knowing Itself as Being, and knowing Itself as the creator and the created, It is the source of all differentiated life, mind and consciousness; all harmony, wisdom and power. It is the oneness, universality, timelessness, changelessness, formlessness, boundlessness, within and out of which space-time, form, individuality, diversity, temporality and transformation - becoming - transpire: the infinite expresses itself through the finite. It is here where creating, being created and the created - the Creator (Natura naturans) and Creation (Natura naturata) - are one.
Pure Being is pastless and futureless: It simply IS. Being is static and contains - and thus transcends - all Becoming, represented by - materialised into - substance, accident and mode - structure, event and process. Becoming is dynamic, manifested in the harmonious movement, change, and the spatial, chronological and causal relationship and order of energy and matter, while matter itself is not a conglomeration of "things", but consists of by its Underlying Principle ordered "processes" in interwoven and interdependent harmonic system-relationships of energy-quantums.
Space and time are contained by "Being" as conceptual conditions and dimensional constituting fundamentals of Becoming. Only through the existence of the dimensions of Space and Time - representing an inseparable, four-dimensional space-time continuum - may exist movement, change, and spatial, chronological and causal order. Thus all Becoming is space- and time-dependent. Inversely, without movement and change there exists only a static state without content, devoid of space, time, matter, and energy, which are thus co-emergent, co-existent, interdependent, interacting and co-evolving constituents of a dynamic universal process. Neither space nor time "flows" or "moves", or "expands": matter and its movements are interacting within and with space-time according to their constitution, dynamically readjusting each other's geometries and qualities.
Creation, movement, change, causality, physical, chemical and biological processes are dynamic phenomena, constituent elements of Becoming. Their dynamic systems and dynamic rules - the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, of the summa Cosmos - are not rigid predetermined, pre-existing rules, according to which the self-created and self-evolving content of the Universe must work, but are also co-emergent, co-existent and co-evolving integral constituents of it, keeping within the harmonious relationship of the All.
The Summa Universe, being the intrinsic Self of each and all It contains, is self-configuring structure, substance and event in a constant dynamic and harmonious process, being thus the subject, instrument and object of Its own creation through all Its individuated selves, each of which becomes thus also the subject, instrument and object of its own, particular creation and sustention. "Self-configuring" implies thought out, intelligent process, the Intelligent Self-Creation, Self-Sustention and Self-Evolution of the Universe in dynamic equilibrium.
I am a fraction of the ultimate "I" and am inherent and am transcending my manifested physical body, as that ultimate Universal "I" is inherent and is transcending the manifested Universe.
"My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the Laws of Nature," - wrote Erwin Schroedinger - "Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I foresee the effects, that may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take full responsibility for them. Therefore I - I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt 'I' - am the person, if any, who controls the 'motion of the atoms' according to the Laws of Nature."
Best regards,
Imre von Soos