[N0B0DY]

Mainstream scientists are just people like everyone else, and in the back of their heads they have some pretty wild ideas. There is nothing that hasn't been thought of over all these years imo, but it takes a while before wild ideas become mainstream.

Following the implications of the relatively recent experiments on light, Wick, I propose everything is made of light and there is an absolute hyperplane which disallows any possibility of motion or dimensions (of both time and space). So I can agree with your proposition of light always being at rest, but apparently for different reasons because you suggest time is not the same as motion whereas I suggest space is matter and time is the motion that produces mass from frame dragging or gravitational time dilation. In other words, "Time is not a dimension, it is a property of motion through 4-space." is fine from where I'm standing, Wick.

One point you might want to touch upon is the CD analogy which I interpret as suggestive of past and future events remaining existent, but I remember previously you saying that present cosmology implies past and present remains existent and that your theory differs from this so I'm confused about that one too. A relevant note pertaining to it I think is Enstein's indirect presumption of past and future being illusory points of reference; and applied to your analogy it seems that light (because it is at rest) is quantized incrementally as a 3-d hyperplane recreated through the 4-d space you propose. The reason I say this is because in message 3 you say: "What we see in the 3d universe is an exposed surface of each 4d pattern divided by time." So each dimension extension is divided by time and incrementally created from motion, essentially rendering observable reality as velocity- or time-dependent, is the way I understand it.

Is it possible according to your theory that all constants, and the 4-d space, can be connected to the absolute rest frame of light? This way I think we can unify QM and GR by reinstating Newton's absolute frame as a 4-d frame and quantize light quanta in Einstein's localized frames relative to the light constant. If I'm not mistaken, Einstein's original idea in forming his theories of Relativity is based on everything being relative to light constant.

[Wick]

Originally Posted by N0B0DY One point you might want to touch upon is the CD analogy which I interpret as suggestive of past and future events remaining existent, but I remember previously you saying that present cosmology implies past and present remains existent and that your theory differs from this so I'm confused about that one too.

The CD analogy was perhaps ill advised. I used it because I like the irony of the comparison--light plays matter on a CD, but it may also be true that matter plays the light patterns associated with organisms.

Perhaps a better metaphor would be a score. The score is a pattern that if given to a skilled director can be used to recreate a symphony. The symphony will not always be precisely the same. Some directors might choose to leave sections out, or to experiment by using oboes instead of flutes in a section. They might slow a section down, or speed it up. The most skilled director might be able to inspire the orchestra to play the score flawlessly.

Remember that when I was talking about the CD, I was not talking about chronological time, necessarily. I was talking about light patterns which determine how matter clothes light--a kind of luminous DNA. That luminous DNA does not determine our actions (changes of position), but it determines our how our organism is organized (changes of state). In other words, if you were to die, the light pattern that is Nobody would persist. That pattern could be used to reform Nobody, but Nobody would not be constrained to live a life precisely like the one he lived before.

A relevant note pertaining to it I think is Einstein's indirect presumption of past and future being illusory points of reference; and applied to your analogy it seems that light (because it is at rest) is quantized incrementally as a 3-d hyperplane recreated through the 4-d space you propose.

Einstein would have serious problems with my ideas. When he said that the human perception of past, present and future were a "persistent illusion," what he was saying is that humans may experience space time chronologically, but that is counter to spacetime structure. Einstein was no respecter of times. Time was part of the universal fabric. As such all events were determined in the spacetime fabric. The time of my birth was predetermined. The events on the day of my marriage were determined. The birthdays of each of my seven children were determined. What I choose to eat for lunch tomorrow is determined. The cause of my death is determined. For Einstein, all things are compelled by the structure of spacetime to be where they are and to do what they do.

I openly rebel against the deterministic structure of spacetime. For me a hyperplane passing through 4-space is all there is--I call it the present point. The hyperplane reconfigures as it moves. The record of past events lie buried in the hyperplane in layers of stone and earth, in tree rings, in glacial ice, in burial grounds, in DNA, in generations of every species and in the evolving bodies of each species, in the instincts of animals, in the remembrance of people, in the books we write, and in the sorrows we carry. We don't need spacetime. Everything we need to understand the past and to prepare for the future lies right here in the present--in this reconfiguring hyperplane we call the observable universe.

It seems to me quite counter to the economy and efficiency of nature, that she should store up the past in stacks of hyperplanes. Such hyperplanes may be convenient mathematical devices, but they do not reveal the reality of nature.

Consequently, while Einstein said that no events are simultaneous unless they arise from the same frame of reference, I argue that everything "real" must be simultaneous. All things that happen in the hyperplane happen at precisely the same time. It is true that observers may argue over when things happened (i.e. simultaneity) because the information moving through the hyperplane reaches different frames of reference at different "times". But the time and space related delays intrinsic to the hyperplane do not change that fact that every event happening in the hyperplane is simultaneous. If it happens in the observable universe, it happens on the hyperplane and the hyperplane is, by definition, the present.

What's more, what a person does in the hyperplane makes a difference because in a moving hyperplane, he or she becomes free (not bound in a deterministic structure). Each person's actions, in a small way, determine how the hyperplane we call the observable universe will be configured as it moves through 4 space. If my actions make the hyperplane a better place, good for me. If my actions make the hyperplane a worse place, shame on me. Whatever the case, I am accountable to the universe and its occupants.

Apologies for this philosophical rant.

The reason I say this is because in message 3 you say: "What we see in the 3d universe is an exposed surface of each 4d pattern divided by time." So each dimension extension is divided by time and incrementally created from motion, essentially rendering observable reality as velocity- or time-dependent, is the way I understand it.

I think it would be very interesting to devise a workable way to use planck units alone in our mathematics. Everything would be based upon integers. There would be no halves, or quarters. Such things would be as nonsensical as infinities. When building a mathematical structure, we would construct matrixes with axis representing planck lengths, planck times, planck temperatures, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is yes all things can be quantized in the observable universe. I'm surprised we haven't gotten to this point sooner given Planck's remarkable discoveries.

Is it possible according to your theory that all constants, and the 4-d space, can be connected to the absolute rest frame of light? This way I think we can unify QM and GR by reinstating Newton's absolute frame as a 4-d frame and quantize light quanta in Einstein's localized frames relative to the light constant. If I'm not mistaken, Einstein's original idea in forming his theories of Relativity is based on everything being relative to light constant.

Once we realize that everything is moving in relation to stationary light, I think all constants would begin to converge (alas, not being a mathematician, this may merely be wishful thinking). But that said, I do believe that in a universe of resting light and 4d matter snagged on a moving hyperplane, the four natural forces converge. The strong and weak forces disolve. The strong force is related to the 4d structure of matter, not gluons. Just because we cannot see the 4d structure which holds the nucleus together doesn't mean that such a structure doesn't exist. Likewise, if 4d structures unravel in 4-space and we see the effect in the hyperplane, we need not assume a weak force. We may detect many particles associated with the decay, but those "particles" may be cross-sectional evidence in the hyperplane of something that is really unfolding in 4-space.

Similarly, the electromagnetic force and gravity are directly linked in this theory to the hyperplane's motion through 4-space and the interactions of 4-dimensional light and matter on this falling and warping surface. Interestingly, both phenomena appear to propagate through space at the velocity c, but this perception arises from the motion of the hyperplane, not of gravity or light.

Long winded as usual. Please forgive!

[Wick]

Originally Posted by bottomlander Mainstreamers always reiterate just this term: "propagate" despite many of them agree that spacetime stores everything - all past matter-energy and phenomena were kept up to now

Thanks, Bottomlander, for your insights. I would adjust your last sentence to read "many of them agree that spacetime stores everything--all past, present and future matter-energy configurations." Let me know if you disagree with my adjusted evaluation of the mainstreamers.

That said, I'll once again admit that the mainstreamer notion of determinism is philosophically troubling to me.

[N0B0DY]

There's no need to apologize for ranting, Wick. We've all been known to do it.

It seems like the stationary light is similar, or synonymous, to Newton's absolute spacetime and any motional configurations comparable to Einstein's spacetime. I think this would be great because I think Newton's spacetime was unjustifiably disregarded.

With respect to imperfect replication of patterns, I'm also working on establishing a connection between Mandelbrot and Darwin, and the way I understand your analogy, the variable changes in configurations can serve as the basis for mutation/evolution. There can be an absolutely changeless frame of light, and relatively quantized extractions of light that can be configured and reconfigured in an infinite number of ways. The fractal scales that produce slight changes would cumulate to produce larger changes the further we go through the scales, which can be categorized as time - or the present moment being quantitatively carried throughout. Is this about right?

This would bring me to my next question of the present moment you mentioned, and whether or not you are implying the present is based on a past event. If we consider that n-1 is the present moment and consider Planck's integral quanta, can it be possible to reduce the instance to a non-zero integer without implying a timeframe based on the 3-d drag? I find it as difficult to do so as I do reducing near-zero kelvin temperatures to absolute zero, or equating 0.999... with 1. I'm sort of an anti-renormalist and I infer from the above that there can really be no such immediate present moment in nature. For this reason I've been cast out by pretty much everybody.

The latter part of your post, again, seems to mesh with my thoughts on these "matters" - I'll try not to bugger up your thread here. The way you explain the cause for "c" for both EM and G as dependent upon non-zero density is how I interpret it as well, and I sort of work backwards from absolute binding and speed to produce observable velocities, densities and decay rates. So essentially from the frame of light, everything is already fully-binded and -bound; and relative to this we naturally beget asymptotic (pseudo forces) from the velocity change in light - the rest frame of light I would interpret as synonymous to Newton's absolute spacetime frame and absolute speed.

I'm not sure if you are implying the same and I don't want to force words in your mouth, so let me know if I have misread you.

[Wick]

Originally Posted by N0B0DY There's no need to apologize for ranting, Wick. We've all been known to do it. It seems like the stationary light is similar, or synonymous, to Newton's absolute spacetime and any motional configurations comparable to Einstein's spacetime. I think this would be great because I think Newton's spacetime was unjustifiably disregarded.

I don't think so. I have explained it badly. Let me try again.

In the work of both Newton and Einstein, time exists as a dimension. The only difference between Newton's absolute space and time and Einstein's spacetime, is that Einstein fused space and time together to form a stretchy relativistic fabric that blends the two more intimately than Newton envisioned. In my theory, time does not exist as any kind of dimension but only as a property.

Because Newton and Einstein both describe a universe constructed of an infinitude of hyperplanes, each of which carries on its surface a configuration of all particles of matter in the universe at a given moment in time, niether of these theories really believes in motion at all. For both Einstein and Newton, motion is something born out of human chronological perception. Deterministic universes (and both Newton's and Einstein's universes are deterministic) describe frozen four dimensional configurations of hyperplanes. Freedom is stillborn in such universes.

As such, if we are going to transition from either Einstein's or Newton's model to the theory I propose, we must first subtract out any dimension of time. Time is a property not a dimension.

If we subtract time from either theory, all we are left with is absolute space and we are compelled to describe how the property of time arises.

I think this is possible if we describe a hyperplane, or observable universe, which falls through 4-space. Upon the surface of this hyperplane 4d matter and 4d light interact and reconfigure. As fundamental matter reconfigures, causing changes of state in macroscopic matter (decay and regeneration) we perceive the passage of time.

This model is counter to most everything Einstein or Newton taught.

With respect to imperfect replication of patterns, I'm also working on establishing a connection between Mandelbrot and Darwin, and the way I understand your analogy, the variable changes in configurations can serve as the basis for mutation/evolution. There can be an absolutely changeless frame of light, and relatively quantized extractions of light that can be configured and reconfigured in an infinite number of ways. The fractal scales that produce slight changes would cumulate to produce larger changes the further we go through the scales, which can be categorized as time - or the present moment being quantitatively carried throughout. Is this about right?

I think we agree here. However I suspect that every individual organism existed first as a light pattern which then gained physical expression. You, Nobody, may understand this better than most. I would not discount a kind of evolution could occur as conscious organisms execute varations intrinsic to their indiginous, coherent light patterns

This would bring me to my next question of the present moment you mentioned, and whether or not you are implying the present is based on a past event. If we consider that n-1 is the present moment and consider Planck's integral quanta, can it be possible to reduce the instance to a non-zero integer without implying a timeframe based on the 3-d drag? I find it as difficult to do so as I do reducing near-zero kelvin temperatures to absolute zero, or equating 0.999... with 1. I'm sort of an anti-renormalist and I infer from the above that there can really be no such immediate present moment in nature. For this reason I've been cast out by pretty much everybody.

Not being a mathematician, I can only dream of this kind of thing. However, if Planck was right and there are lengths, masses, energies, temperatures, etc. representing the smallest (or greatest) unit which makes physical sense, I think we must be able to develop a math that can operate in whole numbers. The reason its possible is because the Planck length is so utterly small that if the Planck length equaled 1, it would represent 1.6 x 10(-35) meters--an exquisitely small length. Such a quantization of matter or space wouldn't work in calculus, but it might prove useful in describing nature in real terms.

As for the present point, consider the notion of a Big Bang. When/if it occurred, all matter and energy existed as a singularity confined to a Planck length. In the first Planck time, everything was still very close together. For all intents and purposes all things then were happening simultaneously. Is it really so hard to imagine that the same thing might be happening now. Though I don't believe this, you might try thinking of the falling hyperplane as having a temporal width of about one Planck time.

The latter part of your post, again, seems to mesh with my thoughts on these "matters" - I'll try not to bugger up your thread here. The way you explain the cause for "c" for both EM and G as dependent upon non-zero density is how I interpret it as well, and I sort of work backwards from absolute binding and speed to produce observable velocities, densities and decay rates. So essentially from the frame of light, everything is already fully-binded and -bound; and relative to this we naturally beget asymptotic (pseudo forces) from the velocity change in light - the rest frame of light I would interpret as synonymous to Newton's absolute spacetime frame and absolute speed.

Nobody, please explain the above in simpler terms. It's late, and my mind can't wrap itself around this.

I'm not sure if you are implying the same and I don't want to force words in your mouth, so let me know if I have misread you.

I think you've misread some things, but that doesn't matter. It probably means I expressed myself badly. I'm grateful for the opportunity to attempt to refine my thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to think and write about these things with me.

[N0B0DY]

It's my pleasure, Wick, but I think what is within these parentheses " " is the simplest explanation. Once we use words to express our model of reality things get fuzzy because the words can mean different things apparently to different individuals. How I contextually read your work compared to Newton's and Einstein's implies to me that both their views are merged in a particular fashion that I didn't think was too far off from my own. Maybe I'm forcing the pieces a bit because few people are willing to think so far out of the box that the box disappears.

I think the first problem we come across is the interpretation of time as a dimension or property. I don't necessarily interpret these attributes as dissimilar, especially if I am willing to interpret time as synonymous to motion and the property you propose is motional. I'm neither suggesting a particulate structure or configuration moving through space, as Newton had, but that motion creates both space and time; nor am I suggesting spatial extensions within a field, as Einstein had, but that the absolute universe is completely full and any and all relative measures observably configured are extracted/subtracted from this fullness. So I thought your rest frame would be considered consistent with the above fullness, where the hyperplanes - n-1 - are subsumed by that absolute frame. The frame dragging then would be proportionate to the relative motion of the subspace; the difference, so to speak, between the invariant mass and relativistic mass. Perhaps then instead of old Newton and old Einstein, we can posit a Newtein to give Einstein a taste of his own mixed medicine.

As for evolution, I have no arguments with your assessment if the executable "CD" is consistent with DNA encoding that plays out a pre-deterministic pattern. I'm also trying to incorporate random determinism, similar to Chaos Theory, whereby the creation of the patterns are random, but the persistence of their existence is dependent upon strictly deterministic laws of observation governed by a shared subconsciousness; the range must be strictly limited, as is the case with probability distributions. This is where time as motion plays the sole determining factor in observational reality, where spatial motion creates the whole processional history of each individual encoded in the DNA.

For the integral planck, I guess I'll await the master of Calculus - Neutralino - to comment on it. Yet, I think as long as there are differential quantities incorporated into the model, as non-absolute values, Calculus can come up with the functions. I don't interpret absolute values as being particular, but abstract/non-particular, where there is only a zero value at all points of the relative measurements. I don't think this interpretation can be applied to any type of freedom which is why I asked you your thoughts on it. If we consider, say, an asymptote, there is no tending or bending but always straight lines like walking straight around the Earth with time curving proportionate to velocity/mass. I should say here that I equate matter with space and mass and energy with time/motion, just to clarify any future references. So the big-bang analogy would then be interpreted as still occurring from any spacetime reference point - all points are t=0.

The pseudo force would be similar to your 3-d hyperplanes, created from reducing absolute speed. There is no need to have strong forces binding particles because everything is already absolutely together dependent upon velocity; since velocity is absolute, there is no space between any conceivable particles. Then there can only be a backward - reductive - factor required to break universal symmetry, and I propose this (sole) factor is time or motion. It's simple but hard to explain. One of the members here joked that a road would get him to Scotland before me if I took no road, but if I was already in Scotland I would get there before him if I stood still and he traveled at an infinite velocity. If I were just outside the border of Scotland, there would be a pseudo force created proportionate to me moving in the direction of Scotland; only pseudo because there can be no such literal borders anywhere.

[Wick]

Hmmm. I think our ideas are indeed taking a similar tack. You mention looking so far outside the box that the box disappears and that strikes a chord with me. Early on, as I was considering these ideas, I was reminded of how the universal box has been remodeled from time to time.

In Ptolemaic times, the "box was really a set of nesting crystal spheres. Earth was static and unmoving in the center. The only problem with this structure was that it required a dimension of sorts (crystal spheres) for the Dome of fixed stars, each of the planets, the sun and the moon. It also required the introduction of various epicycles, equants and deferents to describe why the planets often move in retrograde motion.

Then Copernicus came along to remodel the box to allow planetary motion. He showed us that apparent motion in the heavens is indicative of actual motion in the earth. His assumption, however was that the sun was the static and unmoving center of the universe. Kepler corrected Copernicus by further specifying the kind of motion the earth and planets execute (i.e. elliptical paths). The work of Copernicus and Kepler smoothed out all the epicycles, equants and deferents in Ptolemaic celestial mechanics and established a new kind of celestial mechanics that unified the motions of planets into something that Newton would eventually convert into his theory of gravity.

But first, Galileo came along with his telescope and opined, based upon observation of the motion of moons around the gas giants, that there might be no single universal center in space, but that space (the box) might contain many centers.

When Newton remodeled the box, he called it absolute space and time. Newton determined that "the box" contains everything--all space and all time. In a sense started moving us back toward a Ptolemaic perspective in which the universe was central in that it contained all space and matter. And static in that it held all directions and could therefore NOT MOVE. Furthermore, Newtonian hyperplanes gave at least the mathematical impression that motion is not really motion, but that given the laws of motion (penned by Newton himself) and absolute space and time, one could chart the location of all things at every given point in space and time--from the distant past through the distant future. Each hyperplane equaled a given moment of the universe and all particles in the universe in their "true" configuration at that moment. Determinism reared its head. Time became suspiciously space-like. We more moving toward a new Ptolemaic model.

Einstein took us to the next step by incorporating determinism into the structure of the universe. He meshed space and time in such a way that the past, present and future lost their unique, human meaning and became an integral part of the fabric of the universe. On the macroscopic scale, Einstein blended space and time into the fabric we call spacetime (cotton/polyester) and made all three spatial dimensions and the dimension of time inseparable (as Minkowski predicted). Einstein also revealed many of the strange behaviors and pseudo motions of the quanta. Over time we have diagramed some of these motions (Feynman diagrams) and we find on the ultramicroscopic scale what appear to be "epicycles," "equants" and "deferents" governing quantum activity. So we have created the Standard Model of Particle Physics to codify these interactions. In string theory, we have even created seven new dimensions upon which the quanta depend for a stringy existence. It seems like we have come back to a Ptolemaic model to describe inner space.

Just as in times past, when our attempt to describe the heavens by imposing a structure failed, our current attempts to describe the quanta by imposing a structure will also fail. Somehow we have to do with the quanta what Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo did with the stars, planets, moon and sun. We have to find a way to shake them free of structure and describe their apparent "motion". In old days, we misunderstood apparent "motion" in the heavens because we were unable to understand actual motion intrinsic to ourselves and the earth. I believe we misunderstand the apparent "motion" of the quanta because we are unable to understand actual motion intrinsic to ourselves and the universe.

Tomorrow, if time permits, I'll share another Flatland perspective, and I'll try to show how observations in particle accelerators might provide evidense for this theory.

[N0B0DY]

Hello again, Wick.

I'm not sure if you're intending to incorporate consciousness into your theory, but if we consider a conceptual basis for apparent motion and any deduced continuation of apparently objective motion, there has to be a correlative absolute axial reference point to differentiate any such motion. I can see where intrinsic motion can be considered to play a differential role, but so could a static fulcrum.

If we further consider a Huygens-type function whereby we follow a motional path from point A through point B to point C, the central point of B as differentiated from A-B and B-C must be static relative to the entire system to allow for motion from A to B; the same would apply if A and C were revolving around each other, there would have to be an absolutely static axial basis to allow for such revolution, and since any and all points serve as static axes for relative frames of motion it seems that there is rather a neglected intrinsic stationary frame in lieu of a motional one.

I think often recovering some of the old can lead to discovering something new, especially when we are willing to incorporate such a wide range of thought. I look forward to your further assessments, Wick. You are certainly one of the brightest stars imo.

[Wick]

You are very kind, Nobody, but really I’m an idiot. I am a student of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, and Hardy. If you had asked me four years ago who Planck or Schrodinger were, I would have asked you what novel they wrote. My universe had no room for things like neutrinos and light speed. My mathematical background ended with a mandatory college class in Algebra. I managed to get an A in the class, but I learned no sensible way to apply the math from that class. Mathematics seemed to me like bad poetry--heavy on form, but philosophically shallow. I was wrong and should have applied myself more to math and science as a child. But the humanities became my passion.

That said, consciousness was perhaps the impetus of my theory. Once I finally understood what Einstein was saying about a deterministic spacetime structure, I despaired. It seemed sad to me that something as beautiful as conscious thought was really a prisoner caught in the spider silk of spacetime. As a typical American, I have an almost irrational faith in the power of human freedom. But spacetime threatened to extinguish that faith.

When I turned to the competing theory of quantum mechanics, I found no comfort there. While fundamental particles remain free in quantum theory, the gross matter composed of fundamental particles does not. Oddly, the behavior of fundamental particles does seem to fall under the influence of human consciousness. So I asked myself what is this human consciousness? What does it mean?

I had read about consciousness and human thought in books by Faulkner, Dostoevsky and Kafka. I had also read about it in the works of philosophers such as Locke and Kant, but science was working very hard to steer clear of consciousness (except for a few such as Roger Penrose). For most scientists I queried on the matter, consciousness was merely something that arose from well configured organic matter. And that was that.

So, confused and knowing myself to be a complete fool in the realm of science and mathematics, I felt utterly incapable of coming to any sensible conclusions on the matter. The volleys of arguments exchanged within scientific circles provided no clarity to me. But somehow in the tumult of relativity theory, and quantum theory, and string theory, and supersymmetry theory, and M-theory and big bang theory and every other theory, I came to a somewhat naive conclusion. I came to the conclusion that understanding the speed of light would be critical to my finding a solution.

So in late February 2006, I was sitting at my computer trying to make sense of all I had learned about the phenomenon we call light. I was confronted with a pair of dilemmas: one with relativistic aspects and the other with quantum aspects.

On the side of relativity, I was perplexed that light moves at the speed of light in relation to all other objects. This seemed so counterintuitive to me that I could not abide it. It seemed monstrous that nature should devise a world in which I can shoot a beam of light into the sky and watch it propagate away from me at the velocity c, and that a neutrino passing through the earth beneath my feet and speeding after my beam of light at a velocity just shy of c would also observe the beam propagating away from it at the velocity c. I understood Einstein’s explanation about time dilation and contraction in the direction of motion, but always a rebel, I refused to believe it. It seemed to me less plausible than Lewis Carroll’s tale of Alice in Wonderland.

On the quantum side, I was perplexed by the behavior of light in the double slit experiment first conducted by Huygens and later adapted by the great quantum physicists of the last century. I was deeply perplexed with the results of this experiment when observation at the slits was introduced. It seemed impossible to me that when observed a photon is a particle, but when unobserved it is a wave. This troubled me every bit as much as the constancy of light’s speed in relation to all other objects in the universe.

My perplexity caused me to reflect back on a little book by Edwin Abbott by the name of Flatland. I had picked this book up in the library some twenty years earlier while in college and I found that I couldn’t put it down until I had read it cover to cover. Once completed, I read it again…and then again. I don’t know why the book fascinated me so, but it was a revelation to me. It changed the way I thought about space and time for the rest of my life.

In that book a two dimensional square living on a vast plane makes contact with a sphere that intersects the plane. The sphere truly baffles the square because it has properties which seem supernatural from a flat perspective. The sphere can appear as a point, or as a series of flowing circles; it can see into closed spaces; it can vanish from the plane all together. It can somehow exist outside of the plane and still make its voice be heard inside the plane.

Light is like that, I told myself. We misunderstand it because it has more dimensions than we can fully perceive in 3-space. I was delighted to find that Kaluza (and for a period Einstein) was of the mind that light was a 4d phenomenon. Sadly we decided that Kaluza was wrong (maybe because we failed to see the 4d structure of the electron). Nevertheless, once I read Kaluza, I was convinced that had been correct initially and that his subsequent efforts with Klein actually distracted him away from a more fundamental truth.

So there I was at my computer on that late February day, feeling like a fool and wondering why I had taken it upon myself to even care about light. I remember audibly asking a question, something like, “How can light move at the same speed in relation to all objects regardless of their respective velocities?” I was astonished. At the very moment I uttered the question, I felt like my mind was opened and a thought was poured in. “Light is not moving. The universe is on the move.” It may sound metaphysical. I don’t try to explain it.

I have since read Einstein’s words that if a person were in free fall he would not feel his own weight. He described this revelation as one of his “happiest” thoughts. In a sense, I came to a similar conclusion but I applied Einstein’s happy thought broadly to all observers--to every speck and star in the universe. I said to myself. If the universe were in freefall, it would not feel its own weight. And if 4d light were at rest in relation to the falling universe, the falling universe and its observers might well perceive that light moves (since all things in the universe share (at least in this respect) the VERY same frame of reference. We are all part of the observable universe. But light is only a passing emigrant. Light at rest passes through the falling universe. We perceive the “light passing through” as a field.

I am horribly long winded, but one last thought and this returns us to your question about consciousness…and once again we delve into the metaphysical here. I believe that there is organized, coherent light that doesn’t merely pass through the falling universe to interact with matter. These coherent light patterns (and one exists for every organism) attach themselves to the falling hyperplane (the observable universe) and either by choice or by some mechanism I don’t understand, fall with the hyperplane. These coherent light patterns serve as organizing agents. They take of the matter available to them (in a mother’s womb or in a seedbed) and construct themselves a place to live (a body) using the light as a pattern. Some of these organisms are “more” conscious than others, but all exist first (and after death) as individual light patterns.

Again let me express the depth of my ignorance in these matters. Of all persons on the earth, I am the least qualified to construct a theory of anything. Had it not been for what seem to me influences beyond my own, I never would have derived thoughts so subversive to modern scientific thought. Furthermore, I am well aware that I might likely be deluded in my thinking! Whether I am, or whether I am not, the universe providence has place inside my mind is a nicer place to live than Einstein’s universe. In a falling universe, I am both free to act and I am accountable for my influence upon the way the universe in my vicinity is configured. So, whether such a universe is "true" or not doesn't really matter. I intend to stay in it (something I learned from Cervantes’ Don Quixote!)