All the Time in the World: All the World in the Time

By Alan Thurley

Continued from part 1

Do we have any direct physical evidence for a fourth dimension of space?

Possibly. There is a modification to the famous Young’s slit experiment, that seems to show that a single photon can take two different paths through the apparatus at the same time¹. This has caused a great conceptual problem in the realm of physics which can be quite simply explained in terms of contact with the fourth spatial dimension. The single photon takes two distinct paths through the apparatus in our world and the alternate world, with identical results in each of the worlds. However cleverly done, this experiment always produces the same apparent impossibility of a single photon being in two places at once, if viewed only in three spatial dimensions.

There is a famous thought experiment, proposed in 1935 by Erwin Schrodinger, which also resolves simply in four dimensions. Suppose a cat were placed in a windowless box along with a vial of poison which would only be broken if a certain unstable atom decays. It is known that the likelihood of this happening is 50%. After the experiment there is no way to tell whether the atom has decayed and the cat is dead, or not decayed and the cat is alive².

So is the cat alive or dead before the box is opened?

Because there is no way to find out without opening the box, it could equally well be alive or dead, or apparently alive and dead. In four dimensions it could obviously be both, but in this world we cannot know without opening the box, and until then it must be both alive and dead with equal validity. As soon as the box is opened the fate of the cat is known.

Now, supposing there was a spaceship circling the star Centaurus, about four light years from Earth. They also know of the experiment and await the opening of the box. The quickest way they can learn the answer is at light speed, say by beaming a laser towards them and flashing it on and off in morse code.

The occupants of the spaceship will not know for four years the fate of the cat. For them the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously for four years after the box is opened. True?

Subjectively, yes, but in terms of the light signal, no. The photons of the signal did not age in transit, and therefore the detection of the signal as seen by the photons was instantaneous with the emission of the signal when the box was opened.

But is still four years later for the spaceship’s crew. What has gone wrong? What it shows is that the way our consciousness operates is local to our position in space, and that all positions in space are relative to positions in time, because time and space are interchangeable. So there is no conflict with the cat still being alive when it has been found to be dead, or vice versa, because the laser signal did not age en route. For an instant of time the crew were at the opening of the box, even though they were four years, or 25 million million miles away from the event. So time then, though real, is subjective.

Now we know by observation that time is mutable experientially. When forced to wait, time seems so slow moving. Yet in another situation time passes so swiftly that we feel cheated. In thought we are able to travel in time to the past and relive experiences of our own, or even to some extent of others. We are seemingly able to experience possible futures and alternative presents. We are even able to create a present time to match or explain a future event, as in the dream sequence that leads up to and includes the alarm clock sounding.

So what is different here?

It is the inclusion of Mind. In fact Mind cannot be excluded from our discussion of the cat either. The observed problem seems to be that time is not a constant at all. Indeed experientially we know that time varies enormously and differently according to our involvement in a situation. If you climb on a chair to reach something and the chair tips over so that you fall off it, then time stretches. You are aware of falling slowly and helplessly, of landing on the floor in a heap with your head hitting the floor last. This is followed by feelings of muscle strain and pain, which seem to have taken ages to get through to the heap on the floor.

When everything catches up with reality, time reverts to normal.

The time to reach the floor as seen by an observer will be only a second or two, but for the person experiencing it, it will have lasted ages. Time apparently stretched as you fell. That can only mean that time ran more slowly, which is contrary to physical law. What else was involved?

Mind. So the passage of time is not fixed in the realm of Mind. This in turn means that the speed of light and the measure of distance are also not fixed, since they are interdependent with time in the physical world.

So Mind is different, non-physical. That does not sound like a personal problem. It sounds like an observation of universal fact, which in turn shows that Mind is somehow a part of the universe itself, a non-physical part.

In fact Mind can be viewed as dimension, a dimension that includes time in all its aspects, and form in all its variety.

Mind is the sixth dimension subsuming the five dimensions of space-time. In Mind it is possible to travel, non-physically, in time and space, into the past, or a possible future or alternative reality. So Time is a constant in the physical world, as is light speed, but both are variable in the realm of Mind which is non-physical.

We live predominantly in the world of Mind, either in the past or some imagined future or alternative present. We never seem to live Now, do we?

Where does the past stop and the future begin?

From our experience of the sound of an alarm clock being incorporated in a dream just in time to accept the intrusion as a part of our sleep, we know that the very near future, perhaps a second or two, is knowable to us. In the same way, if we look carefully, we can see the past developing from a few seconds back. So the present is maybe three or four seconds long experientially.

We call this “Now”, but it is difficult for us to stay in the Now, even though it has one unique characteristic. It is both Eternal and Timeless. And it is the only thing that Is.

So if you want eternal life, you can have it. Now. In this life.

You don’t have to die physically first!

1. “In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat”: John Gribbin, pp 12–17, for a basic treatment; pp. 164–171 for the esoteric. The experiment consists of a monochromatic light source and a white screen, between which are two other screens. The screen closer to the lamp has a narrow vertical slit, the other screen has two such slits. The light seen on the screen appears as a series of parallel light and dark bands. If either of the slits on the second board is covered, the pattern will be replaced by an evenly lit area. This is found to be true even though single photons pass through the apparatus.
2. “In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat”: John Gribbin, pp. 203–208. The hypothetical cat is deemed to be both alive and dead simultaneously, according to the Copenhagen Interpretation (1927), which seeks to formalise the discoveries of the quantum state. The “cat” thought experiment was proposed by Schrodinger in an attempt to repudiate this interpretation, with the obvious impossibility of a real cat being both alive and dead at the same time. However the cat is not itself a subatomic particle or state, and thus does not behave in accord with quantum physics, so that the Interpretation still stands today.

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