hsf@hlexa.UUCP (09/26/83)
AN AFTERLIFE? CHILDISH FAIRY TALES! After all, consciousness depends only upon the brain. But wait...Science has shown that the flow of time is a subjective reality--that the past "still" exists. "Time Twins, a nonsupernatural concept of survival after death," by Henry Friedman, explains how time itself ensures our survival--in the future as well as the past. Reply by mail if you are interested in the above manuscript for the revised and enlarged second edition of the above book. If enough interest is shown, portions of it can be electronically published on this net (in short installments). A table of contents and capsule outline is included below. The concept includes some parapsychology, e.g., telepathy and synchronicity, which some might find of dubious worth, but large portions of the book are fairly soundly based in modern physics. Introduction 1. Is Yesterday Really Gone? Two opposing philosophies of time. The meaning of time as the fourth dimension. Free will, determinism, and the "many worlds" concept of quantum physics. 2. What a Coincidence-- Jung's concept of meaningful coincidences (synchronicity). Explanations of meaningful coincidences from modern physics. Archetypal dreams and images. The relationship of synchronicity to such paranormal phenomena as the "I Ching" and astrology. The cyclical view of time. 3. --There You are Again! "Reincarnation experiences" explained as mental communication through time between different persons with like personalities: the concept of time twins. The predictability of time twins by synchronicity. 4. Whispers in Time Additional support for precognition, telepathy, etc., from quantum physics and astrophysics. Unconscious mental communication among time twins. Can time twins be considered a type of survival after death? A paradox: different persons, yet the same person. 5. So What's New? New models of reality relegate former "truths" to the role of figurative constructs. If this process, so natural in the physical sciences, is thwarted in the domain of religion by blind literalism, we are eventually deprived of our faith. Multiple realities and the mythic dimension. 6. "Who Knows Where or When?" Do the ideas treated in this book offer any hope for a reunion with our loved ones after death? The psychology of coping with change. The idea of belonging to a particular period of time. 7. Gathering Data Some suggestions for experiments to test the hypotheses presented in this book. An explanation of the "twins clock paradox" of special relativity and its relationship to the possibility of time travel. 8. A New Heritage A summary of the ideas presented to this point. New significance for the role of the individual. Two opposing models of the "end of time." A new type of data bank. 9. Ghosts, Mediums, and the Astral Plane Suppositions concerning other areas of the paranormal, based upon the ideas about time discussed earlier. Interpenetrating universes and multiple pasts. 10. The Arrow of Time Does time really flow? A clear explanation for the layman of a complex subject (motion picture analogies are used for ease of under- standing). How humankind participates in the very process of creation. Zeno and Parmenides: the two sages from Elea. Some cosmological implications of time. 11. Another Type of Picture, Another Type of Wave Paranormal ramifications of the holographic process of photography and Pribram's holographic model of human memory. The concept of "synchronicity waves." Is there a super-reality, from which all other realities are, as it were, projected? 12. In Your Spirit's Spirit The mechanism of our survival in the perpetual past via infinite waves of consciousness rippling across time. Is there a transfer of aware- ness into the past at death? Parallels are then drawn between Jung's description of the many different meanings of the word "spirit" and the concepts of immortality discussed in this book. The power of the mythic dimension of life. 13. A Scene from the Future Some implications for religion and philosophy of rapid advances in artificial intelligence. 14. Reflections from Warped Time The humorous side of a profound subject. 15. Time: God's Monument to Man Concluding meditation, tinged with personal nostalgia for my lost childhood and college years. Time and the search for a purposeful universe. --- Henry Friedman (the author)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (10/13/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) Is Yesterday Really Gone? (continued) There is an analogy that is often used to describe our ina- bility, as three-dimensional creatures, to fully comprehend a four-dimensional universe. We are asked to imagine the plight of hypothetical two-dimensional creatures living in, as they see it, a flat, two-dimensional world. Physicists and mathematicians belonging to this flat world might some- day discover that there was a wider, three-dimensional real- ity. They might even describe such a universe of three- dimensional cubes and spheres, etc., mathematically, but they would be unable to fully visualize such strange objects. The closest the two-dimensional creatures could come to visualizing a cube would be as a series of separate squares; they might see a sphere as a series of circles. Analo- gously, we, as three-dimensional creatures, can only visual- ize four-dimensional spacetime as a series of separate events. One element of a four-dimensional universe that might dis- turb many is its apparent determinism. If future events already exist, what would be the meaning of saying that we have free will? There are several different ways to address such questions. Some philosophers say that the question of determinism versus free will is not decided one way or the other by the idea of a four-dimensional universe. For "determinism" means not only that a future event is fixed, or definite, but also that it could be definitely predicted *in the present* if enough of the causal details were known. In other words, determinism is the traditional idea in Newtonian physics of a "clockwork universe," whose every condition is inexorably dictated by its "initial condi- tions." In such a clockwork universe causality would reign supreme. However, the concept of a deterministic, clockwork world has been largely discredited by quantum mechanics, which has shown that the behavior of subatomic particles is essen- tially random. The further implication is that such random- ness may also apply to much of the larger world of everyday reality. So one could argue that the proper term for the state of future events in a world of four-dimensional space- time is "determinateness" (definiteness), not "determinism" (clockwork causality). Others would add that questions about free will are essen- tially meaningless, anyway. For whether or not we actually have free will, we have no choice but to act as if we do. All of the above arguments notwithstanding, some of us might be deeply disturbed by the idea that our futures are com- pletely decided. And there is still another possible interpretation of the future in a four-dimensional universe that is neither determinate nor deterministic. Physicist Paul Davies ("Other Worlds") and science writer Gary Zukav ("The Dancing Wu Li Masters") describe a new concept that has arisen as one possible explanation for some of the para- doxes inherent in quantum theory: the concept of "many worlds," also called "parallel universes" or "alternative possibilities." In quantum mechanics, the random paths and behavior of suba- tomic particles are described by mathematical equations that give the probabilities for the possible ways a particle can act (Schroedinger wave equations). In the conventional interpretation of these equations, the actual observation of a particular path for a particle causes the alternative pos- sible paths to "collapse" into non-existence. In contrast, the concept of parallel universes states that every possible path continues to exist -- in a separate branch of the universe! (This chapter to be concluded in Part 3.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (10/17/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) Is Yesterday Really Gone? (conclusion) In his book "Timewarps," astrophysicist John Gribbin explains that he prefers this new concept of parallel universes because it restores the meaning of free will. The concept, in effect, adds a fifth dimension to the four dimensions of spacetime, i.e., the dimension of alternate possibilities. In the photographic analogy, we could com- pare the four-dimensional concept of the universe to a sin- gle long reel of film. In contrast, the five-dimensional universe of alternate possibilities would be compared to many reels of film. At each point of choice of action (or possibility of diverse random paths), the film would branch into new films, one for each possible outcome, just as film makers sometimes now shoot for different possible endings. For example, in one universe, at a given place and time, there might be an unspoiled meadowland. In a parallel universe at the corresponding place, there might be a busy airport, a result of different decisions by government and developers. Key portions of the concepts to be developed in this book hinge largely upon parallel universes. So I will again stress the point that, although the idea has not been proved, it is a serious hypothesis arising from advances in quantum physics -- not merely an invention of science fan- tasy writers. In the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five," by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., based upon the World War II fire-bombing of Dresden, the hero bounces randomly backward and forward in time among different events of his life, including his death. At each point of his re-emergence, he fully "remembers" the entire fabric of his life, past and future. Although he knows how and when he will die, he also believes in his immortality, since no moment of his life ever ceases to exist. Now, you might object that such ideas are fine for novels, but that nothing in science, including relativity, states that we can travel into the past. In relativity jargon, the path of an object through spacetime is called its "world line," and in spacetime diagrams, the world line of an object always travels forward in time. So what is the mean- ing, one might ask, of saying the past still exists if it cannot be reached. Such questions will be discussed more fully in later chapters, as the full concept is developed. But for now, I'd like you to try another mental experiment. Look at a photograph of a deceased friend or relative, not a studio portrait, but one showing him or her in a familiar, natural setting. As you gaze at the picture, the person may seem so alive and vital that you have to remind yourself that he is dead, and that the happy time when the picture was taken is gone forever. But instead of concentrating on that cold reality, pretend, for a moment, that the scene and time of the photograph still exists -- "some-when" -- and that the person is really still just as alive in that time as he seems in the picture. Perhaps you'll find, even if only for a moment, that the idea rings true. Of course, mental experiments like the one above prove noth- ing (though they may convey the flavor of some of the ideas in this book). And even if such a concept of spacetime were true, we could not form a very satisfying hypothesis for immortality on that basis alone: one lifetime, frozen in time, with no possibility for further development, would hardly constitute immortality, as we usually think of the meaning of the word. No, there are other components to be introduced and developed before the concept is complete. And it is hoped that the whole will prove to be more than just the sum of its parts. End of Chapter (This series of excerpts to be continued in Part 4. Comments and criticisms by mail are welcome at any time. I may not be able to reply to each comment individually, but all com- ments will be carefully considered. When there is silence, I begin to wonder whether anyone is still reading this series of articles!)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (10/25/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) The Arrow of Time As stated in Part 2, we are, as it were, three-dimensional creatures living in a four-dimensional world. We see the world changing, things moving, time flowing from present into future. Yet the new reality of spacetime suggests that such appearances are an illusion, that everything is "already there," statically arrayed in spacetime. Let's return to the motion picture analogy to help clarify these two opposing views of reality. Imagine that we have unrolled the reels of film from a long movie onto the floor of a gymnasium, laying the film in a spiral around the floor. Then, imagine that we have climbed onto a raised platform in the center of the gym, with a very powerful pair of binoculars, from where we can see all of the frames spread out before us. The movie frames can be compared to a portion of our universe, spread out in time. Since we can choose any single frame of our movie and call it "now," past and future on the film are merely relative directions, not specific sections of film. All frames in one direction from the frame we selected as "now" represent the past, and all the frames in the opposite direction along the strip represent the future. If we became disoriented and forgot which direction was which along the spiraling strip, we could easily verify it. We could use our binocu- lars to search for any type of event in the movie that would be nonreversible in everyday life. For example, if we saw in one frame that a character in the movie was in a swimming pool and, as we followed along the strip, he or she rose from the water and eventually landed on a diving board, we would know that we had been moving along the strip in a direction toward the past. If we picked a frame, examined it and then looked at another frame, far enough from the first, we would notice that peo- ple or things had *moved* or *changed*. However, if we then cut out several of such frames in which change was notice- able, placed them in front of us and looked at them all at once, nothing would really seem to be *moving* or *chang- ing*, in the everyday sense of time: everything would just be "already there," all at once. But if we were then to run a strip of the film through a movie projector and view it, the everyday sense of time would immediately return. People and things in our movie would again seem to be moving and changing and becoming in time. And time would *flow* again, as the point of time called the present continually became the past, and the future revealed itself as the present. And that is our everyday view of time: not a four- dimensional continuum, but merely a measure of the continual processes of change (relative to processes that appear *uni- form*, such as the rotation of the earth on its axis or around the sun, or the vibrations of atoms in a crystal). Gary Zukav ("The Dancing Wu Li Masters") compares our lim- ited, everyday view of time to viewing spacetime through a narrow slit in a piece of cardboard. It is if the cardboard were moving to reveal only the single moment of time that lay behind the slit. This is like our motion picture pass- ing in front of the projector aperture, one frame at a time. But why is this so? Why *are* we limited to seeing time as a flow of changes? Musn't the "arrow of time" be, after all, embedded in the fundamental reality of our universe? The philosopher of the "manifold" would agree that there is an arrow, as far as the aspect of *direction* is concerned, but not that the arrow *moves*. We know that time is not the same in all directions, as evidenced by the law of entropy (the diffusion of energy always increases) and by nonreversible causal processes. The probability is very low that a dynamited building will reconstruct itself or that all the molecules of perfume will ever return to the bottle. But the fact that time has direction does not require that it *flow*. In everyday reality, however, things move and change in time. So doesn't there have to be something unique about that ever-moving point of time that we call "now," the only point of time that we ever seem to experience? Adolf Gruenbaum addresses the above questions in his book "Philosophical Problems of Space and Time." Drawing upon the work of the philosopher H. Bergmann, he writes that the commonsense, everyday experience of time as a flow of events -- as distinct from the reality of a spacetime continuum -- is entirely a product of the consciousness of sentient organisms. He adds that the idea of "now" has no basis in reality apart from the significance imparted by such conscious experiences. In other words, it is not *time* that flows; rather, *conscious awareness* flows, as it were, through time, giving time the appearance of motion. Our conscious awareness serves as the motion picture projec- tor, if you will, that makes the film strips of time come to life -- that limits us to a three-dimensional view of reality. Our consciousness acts like the crest of a "vir- tual wave" of awareness moving through time. Of course, no mystical connotation is intended regarding mind or cons- ciousness: all of the various brain states and sensory information which underlie our consciousness must, also, be "already there," arrayed in spacetime. Our subjective experience is as if our conscious awareness rippled through these brain states in a serial order. (This chapter to be continued in part 5.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (11/04/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) The Perpetual Moment This chapter will more fully explore an important aspect of our immortality, i.e., the permanence in spacetime of our present lives. The remaining chapters in this series will then complete the overall concept by developing a thesis of continued existence in the future, based upon psychic iden- tification through time. The goal of this series is to show that, even though science may lead us to reject the tradi- tional (religious) idea of a separate duality of mind and body, we need not conclude that death means personal annihi- lation. The intent is, in effect, to *redefine* the traditional idea of "the soul" for the 21st century (or, at least, that aspect of the word "soul" that means a vehicle of our immor- tality). Another way of looking at such a conclusion would be to say that the idea of a "soul" would be invalid in a literal sense, but valid when used as a figurative, short- hand construction for the newly emerging concept. Enough information about the nature of time has been presented to this point to serve as a foundation for a fuller understanding. You will recall the main conclusion of the previous chapter: the ever-moving instant of time that we call "now" is only special because our conscious awareness makes it so; that apart from that awareness, no instant, whether past or future, would be any more signifi- cant as to its time than any other instant. Also introduced was the idea of a "virtual wave" of aware- ness that flows through time. All of us who view one another as being "of the same time," who view the present and past from the same frame of reference with respect to time, are, as it were, carried along on the same crest of a single wave of consciousness flowing through time. And it was stressed that nothing mystical was intended in the usage of the word "consciousness." For the neurophysiological brain states that underlie our consciousness are also arrayed in spacetime -- every bit as much a part of physical reality as are the various stages of change of any physical object (such as trees and planets). But our awareness is as if it rippled across the static movie film of time, bringing to life the movie of flowing time. With the above perspective on time as background, let us now explore the profound implications these ideas have for the question of "survival after death." The everyday reality of flowing time makes it seem that the wave of consciousness of "our time" is the *only* wave of consciousness there is. Mass media, books, and history pro- fessors reinforce that commonsense impression whenever they speak of "historical events." We believe that what we view as the past is the *absolute past* of the universe, and what we view as the future is the *absolute future*, experienced by none. It seems incredible that there could be people in the future -- as far ahead as we care to project (assuming we haven't yet annihilated our-selves and the universe hasn't yet annihilated it-self) -- who are experiencing as their "now" what to us has not yet happened, and who view our present as the dead past. Yet, if this were not true, and there were only a single wave of consciousness passing through time, then the picture of time that has been painted here would be false. In that case, there *would* be something unique about the particular moving point of time that we call "now": for none of the other arbitrary "nows" in the past or future would contain any consciousness. And all the remainder of spacetime -- other than our "now" -- would be like the lifeless portions of a movie film that are either ahead of or behind the aper- ture of the projector. The entire movie of spacetime would then be like a very long film that is shown *only once*. (Chapter to be continued in Part 7.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (11/10/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) The Perpetual Moment (continued) No, the view of time as a movie shown only once does not seem consistent with the current physical model of time. A more appropriate analogy would appear to be that time is like an infinitely long movie film threaded, all at once, through an infinitely large number of movie projectors. Each projector with its associated movie screen would be showing the same movie as the others, but the screens would be slightly out of phase with one another. If one could view one of the earlier screens, he or she would eventually see scenes that were already visible on a later screen; and conversely, the later screens would have already shown what was appearing on the earlier screens. The infinite strip of movie film can be compared to all of spacetime. And each projector with its corresponding screen can be compared to a single virtual moving wave of cons- ciousness, among an infinite number of such waves, flowing through time. Such an analogy of an infinite number of mov- ing wavecrests of awareness is, of course, only a figurative model for a subjective experience of time. The assumed per- petual awareness at each infinite moment of time, throughout spacetime, would, it seems, exist in some type of timeless reality beyond time -- as does all of spacetime itself. However, if the theory of parallel universes is correct (see parts 1 through 3 of the series), then the movie analogy for the waves of consciousness must be again modified. We would still have an infinite number of projectors, each with its own movie screen. But instead of a single infinitely long strip of film threaded through all of the projectors, the effect (of the infinite branching of the single film) would be of an infinite number of different films, each threaded through its own movie projector. No two screens would show the same movie, although many of the movies would be similar. Many of the screens could be showing scenes from the same period of time, but (because the screens would be offset "sideways" in time) the scenes would be slightly different from one another. A screen whose movie was offset earlier in time from some of the oth- ers could, as in the earlier analogy, be showing scenes that had already appeared on the others; but if we stayed to watch the movie, we would discover that it had a "different ending," as it were. The model of spacetime as a single, unchanging strip of film is simpler than that of the infinitely branching film of parallel universes. But since both models share the concept of an infinite number of waves of consciousness passing through time, they raise similar questions: Why aren't we aware of the other "versions" of ourselves that exist for- ward, backward and (perhaps) sideways in time? And with respect to parallel universes, one would wonder why he or she is not aware of the replications of himself/herself in the other universes. For according to the concept of paral- lel universes, every time there is a (probabilistic) choice of action, the universe branches into as many different universes as there were possible courses of action. And each of these universes would contain a replication of our- selves. Yet, we are never aware of more than one "us." The other "versions" of us are separate persons, for all practical purposes; there is no physical contact or communication among the parallel worlds, nor among the different times. That is, if the "me" of an hour ago or a week ago is "still" conscious in the past, I am not aware of the fact. So the "me" in the past is as much a different person, as far as everyday reality is concerned, as the other "me's" of the present, in parallel worlds, would be. (Chapter to be concluded in part 8.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (11/16/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) The Perpetual Moment (continued) The analogy of a "wavecrest of consciousness" moving through time, you will recall, referred not to a single person's consciousness, but to the consciousness of everyone we regard as belonging to our frame of reference of time. Our commonsensical view of this wave would include everyone now alive on our planet, since we view everyone whose existence we can know of as being of the same (and only) time. When a person dies, his or her consciousness is no longer part of that particular wavecrest. But the wavecrest (of all those whose times had been synchronous with his) continues to move into the future, from the point of view of his survivors. To the person who has died, however, the continued travel of the wave of awareness to which he formerly belonged is no longer really relevant. But at that point (after our deaths), it would appear that those other "us's" in our past -- which were irrelevant dur- ing our life -- would now be quite relevant indeed, because in those past "us's," in those earlier waves of conscious- ness, we would survive. It would be as if that sudden transfer of awareness into the past that was posited in the previous chapter had actually occurred, and we then found ourselves back in the past, with total amnesia about the future -- in fact, with no knowledge that anything had even happened. At what point in our past, you ask. At any and all points. Take your pick! If you have followed the series this far, it is likely that you, like me, do not believe in the traditional idea of a soul that leaves the body at death, nor in the related idea of a reunion in heaven with friends and loved ones who have gone before you. Each of us has a time that belongs to him or her. And, the thesis to be developed in the remaining chapters notwithstanding, *that* time is the only time that we will ever really be the same "us," the only time in which we will ever have the same environment, family, friends and loved ones. Therefore, if there is to be a "reunion," it is in our present lives that it must occur. If the description, above, of the continuation of our cons- ciousness in the past is valid, our *present* life itself has represented a reunion with loved ones we have lost once "before," in our future! And we could be comforted in our *present* grief for loved ones lost in this life, in the knowledge that such "reunions" continue to occur in the past. At this point in the development of these ideas, the special significance of the concept of parallel universes becomes apparent. For without this concept, every wave of conscious- ness would be like every other. And those different versions of ourselves in the past would be fated to experience exactly the same joys and sorrows, successes and failures - - with no possibility of growth or change. In contrast, the concept of parallel universes would allow each "beginning" in the past to be "new": there would be no reason for my "new" wave of awareness to thread the same path through spacetime as had the wave I had "just left." Like waves of flashing lights traveling up a giant Christmas tree, the path from bottom of my life to top would be dif- ferent each time. And each "reunion" in the past with friends and loved ones would be fresh and new, pregnant with the possibility of infinite variations, as my wave of cons- ciousness weaved its way through the many worlds in time. Of course, the above ideas have a danger, even if they are valid. For they may encourage a mentally unhealthful ten- dency to "live in the past." On the other hand, by imbuing our past with new meaning, the idea of the perpetual moment may aid us in making peace with that past, so that we can live our present more fully. END OF CHAPTER (Series to be continued in part 9.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (11/22/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) What a Coincidence -- Coincidences of one type or another are frequent occurrences for most of us, and we take little notice of them. But occa- sionally, we experience a coincidence that seems so striking and improbable that we feel it must have some meaning. "Meaningful coincidences" are of many different varieties and range from somber signs or premonitions of tragic events that later come true to, possibly, a series of unexpected happy reunions with long-lost friends. But such coincidences satisfy two criteria: first, that the separate events do not appear to have a common cause, and second, that the proba- bility of the events occurring together by chance appears remote. You may be wondering at this point what coincidences have to do with immortality. But if you'll bear with me, I'll soon explain why such phenomena are, indeed, relevant. C. G. Jung, the pioneering psychologist of the unconscious mind, studied the thinking of philosophers throughout the ages on the subject of meaningful coincidences. In an essay in 1951 and a book in 1952 ("Synchronicity, an Acausal Con- necting Principle") Jung stated his own hypothesis that such phenomena are a fundamental principle of the universe. He placed "synchronicity," his term for meaningful coin- cidences, on an equal footing with such fundamental laws of nature as spacetime, causality, and the conservation laws. In calling a series of events in a coincidence acausal, Jung, of course, did not mean that the individual events were themselves without normal causes. It is the improbable clustering of the events that is significant. Jung also realized that many coincidences that appear statistically significant prove, upon closer scrutiny, to be within normal chance. For example, if I had a rather obscure hobby -- say, collecting memorabilia about electric streetcars -- I would think it quite a coincidence if three different per- sons, who didn't know of my hobby, mentioned electric streetcars to me in a single day. However, if I then discovered that they had all seen a TV-magazine feature on old streetcars, the experience would no longer seem "mean- ingful." Still, coincidences that appear highly improbable do occur frequently, even if they are often too subjective to be rigidly evaluated by statistical methods. This fact led Jung to conclude that some universal principle must be at work. In addition to the ordinary types of improbable coin- cidences, Jung included psychic experiences, such as telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance, as examples of synchronistic events. The scientific concept of cause and effect is based upon an orderly arrangement of events in time. Jung reasoned that if an event in the future somehow gives rise to an event in the present (the psychic experi- ence), the phenomenon must be considered acausal, since it violates the orderly progression of time. Recalling the discussion of four-dimensional spacetime in the preceding chapters, one would not be surprised to learn that Jung's contacts with Einstein deeply influenced Jung in developing his concept of synchronicity. Jung was also influenced by later developments in quantum physics, which demonstrated that some processes in nature, especially at the subatomic level, are more closely related to probability than to causality. In later attempts to explain synchroni- city to an uncomprehending (or incredulous) public, Jung also wrote that he was influenced by the emerging concept that even causal events must be considered to have a sta- tistical basis. Of course, probability only allows that the highly improb- able is *possible*; synchronicity, in effect, states that the highly improbable is often to be *expected*. (Chapter to be continued in part 10.) Note: The next installment will be delayed until early December because of the holiday and a business trip.
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (12/08/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) What a Coincidence -- (continued) Various nonpsychic methods of divining the future -- such as astrology, "I Ching," and Tarot cards -- were also con- sidered by Jung to be synchronistic. Jung, himself, used astrology as an aid in his practice of clinical psychology. He viewed the blending of the 12 signs of the zodiac in a patient's birth chart as closely related to his own concept of archetypal personality patterns. The term "archetypes," as used by Jung, refers to mythic images and behavioral pat- terns from the "collective unconscious" of our species. (In later efforts to clarify his concept of the collective unconscious (see "Man and His Symbols"), Jung explained that he had concluded that the tendency to form archetypal images -- though not the specific images themselves -- was genetically transmitted.) Some modern astrologers quite agree with the astronomers who scoff at the idea that the planets either cause or influence human events (or personality traits). Like Jung, they believe that a planetary configuration that allows them to predict a series of events is, itself, simply one event in a synchronistic cluster. In other words, astrological phenomena would also be another example of "meaningful coin- cidences." The planetary configuration would no more believed to be the cause of the predicted event than a clock is believed to cause the sun to rise. A debate about the possible validity of astrology is not within the scope of this series (and would be heavy baggage indeed for my thesis to bear in the face of a largely techn- ical audience). But although none of the ideas developed here depend upon astrology, we shall see that the subject suggests interesting and useful ramifications. In my own fairly extensive experience with the subject, I have found that the results of a complete natal horoscope are very dif- ferent from the meaningless generalities of newspaper sun- sign columns, are usually impressive (to me) and often star- tlingly accurate. (Just an example: I once asked a young woman whose chart I had just completed whether she had had a particularly serious accident during a specific week several years in the past. I had just met her, after a relative of hers had asked me to do the chart as a "blind test." She replied that she had fallen off a horse that week and had broken her back.) But I realize that a belief in astrology is anathema to most scientists, and it is not my intent here to try to convince anyone otherwise. However, if astrology *were* a valid synchronistic phenomenon, that would be especially significant because of astrology's cyclical nature. This would mean that many coincidences are not only statistically meaningful, but are also of a recurring nature. Ancient civilizations believed that the seemingly eternal rising and setting of the sun and changing of the seasons were, in themselves, proof of mankind's immortality. And recurring cycles of meaningful coincidences *are* central to the concept to be developed here, as will be further explained in the next chapter. In the first chapter, two opposing philosophies of time were discussed (time as a process of change versus the philosophy of the "manifold"). Still another widely held concept of time, prior to the 19th century, was that time was cyclical, i.e., that it would eventually repeat itself. One ancient Greek belief, related to the above discussion of astrology, was that events of any given day would be exactly repeated every Great Year. A Great Year would would have passed when the planets, Sun, and Moon returned to the precise relative configuration as had existed on the day in question. Although I do not want to be misunderstood as espousing such cyclical views of time -- that time will come full circle in an exact repetition -- several interesting parallels between the concept to be developed in this series and those ancient concepts will become apparent. When we call a coincidence "meaningful," we often mean several different things: 1) that the coincidence was recog- nizable, that is, that it was comprised of elements that we perceived to be related, 2) that the striking nature of the coincidence appeared to be statistically meaningful (not within normal chance expectancy), 3) that the coincidence appeared to carry an aura of the mysterious or spiritual (Jung's favorite word for this is "numinous"), and 4) that the experience had an inner personal significance for us. Jung strongly emphasized the final two points and stated that all synchronistic experiences involve archetypal images or dreams. While I am not personally convinced that mythic archetypal symbols are always involved, this does seem often to be the case. I will relate one such personal synchronistic experience that occurred several years ago, a few weeks before my mother's unexpected death. Shortly after falling asleep, I had wakened with a start, thinking that someone had called out to me from outside. I immediately felt a deeply depressing awareness of death -- not like a premonition of impending death, but rather a full sense of my mortality. The next morning, after breakfast, I looked outside and saw a large reddish songbird lying dead on the deck, a short distance from the bedroom. It was one of a beautiful pair that I had greatly admired. I associated the bird's death with my experience during the night, with the thought that I had perhaps sensed that the bird lay out there in the dark- ness, dying. Later, after my mother's death, I recalled that Jung had written that images of birds lighting on a house were arche- typal symbols of death. I also recalled that I had carried the bird through the house in a plastic bag to reach the entrance, on the floor below. I thought of the old super- stition that if a bird flew into one's house, someone in the family would soon die. Despite its weakness as an example of striking coincidence, the above synchronistic experience does qualify as a classic example of archetypal meaning. But one of the problems with Jung's contention that synchronicity ranks with the funda- mental laws of nature is that experiences like mine, above, seem too subjective to reflect a fundamental law of nature. Is there any scientific support for synchronicity, or must we just dismiss the concept as another superstition, or as an unfortunate example of undisciplined eccentricity on the part of Jung? As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the exciting realm of quantum physics, where causality is subor- dinated to probability, seems to offer such a beginning. (Chapter to be continued in part 11.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (12/15/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) What a Coincidence -- (continued) There are several classic experiments in quantum physics that demonstrate the paradoxical behavior of elementary par- ticles. Gary Zukav writes that these experiments have led to "Bell's Theorem," which states, in effect, that if the results of such experiments are correct, then reality cannot be as it appears to be. One such experiment involves pairs of particles which, after having traveled too far apart to communicate, still appear to behave in a correlated manner. Zukav notes the relevance of the concept of synchronicity to this paradox, as synchronicity is defined as strong correla- tion where there is no causal relationship. In other words, meaningful coincidence seems to occur even at the quantum level of reality. Quantum physicists have agreed that there are a number of possible conclusions that can be reached concerning such paradoxes. (The conclusions would be mutually exclusive.) One of the conclusions is that valid models of reality can- not be constructed. Another involves the possibility of an absolute determinism (that constrained certain choices made by the observers conducting the experiment). One of the two remaining conclusions contradicts relativity and indicates that communication faster than the speed of light ("super- luminal") is possible. (This would mean that the two parti- cles in the experiment are *never* too far apart to communi- cate.) The final conclusion involves the concept of "many worlds," or parallel universes, as described earlier in this series. Physicist David Bohm, examining the possibility of super- luminal communication, has suggested the idea of an "impli- cate order," a level of reality in which all matter would be connected. This concept, which suggests parallels with Eastern religious beliefs, says, in effect, that the apparent separateness of widely separated events is an illu- sion. He and physicist Jack Sarfatti have worked to demon- strate that such superluminal signaling is possible. Zukav explains that the ideas of Bohm and Sarfatti would imply that particles that *ever* interacted would *always* continue to affect one another, even when ordinary causality could not possibly be involved. If such a concept is translated from the "micro" world of elementary particles to the "macro" world of everyday things -- such as people, trees, cars, etc. -- it sounds very much like synchronicity. The final possible conclusion listed above regarding the paradoxical behavior of subatomic particles involved paral- lel universes. If applied to synchronicity, this possibil- ity appears to give a special role to human consciousness. What is suggested here is that synchronistic experiences may serve as signposts and switches, as it were, of the branch- ing points of our parallel universes. Such experiences would then indicate the route traveled by our particular train of awareness, as it threaded its way through these infinite possibilities. When viewed from the standpoint of parallel universes, the strangest coincidence loses its strangeness; for a different universe for *every* possibility would exist at each point of branching. The coincidence would simply show that we took the particular path that fulfilled it. In his book "Mysticism and the New Physics," Michael Talbot writes that synchronistic phenomena represent the "reality-structuring" power of human consciousness. If consciousness plays some type of role in influencing the paths that our awareness weaves through an infinity of parallel universes, then that fact would underscore the participatory role of conscious- ness in the very creation of reality. Either of the above two possible explanations (superluminal communications or parallel universes) may offer partial explanations for synchronicity. However, my own study of coincidences of the cyclical variety leads me to conclude that no quasi-causal explanation of such phenomena can be complete. For some components of synchronistic events, it appears that we can only state that synchronicity *is*. By this I mean that in the domains of our universe where ran- domness predominates over causality, meaningful, recogniz- able patterns of events occur -- for no apparent reason at all. In all great works of art -- whether literature, music, painting, etc. -- we find repeating elements: motifs, themes, variations, twists of plot. These repeating ele- ments serve as a unifying principle for the work in ques- tion. It seems that the great drama of the universe -- and especially the drama of conscious existence -- has somehow also not been denied such artifices. Am I hinting that God did it? Not really, though I don't deny the possibility. (Jung wrote that he concluded that synchronicity must result from countless "creative acts" of God throughout time.) But such a conclusion would just be anthropomorphizing reality in the face of the incomprehensible. (Admittedly, syn- chronistic events do sometimes remind one of "Kilroy Was Here" signs.) As Lawrence LeShan writes ("Alternate Universes"), the prob- lem lies in our tendency to try to fit the world into a sin- gle reality system, when, in fact, several completely dif- ferent reality systems are operating. Two of the reality systems that LeShan describes have been discussed in previ- ous chapters of this series: the reality of everyday existence with its flow of time (which LeShan calls the "sensory modes of being") and the reality system of the spacetime continuum. The reality system in which all things are connected and in which myth, magic and synchronicity operate, LeShan calls the "mythic modes of being." It appears to me that, so long as we don't examine things too closely, that these different systems of reality usually mesh like the rows and columns of a crossword puzzle, without contradicting one another. For example, unless we travel at speeds approaching the speed of light, the "time dilation" effects of special relativity are negligible. And unless we do too close an analysis, synchronistic events can be dismissed as ordinary coincidences. The classic experi- ments in quantum physics may be an example of "looking too closely." In the next chapter, I will explain how the reality system of synchronicity operates to help ensure our immortality. But to close this chapter, I will relate a little episode that will illustrate how an awareness of synchronicity can sometimes allow one to predict the near future -- with the aid of neither science, futurism, nor astrology. The secret, as you will see, lies in recognizing the beginning of a synchronistic cluster of events, and then just using the old saying that "things come in threes." About 10 years ago, I was trying to rent a car from an auto- mobile dealer, so that their service department could work on my own car. The young woman at the rental counter apolo- gized that she couldn't rent me the car because my driver's license had expired. I objected that she must be mistaken, but then was embarrassed to discover that it had indeed expired. I had not received the renewal notice because of a change in my address. I then drove my own car to the nearest state motor vehicle office to apply for the license renewal. There the clerk gave me a form to complete and return to him at the counter. When I later handed it back to him, he scolded me very rudely for not following his instructions correctly in com- pleting the form. What a morning! Later, at my office, I wondered whether the day had any additional embarrassing incidents in store for me. There seemed to be a common thread between both incidents, in that they both involved business transactions at counters with clerical workers. Although there was some causal relation- ship between the two experiences, I felt that they still might be the beginning of a synchronistic series. If this were so, I reasoned that the next incident would most likely occur at the company cashier counter, where personal checks and business expense vouchers are cashed. However, I decided that I was safe, because I didn't have to cash a check that day. I would cheat fate, so to speak. The following morning, I received an internal letter in the company mail. It was dated the preceding day and was from the supervisor of the cashier service. The letter concerned a personal, third-party check for $15 that I had cashed several days earlier (my wife had received it in repayment of a loan). The check had bounced, and the letter sternly warned that repeated occurrences of bad checks would result in suspension of my check-cashing privileges! END OF CHAPTER (Series to be continued in part 12, in which the final chapter will begin.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (12/22/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) -- There You Are Again! Many books and articles about reincarnation have related accounts of persons who have supposedly remembered or dreamed about past lives, or have supposedly been "regressed" to past lives under hypnosis. The sudden acquisition of special knowledge or skills, such as a foreign language, by such persons is often cited as proof of reincarnation. Investigation sometimes reveals that the knowledge believed to have been remembered from a former life can actually be explained by the fact that the uncons- cious mind can retain memories of fleeting experiences that the conscious mind has long forgotten. However, in other instances the evidence seems compelling that the subject could not have acquired the special knowledge -- or details of the life of a person who died long ago -- from any encounter during his or her own lifetime. (It is not within the scope of this series to attempt to examine or evaluate individual instances of such apparent regression. However, admittedly, if investigation revealed that *all* such reported occurrences could be explained without recourse to the paranormal, then the validity of the hypothesis to be developed here would be doubtful. It is also not within the scope of this series to attempt *proofs*, but rather to suggest reasonable hypotheses that merit further investigation. Of the many "reincarnation books" that have been written (some of which are pure trash), John Gribbin ("Timewarps") recommends the book "More Lives Than One?" by Arnall Bloxham. Gribbin cites an exam- ple from this book that involved research to verify the details of an apparent former life, details that couldn't have been known by the subject, since they were literally unearthed by a subsequent archaeological discovery.) In "Timewarps," John Gribbin suggests that in such instances the person is somehow *sensing* or *viewing* events in the life of *another* person in the past, rather than remember- ing his or her own former life. According to this explana- tion, during dream and hypnotic states, the unconscious mind has a latent capability for transcending the limitations of ordinary three-dimensional reality. In fact, suggests Gribbin, subjects under hypnosis could probably just as easily been "progressed" into the future, to view events from the lives of persons who have not yet been born. If we accept Gribbin's explanation for such "reincarnation" experiences, however, a puzzling question still remains. If a person who seems to have remembered a past life is actu- ally *sensing* scenes from the past, why does such an experience center upon awareness of a particular individual who lived in the past? Why would there be an affinity to another person in the past that was so strong that the sub- ject actually believed that other person was himself, in a former life? Gribbin proposes one possible explanation. Investigation has apparently revealed that persons who have died violently are more likely to be the objects of such supposed reincarnation experiences in future generations. Gribbin suggests that a violent death might make that person's life more salient to a future "mental time traveler." However, this explanation does not seem adequate to account for such a strong affinity between two separate lives. It seems that Gribbin was so intent on stating the differ- ences between his hypothesis of mental time travel and rein- carnation that he overlooked a possible similarity. Assume the validity of Gribbin's belief that it is, at times, somehow possible for us to view the past in four-dimensional spacetime, and that this ability explains some instances of apparent remembering of past lives. But I propose the addi- tional possibility that the person in the present and the person in the past, who share such a bond of sympathy across time, might be two very like personalities and two very like minds. Furthermore, just as reincarnation is supposed to involve many lifetimes, the variation I'm suggesting here could involve many different persons across the generations linked together by a bond of "psychic resonance." The name I have given to such presumed groupings of persons is "time twins." Am I suggesting, you might ask, that the person from the past "lives on" in the person of another in the present who feels attuned to him -- in the person of a time twin, who is a type of spiritual successor? How would that be a valid conclusion when I have already admitted that the two persons are totally separate -- and that there was no mind or soul, independent of the brain, that could have transferred from one to the other? (Chapter to be continued in part 13.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (01/07/84)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) -- There You Are Again! (continued) Of course, if instances of valid "reincarnation experiences" were common instead of rare, there might not be a problem with the concept of time twins. In that case, I could be fairly certain that after my death someone else would be born who would know my whole life, and think he was me (reborn), and feel and act just like me. And so, it would appear reasonable that one would then feel that he or she would indeed experience a type of "resurrection" in the future. But given the fact that such instances of apparent remember- ing are rare (even assuming for argument that some of these experiences are substantiated paranormal events), where are we left? For the person who believes in the conventional doctrine of reincarnation, such apparent rarity of recall is no problem. To that person, *eventual* remembering seems a certainty, as he or she believes that memory resides in a soul, not in electrochemical waveforms stored among neural synapses. And in any event, he believes he survives, absence of memory notwithstanding, because his essence has survived and entered a different body in the future. But to us non-soulists, our supposed successor in the future cannot possibly know us by actual memory, and our resurrection in the future would appear to depend upon a highly improbable psychic event. To begin to address some of the above objections to the con- cept of time twins, let me first state that it operates largely in the mythic dimension (discussed in the previous chapter), not in the reality system of everyday life. And the mythic dimension is experienced largely by the uncons- cious, not the conscious, mind -- as evidenced by the fact that the archetypal images associated with synchronistic experiences arise from the unconscious mind. This is not to say that survival via time twins is merely a fabrication of the unconscious mind, but rather that the reality would largely be *experienced* at the unconscious level. Of course, if large numbers of people ever became interested in time twins, there would probably be a resurgence of interest in hypnotic regression. If this were the case, the proba- bility of our more complete "resurrection" in the future would be improved, as our future time twins endeavored to learn of their psychic heritage from the past. Given our knowledge about the unconscious, we might fairly readily accept the possibility of such intense psychological identification with another person, if the psi phenomenon of communication through spacetime could be corroborated. For we know that fairly intense unconscious (and conscious) identification occur quite commonly, even when the objects of such identification are very dissimilar to the persons who identify with them. If such were not the case, movies, novels and tv drama would not be nearly as profitable and popular as they are. Admittedly, the concept of time twins cannot be considered valid if it *makes no apparent difference* in our lives. But if some of our conscious decisions are influenced not just by a combination of "nature and nurture," but also by unconscious psychic messages from the past (and future), from our time twins, then the concept *would* be meaningful. Examples of such possible instances of psychic influence might include 1) the ability of child prodigies to learn at a pace so rapid that the learning seems to outpace by far the teaching they receive, and 2) the intense sense of direction or purpose that seems to drive some people, even as children. Of course, this is not to deny that the basic genetic talents and predispositions must also be present. But just what is meant by the statement, above, that sur- vival via time twins operates mainly in the mythic dimension of reality? A brief clarification of this point will also serve to show the relationship of the concept of time twins to the material introduced earlier in this series. In the reality system of everyday life, death means the extinction of the person and the personality. However, in our discussion of another reality system, the spacetime con- tinuum, we saw that in that system of reality, the past "still" exists, the future "already" exists, and nothing that has ever existed ever ceases to exist. Without the reality of the spacetime continuum, the concept of time twins would have no foundation; for there could then be no, as it were, coexisting sets of persons across the ages of time to exert psychic influences upon one another. That is, if I don't continue to survive in the past, I cannot be "resurrected" through my successor in the future. It is at this point that the third reality system, the mythic dimension, is relevant, in several different ways. First, the concept of time twins requires that persons very much like ourselves appear throughout time at reasonable (and possibly predictable) intervals. This would, in turn, appear to require the existence of the mechanism of cyclical synchronicity that was covered in the previous chapter. Second, the existence of a psychic mechanism that would per- mit a type of mental communication through time also appears to depend largely upon synchronicity. (The question of valid psi phenomena will be discussed briefly below.) And finally, consider the very idea that someone who no longer exists (in the present) can nevertheless still exist (in the present) because of some type of mental association: such an idea could only be valid if there were a reality where sym- bol and object of symbol were one. That reality is, again, the mythic dimension. The unconscious mind, operating in the mythic reality, can resolve the apparent paradox of time twins: the same person, yet different persons. For a major characteristic of the unconscious mind is the free formation of many types of psychological and archetypal symbols. And the unconscious mind would not quibble about totally identifying with some- one who is, at the conscious level, a different person. In so identifying with persons in the future and the past, the unconscious mind can form a symbol of resurrection and immortality. And in the mythic dimension, things that are associated are no longer separate (even though separated in space and time), and symbols are reality. In the reality of everyday life, change is inexorable. In the reality of the spacetime continuum, change is an illu- sion. And in the reality of the mythic dimension, space and time are illusions. (Chapter and series to be concluded in part 14.)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (01/24/84)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman (Copying for personal use by users of net is authorized.) -- There You Are Again! (conclusion) In his book "Alternate Realities," Lawrence LeShan examines how the idea of survival after death would be viewed in each of several different reality systems. He has no difficulty with everyday reality (the "sensory modes"), in which death clearly means the end of our personal existence. The real- ity of the spacetime continuum (which LeShan terms the "clairvoyant modes of being") is clearly favorable to some type of survival, and he has no difficulty there. But when he comes to the mythic dimension (the "mythic modes of being"), LeShan admits to being somewhat puzzled about the implications of this reality system for survival after death. When I first read "Alternate Realities," in the summer of 1978, I believed I might have the answer to LeShan's puzzle, as I had been formulating the concepts presented in this series for several years. This led me to consider formally developing the material. But the final motivation came in 1980, after reading John Gribbin's "Timewarps," which offered support for my belief that reincarnation experiences were related to psychic communication through time. (How- ever, Gribbin did not extend that idea into a concept of actual personal survival after death.) So that is a bit of background about how this material came to be. But before the series can be concluded, there is one additional question that was mentioned above that still must be addressed: the question of mental communication through time. For if such ESP phenomena do not really occur, then there can be no valid basis for time twins, the mythic dimension notwithstanding. Serious research in the field of parapsychology to date has apparently left the issue of the validity of ESP largely unresolved. Although many experiments have yielded highly favorable statistical evidence for ESP, the results are often not consistently repeatable. (There is, however, a question of whether consistent repeatability is a fair stan- dard for such research.) Most of us *are* probably aware of the campaigns that have been underway for some time in the popular scientific literature attempting to completely discredit all such research and researchers. These attacks seem to stem largely from what is perceived as the psi researchers' presumptuous behavior in insisting on the right to join august scientific associations. Also, fairly recent highly publicized instances are alluded to in which such research- ers were the victims of psychic scams perpetrated by some of their subjects. The critics claim that such incidents prove that psi researchers are too biased in favor of the subject to do objective tests. But to some people, such arguments are academic. Although our personal psychic experiences may be too subjective to prove anything, many of us -- though not "psychics" -- have on occasions had apparent psi experiences that were person- ally compelling. As long as it appears that the jury is still out on the question of scientific evaluation of psi, some of us will decide the issue for ourselves based upon such personal experiences (or, in many cases, weigh the evi- dence and reject psi as nonsense). An earlier version of this series expressed the opinion that if ESP phenomena were purely synchronistic, the phenomena might then not occur regularly enough to support the concept of time twins. However, I have since developed doubts about that conclusion, and now question the present usefulness of speculating about quasi-, convoluted, or reverse-causal explanations for ESP. Even if the evidence for the existence of ESP phenomena ever appears incontrovertible, we may nevertheless do little better in explaining why than to accept ESP as an intrinsic quality of the mythic mode, that is, as synchronistic phenomena (which, in turn, as stated previously, cannot be completely explained). Nevertheless, for the sake of a more complete discussion, I will briefly review some of the more common quasi-causal explanations for ESP phenomena. One explanation for ESP is basically the same as the possi- ble explanation for synchronicity that was discussed in the preceding chapter: the ESP experience merely indicates that one's awareness has taken the path among the parallel universes that fulfills it. The two personal apparent ESP experiences which I recall the most vividly could possibly be explained by such "track switching." The first ESP experience occurred when I was a child at sum- mer camp. We were having dinner in the dining hall, seated at round tables by cabin group. I noticed one of the campers, a girl of my age, returning from across the dining hall to her table, which adjoined mine. I visualized (or fantasized?) that she would catch the front of her shorts on the pole-back of a chair, across from me, as she threaded her way between the tables, ripping her shorts open. And that is exactly what then happened. (Believe me, I'm not trying to spice up a dull manuscript with some softcore kiddie porn; this really did happen!) The second experience occurred some years later. After read- ing a book about mental telepathy, I decided to try an experiment. As the book had instructed, I visualized the other person, my "girlfriend," at the other end of a long tube. For several minutes, I repeatedly implored her to telephone me. Now, back in those days (don't make me con- fess how far back!), it was not acceptable for a young woman to telephone a young man; and she had never done so. But within five minutes, she did telephone me. Later, I felt very guilty about using such "psychic manipulation," and vowed never to do anything like that again. (Besides, the book issued the most dire warnings about the use of psychic powers for "evil purposes.") Another attempt to explain ESP is based upon neuropsycholo- gist Karl Pribram's hypothesis of holographic memory (that human memory is stored in the form of wave interference pat- terns). When this idea is combined with a variation of Bohm's "implicate order" (discussed earlier), interesting ramifications are possible. This explanation for ESP presumes that the entire universe and the spacetime contin- uum are themselves projected, as it were, from a super- reality, existing in the form of wave interference patterns (analogous to a 3-D laser hologram). And since the brain would be naturally adept at processing holograms, there would then presumably be nothing unusual about the brain's ability to translate information stored in the holographic super-reality. A third attempt to explain ESP is based upon a combination of general relativity and quantum physics: the "quantum gravity" effect. General relativity states that gravity is not really a "force acting at a distance," but is rather the result of the warping of spacetime itself, caused by the presence of massive bodies. In other words, gravity would be considered a geometric phenomenon. The "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" of quantum physics would permit very large masses to spontaneously generate without violation of the conservation laws, so long as the newly formed matter disappears in an extremely minute time interval. Combining those two scientific laws, physicists speculate that, in the world of extremely short time intervals, space is not smooth, but is spongy and full of "wormholes," as a result of the gravitational effect of such spontaneously generated matter. Some parapsychologists speculate that such "wormholes" through spacetime could serve as communication channels, as it were, for ESP phenomena. This would be analogous, on the psychological level, to the speculation by some astrophysi- cists that "black holes" may serve as physical gateways to other times or places in our universe, or even to different universes. The final possible explanation for ESP that will be men- tioned here depends upon the existence of a hypothetical elementary particle called the "tachyon." Although rela- tivity forbids anything from *reaching* the speed of light, it would not be inconsistent with the existence of a parti- cle that has always, from birth, traveled *faster* than the speed of light. Some scientists postulate that tachyons exist, although they have not yet succeeded in finding them. A particle that traveled faster than light would appear to be traveling *backward* in time. And some parapsychologists speculate that interaction with tachyons in the brain might explain ESP phenomena. Despite the above attempts to explain ESP, most serious psi researchers spend their time in experiments that may lend statistical support to ESP, not in trying to explain why ESP occurs. Such researchers will usually only note that modern physics, by showing that our view of reality is incomplete, leaves room for the existence of ESP. To conclude this series, I will use an analogy from elemen- tary astronomy. One of your earliest grade school science lessons may have been that the planets are held in their orbit around the sun by a balance between centrifugal force and the pull of gravity. In college, a physics teacher may have lectured that there really is no such thing as a cen- trifugal force that pulls outward on the planets. The idea of centrifugal force is a figurative construct to simplify the effect of the *inertia* of the moving planet. Still later, you may have studied general relativity and learned that Newton's idea of gravity as a "force at a dis- tance" is not literally correct. As discussed above, Ein- stein showed that gravity is a result of a warping of the geometry of spacetime. In following their elliptical orbits around the sun, the planets are actually traveling in the closest path to a straight line in warped spacetime. But just because we found that our old ideas about astronomy were not literally true, we didn't fear that the solar sys- tem would suddenly become unhinged. For one thing, we had the direct evidence of our senses that the earth still pro- ceeded on its usual course. And furthermore, science had substituted new explanations for the old -- explanations that still provided for our familiar solar system. But it is quite a different story with respect to the old concept of the soul that formerly ensured our immortality. The loss of this concept leaves us to face a cold new real- ity: our personal annihilation at death. Only the discovery of new concepts to replace the old could restore our belief in immortality. The purpose of this series has been to try to arouse interest in whether such new perspectives are possible, and also, to suggest some directions in which the answers may lie. If we continue the search, we may indeed find that our immortality is cradled in the very fabric of space and time. END OF SERIES (Any and all comments and critiques of this series would be most welcome, either by mail or on the net. Even if you just write to say how many of these articles you have read, I would appreciate it very much. Would a new generation of readers several years down the road be interested in this material? If so, should I present it any differently then?)
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (05/10/84)
AN AFTERLIFE? CHILDISH FAIRY TALES! After all, consciousness depends only upon the brain. But wait...Science has shown that the flow of time is a purely subjective reality--that the past "still" exists. Time and Immortality, a five-part series of articles tailored especially for USENET, explains how time itself ensures our survival-- in the future as well as the past. The original 14-part, 1487-line series has been condensed to five articles, totaling 468 lines. It is hoped that the more readable format will engender more participation and discussion. An outline of the condensed series is posted below. Reply by mail if interested in seeing this or receiving it by mail.
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (05/10/84)
Here is the outline for the condensed Time and Immortality series. Both versions have five sections. After reading the condensed version, you may request to receive all or part of the regular version by mail. 1. Is Yesterday Really Gone? (88 lines) Two opposing philosophies of time. The meaning of time as the fourth dimension. Free will, determinism, and the "many worlds" concept of quantum physics. 2. The Arrow of Time (89 lines) Does time really flow? A clear explanation for the layman of a complex subject (motion picture analogies are used for ease of under- standing). Why is the flow of time dependent upon human consciousness? 3. The Perpetual Moment (94 lines) The mechanism of our survival in the perpetual past via infinite waves of awareness rippling across time. Multiple worlds and multiple "us's." 4. What a Coincidence-- (98 lines) Jung's concept of meaningful coincidences (synchronicity). Explanations of meaningful coincidences from modern physics. The relationship of synchronicity to such paranormal phenomena as the "I Ching" and astrology. Multiple realities and the mythic dimension as explanations for synchronicity. 5. --There You are Again! (99 lines) "Reincarnation experiences" explained as mental communication through time between different persons with like personalities: the concept of time twins. The predictability of time twins by synchronicity. The paradox of different persons, yet the same person; the mythic reality system's ability to resolve the paradox.
hsf@hlexa.UUCP (Henry Friedman) (09/10/84)
AN AFTERLIFE? CHILDISH FAIRY TALES! After all, consciousness depends only upon the brain. But wait...Science has shown that the flow of time is a purely subjective reality--that the past "still" exists. Time and Immortality, a five-part series of articles, explains how time itself ensures our survival--in the future as well as the past. The original 14-part, 1487-line series has been condensed to five articles, totaling 468 lines. It is hoped that the more readable format will engender more participation and discussion. An outline of the condensed series is posted below. Reply by mail if interested in receiving it by mail. It will not be reposted to the net. -- Henry Friedman