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)
dya@unc-c.UUCP (09/27/83)
References: hlexa.202
Full-Name: David Anthony
Organisation: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Yes! One vote for "a chapter a week" posted to the net, if possible
Traffic on net.books has become very slow lately.
{.....duke!mcnc!unc-c!urp!dya }hsf@hlexa.UUCP (10/13/83)
(c) Copyright 1983 by Henry Friedman
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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?)