Pick a Verse, Any Uni-Verse: Part One

VERSES: Well, there’s Adverse; Averse; Diverse; Inverse; Perverse; Reverse; and Universe. That’s the one we want – Universe.

PICK A UNIVERSE, ANY UNIVERSE: Well, they seem to come in a number of possible flavours.

STANDARD UNIVERSES: These come in three flavours. There’s the standard physical 3-D Universe and maybe a 3-D Multiverse of which it is a part of; there’s also the possibility of a physical 2-D universe disguised as 3-D illusionary universe – we call that a holographic universe. Finally, there’s that old sci-fi favourite, the parallel universe.

1) The 3-D physical Universe is the one we all know and love and are convinced represents the one true reality. It might however be part of a larger collection of universes that are connected either in a straight forward linear fashion or via wormholes or Black Holes. The key point is that there is a physical connection/relationship between our Universe and possible other universes that collectively make up a Multiverse.

2) A 2-D physical universe masquerading as a 3-D holographic universe.

3) There’s the parallel / shadow / alternate / mirror / many worlds universe – these are all pretty much variations on the same theme and that theme is grounded in physics’ (quantum and cosmological) theoretical musings. Basically, while they might exist, the key point here is that there is no real physical connection between parallel universes. There’s no ways and means of travel between them. There’s apparently no way we can detect them with our five senses (or instruments that are surrogates for those) so it’s fairly meaningless to talk specifics. The generality though is that collectively they represent the ‘anything that is not forbidden is compulsory’ mantra. That is, within that (probably infinite) set of parallel universes, all possible histories have, are, and will be enacted in all possible combinations coupled with as many variations to boot in the laws, relationships and principles of physics that can be allowed for (i.e. – the speed of light might be different in other parallel universes).

While existence in these sorts of purely physical realities is interesting, there are other possibilities even more interesting. Perhaps we exist in some form of simulation – in a simulated universe. Since that’s a way more interesting (albeit far out) proposal, I’ll spend the bulk of this essay discussing this possibility.

SIMULATED UNIVERSES: These come in two flavours too, but before we start, it’s worth noting that before you can have simulated universes, in all probability you had better have a real Universe that evolves and is bio-friendly and produces an intelligent entity with a mind that can at least dream and imagine and ideally evolves to produce a technology that can create software simulations.

1) Externally created simulated universes come in several varieties like theme park rides, video games and works of fiction like “The Wizard of Oz”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Through the Looking Glass”, “Flatland” as well as a host of others. In fact just about every science fiction, science fantasy and dark fantasy (horror) story ever created – well in fact, every work of fiction, every novel and short story and poem and play, every tall tale, is really an imagined and externally created simulated universe. Clearly while the characters on a page aren’t a real simulation, the act of creating them and the plot via the author’s mind was clearly a simulation, albeit mental. Apart from that, in nearly all cases the translation from print (or for that matter from an oral story) to the reader’s mind’s imagination generates that individual’s lone interpretation of that universe contained within that work of fiction. However, when the scenario is made a bit more explicit, as in a video game, then the characters might be construed as leading quite a separate and more individualistic existence. In a video game featuring Alice of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fame, might not Alice feel she has a real identity in what’s to us a simulated universe, but which to her is a really, real wonderland world? The key element here is being able to interact with the characters, like an interactive video game, or play mental gyrations with the literary characters within your mind. They dance to your tune. In that sense, a theme park ride, while a simulation of sorts, isn’t very interesting since the scenario never changes – just like a film or a TV episode, there’s just no variations in the interactions possible. In fact there are no interactions.

Video games (or mental scenarios) are quite unlike a TV episode or film or theme park ride where you can’t interact with the characters, though, as in the case with literary works, you can translate the characters from the screen (as with the page) into mental images within your mind which you can then manipulate. In that sense James Bond and Captain Kirk have an existence. Of course, as with literary ‘universes’, celluloid features can be translated into interactive game playing features, so again, James Bond and Captain Kirk might ‘exist’ in their respective video game universes (or maybe you could create a video game where both characters exist simultaneously) - which leads to the next flavour! 

2) Internally (mentally) simulated universes also come in several varieties. I’ve already suggested that literary and celluloid characters can be given a form of simulated reality within your own mind.

There’s the normal brain chemistry that self-creates universes like the standard I’m dreaming universe and there’s the standard I’m-awake-and-conscious-and-engaging-in-an-active-imagination-thought-experiment universe/daydreaming universe. The upshot of this is that you (as a representative of the Universe) might in turn be the product of someone/something else’s dream or someone/something else’s imagination. The division between illusion and reality might not be entirely trustworthy. You know your dream universes and characters are illusionary, but if you are the product of someone else’s dream, as far as you are concerned, that’s your reality, though it’s not the reality you think it is.

Another variation on the theme – if you dream you are X, can you be sure it’s not really X who is dreaming of you dreaming of X!

Also, if you simulate a universe via a dream, that simulation doesn’t of necessity end when you wake up. Sometimes when you awake you recall the dream you were dreaming that was happening immediately before waking up. You can then take that dream scenario and carry it forward in your now awake mode imagination. So, invented mental images – dreams while asleep and the active imagination while awake aren’t all that different – if different at all. The saying ‘I think, therefore I am’ could equally be ‘I dream, therefore I am’, or maybe that should be ‘someone (something) is dreaming (thinking) of me, therefore I am’!

Then there’s the abnormal brain chemistry self-created universes – universes created within a mind that has been affected by drugs, from the legal to the illegal, the mild to the powerful; lack of food or oxygen, disease, injury, etc. One variation on this theme is the brain that’s stimulated by electrodes which can produce all sorts of apparently very real hallucinogenic images. A slightly futuristic version of this might be a computer-brain/mind interface, an advanced form of virtual reality. The upshot here is that I expect those with abnormal brain chemistry probably have atypical (weirder) dream scenarios that differ from those with normal brain functionality.

If there can be a simulated universe; and if it’s possible for there to be a holographic universe, then let’s go to extremes and say we’re in a simulated holographic universe! One would have to combine the probability of one with the probability for the other to arrive at some sort of likelihood of that possibility. But that possibility, of necessity, means that the hologram in this case is artificially generated – wetware or software - by an intelligent being. The entire holographic universe aside, we can downscale in the meantime to the best known software example in ‘fiction’ of simulated holographic scenarios. The example that comes to mind is the “Star Trek” holodeck or holosuite.

However, the best known wetware example in actual ‘reality’ is dreaming. Dreams are obviously simulations, the product of an intelligent mind (the wetware) but since a dream is but a 3-D illusionary image, that’s a hologram in all but name. That’s currently our best example of a simulated holographic ‘universe’. Dreaming, to use the analogy, is nothing more than your mind turning on its holodeck and acting out a simulated scenario.

But such wetware holographic simulations aren’t confined to just the human mind. Here the intelligent mind extends to other biological entities, although just how far down the evolutionary ladder isn’t clear. But higher animals (at least mammals and birds, maybe reptiles and amphibians, perhaps some invertebrates) dream too. Anyone who has observed their sleeping pet dog or cat can testify to that. Exactly what they dream no one knows, but probably of things most central to their mind set and world view and what matters most to their survival.

There’s also the question surrounding the possibility of near infinite regressions – a dream within a dream within a dream; a video game within a video game within a video game. To be honest, I’m not about to buy into that can of worms even if it is a possibility, but just because it just plain makes my head hurt! You can get into some weird shit here. I mean, let’s talk about our favourite couple, Clive and Jane. Say Clive dreams of Jane dreaming of Clive dreaming of Jane, ad infinitum.

Finally, there’s the mind as the universe. This is an interesting variation on the theme which says that the be-all-and-end-all of reality is your mind and only your mind, which has created for its amusement the everlasting illusion of life, the Universe and everything. The technical philosophical name for this is ‘solipsism’.

I have been assuming up to this point that the originator of a simulated universe was ultimately a biological being, even if said biological being programmed a computer to run a simulation. Now, what if a computer itself – the product of a highly advanced race of intelligent and technologically savvy life forms - was a self aware entity? What if instead of a CHON (carbon / hydrogen / oxygen / nitrogen) life form being the creator of a simulation, it was an iron and silicon artificial intelligence that’s behind that simulation? ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep?’ I believe is the title of a popular sci-fi novel. Does it ultimately matter what chemical elements the composer of a simulation is made of?

Before leaving simulated universes, somewhere between a realistically normal simulation (dream or video game) where ‘normal’ is taken to represent our day-to-day 21^st Century environment and existence, and a supernatural universe (see immediately below) is a subcategory of mythological/fantasy universes (which admittedly have a fair share of representation in the video game market). In real life however, we tend to associate a mythological oriented world with our terrestrial ancient times through to the Age of Enlightenment. It was a lengthy era where unicorns and elves and dragons and witches and all other manner of things now consigned to mythological literature and texts devoted to the mythology of various past cultures were very real to the then inhabitants of those times. Now the question is, if all our history has been but a simulation, might there have been a time when unicorns, elves, dragons and witches were as actually real to our ancestors many times removed now, as real as horses and dwarfs and iguanas and old hags are to us? The simulation software might have morphed one into the other over time. Mythology might not be so mythical after all if that’s the case.

To be continued...

The Holographic Universe and You: Part Three

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

QUESTIONS (AND ANSWERS): If the Universe is a hologram, then presumably our Moon, the planets Mars and Venus, as well as Titan (moon of Saturn) are holograms too. So, how can one land space probes, as we’ve done, on a hologram? The answer, I suspect, is that our space probes too were holograms, so it wasn’t as if you had a solid 3-D object land on an illusionary 3-D planet or moon. Both the probes and the planets were illusionary 3-D objects; or conversely, both were (or are) solid albeit 2-D objects.

How can you have a solid 2-D surface when anything that’s solid must have a third dimension to it? The answer seems to be that the operative word here is ‘surface’ and the surface, itself, is 2-D even if there is structure beneath it.

EVIDENCE: You’d be aware that if you examine an image at an every closer and closer detail, the image will become fuzzier and fuzzier or grainier and grainer. The newspaper picture breaks up into little individual black and white dots – granulation, or noise in the signal; the TV picture is just a series of pixels at high magnification. So too, if our Universe is a hologram image, that image should get ever fuzzier and start to break up when resolving it to an every greater and greater level of magnification.  Unfortunately, ordinary astronomical instruments aren’t powerful enough to see the required level of magnified detail that would suggest whether the Universe’s alleged hologram imagery begins to break down and become granulated. But, one type of instrument just might have (the required resolution), and just might have (found evidence that the Universe is a hologram).

The technique in question is instrumentation designed to detect gravitational waves, something predicted by Einstein’s excursions into relativity theory. One such instrument or research project is called GEO 600, located in Hanover, Germany.  Gravitational wave detectors like GEO 600 are essentially fantastically sensitive rulers that can probe the smallest unit of space-time which brings the microscopic quantum structure of the Universe within reach of current experiments.

Now GEO 600 has detected unexplained noise in the signal it’s actually designed to detect. This noise matches the loss of resolution prediction of what one would be expected to detect if the Universe were but a holographic image viewed at extreme resolution, resolution GEO 600 is capable of. Interestingly, the prediction of this ‘holographic noise’ was made by Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, and director of the Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics. When Hogan first realized this, he wondered if any experiment might be able to detect the holographic blurriness of space-time. That's where the GEO 600 comes in. GEO 600 has come across the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time ceases behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into ‘grains’, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in.

According to Hogan, "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram." "If you lived inside a hologram, you could tell by measuring the blurring," Hogan says.

The initial match between what holographic theory suggests, and actual observation, while interesting, is still tentative enough that no one is yet claiming absolutely that GEO600 has found 100% proof positive evidence that we live in a holographic universe. It is still way too far too soon to say absolutely. A mundane source of the noise is still a very real possibility. However, further investigations are planned, so stay tuned!

CONCLUSION: I can take neither credit nor blame for such an idea as that given above. You’ll find it in many relatively recent physics, astrophysics and cosmology books and articles, often as a subject in its own right – see the further readings section. The concept of our Universe as a hologram is certainly one of those ‘far out, star scout’ ideas, but all it takes is a bit of thinking outside of the box – not that that makes the idea right. But, it’s a concept worth playing around with, just for fun if nothing else.

Further readings:

Amoroso, Richard L. & Rauscher, Elizabeth A.; The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse: Formalizing the Complex Geometry of Reality; World Scientific Publishing Company, Hackensack, New Jersey; 2009:

Bekenstein, Jacob D.; ‘Information in the holographic universe: theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram’; Scientific American, August 2003; page 59:

Cardiff University; ‘Holographic Universe: discovery could herald new era in fundamental physics’; Science Daily, 4 February 2009: [GEO 600 observations]

Chown, Marcus; ‘Our world may be a giant hologram’; New Scientist, January 15, 2009: [GEO 600 observations]

Grote, H. (for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration); ‘The status of GEO 600’; Classical and Quantum Gravity; Volume 25, Number 11, 7 June 2008; page 114043:

Hogan, Craig J.; ‘Measurement of quantum fluctuations in geometry’; Physical Review D; Volume 77, Number 10, 2008; page 104031: 

Lindesay, James & Susskind, Leonard; An Introduction to Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe; World Scientific Publishing Company; Hackensack, New Jersey; 2004:

Talbot, Michael; The Holographic Universe; Harper Perennial, New York; 1992:

Vienna University of Technology; ‘How many dimensions in the holographic universe’; Science Daily, 9 February 2009:

Vitini, Leonardo; ‘Reality: a mere illusion (part 1); The Epoch Times; 13 December 2009:

Vitini, Leonardo; ‘Reality: a mere illusion (part 2)’; The Epoch Times; 20 December 2009:

Wilber, Ken (Editor); The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes;

Shambhala Publications, Boston, Mass.; 1982:

*Time is, IMHO, an illusion. Time has no real independent existence – it can’t stand by itself. If you removed all the matter and energy from the Universe, would there be left anything we could address as time? Time is just our way of keeping track of, and measuring rate of change in matter and/or energy. If nothing ever changed it would be nonsense to talk about time. The flow of time; the arrow of time; is just the flow of macro things changing. If everything were somehow ‘frozen in time’ – like a single frame from a film – there is no actual time that can be discussed or measured. So we don’t in any sense measure something that is time, we measure rate of change and call that time.

Actually you measure rate of change by another rate of change. For example, the rate of change from birth to death is usually measured by the rate of change in position of the Earth orbiting the Sun (years and fractions of years) and rate of change of position of the Earth rotating around on its axis (days and fractions of days). Another example: The rate of change between the beginning of your lunch hour and the ending of your lunch hour is usually measured by the rate of change of the hands of a clock (sixty 360 degree sweeps of the minute hand or a 30 degrees clockwise change in the hour hand) or the rate of change in the numbers on your digital watch, say from 1:00 to 2:00. Translated, a variable or uncertain rate of change (lifespan; length of a lunch ‘hour’) is usually measured by a standard, invariable, predictable rate of change.

Now rate of change is affected by gravity or mass – the greater the mass the greater the gravity and the slower things change from A to B, but that slowness is only relative to someone else also measuring A to B but who is in lesser gravitational field. Rate of change is also affected by velocity. The faster you go, the slower things change from A to B, again however it’s relative to someone else also measuring A to B but who is moving at a lower velocity relative to you. That’s why it’s the theory of relativity!

The Holographic Universe and You: Part Two

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

EXAMPLES:  I don’t know what, academically at least, is so odd, or hard to understand about, the idea of ‘Universe as hologram’. Holograms are now a familiar part of our society and our technology.

As an aside, regardless whether or not our apparent 3-D Universe is hologram, is there anything, any phenomena here on Planet Earth that can be interpreted as a hologram? Well I suppose a rainbow might qualify except it doesn’t appear very 3-D like. Mirages come to mind. The one other thing that immediately springs to mind, are ghosts (and all manner of associated ghostly images). I’ve often wondered how it could be that ghosts can apparently walk through walls, but never seem to sink through the floor! Of course if they were some sort of mirage-like hologram that might explain that. But that’s getting off topic.    

Anyway, that aside, many ancient civilizations often viewed the sky as 2-D, a sky composed of celestial crystalline spheres that surrounded their world and on the 2-D surfaces of those spheres were embedded the various celestial orbs that rotated around the Earth because the spheres rotated around the Earth.

Some what similar, albeit more current, most people have attended planetarium sessions (themselves an example of simulated reality and pseudo time travel) which project celestial objects onto a 2-D hemisphere above the audience’s heads – now just add holographic technology for a greater illusion of depth.

Artistic paintings are normally 2-D, but good artists provide the illusion of perspective, of depth, to give the impression that you’re looking at 3-D.

Our TV and computer monitors give a 2-D image, as does the big version – the silver screen. Yet you have no trouble interpreting the images as 3-D.

You can see your reflection, and things in the background, in a pane of glass, while at the same time seeing things that are outside that window pane. The window pane, a 2-D surface, is sort of like a hologram – you’re seeing a 3-D picture while looking at a 2-D surface.

If you could ask the characters in an interactive video game or those in your dreams if they are 3-D or 2-D and interact within a 3-D or 2-D (simulated) environment, they’d say ‘3-D’ – but you know better! The characters in your dream don’t walk the 3-D landscape from say the front of your brain to the rear of your brain for the duration. No, the dream drama is played out on the 2-D screen within your mind. They’d also no doubt tell you that they were acting on their own accord (they would insist they had free will) – but again, you’d know better. Your mind is controlling them and their actions. Now you however would also insist that you exist as a 3-D individual within a 3-D Universe and that you have free will. But does that make it so? Go back again and talk to your video or dream characters!

Or, thinking a farther into the future, there’s those “Star Trek” holodecks or holosuites. It isn’t too difficult that idea coming to fruition in the not all that distant future. Maybe not in your lifetime, but not many millennium away either. 

Speaking of holograms in the cinema, take a ride back in time to that hologram of Princess Leia and her plea for help, all witnessed by Luke Skywalker, and started the plot ball rolling for that very first “Star Wars” film.  Holograms are now taken for granted in many sci-fi features. They were fairly common for example in the “Stargate: SG-1” TV series.

But back to the here and now and in reality, on most credit cards, sometimes as an part of monetary banknotes (as an anti-counterfeiting security measure), sometimes used as a DVD cover, and a lot of other things (greeting cards, etc.) as well, you have the hologram, which again is basically an illusionary appearing 3-D image arising from a special technologically adapted or treated 2-D surface. Various manipulations using lasers also are used to generate illusionary 3-D holographic images. Now apply these now well known holographic technologies – those principles – to the Universe as a whole. If you wish to think of a hologram Universe this way, just imagine super-sizing your “Star Trek” holodeck up to the scale of an entire Universe. But you first have to start with Black Holes.

THE PHYSICS OF IT ALL: It’s suggested that information going into a Black Hole is actually ‘stored’ in the Event Horizon, that two dimensional (2-D) ‘surface’ marking the point of no return that surrounds the Black Hole’s Singularity – whatever that actually is. The Event Horizon concept isn’t difficult to envision – Earth’s crust/oceans is a 2-D surface surrounding the spherical 3-D planet.

Now as more and more stuff enters a Black Hole, the Event Horizon expands accordingly – obviously - just like our crust (area) would get bigger if Earth’s volume increased. The Event Horizon is also the area where Hawking radiation is emitted from. The interesting bit is that information ‘stored’ in 2-D form that is a representation of 3-D information, has a name – we call that form a hologram!

Now say you are inside a Black Hole’s Event Horizon – that’s the wrong side to be on, but this is just a thought experiment. There’s lots of trapped radiation (photons) in there with you. Those photons can struggle up, losing energy with each unit of distance gained, to reach the Event Horizon, but no farther. Their energy has exhausted itself. I gather they can just barely touch and ‘reflect’ off the underside of the Event Horizon and come back down again (in a direction towards the Singularity), picking up the energy again that they expended in their futile gesture of escape. So, you, being also beneath the Event Horizon can see the Event Horizon from the inside via these trapped photons. You can also see beyond the Event Horizon via new photons entering the Black Hole from outside the Event Horizon – photons that will join their trapped or prisoner kin. This is a situation akin – as noted in the ‘examples’ section - to seeing your reflection, and things in the background, in a pane of glass, while at the same time seeing things that are outside that window pane. The window pane, a 2-D surface, is sort of like a hologram – you’re seeing a 3-D picture by looking at a 2-D surface.

Now one could (and people have) suggested that one could consider the entire Universe as being the inside of a Black Hole – after all, nothing can escape from the Universe. You’re as trapped inside our Universe as you would be living on the inside of a traditionally thought of Black Hole. Like a Black Hole, or our Earth, our Universe has a crust or a surface or boundary or an horizon – a rose by any other name…

You can see where this is going! The upshot is that our apparent information rich 3-D environment is actually information somehow stored on the Universe’s 2-D boundary or horizon. In short, the Universe is a hologram.

Anyway, our Universe doesn’t exactly mirror a real Black Hole unless there is an outside to our Universe – a beyond the boundary or horizon that allows stuff to get into our Universe, ultimately trapping it. That actually would be a Universe more akin to the window pane analogy. But even if there is no beyond the boundary of our Universe, our Universe can still be thought of as a hologram – it applies in either case, just like an Event Horizon is a hologram to mythical inhabitants inside a Black Hole.

So, Black Holes residing inside a Black Hole Universe, which maybe residing inside…

Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls.

As an aside, the Universe as hologram scenario doesn’t invalidate the expanding Universe scenario, as one can have an expanding area as opposed to an expanding volume.

To be continued...

The Holographic Universe and You: Part One

INTRODUCTION: If the Universe is actually a hologram (a 3-D image residing on a 2-D surface), and we’re part of the Universe, then we too are but part of a holographic 3-D image on a 2-D surface! If you are a 3-D hologram, then your brain too is a hologram. Perhaps some of the properties of holograms might be relevant in explaining some of the neurological mysteries of that wetware brain thingy of yours – like memory.  You might think it intuitive that a volume could contain more bits of information than the area that surrounds that volume. But a 2-D (area) can store all the information of the 3-D (volume) it represents. Think of it this way, the contents of your immediate 3-D surroundings can not fit into your brain. That 3-D image is being viewed instead on a little 2-D TV screen inside your head. That’s a considerable savings – a compression of information from a large volume to a small area. Our human brain can store lots and lots and lots of bits and pieces (like perceptions and memories) in a relatively little space. It has been scientifically guesstimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information all inputted during the average human lifetime – that’s a lot of bits. Similarly, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage. It’s been shown that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information. So, our amazing ability to rapidly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles.

So if 2-D is reality and 3-D is illusion then that has various implications for life, the Universe and everything. So climb aboard this magical carpet ride; this magical mystery tour into the holographic Universe and the holographic you. Let the game begin.

OPENING REMARKS: For starters, you are not inside the Universe, be it a really 3-D or just a holographic 3-D Universe. The Universe is inside you. The Universe is inside you since the ‘reality’ of everything external to you (i.e. – the Universe), is ultimately transmitted to you (to your mind) via your five senses. The Universe or your Universe is therefore only perceived and interpreted by and within your mind – via your brain’s biochemistry. But that brain thingy of yours isn’t big enough to house anything larger than it is – as noted above. Since your mind doesn’t have the room to incorporate the reality of the entire Universe within it, the apparent and alleged 3-D aspect of it is reduced (compressed) to 2-D by your brain projecting it onto an internal mental screen as it were, a screen that exists solely within your mind. Any 3-D image (that’s what you see) that resides on a 2-D surface (the screen within your mind) is just a hologram by any other name.  

But wait; in addition to the Universe existing within you, you must also exist within the Universe! That’s because the Universe provides you with all those essentials you need to keep that brain thingy alive and ticking and perceiving. These essentials include such things as food and water and oxygen and gravity and a reasonable temperature range, etc. This is no chicken and egg puzzle since in order for you to house the Universe within your mind; the Universe had to exist to give you existence.

So, we have a real duality going here!

Actually one might argue that one doesn’t need a real Universe, 2-D, 3-D or otherwise at all – you in it and/or it in you. You’re mind can by itself provide all the rich, if imaginary, details needed to keep you occupied and amused. You don’t need any input from your five senses, from the outside world, to conjure up some sort of picture(s) on that 2-D silver screen within your brain. It’s what’s known as an active imagination which operates awake or asleep. Trouble is, the odds are good that imaginary food, water, oxygen, room temperatures, etc. won’t sustain your be-all-and-end-all mind for very long. But then again, if your mind is the be-all-and-end-all of all things, maybe it doesn’t need anything else since there isn’t anything else! Let’s assume that’s not a viable option.

So we have to have a real Universe. The question is, is it actually 3-D or an illusionary 3-D?

DIMENSIONALITY: We go through our entire lives absolutely convinced we exist in a 4-D Universe. 4-D is also known collectively as ‘space-time’ after Einstein merged the concepts of 1-D time and 3-D space with his theories of relativity (general and special). You need a total of four space-time dimensions to specify where you are. There’s the 3-D of space (longitude, latitude and altitude), plus the 1-D of what time is it? It makes a great big difference to your plans whether it’s 10 am or 10 pm; the 13^th or the 14^th; March or April; 2010 or 2011. But is it really so? With respect to the 3-D of space, there’s left – right; up – down; and forward – back. Time however is only one way and therefore time is somehow different, but that’s another topic entirely*.

Leaving time out of the picture, it’s relatively easy to imagine less than the 3-D of space. 0-D is a point; 1-D is a line (length); 2-D is a square (area); and our familiar 3-D is a cube (volume).

It’s harder to imagine more than 3-D (again, leaving time out of the matrix) although the maths is straight forward enough. The highly theoretical ‘string theory’ or ‘superstring theory’ or ‘M-Theory’ has to invoke a 9-D to 10-D Universe (plus the extra 1-D for time) in order for it to make any sense. Needless to say, it’s remained theoretical-only for decades now! There’s zip, zero, zilch evidence for a more than a tri-dimensional (3-D) Universe (plus the extra 1-D for time).

Rather than invoke more than 3-D; can we postulate our existence in fewer dimensions? Well 0-D is absolutely ridiculous; 1-D isn’t any better. Can we contemplate a 2-D existence - in a 2-D Universe? We’re of course familiar with many 2-D facets in our world.

To be continued...