A chapter from "The Nature of Ultimate Reality" by David M. Petersen
Picture a vast sphere of energy expanding from an infinitesimally small point outward, smoothly reaching a very large limit and just as smoothly contracting back to an infinitesimally small point.
Imagine that within the expanding and contracting sphere are spun myriad designs (you are a design) and 'self-designs' (advanced conscious entities in control of their own evolution) that are continuously changing and flowing into one another progressively, with self-designs ultimately spanning more and more energy of the sphere and becoming more and more unified in the contraction phase. All moving from what we call the beginning of time to the end and on through to the beginning; this point between the beginning and ending of time being a sort of 'node through nothing.'
Now imagine all phases, if it where quantified, of this expanding and contracting flow of energy and everything within it existing simultaneously as one smooth completely interconnected four dimensional structure, effectively existing both as interconnected (on an incredibly small size level all 'pieces' are connected to all other pieces) and changing energy in three dimensions and as different energy in four dimensions.
This seemingly paradoxical state follows from this theory, and is a 'duality' similar to the so called 'wave/particle' duality in physics. One way to resolve this apparent paradox is if one imagines the entire three dimensional changing energy of the universe (past, present, and future) as a series of events that are just slightly logically 'weighted' towards moving in the direction of the future (hence causality), but that happen so fast it is incredibly close to simultaneous. In other words, the conceptual line between the universe being a series of events and a static eternal entity is blurred, so it is effectively both. We must fight to imagine how this scenario can be true, because when doing so, we are pushing up against the limits of our conscious ability (which must be done).
I truly believe that this image in your mind, however imperfect, is approaching a small-scale model of our universe.
See yourself for what you are, as one of these designs within the sphere at a point during the 'expansion,' and picture the vast four dimensional 'sphere' through you and around you.
Correlating works, ideas, or systems:
Hermann
Minkowski's Four Dimensional Space
(physics describing a simultaneous universe, or block time)
Steven Hawking's 'Imaginary Time' Theory
(some physics beginning to describe block time in a closed universe)
John
Bell's Interconnectedness Theorem
(all quantum mechanical systems ((everything)) are 'phase entangled' with each
other
The fact that we know we exist in the universe and are evolving
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