The Four Dimensions

of movement, dualities and consciousness

We experience ourselves as three dimensional creatures enclosed in, moving through, and experiencing the spaces around us and all that it contains. Imagine, if the only thing that existed in the entirety of the universe was your thoughts without ever experiencing anything other than the thought of you being you...just a conscious awareness of you. No body, brain, senses or anything external to your thoughts of you. I would like to propose a perceptual shift. What if everything that is external to you...all that is not you holds more significance than “you” being “you"? How we define ourselves is the result of experiencing all that is not us...our relationship to our spaces, whether empty or full...sitting in deep meditation, talking with a friend or diving off a cliff. Yet, you may be surprised, or not, that as conscious beings experiencing both ourselves, and that which is not, are evolving or integrating into 4th dimensional awareness' of consciousness that turns our current preceptions of time and space on its ear. Discussed below is a very simple and fundamental reality about the four dimensions, which few people consider. The only thing that actually exist dimensionally from 0 to the 4th dimension is movement, dualities and the evolving consciousness. To say it another way, we are three dimensional creatures evolving into 4th dimensional consciousness.

 

When we think of dimensions, we may think of a point, line, square, cube and possibly for the adventurous, the tesseract. But, take a moment and think of an actual point, line or square that is found in nature. I want to bring something to your attention concerning dimensions as they are templates to help with identifying relationships and progression of complexities in the subatomic, physical and conscious worlds. Yet, the lower dimensions do not physically exist in nature. In reality, in the universe, the only thing that actually exist is the 3rd dimension, space (the 4th dimension) and time (which is a manifestation or characteristic of existence, of movement within the 4th). The 0, 1st and 2nd dimensions do not physically exist. If it exist in nature, it occupies space. If it occupies space, it is three dimensional. Anything and everything that exist in our natural world is three dimensional enclosed in space, the 4th dimension. Even a photon, which is pure energy with no mass (i.e., weightless), occupies three dimensional space. So, what can we say about the lower dimensions? The lower dimensions are, however, representations or characteristics of various relationships or aspects of nature (3rd dimension and space, the 4th dimension) and yes, consciousness. We can relate them to the face of an object or surface area (2nd dimension), the edge of an object or the distance between objects (1st dimension), or possibly a point on an object or a location somewhere out in space (0 dimension).

 

Note: the tesseract, a hypercube, is a fun creative, but failed attempt at representing a perceived 4th dimensional object by extending the constraints or parameters of representations of dimensional geometric models into 4th dimensional geometry. It is basically building on one common way of defining dimensions...you can extend a point to create a line; extend a line and you get a square, and from a square you get a cube. From there, they have tried to find a way to visualize extending the cube. Another concept is relating the cube to movement through time as 4th dimensional qualities are based on space-time. The tesseract, however, is just a very flexible cube. Teaser: there is a geometric relationship of the 4th dimension that the tesseract kind of approximates and it’s probably something you wouldn’t expect, but makes perfect sense.

 

Where do we see dimensions play out beyond merely a representation or characteristic? What does exist dimensionally in nature is movement and from movement we get dualities...and within dualities lie the potential for more complex movement, which results in potentially deeper and deeper connections with our world.

 

A point divides a line into the 1st duality of superior (top/cranial) vs inferior (bottom/caudal);

A line divides a square by building on the 1st dimension/duality for the 2nd duality of left vs right;

A square divides a cube by building on the 2nd dimension/duality for the 3rd duality of anterior vs. posterior;

And, the cube experiences the ultimate duality of space-time by building on the 3rd dimension for the 4th duality of internal vs external to the cube with the corresponding duality of past vs future for time.

 

The Evolving Life of a Point

 

There it is, a point...just sitting there...vibrating. Its world is only as big as its movements, as that is all it experiences. Yet, it senses something outside of its reality, outside of being just a point...outside of its “self”...an integration...a movement up and down?

 

It tries to comprehend the abstraction of what it is that goes in two directions when all it can do is vibrate as that is all it has ever known. As it learns to move up and down the line...as it integrates into, or becomes a line, it begins to sense something else outside of its reality, once again. It “wiggles” and soon begins experiencing an expansive side-to-side movement as it begins moving and integrating into a square. With integration into a square, it too senses something outside itself. As it begins to “wobble”, it experiences an even greater expansion of movement as it integrates the forward and backward movement of a cube, and with this, it can now explore all directions of its space.

 

Now, the cube is faced with the ultimate abstraction as it, once again and for the last time, senses movement outside itself. It first notices a vibration that seems to slowly coalesce into a movement of contraction and expansion with integration in all directions. With this, it begins to feel an expansiveness that makes it difficult to maintain “being” a cube. At this point it has a choice...to maintain itself, through the uncomfortable effort of contraction...through focus on "self", or to evolve into the next geometric progression (of expansion).

 

What is that next geometric progression that we are evolving into?

 

Life has ultimately evolved from random, non-integrated, non-committed movement at the quantum level (chaotic, 0 dimension, random points) to our fully organized being capable of movement along three axis’ or planes of movement as seen with gait development (the evolutionary development of animal locomotion as reflected in children learning to walk covered in the next section), to an integration of the three axis’ of movements resulting in coordinated expansion and contraction in all directions as seen in breathing. Movement creates duality and dualities create at the very least, a potential for more complex movement. Movement and dualities are the primary nature of dimensions and it is through movement that dimensions (and dualities) actually exist. Consciousness, however, is not material. It has no “physicalness”. Though, it does require matter (the CNS) to be present in the physical world. However, human consciousness is not limited to the strict three dimensional parameters of the physical world. Consciousness is, at its most integrated evolutionary form, 4th dimensional.

 

Continue...Chaos with a Purpose