String Theory and the Human Mind
Written September
14, 1999
Appended June 23, 2000
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Abstract The concept of higher dimensions beyond our three-dimensional world is an integral part of string or M theory in the discipline of physics. Sub-atomic particles are material objects in eleven dimensions according to this theory. Large objects are composed of atoms and therefore also have as many as eleven dimensions. This applies to human beings as well and has a direct bearing upon the functioning of the human spirit and mind in relation to the functioning brain. This paper examines some of these possibilities. |
1. Introduction
In 1994 I read the fascinating book Hyperspace by Michio Kaku and five years later I read the eloquent book The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Both books describe in detail the higher dimensions transcendent to our familiar three-dimensional world and universe. They describe these dimensions in terms of the new physics of string theory. This theory in brief says that instead of the basic particles of matter being point-like objects, they are very tiny vibrating strings and while occupying their place in the three-dimensional world, they are not confined to the three dimensions of space with which we are familiar. These strings, or possibly membranes (p-branes for short), also exist and vibrate in the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension and even in yet higher dimensions through the eleventh dimension.
Books of this sort are setting the tone of scientific development for the twenty-first century and the third millennium. Physicists have been searching for a theory of everything (TOE) especially during the last half of this twentieth century, but were having difficulty in uniting the force of gravity with the other three basic forces — electromagnetic, the weak force and the strong force. String theory appears capable of uniting the force of gravity to these three other forces, but it has not been enthusiastically accepted by the physics profession probably because of the higher dimensions. The theory in these higher dimensions cannot be tested experimentally in the laboratory because we are locked into the current moment of the spacetime continuum and cannot get out of it. Hence, physicists cannot devise and construct instruments that have larger dimensions than three nor can their three-dimensional instruments probe into the higher dimensions. The current moment, as soon as it is replaced by the next current moment, is out of our reach; we cannot regain it.
But that is not to say that the fourth and higher dimensions is beyond the reasoning power of the human mind. The great theories of relativity by Albert Einstein were not developed in the laboratory with experimental equipment, but with a blackboard and a piece of chalk guided by his great reasoning mind. After the theory of quantum mechanics was developed by Schroedinger and Heisenberg in the 1920s, which could be proved in the laboratory using three-dimensional instruments, Einstein became a lonely man. He did not accept the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics and that largely isolated him from the physics community. Einstein died in 1955, but, as told by Brian Greene, thirteen years later, in 1968, Gabriele Veneziano a young research fellow at CERN, the European accelerator laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, caught a glimpse of what in the 1970s became known as the string theory, but he and others at that time encountered serious problems. This caused a very large segment of the physics community to abandon all hope for string theory, but John Schwarz of the California Institute of Technology and a few other researchers felt that the mathematics of string theory was so beautiful they kept it alive.
Brian Greene, early in his book says:
The central concern of this book is to explain the workings of the universe according to string theory, with primary emphasis on the implications that these results have for our understanding of space and time. Unlike many other exposes of scientific development, the one given here does not address itself to a theory that has been completely worked out, confirmed by vigorous experimental tests, and fully accepted by the scientific community. The reason for this... is that string theory is such a deep and sophisticated theoretical structure that even with the impressive progress that has been made over the last two decades, we still have far to go before we can claim to have achieved full mastery.
String theory gained an enthusiastic supporter in 1984 when Edward Witten heard a watershed paper by John Schwarz and Michael Green of England, and from then on it has slowly been accepted by a growing number of younger physicists who have not become anchored in the uncertainty of quantum mechanics.
2. Spacetime Curvature
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity called for a universe whose size was changing rather than static as had been believed for thousands of years. This was a dramatic change for thinking humanity and even for Einstein himself. He thought that an additional factor in his equations was necessary to deal with a static universe and developed a factor which became known as the “cosmological constant.” About twelve years after he had published his General Theory, Edwin Hubble established experimentally the fact that the universe was expanding at great speed by the red shift in the spectrum of certain metals in the distant galaxies. After Einstein saw this proof, he removed this fake term from his equations and called the “cosmological constant” the greatest blunder of his life. The space between galaxies and clusters of galaxies was increasing at a rapid pace because of their great distances from one another. The space within our solar system is proportionately increasing but much less rapidly because it is such a small dot in the whole universe.
Einstein's general theory of relativity called for the gravitational factor to cause the curvature of the fourth dimension of spacetime. The gravitation of the sun should cause spacetime to curve around it. About four years later there was to be a total eclipse of the sun on May 29, 1919. This would be an opportunity to see if Einstein was correct. The gravitation of the sun and the bending of spacetime around it should bend the rays from distant stars that would pass close to the sun and which could be photographed during the total eclipse. Two expeditions were organized under the direction of Arthur Eddington to make such photographs, one to the island of Principe off the coast of West Africa and the other in Sobral, Brazil. An article in the Wall Street Journal on August 11, 1999, the day of a total eclipse running from just east of Canada through Western Europe and on to India, says that the pictures of 1919, were not very good, some showing a lesser angle of distortion predicted by Einstein and others showing a greater distortion, but on the average the computed angle was about what Einstein had predicted and it was assumed that this experiment was a success and confirmed the general theory of relativity. An alternate concept than the gravitation of the sun curving space, might be that the rays of light from those distant stars that passed close to the sun might possibly have been bent as the rays of our sun are bent as they enter the earth's atmosphere to produce the blue sky away from the sun and the red sunrises and sunsets. The rays passing close to the sun passed through the corona or very close to it and could have been bent as light always travels at a slower pace through materials of greater density. One can see this effect in holding a straight rod in a bowl of water at an angle to the surface or the oars of a rowboat in clear water. Nevertheless, Einstein's general theory of relativity was “proved” by Eddington's expeditions and accepted by science as an authentic theory, but is the fourth dimension of spacetime really curved by gravational forces?
The whole universe has been likened to a toy balloon that is being inflated. If it had some small dots painted on it, the dots would become further and further apart as the balloon was inflated and even the dots themselves would become larger. This was the general concept that Hubble set forth, but we must remember that the surface of the toy balloon is a two-dimensional curved surface but the universe which is expanding in like manner is three-dimensional. We can't imagine the appearance of a three-dimensional curved space in the same manner as we know the two-dimensional curved surface of the toy balloon, but we can hold it in our imagination — thanks to a concept of the mind of man which will be discussed later in this paper.
If the universe is expanding and has been expanding for billions of years, as accepted now by science, we might imagine in our minds' eye a reversal of that expansion into a contracting universe. If we so imagine that time ran backward for the billions of years that it has been expanding, the universe would diminish to a mere point of extreme concentration. That the universe at its beginning was such a point of extreme concentration was suggested by science, and indeed confirmed, in the accidental discovery by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Laboratories in 1965 of the residual radiation that continues to prevail in the universe.
That small speck of infinite concentration, a singularity, started the universe as we know it today. The center of a black hole is also a singularity which draws all matter, in relative proximity surrounding it, into itself, even the photon particles of light. This original singularity, unlike the black hole, exploded. It must have been a different kind of singularity than is found at the center of a black hole. It must have been a four-dimensional singularity that incorporated the fourth dimension of time within it. It might have been this element of time that “exploded,” and that “dot of a universe” has been expanding for the past fifteen billion years or so. Hence, the “surface” of this expanding universe is three-dimensional and not the two-dimensional surface of the balloon in the above metaphorical illustration. Similar to that two-dimensional surface, however, our expanding universe has curvature as well, but we have great difficulty in conceiving how the three-dimensional universe is curved. Nevertheless, for thousands of years, people thought that the earth was flat because they occupied such a small portion of it, and we occupy such a small part of the universe. The Einstein theories of relativity suggest that the expanding universe is curved. We must take it on the same kind of faith that Columbus had.
The arrow of time, then, would be a fourth dimensional arrow that is constantly progressing along this radius of the ever expanding universe, and it, like a very rapidly moving motion picture is moving in very small jumps, probably in terms of the Planck constant which is 10-43 of a second . The very first interval when the progression of time began, that worries some physicists, could have been when an infinite amount of energy was being converted into matter in accordance with the well-known Einstein equation E = MC2.
3. String Theory
I will not attempt to describe the details of string theory in this paper. Brian Greene has already done that so adroitly in his eloquent book The Elegant Universe and I refer you to that book to fill in the details. Nevertheless, the gist of string theory is that sub-sub-atomic particles are extremely small vibrating one-dimensional strings rather than being “dead” zero-dimensional points of matter. These strings vibrate in a somewhat similar manner to the strings of a musical instrument and the different “tones” of these very small strings determine the character of the various particles. But, these strings are not confined to the three-dimensional universe. With the passage of time in the fourth dimension, they trace a two-dimensional plane in the four-dimensional spacetime continuum. The ends of these strings may come together to form a loop and these loops form a two-dimensional tube in the spacetime continuum in a somewhat similar manner to a flat piece of paper being rolled into a tube formation. Therefore, string theory says that these tiny strings, composing all matter in the universe, including you and me, is at least four-dimensional matter, not merely three-dimensional as we have come to know it.
I hear you exclaim, “We are four-dimensional beings?! That is ridiculous! I am only a three-dimensional being, and certainly not four-dimensional, and I can see you; you are only three-dimensional!” Hold on; don't become so excited when I suggest that we are all four-dimensional beings. All of us are living in time, in the spacetime continuum which is the fourth dimension, but we appear to be locked into the current moment of time and cannot get out of it. We cannot go back in time to previous moments, but they may not have been destroyed just because we no longer have access to them. Therefore, our three-dimensional bodies that have existed in time are probably still present in the spacetime continuum and what we know as our three dimensional bodies are only a cross section, the current moment of time, of our four-dimensional bodies.
3.1 An explanation seems appropriate here
Let us back up and tell the story of dimensions a bit differently.
Over one hundred years ago there lived in London, England, the headmaster of a preparatory school. His name was Edwin Abbott. He had studied mathematics and theology at Cambridge University. He wrote an intriguing little book called Flatland. It is a story of a two-dimensional civilization with the people represented by geometrical figures. Isosceles triangles with very narrow bases were the members of the lowest working class. As the base became larger, they advanced in their society. Squares were middle class people and circles were the priesthood and royalty. A Mr. Square was sitting in his living room one evening, the doors of the house were locked and the other members of his family had gone to bed. He was contemplating whether or not there was anything beyond his two-dimensional world when suddenly a circle appeared before him in the middle of his living room. It was a strange circle, however, because it could get larger and smaller and at times completely disappear and then reappear. The circle engaged Mr. Square in conversation and said that he appeared to Mr. Square as a circle but that he was really much more than a circle, he was a sphere from the three-dimensional world. Mr. Square could not comprehend three-dimensions in spite of the sphere telling him of the three-dimensional reality. Finally the sphere grabbed him by the hand and literally dragged him out of his two-dimensional universe into the three-dimensional world. It was a traumatic situation for Mr. Square, but he gradually became acquainted and remarked that he could seen the inside of all of his neighbors houses and that he could even see the inside of his neighbors themselves. After a while, when Mr. Square had become accustomed to the three-dimensional world, he asked the sphere to show him his insides by taking him into the fourth dimension. The sphere thereupon replied that Mr. Square had become crazy, that there were no higher dimensions beyond the three-dimensional world. Mr. Square then dejectedly returned to his two-dimensional world and tried to tell his friends of his three-dimensional-world experience. His friends insisted that there was nothing beyond their two-dimensional world. They thought that Mr. Square had become insane and therefore had him locked into an asylum for the remainder of his life.
I hope that you, the reader of this paper, will not be like the residents of the two-dimensional world or, more importantly, like the sphere, a resident of our three-dimensional world who said there was no higher dimension beyond his three-dimensional world.
I tell the gist of this story to show that the second dimension is an integral part of the third dimension and that the third dimension is perpendicular to the second dimension. In like manner, the second dimension is perpendicular to the first dimension, a line, and the first dimension is “perpendicular” to the zero dimension, a point of no dimensions. We can carry in our mind's eye this progression from the third dimension into the higher dimensions. The third dimension is an integral part of the fourth dimension of spacetime which is “perpendicular” to our three-dimensional world. I put that word, perpendicular, in quotation marks because we cannot imagine that anything could be perpendicular to our three dimensions which in turn the third dimension is perpendicular to each of the lower dimensions. The residents of Flatland could not see how anything could be perpendicular to their two-dimensional world, and thought Mr. Square was crazy in having had an experience in the third dimension, which in their opinion did not exist.
4. Beyond our three-dimensional world
Returning to the last paragraph in Section 2, if the expansion of the universe that Edwin Hubble discovered, our three-dimensional universe, is expanding in the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension, we, in our minds' eye, might think of our universe as being the curved, or spherical, two-dimensional surface of a globe and the four-dimensional arrow of time progressing along the radius of that expanding globe. At any relatively small area on that globe, the radius is perpendicular to that area. Therefore, time is perpendicular to our three dimensional universe, and our universe is merely a cross section of the spacetime continuum. We can't even imagine how the fourth dimension of spacetime can be perpendicular to the three coordinates of out three-dimensional world, but by analogy to a globe, we can assume that the arrow of time really is perpendicular to our universe.
What has just been said about the size of the higher dimensions does not agree with some of the best thinking about string theory. I again turn to Brian Greene when he says on pages 203 and 204:
...The calculation underlying the conclusion that there are ten space dimensions — nine space and one time — turns out to be approximate. In the mid-1990s, Witten, based on his own insights and previous work by Michael Duff from Texas A&M University and Chris Hull and Paul Townsend from Cambridge University, gave convincing evidence that the approximate calculations actually misses one space dimension: String theory, he argued to most string theorists' amazement, actually requires ten space dimensions and one time dimension, for a total of eleven dimensions. We will ignore this important result until Chapter 12, as it will have little direct bearing on the material we develop before then.
If the equations of string theory (or, more precisely, the approximate equations guiding our pre-Chapter 12 discussion) show that the universe has nine space dimensions and one time dimension, why is it that three space (and one time) dimensions are large and extended while all of the others are tiny and curled up? Why aren't they all extended, or all curled up, or some other possibility in between? At present no one knows the answer to this question. If string theory is right, we should eventually be able to extract the answer, but as yet our understanding of the theory is not refined enough to reach this goal. That is not to say that there haven't been valiant attempts to explain it... In what follows, we will assume that all but three space dimensions are curled up, in accordance with with what we see around us. A primary goal of modern research is to establish that this assumption emerges from the theory itself.
4.1 The relative size and substance of higher dimensions
I cannot argue with the brilliance of Brian Green or any of the physicists doing research on string theory, but I do wish respectfully to suggest that there is an aspect of mathematics that appears helpful in comprehending a vision in our minds' eye of the higher dimensions beyond our three-dimensional world.
If we have some difficulty in imagining the fourth dimension of spacetime, the still higher dimensions are even more remote and we cannot even begin to imagine their appearance. There was a mathematical proof, however, concerning the volume and “surface area” of a unit sphere in progressively higher dimensions published in the July 1981 SIAM Review, the Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. This mathematical proof shows that the volume of a unit sphere reached the maximum at the fifth dimension and the “surface area” reached its maximum at the seventh dimension. In even higher dimensional spheres, both the volume and “surface area” diminished asymptotically toward zero at around the twenty-sixth dimension.
An editorial note in this SIAM Review article says, “R. P. Boas (Northwestern University) notes that he recalls seeing a graph of V n vs. n, showing the maximum, in a book when he was an undergraduate, with the comment, 'This is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the wonderland of higher space.' Unfortunately, he does not recall the book.” My mathematician son, James T. Witherspoon, D.Sc., however, did produce the following graph for me, using the equations of this article. It illustrates the solutions of this journal article:
This graph, plotted from one dimension to twenty-six dimensions, shows the volume of a unit sphere reaches its maximum in the fifth dimension and the surface reaches its maximum in the seventh dimension. Both the volume and the surface area approach zero asymptotically as the dimensions increase to the original twenty-six dimensions of string theory.
Of course, if the unit of the sphere is less than one, the volumes and surface areas would become progressively smaller. A cube might be smaller than one of its edges. On the other hand, if the unit is greater than one, the volumes and surface areas become progressively larger to infinity. Hence, the unit has to be defined, and possibly at the time of the big-bang that unit at the beginning of the expanding universe was the Planck constant, 10-43. Therefore, the expansion may be in increments of the Planck constant. That is, the passage of time might be in units of the Planck constant.
As one thinks of the lower dimensions with which we are so familiar — zero through three — the substance of each progressively higher dimension is the same; it merely becomes more and more solid, more real in our terms of thinking. That is to say, the corner of a cube, a point, is an object of zero dimensions. As that point moves along the edge of the cube tracing a one-dimensional object of infinite thinness, it is the same point and, therefore, the line is of the same substance as the point. As the line moves across the face of the cube, perpendicular to itself, it traces a two dimensional object of infinite thinness, but an object that we think we can see. It is, however, of the same substance as the zero and one-dimensional objects. Then, finally as the face of the cube moves perpendicular to itself, it traces the solid cube, a solid object of three dimensions.
Carry that sequence of steps from the zero dimension through the third dimension on to its logical conclusion. As each higher dimension is added, a more and more “solid” object might be pictured in our minds' eye, but the substance remains the same. The volume becomes larger through the fifth dimension, and the “solid” area of the surface becomes larger and larger through the seventh dimension, but the substance remains the same. This becomes very important to remember when we begin our exploration of the human being.
5. String Theory again in the fifth and higher dimensions
All of what has been presented thus far is a part of string theory and our expanding universe, albeit a very small part. Brian Greene and Michio Kaku in their respective books as well as Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, talk about the fifth dimension being curled into such a tight ball of only atomic proportions that we cannot see the fifth dimension. The reason that we cannot see the fifth dimension, I humbly suggest, is not that it is curled into such a tiny ball, but that we are locked into the third dimension of the current moment of time and cannot see any higher dimension. Indeed, as said before in this paper, we cannot see, or regain even the immediate past moment to say nothing of the yet higher dimensions.
On the other hand, according to the mathematics of a unit sphere in progressively higher dimensions, the fourth dimension of spacetime is larger than our three-dimensional world, and the fifth dimension is even larger than the fourth dimension. To understand that the fourth dimension is larger that the third dimension, we must realize that the spacetime continuum is composed of the physical reality of all moments of time from the big-bang onward, while our puny third dimension is only the current moment of time which passes into spacetime the instant after it occurs. It appears to me why the equations of string theory lead scientists to think that the fifth dimension is curled into a tiny ball of sub-atomic size is that these equations deal with only one string while matter, as we know it is made up of billions and trillions of strings.
Brian Greene in his book describes the possible “appearance” of objects in the fifth and higher dimensions on pages 207 and 208. He calls attention to what have become known as the Calabi-Yau spaces or shapes. This concept was developed prior to the concept of string theory by two mathematicians, Eugene Calabi from the University of Pennsylvania and Shing-Tung Yau from Harvard University. Greene has a two-dimensional drawing of a Calabi-Yau shape which, of course, is not adequate because we cannot conceive of what an object in the fourth dimension of spacetime looks like, to say nothing of the even higher dimensions.
Brian Greene appears to be be citing the Calabi-Yau shape to describe the fifth and higher dimensions of one sub-sub-atomic sized string and not the whole of the fifth and higher dimensions. There is a drawing on page 208 showing many Calabi-Yau shapes making up the whole universe. Therefore, saying, as many string-physicists do, that the fifth and higher dimensions are curled up into a tiny ball, if that tiny ball applies to only one string, does not contradict the graph shown above, nor Greene's drawing on page 208.
Furthermore, if the framework of the fifth and higher dimensions is not infinite in size but that matter in the fifth and higher dimensions is curled up into a tiny ball, then all of the universe must be concentrated in that tiny ball and the possibility of a singularity would develop. Hence, the dimensions of an object must be distinguished from the infinite dimensions themselves. It appears that the physicists of string theory have not yet made this distinction, but are content to deal with the mathematics of higher dimensional individual sub-sub-atomic objects rather than with the actual dimensions themselves, and that is proper. I have no contention with that manner in thinking about and dealing with string theory. To say, however, that the whole of the fifth and higher dimensions are curled up into a tiny ball the size of an atom and that is the reason that we cannot see the higher dimensions is apparently not good reasoning. This attitude, if correct, seems strange for a scientist. Therefore, I assume that they are concentrating only upon the fifth and higher dimensions of one string, and that they recognize that we cannot see even the immediate past moment of the fourth dimension of spacetime because we are locked into the current moment of spacetime.
Indeed, all dimensions are infinite in size, even the third dimension in which our expanding three-dimensional universe is embedded. That graph describes an object of higher dimensions and not the dimension itself. The concept of dimensions can be considered as a framework in which objects reside, and our three-dimensional expanding universe is occupying a larger and larger portion of the infinite third dimension.
[The following three paragraphs are appended to the September 1999 paper:]
The thinking among the experts of string theory, however, seems to be changing somewhat in regard to the higher dimensions. They are beginning to recognize that some of the higher dimensions are probably not curled up into such a small ball that we cannot see them. They seem to be recognizing the implications of the above graph. A recent article in the January 7, 2000 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says:
The static compactification model of Horva and Witten has come to replace the older model of Candelas, Horowitz, Strominger, and Witten but it still has limitations. Nevertheless, the basic idea that at least some of the extra dimensions could be quite large has caught on, together with the suggestion that the basic length scale of quantum gravity, which hitherto has been equated to Planck's constant or to the slightly smaller length scale RString of superstring theory, may be much larger, more like the electroweak scale of 10-17 cm. In principle this could allow extra dimensions approaching a millimeter! The string scale and the size of the extra dimensions and Newton's constant are related by a simple ratio. An experimental limitation on the scale of the extra dimension now arises from the accuracy with which gravity obeys the inverse square law.
The physicists are, of course, talking about only one string, whereas when we consider the human being in terms of the higher dimensions, we are thinking in terms of billions of strings. Hence, when we speak of the higher dimensions of the mind and spirit of a human being, the graph (above) might be appropriate to keep in mind.
Assuming that the physicists of string, or M, theory will accept the concept that objects in the fifth, sixth and seventh dimension of spherical space are progressively larger in accordance with the mathematics of a unit sphere in curved space, let us move on to the human being who is composed of billions of tiny strings.
6. The Human Being
Every person began life by the joining of two cells, the sperm cell of the father and the ovum or egg cell of the mother. That joined cell began to divide again and again to form a fetus in such a precise manner that only a biologist trained in the reproductive process of human beings can begin to understand. Think of the physics of the sub-atomic particles, strings, membranes or even three-dimensional forms, that compose those two cells that joined and then began to split again and again. From that moment of conception, those two cells freshly created in the bodies of the mother and father began to exist in time, and as the fetus and infant developed during the gestation period of about nine months, the whole body of that infant developed not only in the third dimension but also in the fourth dimension of spacetime as well as in even the higher dimensions.
From birth through childhood on to adulthood and old age that developing and changing body continued to live not only in the three-dimensional world that we know, but in the spacetime continuum as well as the higher dimensions of string or M theory.
When we die, what happens to the body that has been formed in the spacetime continuum during our entire lifetime? It possibly continues to live in the spacetime continuum, and that is a strong hope that many persons have. The dead body at the moment of death might be separated from the living body in the spacetime continuum and continues to remain in the current moment of time while the living body becomes more and more widely separated in time from the dead body which might have been blown into shreds at the time of death or gradually disintegrate into the earthy material of this three-dimensional world.
Some evidence of the separation of the living body from the dead body appears to be given by the experiences of persons who have been pronounced clinically dead and have regained life and consciousness. Many accounts of such experiences tell of the person seeming to float away from their dead body. They say that they look back upon their dead body lying upon a hospital bed or an operating table. They can also see other persons, including a medical doctor who has pronounced them to be dead. Then they float back upon their dead bodies and the body again becomes a living person. Many persons having had such an experience say that they seem to be in darkness a few moments after they are at least temporarily released from the current moment of time. That could be the dark matter that astrophysicists encounter in their research but which they cannot see but can only detect through the gravitational force that it seems to exert.
Let us return, however, to the living person who is locked into the current moment of time and cannot get out of it. It is the mind of this person and how it might function that is the objective of this paper.
7. The Human Brain/Mind
There is a very interesting research program that has been in progress for several years at Washington University in St. Louis to study the brain/mind relationship and how it functions. I cannot speak about the progress of this research because I am not privy to this work. This research, however, brings together three major disciplines of the University — Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology. I have been interested to read about fragments of this study and to hear lectures of prominent scientists who have come to the University to confer with this research. I have also read a number of books on the brain/mind relationship.
The human brain/mind/spirit are intimately related just as a three-dimensional solid is related to all of its lower dimensions. We know where the brain is located, but where is the mind and spirit of a person located? Many would say that they were within us, but where within us? We have seen brains and pictures of brains, but no one has seen a human mind or spirit. Some would be inclined to say that the brain and mind are one and the same. It appears that much of the research that has been done in this area thus far has made this assumption — the brain and mind are one and the same thing. An argument against this materialist interpretation of the location of the mind is brought out in a 1988 book by Michael Gazzaniga, Director of the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience at Cornell University, president of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, and an adjunct professor at the Dartmouth Medical School, entitled Mind Matters. He discusses memory on page 38:
As we will see, although there are real problems with memory, language, and general motility in later life, these debilities in our mental domain do not seem to reflect to the same degree the huge changes occurring in the brain. Put differently, if memories are supposed to be stored in neural networks in some way, why doesn't loss or drastic change in nearly half our neurons [during a period of time] find us almost totally amnesic? The answer to this question is completely unknown. The code by which the brain stores and retrieves information gained over a lifetime still eludes researchers. Indeed, scientists argue over the accuracy of memories. Some feel that they are poor record keepers and that what passes for a vivid memory is a reconstruction of what ought to have been, given a couple of recalled facts. These issues are brought up here to illustrate how difficult it is to achieve true insights into how the brain supports our mental lives.
Again, Sir John Eccles, awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1963 and one of the foremost brain scientists of the twentieth century, says in his 1984 book The Wonder of Being Human, page 34, “The theories of the brain-mind relationship that are today held by most philosophers and neuroscientists are purely materialistic in the sense that the brain is given complete mastery!” Sir John goes on to say in pages 36-37:
A great point is made by all varieties of materialists that their brain-mind theories are in accord with natural law as it now stands. However, this claim is invalidated by two most weighty considerations.
First, nowhere in the laws of physics or in the laws of derivative sciences, chemistry and biology, is there any reference to consciousness or mind. Regardless of the complexity of electrical, chemical, or biological machinery, there is no statement in the “natural laws” that there is an emergence of this strange non-material entity, consciousness or mind. This is not to affirm that consciousness does not emerge in the evolutionary process, but merely to state that its emergence is not reconcilable with the natural laws as at present understood...
Second, all materialist theories of the mind are in conflict with biological evolution. Since they all (panpsychists, epiphenomenalists, and identy theorists) assert the causal ineffectiveness of consciousness per se, they fail completely to account for the evolutionary expansion of consciousness, which is an undeniable fact. There is first its emergence and then its progressive development with the growing complexity of the brain. Evolutionary theory holds that only those structures and processes that significantly aid in survival are developed in natural selection...
Finally, the most telling criticism of all materialist theories of the mind is against its key postulate that happenings in the neural machinery of the brain provide a necessary and sufficient explanation of the totality both of the performance and of the conscious experience of a human being.
The argument of Sir John Eccles appears to disqualify the materialist concept that the mind is within the brain, but I have not seen him going further to define where the mind might be located somewhere outside of the brain.
On the other hand, another renowned neurosurgeon did express an opinion to the Institute for Theological Encounter between Science and Technology at its March 1986 workshop on the subject of Brain Research / Human Consciousness. Dr. Robert J. White, Professor of Surgery and Co-Chairman of Neurosurgery at Case Western Reserve University Medical School, and Director of Neurological Surgery and The Brain Research Laboratories MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio, presented a paper to I.T.E.S.T. and his closing paragraph in part said:
...just as the absence of brain function is equated with human death, it seems appropriate to argue that human existence, manifested by the human mind, must require a functioning, performing human brain. Yet, in attempting to understand this relationship, the ordinary dimensions utilized by science to characterize and describe both inanimate and animate matter may be insufficient, indeed inaccurate, for appreciating this unique linkage — we may require an entirely new, as yet undescribed methodology, which lies beyond quantum mechanics and molecular biology — a “5th” dimensional concept, so radical, so advanced, so different that even its faintest outline has yet to appear.
Although this paper of Dr. White was presented over thirteen years ago, the “faintest outline has yet to appear” in the research currently being done on the human mind's ability to remember. A recent letter that I received from Professor Daniel L. Schacter, Chairman of the Psychology Department of Harvard University, said, “The questions you raise about the `dimensionality' of memory are intriguing, but a bit beyond the scope of present scientific endeavors.”
[The following paragraphs of this section were appended to the September 1999 paper:]
Dr. Karl Pribram, a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, did a considerable amount of research on the mind/brain relationship in the 1970s and 1980s. I have been told that his work has been discredited by the neurological profession, but I would like humbly to suggest that his work be re-considered. He did research using the mathematics of the Fourier Transform concerning the vibrations of the brain relative to the mind which he believed was functional in the fifth dimension. Now, what is the Fourier Transform? Although I am not trained to describe the Fourier Transform in mathematically correct language, I understand that it deals with complex curves that can be traced graphically. For example, we may start with a simple sine curve — indeed, two or more sine curves of differing wave length or amplitude. If these curves are added together they may produce a rather complex curve, especially if there are a number of these curves added together. The Fourier Transform can compute the equation of this complex curve and show graphically its structure. Furthermore, I understand that the Fourier Transform can also start with the complex curve and break it down into its various component curves.
So much for the Fourier Transform; but what connection does it have with the functioning of the human mind? What happens in the brain that causes the mind to function? Here we might find a few more scientists — neurosurgeons — who agree that the brain does not function within the cells of the brain but in the vibrations of the microscopic fibers that connect the cells. It might require a number of these fibers vibrating in harmony with one another to produce a thought, and it is this harmonic wave action that the mind interprets through the mathematics of the Fourier Transform. After a thought has been transmitted to the mind, the mind might then wish to tell the brain to take a certain action. This transmission back to the brain might use the Fourier Transform to decompose the complex form of thought into its component waves so the individual fibers of the brain can vibrate and transmit to the muscles of the body a directive to take action, or to other fibers connecting brain cells which may in turn develop the thought to the next step or stage.
But why must the mind function in the fifth dimension? Why could it not function in the third dimension of the current brain or in the fourth dimension of spacetime? It appears that some scientists doing mind research say that the mind is superior, or transcendent, to the “nuts and bolts” of the human body, which includes the delicate structure of the brain. If the mind is transcendent to the brain which exists in both the third dimension of our world and in the spacetime continuum of the fourth dimension, the mind must function in the fifth dimension.
I call attention to the following excerpts from a book published in 1982 entitled The Holographic Paradigm, edited by Ken Wilber, that likens the mind/brain relationship to a holographic image and speaks of the Fourier Transform used by Karl Pribram.
Our brains mathematically construct “hard” reality by interpreting frequencies from a dimension transcending time and space. The brain is a hologram, interpreting a holographic universe. (page 22)
The awesome cleverness of Pribram's research stands as its own beacon. His decision to use the mathematics of Fourier Transformations creates in itself a brilliant metaphor. The graphic expression of the results of such a transformation is a mandala — an expression in two dimensions of radial symmetry within the confines of mathematical relationships. Another attribute to the Fourier “mandalas” is that the entire pattern can be regenerated from any shard of the data bound within the graph. This makes the mechanisms of expressing the analysis of data metaphorically comparable with the model. (page 123)
Currently, neurophysiologists possess more detailed knowledge regarding synaptic vesicles and “slow wave potentials” (Pribram 1971), and Fourier transforms which seem to be the key principles by which the mind is operational. (page 119)
8. Another Pause to Tell a Story
Research pertaining to the mind/brain relationship might well pause to reflect upon a story told about the noted physicist Richard Feynman by James Gleick in his biography of this scientific genius. Feynman had a friend at Stanford University, Professor James D. Bjorken, a theoretical physicist. Bjorken was working on a problem involving an electron striking a proton at great speed. This collision produced an electron that was emitted together with a burst of fragments. Gleick wrote, “Bjorken decided to set aside the miscellaneous spray and simply plot the distribution of the energies and angles of the emerging electrons, averaged over many collisions.”
Feynman frequently visited Bjorken and on one occasion came to Stanford when his friend was away. Feynman saw the work that Bjorken was doing and recognized that he had been doing some similar research at Cal Tech which he called “pancake” theory. He had cut through the chaos of proton pieces and posited a new constituent that he called a parton. In his concept, a parton was point-like and did not react meaningfully with other partons within the proton. Gleick says, “They were an abstraction — just the kind of unobservable entity that physicists hoped not to have to fall back on — yet they were tantalizingly visual in spirit.” Gleick concludes this incident in the following manner:
By the time Bjorken returned, he found the theory group awash in partons... He had idolized Feynman... “When the Feynman diagrams arrived,” he said, “it was the sun breaking through the clouds, complete with rainbow and pot of gold. Brilliant! Physical and profound!” Now here was Feynman in the flesh, explaining Bjorken's own theory to him with a new language and a new visual image...
There are not many persons who think in terms of higher dimensionality when considering the unobservable parts of a human being — the mind and spirit. If persons give any thought whatsoever to the mind and spirit, they would probably choose terms such as higher levels, higher quality, deeper reality, greater reality, or probably many other terms. Except for the term “greater reality,” these other terms seem to be abstractions similar to the Bjorken abstractions, The Feynman diagrams, on the other hand, were physical and profound!
The higher dimensions are also physical and profound! It would appear, through rational reasoning, that they are a continuation of the reality of our three-dimensional world which we have come to know and respect. The only difference is the greater and greater reality as one moves upward into the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh “surface” dimensions. This is the type of reality expressed by Feynman. This may be what brain/mind research seems to need. The graph (above) of this paper may be similar to the Feynman diagrams.
9. Artificial Intelligence
Much has been discussed and written about artificial intelligence (AI). This involves very sophisticated computers. The speed with which they operate is amazing and their speeds appear to be ever increasing. The output of the computer is astounding! With the very rapidly developing understanding of the computer, it seems easy to conclude that artificial intelligence is right around the corner. But wait! See what Professor Daniel L. Robinson, professor of psychology at Georgetown University, co-author with Sir John Eccles of The Wonder of Being Human says in a chapter on artificial intelligence — some fifteen years ago:
The argument for the human mind as a computer takes this general form: (1) All experience and thought are made possible by the brain; (2) the brain itself is an elaborate computer, its synaptic junctions having “on-off” functions and its nerves having signal-procession functions; (3) as modern computer science has shown (and as the mathematical logician A. M. Turing argued nearly a half-century ago) all decision functions are reducible to a binary yes-no process; (4) there is nothing in experience other than a form of symbolic coding and nothing in mentation other than various binary modes of decision-making. A developed cognitive science, then, is one that has learned how the brain's symbols represent the external world and how the brain's circuity regulates the processing of “input...”
This brings us directly to the alleged “symbols” in the brain, the “codes” by which neural or neurochemical events come to stand for various psychological attributes. According to this hypothesis, the external world impinges on our sense organs, which convert (“code”) the incoming signals neurophysiologically. The brain then processes these codes and, through some sort of translation algorithm, converts the processed neurophysiological data into that “psychological” format with which consciousness is filled...
But this is just where the AI [artificial intelligence] theory of human cognition breaks down. For the brain to possess the translation algorithm needed to convert neurophysiological “symbols” into a format having psychological attributes, the brain would have to know its own language and — who else's? Are there really two entities engaged in this translation, the brain and the person whose brain it is? Even this odd arrangement would do no good, however, for the brain would still have to know both its own internal language and the language of the experiencer...
The search for “symbols” in the brain must be aimless, for there are no symbols in the brain, only the remarks we make about the brain. There are, alas, no symbols in computers either, only pulses and pauses. The brain is, indeed, an extraordinary computer whose workings are fantastic. The serious scientist has every reason to study these workings and to help us understand how this unique device serves us throughout life. That it does have its own “language” is evidence enough of a division between it and its owner. But brain qua brain, cannot be the “I” in reports of experience of thought.
Then turn to Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He wrote a very complex 1989 book on artificial intelligence entitled The Emperor's New Mind. He asks the question, “What selective advantage does a consciousness confer on those who actually possess it? The following excerpts are from pages 405-407:
There are several implicit assumptions involved in phrasing the question in this way. First, there is the belief that consciousness is actually a scientifically describable `thing'. There is the assumption that this `thing' actually `does something' — and, moreover, that what it does is helpful to the creature possessing it, so that an otherwise equivalent creature, but without consciousness, would behave in some less effective way. On the other hand, one might believe that consciousness is merely a passive concomitant of the possession of a sufficiently elaborate control system and does not, in itself, actually `do' anything. (This last would presumably be the view of the strong-AI supporters, for example.) Alternatively, perhaps there is some divine or mysterious purpose for the phenomenon of consciousness — possibly a teleological one not yet revealed to us — and any discussion of this phenomenon in terms merely of the ideas of natural selection would miss this `purpose' completely. Somewhat preferable, to my way of thinking, would be a rather more scientific version of this sort of argument, namely the anthropic principle, which asserts that the nature of the universe that we find ourselves in is strongly constrained by the requirement that sentient beings like ourselves must actually be present to observe it...
There is also the question of what one means by the term `intelligence'. This, after all, is what the AI people are concerned with, rather than the perhaps more nebulous issue of `consciousness'. Alan Turing (1950), in his famous paper did not refer, so much directly to `consciousness', but to `thinking' and the word `intelligence' was in the title. In my own way of looking at things, the question of intelligence is a subsidiary one to that of consciousness. I do not think that I would believe that true intelligence could be actually present unless accompanied by consciousness.
Penrose has written a more recent book, 1994, entitled Shadows of the Mind. On pages 413-414 he says:
“The reality of mathematical concepts is a much more natural idea for mathematicians than it is for those wo have not had the fortune to spend time exploring the wonders and mysteriousness of that world. However, for the moment, it will not be necessary for the reader to accept that mathematical concepts truly form a `world' with an actual reality comparable with that of the physical world and the mental world...
What, then, are the mysteries? There is the mystery of why such precise and profoundly mathematical laws play such an important role in the behaviour of the physical world. Somehow the very world of physical reality seems almost mysteriously to emerge out of the Platonic world of mathematics... Then there is the second mystery of how it is that perceiving beings can arise from out of the physical world. How is it that subtly organized material objects can mysteriously conjure up mental entities from out of its material substance?... Finally, there is the mystery of how it is that mentality is able seemingly to `create' mathematical concepts out of some kind of mental model. These apparently vague, unreliable, and often inappropriate mental tools, with which our mental world seems to come equipped, appear nevertheless mysteriously able (at least when they are at their best) to conjure up abstract mathematical forms, and thereby enable our minds to gain entry, by understanding, into the Platonic mathematical realm.
Penrose, concludes this book on page 420:
These are deep issues, and we are yet very far from explanations. I would argue that no clear answers will come forward unless the interrelating features of all these worlds are seen to come into play. No one of these issues will be resolved in isolation from the others. I have referred to three worlds and the mysteries that relate them one to another. No doubt there are not really three worlds but one, the true nature of which we do not even glimpse at present.
That last sentence in Roger Penrose's book sounds like the concluding sentence in Dr. White's paper, “a 5th dimensional concept, so radical, so advanced, so different that even its faintest outline has yet to appear.” This sentence of Dr. White may suggest the reason why the advocates of artificial intelligence continue to grope. They are looking for the mind among the intricacies of our three dimensional brain when they should turn their attention to more lofty dimensions and concepts. They should turn to the fifth dimension, as Dr. White suggests! However, they can't, and will probably never, be able to build a five-dimensional computer where the mind likely functions. That may be what is required to build a computer that would compete artificially with the human mind, and this is an impossible task so long as we are locked into our three-dimensional world of the current moment of time.
10. A Faint Outline of the Human Mind in the Fifth Dimension
The ability of the mind to remember appears to be one of the most mysterious functions of the mind and has led many neuro-scientists to pursue this mystery. In 1996, Daniel L. Schacter, Professor and Chair of Psychology at Harvard University, published a book entitled Searching for Memory. The first paragraph in his acknowledgments is as follows:
The seeds of this book were sown in 1975, when I worked as a research assistant for Dr. Herbert Crovitz at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. There I tested brain-damaged patients who were utterly incapable of remembering new information for more than a few seconds. One man conversed easily when we first met and seemed more or less like anyone else. But when I left the room and returned several minutes later, he had totally forgotten we had ever met. Startled and intrigued by such dramatic disorders, I developed a deep and enduring interest in memory that I have pursued for the past two decades.
A reason that Professor Schacter was able to converse easily with that patient might reveal that the mind functions in the fifth dimension transcendent to the brain that has past into the fourth dimension of the spacetime continuum. The patient had a damaged brain at a location in the brain that usually stores experiences, and because of this damage, the patient no longer could store experiences and therefore did not remember that he had been talking with Professor Schacter a few minutes before. On the other hand, although Professor Schacter does not say so, he could remember events before his brain was damaged; therefore, he could carry on a normal conversation remembering language and other learning that he had stored in his brain that had passed into the fourth dimension prior to the incident that damaged or began to damage his brain. As Dr. White has said, “human existence, manifested by the human mind, must require a [fully] functioning, performing human brain.” Before the brain of the patient was damaged, it was fully functioning and the accident or disease that made the brain not to function fully probably had no influence upon the brain that had already passed into the spacetime continuum.
A more descriptive case was told by Sir John Eccles, known only by the man's initials 'H.M.' as told by Sir John in his previously referred to book The Wonder of Being Human:
Remarkable evidence has been found, particularly by Brenda Milner, in support of the concept that the hippocampus plays a key role in human cognitive memory. It may arouse skepticism when we state that the really convincing evidence comes from investigations on one patient (H.M.) who in 1953 was subjected to an operative excision bilaterally of the hippocampus and the adjacent medial temporal lobe. The operation was designed to alleviate epileptic seizures of incapacitating severity that were uncontrolled by maximum anticonvulsant medication. Therapeutically the operation was a success in alleviating seizures, but it produced an extreme amnesic syndrome resembling Korsakoff's syndrome, only more severe. This operation of course will never be carried out again, so H.M. and three others will remain unique for all time. [I saw in the 9/13/99 issue of TIME that H.M. is still living.]
Despite his grave amnesia H.M. is a remarkably tolerant and cooperative person with fairly good intelligence. In fact he has been an ideal subject for investigation for nearly thirty years, [now forty-five years] being perhaps more intensively investigated than any other neurological patient in history. Let us now look at some of the findings on this unique patient. H.M. lives entirely with short-term memories of a few seconds' duration and with the memories retained from before the operation.
There are three other recorded cases where a comparable severe anterograde amnesia (amnesia for all happenings after the operation) resulted from destruction of both hippocampi. There is no obvious impairment of intellect or personality in these subjects despite the acute failure of memory. In fact, they live either in the immediate present or with remembered experiences from before the time of the operation...
How could it be that all four of these patients could remember experiences before their operations and not afterward? The answer would appear to be that the hippocampi of their brains which stored experiences had passed into the spacetime continuum before the operation had begun. The operation could be performed only upon the patients' brains in the current moment of time which immediately thereafter did pass into the fourth dimension of spacetime and did not retain the memory of the current experience and all subsequent experiences. It could be the transcendency of the mind in the fifth dimension that could recall experiences before the operation.
The mind may act as a messenger, picking up a past experience before the operation and relaying it to the current brain that although damaged can receive that past experience and recall and retain it momentarily and speak about it. Indeed the mind could continue to relay that experience moment by moment so that the patient could re-live that experience. Experiences, however, after the operation could not be recorded in the damaged hippocampus as it passed into the spacetime continuum and therefore there was nothing for the mind to pick up in recalling any post-operative experience.
Furthermore, think with me about a person who has a properly functioning brain and can remember both immediate past experiences and long-ago experiences. Focus with me on the long-ago experience. As the brain in past-time continues to recede from the current moment in time might become clouded or hazy merely by the passage of time. On the other hand, an experience that is recalled might be re-established in the current moment of the brain to become a recent experience, and the more often that experience is recalled to the present brain, the more vivid that experience becomes.
The mind, acting as a messenger of a past experience, however, could modify that experience in transit to the present moment, and that is what we do much of the time. We modify the experience to our advantage, emphasizing the points more favorable and diminishing the unfavorable points of our experience. Hence, that recalled experience as modified becomes the remembered experience in the current mind. At a later time that same experience is again recalled, possibly not from the original experience but from the last time it was recalled. It could in the second, third, fourth, etc., time that it is recalled, be modified slightly to be further to our advantage and after many recalls could be quite a different experience from the first experience. Unless the experience is almost immediately recorded by an independent observer, the recalled experience could be, and often is, misleading.
11. The Intelligent Mouse and DNA
I had heard some six months or more ago that the son of a friend of mine, a professor in the Medical School of Washington University in St. Louis, had been doing considerable research on the DNA of mice and their offspring, and that the team of researchers on these mice had developed a gene that appeared to give a mouse more “intelligence” than the more common-place mouse without that particular gene.
There then came a rather long article in the September 13, 1999 issue of TIME magazine entitled “Smart Genes?” This article described in some detail, at least for the uninitiated layman, what has been done in this research at three universities — Washington University, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The gist of the article seems to be stated in the second paragraph:
This is a supermouse, no doubt about it, though it didn't get its better brain by coming from another world. It was engineered by scientists at Princeton, M.I.T. and Washington University, who cleverly altered its DNA — or more precisely, that of its genetic forebears — in ways that changed the reactions between neurons deep within its tiny cranium. The result, say its creators, is a strain of mouse... that is smarter than its dim-witted cousins. Not only that, the scientists wrote in last week's issue of the journal Nature, “our results suggest that the genetic enhancement of mental and cognitive attributes such as intelligence and memory in mammals is feasible.”
This type of research raises many questions as described in an article in the September 8, 1999 issue of the Wall Street Journal. No objection appears to have been raised concerning the insertion of more “normal” or modified genes into a human being to heal persons of diseases ranging from cystic fibrosis to cancer and AIDS. The alteration of personal traits, however, raises serious questions about the ethics involved. Such questions of ethics seem to be outside the scope of this paper and I will not attempt to respond to them directly except to call attention to a following section of this paper that deals very briefly with the human spirit.
This research which is being conducted at the above named three universities is directed toward the three-dimensional brain that can be examined by current three-dimensional instruments. These researchers have found that that the altered gene changed the “reactions between neurons deep within [the] tiny cranium” of this “intelligent” mouse. More, however, than the reactions between neurons has been changed. The mind of that mouse has also been changed.
12. An Automobile and its Driver
A metaphor that seems to illustrate the brain/mind relationship is that of an automobile and its driver. The brain might be likened to the engine of the automobile, while the mind might be likened to the driver. The brain is, of course, much more complex than the engine of an auto; nevertheless, it is the power of a living creature, including the human being, just as the engine is the power of the auto. Neuro-science and other disciplines have studied the brain and have learned a great deal about its various parts and how they function together. A skilled mechanic may have studied the engine of the automobile in something of a like manner and knows its mechanical workings to a high degree, but what does he know about the driver of the car which is powered by that engine which he knows and understands. Likewise, the neuro-scientist may know the workings of the brain, even better than the mechanic knows how the engine of the auto functions. But in studying the brain in all of its details, the neuro-scientist appears yet to understand how memory is recalled by a human being. He is still looking at the engine/brain.
To understand the speed of the car as it begins to accelerate, its destination, and the route that it takes, one would have to know something about the driver — his or her habits and objectives. The mechanic may know virtually everything there is to know about the engine without knowing anything about the driver.
In like manner, the neuro-scientist may know a great deal about the functioning of the brain, but she or he has to know something of the mind of the creature, including the human being, to understand the relationship between the mind and the brain. So far, it seems that the neuro-scientist has been concentrating on the three-dimensional engine, to say nothing of the four-dimensional engine in the spacetime continuum.
13. The Human Mind in Action
Not only did the insertion of the altered gene into the mouse “improve” its brain, but it also must have altered the mind of the mouse. If string theory is correct, or at least has plausibility, one is not going to change the vibrations of the sub-sub-atomic strings making up that DNA molecule in the third dimension of current time without also changing the vibrations of the two-dimensional plane traced by the one-dimensional string in the third dimension with the passage of time in the spacetime continuum. Carrying this line of reasoning another step, the changed vibrations in the fourth dimension will also alter the vibrations in the fifth dimension where the mind is probably located and functions.
It would probably be the mind of that “intelligent” mouse and its ability to interpret the Fourier transforms that was really changed by the DNA to change the character of that mouse rather than merely to change the reactions between neurons deep within its brain. This would be true if the mind did function in the fifth dimension transcendent to the brain in the fourth dimension of spacetime. It is the transcendency, the dominance, of the mind being in the higher dimension that might be the important concept to be considered in gene research.
This line of reasoning brings us to the human spirit in the sixth dimension, transcendent to the human mind in the fifth dimension. But what of the spirit of the mouse, does it not have a spirit? Probably not, or if it does have the semblance of a spirit it must be a very feeble spirit that has virtually no transcendence effect upon the mind of the mouse. Therefore, in the animal kingdom it really is the survival of the fittest and the love exhibited by the human is apparently not present in the animal. Yes, the female animal does seem to protect its offspring up to a certain point but when they can forage for themselves the separation usually occurs.
14. What of the Human Spirit?
If the argument is accepted that the mind does function in the fifth dimension transcendent to the brain in the fourth dimension of spacetime, then the concept might be accepted that the human spirit might reside in and function in the sixth dimension transcendent to the mind in the fifth dimension. I suggest this possibility because the human spirit which seems to grow in the practice of love to other persons with whom one comes in contact appears to have a distinct effect upon the mind.
To practice love is very difficult for human beings that have developed through evolution in the concept of the survival of the fittest. An infant child might learn to have some love for its mother or its immediate family because of the love that the child receives from those persons. On the other hand, when children are with their peers, the survival of the fittest seems to usually prevail. It appears to require many years for real maturity, love, to develop and with many persons it never really does develop. Hence, the human spirit may not grow, and in such a circumstance has little dominance over the mind. It might be the human spirit that trains the mind to act in love, but if the spirit has withered or is small or weak relative to the mind, the training suffers and the survival of the fittest prevails in violence. I do not necessarily speak of physical violence, although that is often a part of a weak spirit, but mental violence is often even more vicious.
On the other hand, if the human spirit does grow through the practice of love and respect for other persons one encounters, that spirit can and does train the mind to act more and more automatically in love. This is human maturity. Maturity is not always the manifestation of “sugar and spice and everything's nice,” it could be reflected in sharp words of correction but uttered in a spirit of deep love for the welfare of the other person. Whatever course love takes it is manifested for the apparent welfare of the other person and not for the individual trying to exhibit love.
The influence of the spirit over the mind, however, seems to require transcendence, and this might be achieved by the spirit acting in the sixth dimension transcendent to the mind in the fifth dimension.
String theory at the present time calls for eleven dimensions. What might occur in animals in their dimensions higher than the fifth dimension in which their mind might function, and in human beings in dimensions higher than the sixth dimension in which their spirit might function. I suggest that the vibrations of the strings in these higher dimensions might become weaker to the point where they stop vibrating and are dormant. Indeed, when the spirit of a person is not exercised in love to other persons, the vibrations might diminish in amplitude. It might require the exercise of love to maintain the vibration amplitude or even increase it as the spirit grows in dominance over the mind. In like manner, if the mind of any creature, animal or human, is not exercised, the vibrations in the strings of the mind lose their amplitude and their minds become feeble. This exercise of the spirit or the mind could be likened to athletes using muscle-building devices to strengthen their athletic ability.
15. What may Mind-Brain Research do?
I make this closing suggestion in great humility because I am not a physicist, or a neuro-scientist, or a psychologist, or a philosopher, but I am a very interested person in this Mind/Brain research. My suggestion is, now that string or M theory has been developed to its present state even though not complete, the Mind/Brain researcher could make the assumption that the mind does function in the fifth dimension, transcendent to the brain in the fourth and third dimensions and call upon string theory expressed in macro terms rather than in sub-sub-atomic terms to work out some of the mathematics in the mind/brain relationship.
Professor Michio Kaku in his book Hyperspace, to which reference has previously been made, describes some of the life of mathematician Georg Bernhard Riemann and writes about his work on page 37:
By introducing the fourth spacial dimension, Riemann accidentally stumbled on what would become one of the dominant themes in modern theoretical physics, that the laws of nature appear simple when expressed in higher-dimensional space. He then set about developing a mathematical language in which this idea could be expressed.
Therefore, I suggest that the scholars doing work on the mind/brain research turn to the mathematical language of Riemann and work cooperatively with physicists working with string or M theory to advance their concept of this now puzzling relationship. Whoever does this successfully will be called a genius. Such work could be comparable to the watershed concepts of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.
© William Witherspoon - 2004