HYPOTHESIS

PROPOSITIONS OF THE HYPOTHESIS

The First Proposition: 'What is Life?'

          Materialism, the philosophy I am challenging, really amounts to what is called 'reductionism', the belief that every individual 'whole' can be reduced to its parts and to nothing more. 'Find out what it is made of, discover how its parts work, then you have fully explained it: there is nothing more to know about it'. That is the materialist belief.

          So the first question I should like to ask the materialist is how he describes 'life'?

        The plain fact is that he doesn't. All he describes are its characteristics, but what it actually is, he cannot say.

          This is not surprising, for Life can't be measured. So since it can't be measured,  it can't be material.

          One currently fashionable materialist 'explanation' of what life is, is to say that it is 'an emergent quality of complexity' or more simply that 'when a something material is sufficiently complex, life inevitably emerges'. But is that really an explanation?  True or not true, it still does not say what life is.

          So how would we describe life?

 I would say that it is the addition of a non-material 'something' to a material individual that gives it Life. I would say that an individual that has life is more than the sum of its parts - indeed it has to be more, because at the moment after its death all its parts still remain 'alive': the only thing missing is the life of the whole individual.

          So can we agree on this first proposition: "Life is non-material. It is brought about by the addition of a non-material 'something' to a collection of material parts, a something which organises and directs the collective activity of those parts"?

The Second Proposition:  What is Consciousness?

         Because words like 'consciousness', 'mind', 'spirit' or 'soul' mean different things to different people, I shall be using a neutral, made-up word 'Aether' to mean any or all of these things, to mean the non-material component of an individual. 'Aether', of course, has no meaning in English. It meant 'air' in Latin and it was used by the Ionian school of Greek philosophers to mean that which is immaterial and divine.

        "Cogito, ergo sum," wrote Descartes, "I think, therefore I am".  Yes, it is surely logical that we should kick off with the one fact which we can apprehend directly: the reality of our own individual existence.

          Of course, most of us accept that the world outside us does have an independent existence.  But our knowledge of the outside world is indirect and is limited to what our five senses and observing instruments can tell us about it.

           But we don't need any of our senses to be aware of our own existence, of the reality of the self. And that is why it must be our starting point.

          But what am I?  What are you?  What is a self?  What is the real 'me'?

          You see, I can't look at my body and say 'That is me', because I am the 'me' that is looking at 'my' body. And obviously, if you were to point to my toe and ask me 'Is that you?", I should reply 'Of course it isn't me, it's my toe'.  While most people would agree that we are not the same as parts of our bodies, many would say that there is one exception, the brain. 'You are your brain', they would insist, 'Your brain is you'.

          This is the materialists' argument. They argue that the mystery and uniqueness of consciousness arises solely from within the complexity of the brain. They point out that if your brain is damaged, so are you: if no brain, then no consciousness.  Therefore, they say, the dualist belief that brain and consciousness are separate entities is false.

          The dualist counter-argument might go as follows: 'If your brain gets damaged, you can't use it, but that doesn't mean you are your brain. ' 'If your only cricket bat gets broken, you can't play cricket, but that doesn't mean you are a cricket bat.'

          'Your brain consists only of cells - about a hundred billion of them, in fact - and these, just like the cells of every other part of your body, are direct offspring of the one little fertilised egg-cell that is parent to every part of the body.  Each brain cell acts like a tiny telephone exchange, receiving and relaying electrical-chemical messages.   But who or what dials the number?  Who or what utters the words and sentences of the messages?'

          Some people liken the brain to a giant computer, with each brain cell acting as a transistor switch. But who writes the programmes? Who devises the software?  Who is the computer operator?

          For example, say you decide to raise your arm, or kick a football or say 'Good Morning', or do any of the thousand things you do every day. When you make this decision, your brain cells respond to your mental instruction. Whole armies of them spring into action, passing electric pulses to the appropriate muscles in your body. But it is you who gives the command to your troops. You are not, cannot be, the same as the brain cells, the troops who carry out your orders. But if you are not the same as your brain cells, what are you?

          To take the computer analogy. If the computer is damaged, either it will produce nothing at all or it will produce gibberish. In this, it is just like a damaged brain.  But no-one would claim that the breakdown of the computer means that its operator or its programmer has died or gone mad. No-one would dream of searching the computer for its human operator.

          In just the same way, no neuro-surgeon, no brain specialist, no one,  can point to an exact spot in my brain that is 'me'. No one can dissect out my essential self, the Self that controls my brain and body. Yes, I use my brain, and because I use my brain, I cannot be my brain.

          The unique importance of the brain is that it is the link between the Self and the material world

         Of course, if evidence could be found that the self can acquire information without the use of the brain or the physical senses, then this would provide the ultimate vindication of the dualist theory and the overthrow of its materialist rival. We'll be discussing the evidence for extra-sensory perception in later chapters.

          Every material object is 3-dimensional (i.e it has length, breadth and height).  It occupies a definite and definable volume of space. Nothing that is material escapes this requirement.  But the self does not occupy a definite portion of space. Therefore it is not, cannot be, 3-dimensional material.

          But while you and I are non-material, we do exist. If you were to propose that my idea that I exist is an illusion,  I would retort 'Then who or what is it that is having this illusion?'

          But how and where can I exist if I am non-material?  It is perhaps because the dualist has been ignoring this question that the materialist view is so influential.

          My answer is that you and I exist in more dimensions than matter. (We discuss 'dimensions' in Appendix I). This is why we observe material objects (including our own brains) from 'outside' - from an outside dimension.

          So can we agree on a Second Proposition: "We are non-material, existing in at least one extra dimension.  Each of us is that mysterious something, which makes the Whole greater than the sum of its parts, and which some call 'spirit' or 'soul', some call 'mind' or 'consciousness' or 'the observer', and which I'll be calling 'Aether'"?

The Third Proposition:  "What is a Human Being"?

          As human beings, we have the impression that we interact with the material objects of our physical environment. But this is not strictly true. The Self, the non-material Aether, does not react directly with matter, but only indirectly through the medium of its brain and body.

          But if our First Proposition is true, that the characteristic of life is the superaddition of Aether, then because the cells of my brain and body also have life, then they are not wholly material either, for they too must each have their individual Aethers.

          So the interaction of the Self with its brain would represent inter-communication between the higher-order human Aether and the lower-order subordinate Aethers of its brain cells, its neurons.

          So can we agree on a Third Proposition: "Self and body represent a partnership of Aethers"?

          I shall call such  a partnership an 'entity'.

The Fourth Proposition:  The Laws of Nature are Universal

          The most basic tenet of science is that the laws of nature apply to everything throughout the Universe, without exception.

          So, what about our last proposition: that our existence as individual 'entities' depends upon an association of our higher order Aether with the lower-order Aethers of our cells. Is this a Natural Law?  If so, is it universal?  Is it the condition of all existence? If it is true of me as an individual,  must it not be true of every other individual in the Universe?  I believe it must.

The Fifth Proposition:  'What are We Really Made of?'

"There is no matter as such...Mind is the matrix of all matter"

                                           Max Planck

         We know that we die.  Death is a Law of Nature. So must it not be Universal?  If we can die, so can all other individuals.

          But first let's be clear what we mean by 'death'.  When we refer to the death of a human being, we are describing the event when the human Aether and the human body part company.  Human death is the departure of the human Aether - a departure which results in the dissolution of the human body.

          A living body is a vast and complex association of cells and groups of cells (organs), all constrained to combine in social partnership by the dictates of their master, the human Aether.  When that Aether departs, when the human individual dies, then the social partnership of the entity comes to an end. Once the human entity has died, then its constituent cells, deprived of the support and nourishment of the partnership, also succumb.

          Many people still believe that man and his body are one and the same thing. And because they think that the body is material, they think that the self must be material as well. But they don't seem to realise that if this were true, then the whole entity, including all its parts, would have to die at one and the same time - and it does not!

          The organs and cells do not die at the moment of death of the higher human entity. The death of these members of the partnership is not identical to the death of the 'boss'. The truth of this is proved by modern transplant surgery, where organs of a dead body are kept alive and find continuing existence in another human body. And the converse is true: throughout the lifetime of a human being, its cells are constantly dying, and new cells are constantly taking their place.  Indeed, the molecules which are the building blocks of each and every one of your hundred billion brain cells are replaced every few days. Here each little 'whole' is outlasting its parts. So it cannot be the same thing as its parts.

          Such facts are of vital philosophical importance because they demonstrate that the cells of a human being are separate individuals, because this suggests another natural law which would have universal application.  And the law would be this: the death of any individual means the departure of its controlling higher Aether and the end of the association of its constituent parts, it does not mean their extinction.

          So, in the case of any animal, death simply marks the departure of the higher Aether of the whole animal. It means its dissociation from the association of cells and organs which make up the social organisation we call its body.

          Similarly, by the logic of our proposition of the Universality of natural laws, then the death of a cell of the body would mean the departure of its Aether. It would mean the break-up of the association of groups of molecules which make up the social organisation we call a cell.

          And again, invoking the principle of Universality, we might logically continue:  if the cells can die, then so can their parts, the groups of complex molecules: they too should have an Aether which also can depart. The social organisation we call a group of complex molecules could also dissociate, breaking up into its constituent complex molecules.

          And the same could happen to the complex molecules themselves and to their constituent simple molecules.  And simple molecules could 'die' and break up into their constituent atoms.

          Of course, such break-up is the very stuff of the science of chemistry and biochemistry. Similarly, the break-up of the atom into the sub-atomic particles is the province of the nuclear physicist.

          Now, it is the logic of the Universality of Natural Laws which has led us this far.  But what about when we get to the smallest particles of matter, the ultimate building blocks, what I shall call the 'Meps' (Most elementary particles)?  For if 'death' means the break-up of an individual into its constituent parts, how can a Mep die?  How can the smallest particle of matter break up into anything smaller than itself?  Yet this is what the principle of Universality seems to demand: it predicts that every particle of matter can shed its dimension of Aether and die - And...isn't this just what Einstein discovered, when he showed that at the most elementary level matter can be transformed - transformed into energy.  What I suggest then is that when a Mep dies, its Aether departs and leaves behind energy wavicles or photons.

          And what are photons but vibrating packets of energy. So I conclude that the composition of the most primitive individuals in the universe is primitive Aether plus physical vibrations.

          But the Proposition of Universality would require that what is true of the smallest material particles should also be true of all other individuals, including you and me. This would mean that we too comprise a higher Aether plus energy vibrations. It would also mean that our 'death', like that of a Mep, is signalled by the departure not only of our higher 'Aether', but of our inherent energy vibrations as well.  And this of course is exactly what we see as the observable characteristic of death, of lifelessness: the cessation of the body's collective activity, the departure of the collective indwelling energy.

          So our Fifth Proposition, what we're made of, is that we, like everything else in the Universe, comprise Aether plus Energy Vibrations.

The Sixth Proposition: Hierarchy -the Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

          Science tells us that a human body comprises a hierarchy: an organised system of sub-atomic particles forming atoms, atoms forming molecules, molecules forming groups of molecules, groups of molecules forming cells, cells forming organs, and organs forming the body.

          Since each whole is more complex than its parts, we can see that the evolution from sub-atomic particle to human being has involved individuals of ever increasing complexity and development.  And it is surely reasonable to assume that this evolution of material complexity has been paralleled by the evolution of Aether: absurd to suppose that the Aether of an atom might be of the same order as that of a human being!

          This leads to our Sixth Proposition: Aether is individualised at different levels of complexity and development. There is a hierarchy of entities from the entity of the sub-atomic particle, comprising energy vibrations plus particle-level Aether, to the highest order entity on this planet, the entity of man, comprising  human energy vibrations plus human-level  Aether.

The Seventh Proposition:  Dimensions

          In our last proposition, we noted the huge disparity between the various levels of Aether.  To account for this, I am now going to suggest that a human entity is not only vastly more complex than the entity of a molecule, but that it has more dimensions.

          But how many dimensions? Perhaps the characteristic of each whole,  is that it has one more dimension than its parts?  In that case, if we assign, say, two dimensions to energy, then nucleons would have three , atoms would have four , molecules five , molecular groups six , prokaryotes seven, eukaryote cells eight, multi-cellular creatures nine and, possibly, man might have ten.

          [As an aside, it is at least amusing, if not significant, that physicists' latest theory about the nature of matter, 'super-string theory', requires the existence of ten space dimensions!]

          The trouble with such a complicated scenario is that it flies in the face of our everyday observation that material objects, whether living or inanimate, have only 3 space dimensions. [String theorists get around this by claiming that the missing seven dimensions are 'curled up' so small as to be beyond the view of the most powerful microscope imaginable.]

          Anyway, let's simplify things, stick to the three dimensions we know and propose that each set is home to a range of inhabitants with differing levels of Aether. On this basis let's assign two dimensions to energy, three dimensions to inanimate individuals, from a particle to a molecular group, and four dimensions (i.e. three space and one time) to living creatures from a prokaryote microbe to a multi-cellular creature. We'll be discussing later whether man is 4-dimensional like other creatures or 5-dimensional.

          What I'm putting forward are two propositions about dimensions. First that the more advanced the individual, the more dimensions it has.  Second, the time dimension of a lower order entity appears as just another space dimension to a higher order entity. [My reasoning for this suggestion is set out in Appendix I.]

  Such a scenario would give us this table of dimensions:-

Entity	Its View	Higher Observer View
Photons (2-D)	Space-1      + Time	Space-1 + Space-2
Inanimate Matter (3-D)	Spaces 1-2 + Time	Spaces 1-3
Animate Creatures (4-D)	Spaces 1-3 + Time	Spaces 1-4
? Mankind (?5-D)	Spaces 1-3 + Times 1-2	Spaces 1-4 + Time

          We'll be investigating the possibility that we comprise two time dimensions when we discuss the phenomenon of prophecy. But that's for a later chapter.

The Eighth Proposition:  Time

          My Proposition of Composition proposes that every entity consists of two elements: Energy Vibrations and Aether.  Of these, Aether is non-material: so it cannot have any space dimensions.  But Aether does endure: so it must have a time dimension.  And if Aether has the time dimension of an entity, then Energy Vibrations, which are the other element, would have its space dimensions.

          Every material object appears to us - and presumably to all sentient creatures - to have three space dimensions. It would seem then that we, the sentient observers, must be outside those 3 dimensions and must therefore be 4-dimensional. But we have the firm impression that ordinary 3-dimensional objects do endure  with us in our time, a 4th dimension. But are we right?  Perhaps atoms or  molecules are 'really' 3-dimensional entities whose third dimension is time. But to us higher dimensional observers, their 3rd dimension is not time, it's a space dimension.  [See Appendix I]   So to us they appear solid, with the 3 space dimensions of all material objects.

          This would mean that on its own a material object comprises 2-dimensional energy travelling in its Time, its 3rd dimension. It would mean that it is only when it is observed by a higher dimension sentient observer that it materialises as  a 3-dimensional solid, liquid or gas.

          To exist, every individual must have duration, must have a time dimension, must have a 'present state', a 'now', which lasts for a finite period.  We often assume that our 'now' is instantaneous, of infinitely short duration. But that would mean that we don't have a 'now' at all, a 'now' that would emerge from the future only to disappear instantaneously into the past, without ever having had any existence.

          You see, in this sense, time is no different from space: imagine you shrunk an object smaller and smaller until finally it had no space dimensions at all; then it would have ceased to exist.  For any material individual, however small, to exist, it must have some extension in space.   And it is exactly the same with time: to have any existence at all, an entity must occupy a finite period of time - it must have some permanent duration.      I believe that this is implicit in Einstein's proposition that time and space are both dimensions. But what I am also proposing is that a dimension that appears as time to one level of observer will appear as space to a higher dimension observer. This means, for example, that what appears to a molecule as its 'now', as its time dimension, and its duration as its travel along time, will appear to a sentient observer to be its space dimensions and its movement in space. This idea means that to have existence for us, all atoms, molecules and other 3-dimensional individuals must have space dimensions and it concludes that they must be eternally in movement: a conclusion that Science has found to be true.

          This dual perspective idea may explain why at the human level of reality material objects like a table appear solid and unchanging, whereas at the molecular and atomic level of reality, the table's constituent parts are whirling elements, forever moving, forever changing. It is as if the act of observation by a human observer freezes this activity, by converting its time dimension into  a (third) space dimension.

          When describing any individual, then, we should not only specify its space dimensions, we should also specify its time dimension, its duration in the present, the length of its 'now'.  We should have to say that a cat is 'x centimetres wide by y centimetres deep by z centimetres long by t seconds duration' in its time, its 4th dimension.

          Of course, we can take a tape measure and determine the space dimensions of you or me or the household cat, but we cannot yet measure our time dimensions.  All I can do is assert that we must all have some permanent extension in time.  And since I hold that it is Aether which supplies the time dimension, it is Aether which gives each individual this extension.  Moreover, since I am suggesting that each dimension is home to a wide range of Aethers, I've got to account for this huge disparity, between for example the Aether of a spider and the Aether of a dog. This can be done if we suppose that the higher (and more complex) the level of Aether, the longer its 'Now'.

          Finally, just bear in mind that mathematicians regularly assume and manipulate more than four space dimensions, while some of the latest cosmological theories propose that there are 26 dimensions!  But of course the trouble about such ideas is that we humans can't visualise more than three.

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST EIGHT PROPOSITIONS

          I have now laid before you the first eight Propositions of my hypothesis. But before considering any more, I'd like to examine how far these eight ideas square with the discoveries of modern science.

 To recapitulate:

* Both Life and Consciousness are manifestations of a non-material component which  we are calling an Aether.

* Each individual Aether combines with energy vibrations to form an entity.

* An entity is more than the sum of its material parts: its Aether adds a dimension, a time dimension.

* Aether is hierarchical: a higher order Aether occupies a longer 'now' than lower-order Aethers. It may even occupy an extra  (higher) dimension.

    * The laws of nature apply to every individual in every part of the universe.

«prev || next»