Well perhaps my trial description of an "extra-cosmic hypersurface" missed the mark. By "extra-cosmic," I intended the idea of a uniform, universal cause that does not arise from nor reside in the same field wherein its effects are manifestly experienced and felt.
This is not to maintain that God does not act "in" the world. It is only to say that God is not subject to the laws appertaining to creatures in this world, for the simple reason that He is their Author, their Father. [Not to mention their Truth and Salvation.]
Dear brother in Christ, you wrote: "What Wesson calls a hypersurface I would define as planar temporal in nature.... our body exist[s] in the sensed linear temporal realm, and our soul exists in this planar temporal realm, and the spirit component of our soul perhaps exists in yet a more complex (or perhaps more simple?) 'hypervolume'."
I have heard that Nature tends towards simplicity, towards parsimony. I gather this has something to do with Divine Economics. It also has something to do with the revelation of divine Beauty, Love, and Justice in this world.
Which is why I thought Wesson's speculation as to the nature of death in the article linked several times above was so fascinating:
Is death an end-point, or a phase shift?Anyhoot, at a time when science has widely accepted curved-space models (e.g., Reimannian geometry) as relevant to their pressing investigative needs, it seems that "planar" (i.e., flat-space, or Euclidean) models might have to be relegated to the measure of Newtonian physics, and thereby considered accurate to about 99.997% certainty — within the 4D block of ordinary human observation and experience.
Where the Newtonian "flat-space model" falls down is at the margin where the velocity of objects converges on velocity of light, C, conventionally considered the "universal speed limit" — at the macroscopic level. It also seems to fall down at the microscopic level, at the level of quantum phenomena whose behavior seems to be "determined" by the interjection of an Observer....
Yet truly, I'm following you here: "... our body exist in the sensed linear temporal realm, and our soul exists in this planar temporal realm, and the spirit component of our soul perhaps exists in yet a more complex (or perhaps more simple?) 'hypervolume'."
Perhaps what you intend by "hypervolume" here might have something to do with the "shape" of the Creation that God made, via Logos Alpha–Omega. From "our" point of view, this might look very much like a "hypersurface."
Thank you so very much, dear brother in Christ, for sharing your thoughts re: this irresistibly fascinating topic!!!
String theory, as betty boop observed, says that the additional dimensions are compactified. And there are many of them. This follows on the Kaluza-Klein attempts to unify gravity and electro-magnetism.
But, in my view, string theory smacks of being "kluged" much like Einstein's original cosmological constant. Or to put it another way, a theory should not be formed merely to explain away the anomalies of prior theories (taking them as axioms or presuppositions) - but rather a theory should stand on its merit, elegant.
I am much more attracted to Wesson's theory calling for one expanded higher, time-like, dimension. It is an elegant theory that doesn't merely attempt to unify prior theories, unification would be a consequence not a cause.
Because Wesson's theory is elegant, issues in both physics (e.g. quantum entanglement FTL anomaly, superposition) and metaphysics (e.g. precognition or prophecy in Judeo/Christian lingo) melt away.
In my view, Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe model should be considered along with Wesson's 5D/2T theory. In Tegmark's model, everything "in" 4 dimensional (3 space, 1 time) space/time is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist beyond space and time.
From the Judeo/Christian point of view, as betty boop observed, it makes perfect sense because the Creator is not constrained by or subject to His own Creation, which is to say space/time is part of the Creation not a restriction of the Creator of it.
Or to put it another way, Wesson's 5D/2T theory would apply to the Creation not the Creator. A creature would be a higher dimensional brane (or hypersurface if you prefer since momentum of particles in a higher dimension would be imaged in 4D) could intersect the perceivable 4 dimensions (3S/1T).
Each of us - indeed, each thing (or manifestation in Tegmark's theory) - is a wave in the 5D/2T. Thus mortal "death" as we perceive it in 4D is merely a phase shift. And no doubt, the aspect of what we can perceive afterwards also changes:
This would be true because in the absence of space things cannot exist and in the absence of time events cannot occur. Both space and time are required for physical causation.
From the perspective of an observer in 4D it would seem that such entities existed in a spatially separated "world" when in the higher dimensional dynamics theory they would be phase-shifted and intersecting our 4D perceptible "world" at will. One might see this as the phase shift being bi-directional. I'm hoping MHGinTN will share some examples of this from Scripture!
But only God Himself - the Creator of all that there is - is (or is also) outside the Creation. Therefore, He alone sees "all that there is" all at once. He alone knows objective truth. He alone speaks objective truth. Indeed, He is Truth because when He says a thing, it is. It is because He says it, e.g. "Let there be light."
The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could “decouple” from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.
Or read more about it by clicking here.
In effect, we humans are waves "in" the Creation. But those waves do not merely manifest geometric form. We are a message being communicated. Physically that message is our DNA which uniquely defines us transmitted along a worldline in space/time (the Creation.) As long as that message is being physically communicated, we are physically alive.
I strongly recommend Rosen's book titled Life Itself for the mathematics unique to living things and a model of that communication.
And when we die physically according the Wesson's theory, we experience a phase shift. In sum, a person's wave function does not simply collapse upon physical death.
But more importantly to us Christians, we also become a new creature, spiritually alive, by another message being communicated "in" us:
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. - John 3:5-8
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Cor 6:19
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:4-5
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20