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
There is a scene where the prophet and his ‘student’ are seemingly trapped in a valley, with the army of their pursuers camped around in such a way that the student is certain with dawn they will be found and captured; the prophet is not concerned and tells his student that his army is larger/more powerful than that of the pursuers, and reveals a vast army and their campfires on the crest of the hills surrounding the pursuers; this army may well have been the recent Israeli army during one of the new Israel wars, given the locale and the nature of the vision; the pursuers apparently also saw the 'other' army, because they fled the valey during the night!
Another OT example is when an iron axehead is lost into the river and the prophet causes it to ‘float’ to the surface where the ‘student tree harvester’ can retrieve it.
In the New Testament, the scene where Philip is suddenly whisked away from the presence of the man who was riding in a chariot reading from Isaiah.
These scenes are but three of many. The essence of these scens is that time and space are not restraints to God's Spirit and the ability of His people/Spirit born people to at the very least perceive if not manipulate a greater reality. The fish and loaves Jesus fed more than five thousand with were by some means stretched as if tesseracts to be harvested at His Will. The fish and bread were real, thus they existed in space and time, but somehow space and time as reality was more than the 'witnesses' could perceive.
Jesus gave a huge hint regarding the astonishing reality of The SPirit of God present within, in the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel, where He explained it to Philip as best Philip could conceive it ...
"Kludged" indeed. It's as if anytime the string theorist comes up against a road block in the prosecution of his mathematical trail, that he simply says, "Well, let's just propose yet another (spacial, compactified) dimension and see how that all works out."
And yet as you suggest, dearest sister in Christ, the mathematical Platonists are always looking for simplicity, elegance, beauty, and I daresay maximal efficency/economy as the touchstones of the truth of any mathematical proposition, not to mention "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
In Natural Law Theory, the former is regarded as the universal language of the latter.
I do believe that, not only Max Tegmark (whose Level IV Parallel Universe theory I greatly admire), but also such other eminences as Einstein, Eddington, Wesson, et al. are mathematical Platonists.
Anyhoot, as you noted, Einstein later regretted his "kluge."
Dearest Alamo-Girl, you wrote:
From the perspective of an observer in 4D it would seem that such [higher than 4D] entities existed in a spatially separated "world" when in the higher dimensional dynamics theory [e.g., Wesson's 5D/2T] they would be phase-shifted and intersecting our 4D perceptible "world" at will.An observer in 4D sees what he sees from the inside of the "all that there is," as part and participant of it. He cannot ever gain a perspective from the outside of the 4D world, so as to see it all "entire" in perfect "objectivity."
Sense perception developed to accommodate interactions with a 4D world have no utility whatever with respect to direct observation of a fifth, timelike dimension.
Here it seems useful to cite Romans 1:20:
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuseWhich regarding the instant case I take to mean: The fifth timelike dimension is not directly perceptible by means of sense, but can be "seen" or intuited by the human mind — which seems to have a "natural ability" to "sense" such things — in a purely subjective process. Thus the Natural Law connection, or correspondence, between the world of Nature (Creation) and the human psyche: The two orders naturally "correspond" in Natural Law Theory; which is why mathematics can stand as the universal language that so aptly describes their relations.
Dearest sister, you wrote:
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.Lately, just this point has practical significance in the life of my family. I have an elderly father who — although as healthy as a horse physically — has lost his will to live. He actively wants to die. But it seems to me he is a man (very Newtonian! probably a Deist to boot!) who sees death as an endpoint, not as a phase shift.... But if death truly is a phase shift (as thinkers as far back as Plato seem to suggest), then Dad is not at all "prepared" for it....
I just hope and pray that he will acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ — Son of God and Logos Alpha to Omega — before he passes away.
My father is a man of sterling character and intelligence. I do not understand why he continues to refuse to give proper acknowledgement to the Source of his own fine human qualities, which have led to a rich and diverse life of wonderful achievements.
So I pray. Would you please say a little prayer for my Dad, dearest sister in Christ?
I'll close for now — though there were so many other splendid insights in your absolutely outstanding article. Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for writing it!