About the fifth dimension. Something called hyperspace. It's supposedly the newest trend in physics. The Real Universities all have departments devoted to the study of such esoteric physical theories. (Fake Universities spend their money on administrative tangents and suffer decreased student enrollment).
Hyperspace is the latest attempt to develop a Grand Unified Theory. Unified theory is an attempt to explain all and everything, and how it is related. Kind of like a mathematical formula for God.
Ok, I'll bite. Why not a mathematical formula for the Almightster? After all, you can define a mathematical formula for humans, for the planets, the galaxies, for most of the physical universe. Why not a great-gork mother-of-all-formulae that defines the creative imperative responsible for all of it?
But wait a minute--did I say you could derive a formula for humans? I lied. You can derive a formula for the meat. You cannot derive a formula for the Self.
We were talking...
About the definition of consciousness as it relates to Artificial Intelligence.
Someone said: "I think the first thing the machine's going to say when it wakes up is 'where's my sense organs?'"
Someone else said: "Don't you think you're projecting human values into something that expands far beyond the human sphere?"
So it went.
I was thinking...
Physics has defined four fundamental forces of nature. There are not three; nor are there five. There are four. Christ, how arrogant the masters of science are! Four forces. No wonder we're still sitting on our treasure-piles lobbing smart-missiles at defenseless fools. No wonder we haven't Unified our science. No wonder we haven't yet left the earth.
Four forces: Strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational. These forces are fundamental because they cannot be broken down any smaller, cannot be transmuted, cannot be understood. They just...are. So they are fundamental. Basically, they are fundamental because we don't understand a thing about them, and the grand and illustrious intellectual giants who control academia cannot bring themselves to admit how truly small and ignorant our science still is.
Physics will never Unify until we learn to count, at least to five, and probably beyond. There is a fundamental force all around us, there for us to see, there to look at, there to bite us on our goddamn noses if it were any closer or more obvious.
Try this: Think a thought. Go ahead. Think about elephants. What energy powers your thoughts? Is it electro-chemical? Nuclear? Gravitational? We can define the chemical processes that contribute to the storage of the thought in memory. We can see what portions of the brain control sight, hearing, touch, etc. We can derive a formula for the meat. But we cannot define what it is that actually thinks the thought. We cannot say what energy it is that gives that thought existence.
Does this not meet the criteria for a fundamental force? Is it not something all around us, without which we would not exist. Is it not something that we cannot split, transmute, or even define? Is it not something that we don't understand at all? How can science ignore such an important aspect of the physical universe? How can we expect to Unify when we haven't even gathered up all the pieces?
We were talking...
About the love we all could share.
What powers emotion? Some say that emotion is nothing more than thought gone awry. Others might argue that emotion is a whole separate energy. When we feel, they say, we do not think. In fact, one might postulate that you cannot completely feel if you are thinking. If that is true, if there is some higher force that both feels and thinks, then does that force not unify the other two? So shall we call thought and emotion subsets of this fundamental force? Shall we call it Self?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that we must seek to understand the forces which power our own existence. A scientist who ignores observable data is not a scientist at all. A mathematician who refuses to factor all elements of his equation is nothing more or less than a fool.
Mars we can do. Luna we can do. Maybe even Venus. But we will not leave this solar system until we have seen our Selves.