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Replying to post 14 by McCulloch]
Volbrigade wrote:
Here's what I mean by "dimensionally different".
We exist in three spacial dimensions, plus time -- correct? Not mentioning here the minimum of six extra dimensions required by superstring theory, because they are inferred, not observable.
If you measure a right triangle, and the sum of the angles is more than 180 degrees, what does that tell you? It tells you that you are dealing with more than two dimensions, of course. Not a plane -- perhaps a sphere. You have added an "extra dimension". Einstein used this insight in developing his landmark theorems; he added the dimension of time to his consideration of space. Others have made similar dimensional additions -- Yang and Mills, et. al. -- in the quest for a "unified theory".
The point being, we do not know what the extent of our shared reality is, beyond our 4D space-time continuum. Whatever it is, it is not observable, but must be inferred, except in those instances where it crashes into our subset of it, like a ball dropped through a two-dimensional universe. Those sorts of interferences, or interactions, with our reality are precisely what is recorded in the Bible.
Hold on. This is not what is recorded in the Bible. I find no reference at all to any of these inferences, space-time continuum, non-euclidean geometry or that other stuff anywhere in the Bible.
Did you look into 1st and 2nd Quantum Physiccions?
Did you read between the lines?
Sorry -- couldn't decide which of those I liked best.
Seriously: for starters, even with regard to some of the central doctrines of Christianity, it is not possible to refer to one specific defining verse, or even chapter. Where is the chapter on Redemption? Justification? Sanctification? Baptism?
It has been posited that the Bible's diffusion of its core message(s) across its entire "bandwith" is by deliberate design: even an encrypted method of derailing "hostile jamming". That is, you can remove any page of the Bible; and while you might decrease the resolution of key issues, you will not substantially affect the entirety of the package.
Because I believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, and "delivered" to us from outside of our time domain, through the auspices of its human authors, I find this argument compelling.
In keeping with its theme: because the God who created the physical laws under which our material reality operates is the same God who guided the transmission of the Biblical text, then the knowledge of those laws are latent within the text -- though not explicitly; what need does an ancient Judean sheepherder, or a modern urban gang member, have for a textbook on quantum mechanics?
That is, just because we have only discovered quantum physics, or the nanotechnology within the living cell, in the last 100 years or so, doesn't mean they haven't always been there; and haven't always applied (discoveries, by the way, that have completely obliterated the quaint and truncated 19th century worldview that has come to dominate scientific, and now popular, understanding). Iows -- Gravity didn't begin with Newton's discovery.
Nor was the knowledge of these things absent from God's mind, and often expressed obliquely and metaphorically in the text. Some excellent tomes have been written detailing the scientific accuracy of the Bible; a quick Google search will, I am confident, be fruitful in that regard.
Consider, for instance, the intriguing phrase "God stretched the heavens like a tent"; which appears several times, in various forms and in various places, throughout Scripture. Consider the ramifications of this through the prism of our current understanding, and not just as a colorful idiom.
In the first place, were the tents that would have been familiar to the authors and readers not made of some sort of fabric? Do we not refer to the "fabric" of space-time?
Next, consider what it means, in terms of the our physical universe, that God in some sense "stretched" it into its present configuration. Several PhD astrophysicists have, and have arrived at interesting conclusions.
Or consider Ephesians 3:18, which refers to "the width and length and depth and height" of Christ's love. Is it just poetic coincidence that is a reference to four dimensions? Which is precisely the insight arrived at by Einstein, 1,900 years later -- that we exist in a 4D space-time continuum? Since I believe "there are no coincidences in God's kingdom", I don't think it is.
That same passage also refers to that Love as "passing all knowledge"; which is precisely the sort of hyperdimensionality that we have been discussing, which is beyond the reach and full understanding of our present limited existence.
Volbrigade wrote:
What we see in the risen Jesus Christ is an example of a person who exists in a hyperdimensionality -- one that is "dimensionally different" than our 4D experience.
We see the attributes of this in His appearance to His disciples in the upper room. He manifests in a six-sided enclosure, without penetrating any of the sides. He is not limited by our constraints of space and time; though He may reduce Himself to them: a cube can always appear as a square, depending on perspective.
This is an interesting but unsupported hypothesis. Is there any evidence that this hyperdimensionality is humanly possible, or that such a state would extend life?
Well, I don't believe it IS "humanly possible", being exclusively the purview of God. He will, as part of His plan and purpose, provide us with spiritual bodies -- the spiritual, or "hyperdimensional" hardware to accommodate our spiritual "software", or our spirits. This is attested throughout the NT, and complies favorably with our current understanding. Of course, if you rule out the Bible as truth, you rule out this complete interpretation of it. Your choice.
That said, there IS evidence (not proof!) that it is "humanly possibly". Are you familiar with the Transhuman movement in science? Among its many permutations is the research into immortality; that is, theoretically, if you could capture the software that composes the bio-electro-chemcial pattern in the brain that (again, theoretically) comprises "you" -- iows, those terabytes of information -- then that could be transferred indefinitely into mechanical, or bio-mechanical, or even cyber (e.g., a "cloud" database) repositories: in effect, achieving immortality.
The flaw, as the Bible points out (leaving aside any other conditions of desirability of such an arrangement) is that this entire universe will "pass away" at the command of Our Lord, followed by a "New Heavens and a New Earth". That is the culmination, and fulfillment, of the entire Bible message.
But consider this: you can load a blank CD or DVD with hundreds of dollars, and thousands of MBs, of software information, without changing its mass or weight. You can even send that software information through the air.
Now, we know that time is a physical property, which is affected by such things as gravity, velocity, acceleration, mass, etc.
It may be that the "software" that is us -- call it soul, spirit, whatever -- has no mass or weight. And is therefore not subject to the dimension of time.
That we are, indeed, eternal, "hyperdimensional". Just as the Bible has said all along.