This post is an incomplete work-in-progress. Please help to further it by sharing your thoughts in the discussion.

The question of free will (whether we control our actions and decisions) irks me. I’m completely uncomfortable with the conclusion that we don’t have it. Yet for all the reasoning I do, I deduce causation and determinism.

Like those first faced with evidence that the earth isn’t the center of the universe, I doggedly believe in what’s intuitive. When what’s intuitive changes, we have a paradigm shift. And I think we’re close.

We may have intuitively said that the heavenly bodies move across our sky. But from another perspective, we say our planet spins and orbits and that this movement changes our window on the sky as we move relative to them. Both are valid realities that exist relative to differing perspectives.

Premises

For this discussion, I’ll posit:

• All states in lower dimensions flow deterministically from the states of higher dimensions.

and

• We choose which cross-section of the omniverse to construct our reality from.

Considering that as we shift the context upwards in dimensions, we eventually have a context that is inclusive of every possible state in every possible timeline that had every possible starting condition and so on. Let’s call this field of infinite possibilities the omniverse.

Yet we don’t perceive infinity.  When we think of reality, we perceive a slice of infinity.  Some finite part of the omiverse; let’s call it the universe.

If you think that you are your 3D body then this can be a difficult conception.  But if you step back and look at yourself across time, you see that your seemingly tangible body is a continuum from womb to grave.  Which one of those bodies is you?  I’d say they all are.  So “I” am at least a 4D being.  If I limit my self conception to 4D spacetime, this implies there was a time when I didn’t exist.  Was this at conception? Well, I can trace the acts that led to conception, so I could say that I am a continuation of what came before.  Long before. Humans evolved from mammals which evolved from some other terrestrial life, which came from the sea, which emerged from chemistry, which occurred because of particular configurations of particles, which occurred because of the big bang.

The entirety of my reality is a function of the starting conditions of the universe.  Really, these starting conditions are just different slices of 6D space. […]

But I believe that there is free will and that we exercise it in higher dimensional context.

Higher Dimensions

[… intro …]

Rob Bryanton’s project, Imagining the Tenth Dimension and his book Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space offer an eye-opening way to visualize and conceptualize higher dimensions. Conceive this:

Go ahead, watch it, it’ll help you conceive what we’re discussing.

Events are instantaneous in 3D space but set at intervals planck’s distance apart in 4D spacetime. Imagine the event’s timeline: everything that led up to it and everything that will flow from it. Put another way, its entire causal chain. Now you’re visualizing a 4D object in spacetime.

Depending on your perspective, a 2D plane could also be conceived as a slice, its 3D equivalent. While both abstractions represent the same object, the latter puts it in a broader context. We can extend the equivalency up to higher dimensions, where 3D space is a slice of the 4th dimension spacetime. Or 4D spacetime is a slice of 5D spacetimechoice.

Spacetimechoice is what I’ll call the contents of 5 dimensional space, having an axis each of: width, height, depth, time, choice.

Interesting. Choice? I believe that the state of the causal / deterministic “universe” in a given dimension precipitates from the position in the dimension above.

“the position”? Imagine a selector. One that let you focus in on a particular 2D plane / slice of 3D space. You’ve created a context. That context’s universe has two extents / axes / dimensions. From within, you can perceive the context as a 2D universe. But you can also conceive it from the outside. It’s a small slice of 3D space. The smallest slice possible.

In trying to understand the mechanisms / physical laws / motivations / causes of the state of things in one context, it’s helpful to look at the higher dimensional context that it is a selection of. In the 2D context, we see the mysterious dot appear, grow into a circle, shrink back to a dot, and disappear; but looking at the context from the dimension above in 3D, we see the ball (a hollow sphere) moving across the 2D context.

This gets even more interesting when you extend the notion of causation to its environment / higher dimensional context. The causal chain is not constrained dimensionally. Our 2D mystery is a result of the movement of a simple object in 3D. The way things currently are in 3D is a result of our position in the 4th extent / axis / dimension: time. Likewise, the way things are in 4D spacetime is a result of our position in the 5th dimension.

What would a change of position / selection in the 5th dimension do to the 4D context? Change it. Possibly every particle at every time is different. Possibly just one quanta at just one time is different. Actually, in 5D, there’s a slice for every possible 4D arrangement. As enormous as 3D space is to a 2D plane. Inconceivable. Or maybe it is conceivable; Aren’t we?

Normal movement is progressive and linear. That is, to get from somewhere to somewhere else, we have to pass through all the intervening positions. Another way to think about “passing through” positions is the movement of the selector in the dimension above. From within the context, there is a progression of position. Viewed from outside / in the dimension above there is also simple movement. But this higher dimensional movement is changing the 2D cross-section of 3D space.

• An entire dimension is a slice of the dimension above.
• A line in one dimension is a [point? / movement] in the dimension above.
• A point in one dimension is a […] in the dimension above.

Starting again with our 2D plane, let’s move from the point / position at (width1 x height1) to (width2 x height2). We can’t just instantly jump there. We need the aid of the dimension above to move. In 3D space, this movement is along the 4th axis, time. You pass through each quanta of both dimensions.

If you want to get from here to there in 3D space, the progression happens in 4D.

There could have been a movement in a higher dimension. Or not.

In the same way …

Einstein showed that space and time are different axies of the same thing. Thinking about time as just another dimension of extents / distances rather than a different concept than space

information and energy of …

Choice is a Context Selector from Infinite Potentiality / Choice is a context selector of potentials …