clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
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notes<br />
Only God truly exists; all other things are an emanation of Him, or are<br />
His "shadow."<br />
—Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis,<br />
Introduction to The Conference of the Birds<br />
Preface<br />
1. Islamic mystics have historically considered our world a cubic cage, a six-sided<br />
prison. Humans struggle in vain to escape the bondage of the senses and physical<br />
world. Persian poets refer to such imprisonment as "six-door," or shishdam—the hopeless<br />
position of a gambler playing a form of backgammon. In this game, players use a<br />
six-sided die to move pieces. If an opposing player has locked (occupied) all six locations<br />
to which your playing piece could potentially have moved, then you are "shishdar,"<br />
or six-out, since your piece cannot move.<br />
2. "I want to know if humankind's Gods could exist in the fourth dimension."<br />
Although a 4-D being would have God-like powers, this is not to say a 4-D being would<br />
have all the properties we traditionally attribute to God. Could a non-omnipotent, nonomniscient,<br />
non-omnipresent 4-D being act in such a way to appear to be a God? What<br />
Judeo-Christian miracles couldn't a 4-D being perform? A 4-D being would probably<br />
not be able to do any of the following, which many religions attribute to God: creating<br />
the world or universe, understanding our inner thoughts and prayers, seeing all temporal<br />
events at once, healing complex biochemical diseases, and prophesizing the future. However,<br />
a 4-D being could appear to be omnipresent and in several places at one time if it is<br />
a very large creature. It could probably fool ancient people into accepting it as a God.<br />
It would be difficult for a 4-D creature to masquerade as a 3-D creature; as the 4-D<br />
being moved, its intersection shape in our world would change. (Imagine how difficult<br />
it would for us to masquerade as a 2-D creature for Flatlanders living in a 2-D world.)<br />
Philosopher Greg Weiss wrote to me, "Perhaps this is why 'God' is so uneager to show<br />
himself in the Old Testament!"<br />
Greg Weiss suggests that it is amusing to propose that all spiritual beings, angels,<br />
devils, and God are four-dimensional, but only God has higher powers or access to<br />
even higher dimensions. Heaven could be essentially a 4-D locale in which God, the<br />
devil, and angels can move around at will. But, of course, this is mere speculation,<br />
more in the realm of religion than science.<br />
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