clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

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