Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magic - Peter J. Carroll 2000

Phenomenization II Finite and Unbounded

Any finite and unbounded system of N apparent dimensions must actually have N + N/2 dimensions for closure. Consider the bending of a two dimensional sheet through a third dimension to create a finite and unbounded two dimensional spherical surface, for example.

Our universe consists of a four dimensional ’surface’ comprising three dimensions of space and one of time, which achieves closure by bending through a two dimensional plane of imaginary time.

The plane of imaginary time thus lies orthogonal to our observed four dimensional ’surface’.

Wrong. Despite that space exhibits no preferred direction we labored for years under the illusion that because we needed extra time dimensions to explain quantum physics and magic then the ’extra’ ones must somehow differ from what we conventionally conceive of as ’ordinary’ time.

In fact time exhibits no preferred direction either; we merely define ’ordinary’ time as whatever direction entropy appears to increase in. Clocks measure entropy, not time.

The three dimensions of space and the three dimensions of time achieve hyperspherical closure by curvature about a fourth dimension of space and a fourth dimension of time that appears to us as gravity.

Commentary 41

We concede that we have adopted a finite and unbounded universe as an act of faith in our own finite and unbounded imagination. Neuro-cosmology sets the limits of cosmology. However, this model at least has the virtue of supplying an answer to what lies ’outside’ of the universe, and also what lies ’inside’ of it.

Outside of the universe lies the ANA direction of future imaginary time which we may conceive of as having unlimited duration and information content, but no space, matter or energy. Inside the hyperspherical four dimensional ’surface’ of the universe lies the KATA direction of imaginary time, of necessarily limited length. This asymmetry creates entropy and irreversibility, and an apparent arrow in real time, as the imaginary future contains more probabilities than the imaginary past.

Not entirely accurate in terms of our last decade of research. Three dimensional space and three dimensional time must each curve round a forth dimension to achieve a finite and unbounded configuration, so that makes eight dimensions in all. Moreover the fourth dimensions in which time and space lie embedded do not need to extend beyond the 3D spacetimes they contain. The wavelike pasts and futures thus have the same size in probability space.