The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness:
A Physical Basis for Immaterialism
By Samuel Avery
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness is a relatively succinct presentation of the proposition that instead of consciousness as an artifact in the material universe, rather the opposite is so: the material universe is a creation of consciousness.
Beginning with the "experience" of a single-celled microorganism in the primal oceans, Avery shows how sensory experience generates dimensional representations of patterns as consciousness sorts its experience of itself. Those single-celled organisms, for instance, have only one experience and one sort of choice. The sense is taste; when a new chemical enters the cell it will be "experienced" as a good taste, i.e., food, or a bad taste, a chemical the cell can't use (or perhaps that kills it). The choice is whether to let new molecules through the cell wall. The cell executes this by controlling the charge along the wall, keeping the molecules that comprise the wall tight packed together or relaxing and opening up space for outside molecules to come in. That charge, mediated by potassium and sodium ions, is the basis of consciousness. When a new molecule comes inside, it is tasted. The sensation happens inside the cell wall.
The physical senses correlate with the dimensions of the experienced world. That first dimension is taste; it's opening or closing the cell wall. So a series of patterns of open and closed--which in modern math is the binary pattern of 1s and 0s which can be represented along a line of one dimension.
The second sense is smell. The cell learns to sniff around looking for good tastes by picking up chemical clues to its environment outside the cell wall. Not only does the cell experience being open or closed, it experiences being here or there in relation to the other molecules around it. It moves around seeking good tastes by sensing good smells. And thereby generates the second dimension.
Five senses would generate five dimensions. Sound is the third dimension, light the fourth, and touch the fifth.
Avery observes that our normal model of the material universe actually is of five dimensions: three spatial and two temporal. The second temporal dimension is a novel concept in this book. The clue to the second dimension of time is the squared unit of time in the formula for acceleration: A = d/t2. We say, for instance, that the acceleration of a falling body is 32 ft per second per second.
The second dimension of time is mass. It is experienced as inertia. The reason you have to push hard on a massive object to get it to move is because it is moving at a slower rate of time than you. What seems like resistance to motion is drag in relation to the second dimension of time.
The whole book is a series of arguments, thought experiments, and discussions of how to see that materiality arises from consciousness rather than the other way around. It never gets "spiritual"--in the sense of talking about meaning or of the content of religious myths (like God). Though the argument does hypothesize an "observational realm" by which consciousness is conscious of itself within its dimensional projection of space.
Along the way, Avery offers explanations for what matter and light are that solves the various paradoxes of quantum mechanics. He explains mass in a way that physics has never been able to, leaving it simply as one of the undefined elements of space, like distance or time. He even explains the speed of light.
You should read this book! (For more about the nature of reality, look at Michael Talbot and the Holographic Universe and "Experiencing experiencing experiencing.")
A Physical Basis for Immaterialism
By Samuel Avery
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness is a relatively succinct presentation of the proposition that instead of consciousness as an artifact in the material universe, rather the opposite is so: the material universe is a creation of consciousness.
Beginning with the "experience" of a single-celled microorganism in the primal oceans, Avery shows how sensory experience generates dimensional representations of patterns as consciousness sorts its experience of itself. Those single-celled organisms, for instance, have only one experience and one sort of choice. The sense is taste; when a new chemical enters the cell it will be "experienced" as a good taste, i.e., food, or a bad taste, a chemical the cell can't use (or perhaps that kills it). The choice is whether to let new molecules through the cell wall. The cell executes this by controlling the charge along the wall, keeping the molecules that comprise the wall tight packed together or relaxing and opening up space for outside molecules to come in. That charge, mediated by potassium and sodium ions, is the basis of consciousness. When a new molecule comes inside, it is tasted. The sensation happens inside the cell wall.
The physical senses correlate with the dimensions of the experienced world. That first dimension is taste; it's opening or closing the cell wall. So a series of patterns of open and closed--which in modern math is the binary pattern of 1s and 0s which can be represented along a line of one dimension.
The second sense is smell. The cell learns to sniff around looking for good tastes by picking up chemical clues to its environment outside the cell wall. Not only does the cell experience being open or closed, it experiences being here or there in relation to the other molecules around it. It moves around seeking good tastes by sensing good smells. And thereby generates the second dimension.
Five senses would generate five dimensions. Sound is the third dimension, light the fourth, and touch the fifth.
Avery observes that our normal model of the material universe actually is of five dimensions: three spatial and two temporal. The second temporal dimension is a novel concept in this book. The clue to the second dimension of time is the squared unit of time in the formula for acceleration: A = d/t2. We say, for instance, that the acceleration of a falling body is 32 ft per second per second.
The second dimension of time is mass. It is experienced as inertia. The reason you have to push hard on a massive object to get it to move is because it is moving at a slower rate of time than you. What seems like resistance to motion is drag in relation to the second dimension of time.
The whole book is a series of arguments, thought experiments, and discussions of how to see that materiality arises from consciousness rather than the other way around. It never gets "spiritual"--in the sense of talking about meaning or of the content of religious myths (like God). Though the argument does hypothesize an "observational realm" by which consciousness is conscious of itself within its dimensional projection of space.
Along the way, Avery offers explanations for what matter and light are that solves the various paradoxes of quantum mechanics. He explains mass in a way that physics has never been able to, leaving it simply as one of the undefined elements of space, like distance or time. He even explains the speed of light.
You should read this book! (For more about the nature of reality, look at Michael Talbot and the Holographic Universe and "Experiencing experiencing experiencing.")
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