Science vs. Religion, Part 4: Multi-dimensionality and the Joseph Smith story

Today, let’s discuss some basic dimensional theory and how it could be applied to scripture and the spirit world.

Hmmm…this may be difficult without some basic diagrams. Let’s see if I can’t throw some together in Photoshop…ah, there we go!

Let’s imagine we have a place called ‘2D Land’, comprised of only two dimensions. 2D Land and all its inhabitants are completely flat (imagine them being printed on a piece of paper) and have no knowledge nor concept of any other ‘direction’ than the basic four they live with.

Unbeknowst to them, their 2D Land resides entirely inside a much larger world called ‘3D Land’ in which all inhabitants are composed of three dimensions (imagine a piece of paper inside a sphere). One inhabitant of 3D Land (let’s call him ‘Bob’) lives just outside of 2D Land, and has taken a particular interest in the 2D people.

Note that Bob has the capability of seeing everything that happens in 2D Land, although the people of 2D Land have no idea that Bob is there. Not that Bob is technically ‘invisible’, but that it is physically impossible for their 2D bodies to turn and see Bob, nor do they even have an conceptual understanding of the direction in which to turn in order to see him. Outside of the boundaries of 2D Land, the rest of 3D Land remains an unseen mystery to the 2Ders.

One day, Bob decides he wants to go visit 2D Land and talk with its inhabitants. He travels downward and downward until he ‘lands on’ the plane on which 2D Land resides and becomes ‘visible’. Now, from the 2Ders’ perspective, they didn’t see Bob coming nor had any indication that he was about to arrive. One second the space in 2D Land was empty, and then suddenly Bob was there, seemingly having appeared instantaneously from their viewpoint.

Amazed at this sudden appearance, the 2Ders ask Bob where he came from.

“It’s called ‘3D Land’” Bob replies.

The 2Ders bring out a map of 2D land. “Can you point it out for us?” they ask.

“Sorry. It’s not on your map, nor is it even possible to be mapped from your perspective.”

“Really? What direction is it from here?”

“From here it’s up…” Bob replies.

“’Up’? You mean…north?”

“Uh, no…up. It’s hard to explain…”

“Well, can you point to it?”

“No, sorry. You can’t point to it from your perspective.”

After the visit was concluded, Bob travelled ‘up’ to his home—again appearing to the 2Ders to disappear instantly from the spot on which he was standing without having an idea where he went. Bob returns to his 'higher' viewpoint and continues watching and listening to the doings of the 2D people.

Now, then…let’s apply this dimensional principle to our own universe. Keep the above story in mind while you read the account of Joseph Smith (from the introduction to the Book of Mormon—I’ve bolded the most significant words…)

““On the evening of the . . . twenty-first of September [1823] . . . I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God . . . .

While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.”

[He announces himself as Moroni and delivers his message, which we’ll skip for now…]

“After this communication, I saw the light in the room begin to gather immediately around the person of him who had been speaking to me, and it continued to do so, until the room was again left dark, except just around him, when instantly I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended until he entirely disappeared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.”

Okay, let’s discuss. We know from revelation that Moroni is a resurrected being who has a physical, flesh-and-bone body. Therefore, he couldn’t have walked through the walls or the roof immaterially like a ghost in order to enter because his physical body wouldn’t have allowed it. Furthermore, Joseph Smith’s account doesn’t say that he did—in fact, it doesn’t say Moroni came from anywhere…he just seemed to appear instantly by Joseph’s bedside. (Luckily he had some light come first as a precursor or Joseph would have been quite startled by the instantaneous appearance of someone in his room)

When Moroni departed, Joseph actually had the chance to see him leave, but what direction did he go? “I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended until he entirely disappeared…” In other words, Moroni went up to return home, not 'up' meaning through the roof, but up in some new sense that Joseph was allowed to see for an instant, but wouldn’t be able to point to afterwards.

What does this mean? Only that some of the mysteries of the gospel can be explained by simple application of dimensional theory. Where is ‘heaven’, where God and His angels reside? Can you point to it? How is it He can see everything we do, but we can’t see Him? Where is the ‘spirit world’? Ponder this statement by Brigham Young:

“When you lay down this tabernacle, where are you going? Into the spiritual world…Where is the spirit world? It is right here. Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes they do…. Do they go beyond the boundaries of the organized earth? No, they do not…. Can you see it with your natural eyes? No. Can you see spirits in this room? No. Suppose the Lord should touch your eyes that you might see, could you then see the spirits? Yes, as plainly as you now see bodies.” --Discourses of Brigham Young, edited by John Widtsoe

Science wants to know why if God or ‘spirits’ exist we can’t see them. Well, a simple scientific model can answer this question perfectly by thinking of our 3D world inside a larger 4D world where God can see everything that happens, and send people to visit, but which remains unseen to us (at least not without the Lord ‘touching your eyes’ as Brigham Young mentioned to give us '4D' vision). Where are the departed spirits of our ancestors? Why, right here…just ‘over’ a little bit.

Why is this significant? Because science already accepts the idea of a fourth dimension—in fact, Einstein’s general relativity is based on the idea that gravity causes matter to curve the normally 3D fabric of space in four dimensions. 4D stuff is inherently hard to visualize, but since so much of current science deals with 4D curvatures of 3D space isn’t it possible that the realm of knowledge available within the 4D universe could include God and other higher intelligences and ‘spirit’?

(Side note: many people, including H.G.Wells and Madeleine L’Engle, use ‘time’ to describe a fourth dimension. I don’t accept this notion personally; as I noted in a previous post, the concept of time only has meaning when associated with movement—therefore any use of time as a fourth component in mathematical equations could also be represented by a set of 3D movements. The idea of a fourth dimension presented here involves specifically 4D movement—movement in some new direction, unrelated to any outside concept of time…)

For all intensive purposes, we can consider the surface of the earth to be a 2D surface. Yet, the earth’s surface doesn’t have a ‘border’—if we walk in any direction we won’t ‘fall off’ or hit a ‘wall’, but instead return to where we started. This is because the 2D surface is shaped in a 3D way, around a sphere. Now what about the universe as a whole? The universe has a finite amount of mass (in theory) but if you travelled in one direction long enough would you hit a ‘wall’ at the edge of the universe? Doubtful...more likely you’d wind up back where you started eventually, meaning the 3D universe is (in theory, remember) shaped in a 4D way--a ‘hyper-sphere’ (?)—which also implies there’s more to 4D space outside the universe.

In conclusion (assuming I haven’t lost you completely already), science itself has provided the model and theory for explaining many of the ‘unknown’ mysteries of God, or at least provided a framework by which we can try to comprehend them. Again, the main purpose of these posts is not to point out what is true (because I have no idea) but rather what could be true and to point out that science has absolutely no foundation to proclaim that God doesn’t exist considering the massive scope of things that science hasn’t been able to reach yet…

Next: A wrap-up of the science vs. religion 'conflict'...