Childhood's End

"Imagine, if you will, that the world's destruction is at stake and the only way to save it is for you to write a one-pager that convinces a jury that your old cherished view is mistaken or at least seriously incomplete. The more inadequate the jury thinks your old cherished view is, the greater the chances that the world is saved. The catch is that the jury consists of earlier stages of yourself (such as yourself such as you were one year ago)." (lol - Good one!)

Ladies of the jury,

The purpose of this statement is to argue for the rejection of the currently-proposed idea of modeling experience in 5 dimensions. For the purposes of this statement, the 5-dimensional 'model' (such as it is) refers to the idea described by this author, and to no other attempts to describe the universe in 5+ dimensions.

We will not begin by arguing about the nature of our experiences. If you are younger versions of me, then your experiences will drive you to look for an explanation, and I must only convince you that this particular explanation is ill-advised. This is not difficult for me to do, as I can see that my role in advancing this particular idea has reached its limit.

It isn't hard to see why this proposal should be rejected. The nature of what this author is proposing involves re-contextualizing the laws of nature and physics as we know them. Of all the arrogance! And this from someone who is too cowardly and ill-equipped to succeed at doing it!

Ladies of the jury, you are me, and we weren't always such a coward. You, Me(2000), wanted to pursue this idea's predecessor as a dissertation, but you couldn't assemble the cross-disciplinary team of advisors to do it. You never doubted your ability to do the work, including the math and the modeling that you now avoid. But then, you had a much smaller idea.

And now look at us. Look at what I have become, for the flaws of this idea come from me, and I am your future. I have judged my opinion of my experiences to be more valid than the judgments that would be placed upon it by others. This idea is nothing but a stubborn, egotistical refusal to accept a definition of myself as flawed. And yet that egotism hasn't gone far enough. This explanation, this idea, in its current state, is undeveloped. It is not been carried forward, as science demands, to make testable predictions about the laws of physics as we currently know them. What self-respecting scientist clings to an idea that she has little or no hope and/or intention of making anything more of?

When you become me, you will have gone just far enough and know just enough that you can feel accomplished and right. You will know what this idea represents, and you will feel superior for having had such a big idea. But you will also be angry. Angry that you can't ignore what this idea represents. Angry that the feeling that you should do something more won't go away. Angry that you know enough to know what is respectable to do and what isn't. Angry that the burden of doing something that you are not equipped to do gets placed on you. Angry at the assholes who make you afraid to ask for help. Angry that it's always about the 'show', and not the 'tell'. Angry at yourself that you haven't mastered your fear. And you will stop, somewhere between the feeling of accomplishment and the fear. You will decide that this place is just fine. And you will not push yourself to do what is necessary for science. You will tell yourself that it is too big of an undertaking, and you will let this absolve you of the need to press forward. That is perhaps where this idea is the most dangerous.

Ladies of the jury, I urge you to reject this idea when it comes upon you because it is an idea that you will cling to for all the wrong reasons. It has not been substantiated by the experience of others. It has not been successfully integrated with the mountains of evidence that suggest that the rules of a 4-dimensional world work just fine. It is a problem that you may not be sufficiently motivated to solve, for you will fear success at doing so more than you will fear failure, and it would cost you a lifetime either way. It will fulfill your basic psychological need for self-validation on several levels, but that won't make it worth anything to anyone else if it can't be properly developed into a predictive model that can be experimentally tested. As the 'author' of this idea, I haven't done that. I don't know if I can do it, or even if I want to do it. I simply want to be at peace with what I am and what I can do. And that isn't enough for you to accept this idea. You should strive for something better. This idea, in its current state, represents all the weakness of my ego, not the strength of science.

(You're right - that was helpful, and cathartic. ;)