Scenes inside a Gold Mine, Ch. 11

Imagine what it was like to receive wisdom of Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)  or the Greek Aristarchus of Samos (310BC – 230BC) that the earth orbits around the sun. It may not seem like much now, but it must have been seriously disconcerting back then.  No more God creating humans to be at the center of the universe.  Instead we just lived on one of many orbiters around one of many suns.   Kinda takes the wind out of your sails.  Also gets a lot of religious types threatened, and when threatened, there is always retaliation.   Lets shoot the messenger!

But we survived and created a whole new type of religion of sorts.   The religion of physics.  The belief in one universe, generated from a few mathematical truths and principles of symmetry which describe a universe where everything can be calculated, predicted and understood by the human mind according to human constructs. 

Now even that belief system is being assaulted--from within.  New theories in physics like eternal inflation and string theory suggest that the same fundamental principles from which the laws of physics derive may lead to a multitude of  universes, with many different properties. 

But here is really what I really want to get at:   Its not just that our universe is one atom in another universe in an infinite progression of universes.  As disconcerting as that would be, its still too easy and its still based on human constructs of space.  And I'm not talking about space like in "outer space."  "Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship Pseudopumpkin..."  Instead, I'm talking about how we perceive the world around us as consisting of discrete objects in space and time.   What I'm proposing is something even more radical.   Just as the old notion that the earth was the center of the universe was a human centered belief in reality, the belief in discrete atoms all arranged to coincide with human perceptions of space/time is a similarly antiquated belief system.  What if there was no space? Can you imagine a multitude of universes without space?  Where there is no me, no you, no distance between the me and the desk?  How can we even perceive no space, no time, no distance.  My head explodes.  Rather, my head implodes with a crazy claustrophobia.   

Can a fish understand the goji berry growing on the foothills of the Himalayas?   Can the fish even understand a mountain?  Or is it also possible that we, like the fish, are living in a universe inherently incalculable by our science and comprehension?  We may never get out of the water to see the light of day.   Maybe its because we are not Gods--despite the fact that we are legends in our own minds:-).