'Flatland' and Einstein's Universe - On Our Relationship to the Temporal Dimension

2

This cluster of limitations applying to the inhabitants of Flatland can - by analogy - be extended into all four dimensions known to us and to their imaginable inhabitants. To do this, we arrange the dimensions in an ascending order: A line is marked by points; a plane by lines; a three-dimensional space by planes; in Einstein's space-time-dimension space is measured by time and vice versa. We distinguish (with Abbott) "Pointland", "Lineland", "Flatland", "Spaceland" and (additionally) "Einstein's universe". The inhabitants of Pointland cannot move freely within a line, those of Lineland cannot move within a plane, those of Flatland cannot rise into space, those of Spaceland cannot move freely in time.

The last case, of course, marks our own situation: We live in time, we are aware of it and of its

all-importance 5 . But we cannot move freely in it. We are caught in it like in an elevator, which does not stop, as Einstein would say. Time is our tyrant. It does not allow us to return to days gone by; and it is dragging us mercilessly into an unknown future. While being dragged this way, we age rapidly-and finally meet death.

By now we all know from modern science that we could escape this tyrant time only if we were capable of speed faster than light. If a space ship could carry us away at the speed of light, time would stand still for us. We would not age any longer. If our vehicle o f transportation could travel faster than light, we would become younger on our trip. – But, horror after horror, at the return to our beloved planet: Nobody would recognize us any longer. Like in the archetypal myth of the man who went to sleep in a mountain (or under the

sea 6 ) our friends and family would have died long ago. Because of the enormous distances involved, our trip would have taken a long time (earth time!), and here time would have not stood still (or be reversed). We would return as strangers to an estranged world. Therefore, some might feel that it is a good thing that any normal object is forever confined (by the laws of relativity) to move at speeds slower than the speed of light. If it were otherwise, we could acquire divine powers.

What do we mean by saying we cannot "survey" time? - Since we cannot move at will into the past or future, we cannot truly know either one. We experienced only our own past, not that of others, and even the memory of our own past is always distorted by the present. We, who

remember 7 our past, are different persons from our former selves, who experienced the past. The past itself has done this to us. It has changed us. Therefore, the past is sealed to our knowledge almost as hermetically as is the future. For the visitor from Spaceland everything in

3

Flatland, which is considered by its inhabitants to be "solid" or "enclosed on four sides", lies open and exposed to his view, since he enjoys the advantage of rising over it into the third dimension. Here, he is able to move freely. In the same way, for the visitor from Einstein's universe, who can move freely in the "fourth dimension", time, the past and the future would he exposed and open to inspection. Would this make him "all-knowing", in the way God is supposed to be all knowing? - It seems that someone, who can know anything that happened or will happen, still misses out on one aspect of life: He would not be able to look into the hearts of men. He could observe only external events; and only indirectly could he deduce motivation from the kind of action he could observe. This is what we often do in hindsight. But the stirrings of the human soul would be unknown to this visitor. Therefore, also in Einstein's universe it would be a privilege to be allowed to "look into someone's heart" and a special moment, when someone "opens his heart" to someone he loves.

If we could transcend the time dimension and freely move in it forward and backward, we

would be able to re-live former experiences 8 (moving backwards). Provided that we could retain maturity and insight reached later, we could correct old mistakes by acting differently "this time" in a "repeat performance". This means, we would be winning each "game" in life. Whenever hindsight would make us say: At this time, I could have . .. I should have. . . , we simply would reverse the flow of time and we would have a chance to do it again - and do it right this time. Destructive words could be made unspoken. Damaging actions could be undone. Missed chances would open themselves for another time. - We see that power over the flow of time would entail power over almost everything. The chains of causes and effects, that determine us at any stage in our lives, could be broken. Whoever knows the results before their causes occur, can manipulate the causes if he has power over time. Whoever is not happy with any results, can eliminate them by going back in time and reversing their causes. Being able to move freely backwards and forwards in time, we

could re-encounter deceased persons, who meant much to us 9 . We could avoid encounters, of which we would know that they would bring us unhappiness. We could relive the ecstasy of first love and avoid the bitterness of jealousy and the disappointment of being deceived.

Since we cannot be at will in different moments and phases of time, but are always stuck in one moment in a sequence, we cannot manipulate the consequences of time. E. g., we need some time to travel from one place to another. The complaint we often hear from busy people, "I

4

cannot be at more than one place at a time", would lose its meaning, if time would no longer pose an obstacle to our movement and presence. If we could be at several places at the same time, the boundaries of time, as well as of space would fall. Einstein's space is defined through time. So is ours. If we could be at several places at the same time, we could hear what is being said "out of ear's reach" about us. We could also influence events at different places at the

same time 10 . It seems that time, space, and causality are connected in many ways. If the limitations of one could be transcended, so too could those of the others.

Just as Pointland-creatures could not imagine life in a line and Lineland inhabitants could not envision life on a plane and Flatland-people could not imagine life in space, so we cannot "picture ourselves" in the fourth dimension. We have no conventional language for the time- space-continuum. Einstein described his universe in mathematical formulae. - Not even for "our world", as it really is, do we have an adequate language. That is so because we derive our

concepts from our world, but filtered through our particular vision of it 11 .

In the West, this vision is predominantly a dualist one. Zen has taught us to see how our language determines, and probably distorts, our vision. A simple sentence like "I came to an insight" or "We come to the right knowledge" is in the eyes of Zen inaccurate in many ways. The separate self, expressed by the pronouns "I" or "We", is an illusion. "Came" or "come" implies action in time. Instead, we might say: "Knowledge arises in the illusion of our separate selves". But we still cannot eliminate the mistaken notion of a timely process, which is inherent

in the verb-form 12 .

Nevertheless we are acutely aware of the importance of the time dimension 13 . If we assume that animals have no time consciousness, then the latter has to be seen as a characteristically

"human" quality. Hatano 14 expressed this conviction in the shortest way: "Temporality is the most essential characteristic of human nature." But people differ in their relationship to time. Sayings like "She lives completely in the moment" or "He is living too much in the past" are

indicative of that. Whole cultures have varying relationships to time 15 . We have heard about the obsession with time of Mayan priests, which led them to devise intricate calendars 16 . We know of primitive tribes, which have almost no time-concept. Books have been written about the differing time concepts of differing cultures and about the changing relationships to time

within cultures as well as about the reflection of various time concepts in different languages 17 .

5

Within the arts, the time factor seems to be most important in music and literature 18 . Their various forms are experienced in time. But in literature time is also essential for the

development of plot, especially in drama 19 . Conflict and tension can only arise through "coincidence" in time. Lovers and enemies have to meet first in order to interact. If they miss each other, there is no plot. In the suspense of a dramatic plot we experience an intensification of our time-consciousness, in rapture sometimes a shortening of time, a lengthening of time in boredom. But also "timelessness" can be experienced in poetry, especially in predominantly

lyrical poems 20 .

To a certain extent, art always transcends the boundaries of time (and space 21 ) since it has its own time (and space). For music, this is known well enough. In literature, the reading-time of

a novel differs from the time depicted in the plot 22 . And within the narration we are made to jump backwards and forwards in time in "flashbacks", reminiscences, anticipations and similar

devices 23 .

Not only in ghost stories and science fiction do we occasionally transcend the limitations of

time and space. Our dreams are characterized by their suspension 24 . We can be in one moment here and in the next one there. Even the limitations of a clearly defined individuality are broken: One moment, we are the pursuer, and in the next, we are the pursued. Now we are the dancer on stage, later we sit in the audience.

Not only in art do we seek an intensification of our time-experience. We also travel in order to

"get more out of our time" 25 , to interrupt the rushing away of time in daily routine.

Finally, some phenomena that are being explored by parapsychology 26 (e. g. clairvoyance, telepathy, the experience of "deja vu" as a reminiscence of former incarnations etc.) could be explained by theorizing that some especially gifted individuals can indeed transcend the dimension of time, if only for moments. - In a space-time-continuum, which could be manipulated by us at will, everything would be present, at least potentially, at the same time. That is why individuals, who for an instant can transcend the limitations of earthly time, might be able to "foresee" coming events. As we explained, with the limitations of time those of space would vanish. This is why such gifted individuals can "see" things and events that happen far away and therefore are not observable to "normal" persons. Or, as Freud in his later years theorized, extrasensory perception might be an archaic method of communication, which was