The mystery of space

by Robert T. Browne

The implications of this mode of thought show how thoroughly the mathematician recognizes the limitations which consciousness imposes upon our knowledge of the world and the subtler conditions about us. But, moreover, it is even obvious to all who stop to think about it; for it can readily be seen how little those things which do not enter our scope of awareness affect us either physically, mentally or spiritually. But no one can be so bold as to deny utterly that anything exists but what is found in our consciousnesses. It is even true that in the great centers of population where people are compelled to live many families in the same house, it is the usual thing for these individual families to live in complete forgetfulness of all the others in the house and live their lives so completely that it would be exceedingly difficult to measure the effect the one has upon the other. The mathematician, as is shown by the hyperspace movement, recognizes that there are planes of superconsciousness the nature and character of which persons confined to limited areas of consciousness can have no knowledge and may only arrive at that knowledge by serious thought and contemplation. In other words, they tacitly admit the existence of higher planes of consciousness as well as the necessity of elevating the personal consciousness in order to comprehend them. Although it was not expressly allowable in the analogy of the unodim, it is nevertheless one of the strongest implications of the process of reasoning that the unodim could have easily raised the plane of his consciousness by continuing his researches until he, too, became conscious of the three-space, mathematically, as well as the two-space. For it was not necessary for him to raise the plane of consciousness in order to contact the two-space. He had need only to widen it. But in order to comprehend the mathematical three-space it would be necessary for him to elevate his consciousness.

The fundamental error in the foregoing line of thought rests in the fact that awareness in the human family has not developed in the manner outlined. The human species has not come into conscious relations with the three-space by outgrowing the one-space and the two-space in succession. The fact of the matter is that when consciousness first dawned it must have encompassed all three dimensions simultaneously and equally and there is nothing to indicate that its rise was otherwise. Then, specifically there is no evidence that the evolution of consciousness has proceeded in a rectangular manner. Indeed, there is undoubtedly no warrant for the assumption that it has progressed in ways that are mathematically determinable at all. The question very naturally rises in view of the above as to the relative value of mathematical knowledge in the scheme of psychogenesis. Can mathematical knowledge or laws be said actually and finally to settle once for all time any question in which consciousness or life enters as a factor? Upon the response to this question hinges unanswerably the decision as to the category which mathematical knowledge should by right occupy in the entire schematism of life. If it can be successfully maintained that final judicative power abides in mathematics in the determination of these questions, then it would be useless to struggle against the fiat of mathematics and mathematicians; verily, we should be compelled to accept nolens volens all that mathematicians have devised about hyperspace and its connotations. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that no such judicative power inheres in mathematical knowledge we shall then be able to establish for mathematics a true category and to dispose of the hyperspace movement in a manner that shall at once be logical and necessary.

That the discovery of hyperspace by the mathematician is merely an aspect of a general forward movement in the evolution of consciousness can be shown by a brief correlative study. Hyperspace is the artificial symbol of a higher and more extensive realm of awareness. For it cannot be doubted that to be able to think in the terms of hyperspace, to study the various relations and interrelations upspringing from the original premises, actually to become conscious in the hyperspatial realm thus constructed, requires a different species or quality of consciousness than that required for ordinary thinking. The period covering the rise of artificial spatiality is contemporaneous with the rise of the phenomena identified with the spiritual life of Swedenborg; for during the same time he began a series of visions which revealed to him great knowledge of the unseen and supersensuous realities of life and existence. His consciousness was being flooded with the light from so-called celestial spheres and he was gradually becoming conscious of a "new dimension," a new space, a higher world that is altogether unlike the world of the senses. During this period, too, Dante, the great kosmic seer began to jot down the results of his "hyperspace" experiences, after which he wrote his Divina Commedia in which he describes more or less minutely some of the characteristics of the hyperspace domain which was revealed to his consciousness as he saw and interpreted it. Both Swedenborg and Dante being deeply religious and pious-minded had their reports of the new world colored by their own mental experiences and proclivities. Plato had at an earlier day set down what he conceived to be the ethical and civic characteristics of the new age, the Utopia of mankind living on a higher plane. It was during these days that the doctrine of evolution was born, although it remained for Darwin to formulate and buttress it with a stupendous congeries of facts. Martin Luther, the great religious reformer, likewise contacted the radiating light-glow of a higher consciousness into which the race was coming but of which only the foremost were able to get advance glimpses. Kant, one of the peerless leaders of the vanguard of humanity, at this time also, conceived and wrote his Critique of Pure Reason which is likewise an evidence of the upliftment of his consciousness on the side of pure intellectuality and the commencement of a general period of illumination. And then, later, but embraced within the same period, artists began to get glimpses of this higher consciousness which showed itself in a new and strange departure in art. In rapid succession new schools sprang up and came to be known as the "cubist," "post-impressionist," "futurist," "orphimist," the "synchromist" and the "vorticist." Art really began the search for the "plastic essence of the world" trying to portray its conception of the "real image of the spirit" of the world. Color acquired a new kind of splendor and painting gave birth to a new intrinsic beauty of material and sheer loveliness of texture. All of which were evidences of an intellectual up-reaching in response to the sharp appulsions from above. Darwin's mind, being of scientific bent, saw and interpreted everything in the terms of materialistic science; but there is no doubt but that the expansion of the area of awareness which his mind experienced in his great conception of evolution as a continuous process and all that it implies thereby was a result of the universal appulsion of the human intellect against the new domain of consciousness. And Kant's conception of space in general perhaps may be said to have been the seed-thought for the metageometrician.

But thus it will be noted that in all the cases mentioned in the foregoing there is always present the personal element of the investigator, and that the reports of each of these have been colored and characterized by their individual consciousness and experiences. That all reports would agree with respect to details connected with the new domain of consciousness could scarcely be expected owing to the wonder and bewilderment which seize the intellect under such circumstances. No implication that the mathematicians have been unduly excited by what they have discovered after years of patient research in this direction is indicated by the foregoing observations; but it cannot be denied that the enthusiasm of the moment and the consequent minimization of all other phenomena but the special line being investigated serve very effectively to obscure the mental vision of the more partisan. It perhaps is sufficient that the investigator should set down in as orderly manner as possible the things which he conceives, and that he should interpret them according to the standards of his own intellect. More than this cannot be expected. Moreover, it usually suffices that the future investigator, far removed from the beclouding influences of partisanship, who successfully raises his consciousness to that higher plane shall be able to synthesize the findings of all and thereby with the aid which comes to him from a more advantageous position arrive at sounder views and a more reliable judgment.

It will thus be seen that the metageometrician's method of interpretation is no more entitled to final credence and general acceptance than that of the spiritualist, Swedenborg, or the occult seer, Dante. For in their best moods and at their highest points of mental efficiency these have only succeeded in vaguely symbolizing what they have conceived of the realities of the supersensuous realm in terms of their own experiences. Is there any more cogent reason, then, for accepting the analyst's conception of a world of hyperspace peopled with ensembles, propositions, spaces of n-dimensionality and other mathetic contrivances than the Inferno of Dante, inhabited by hideous shapes and repellent denizens, the remains of ill-spent earth-lives or Swedenborg's Celestial Realm, wherein dwell numerous beings of celestial character performing various tasks in the work of the world? These observations should not lead the reader to come to the conclusion that the visions of Dante and swedenborg are deemed to be more worthy of credence than mathematical knowledge when that knowledge is limited to the sphere where it rightfully belongs; but the proper view is that which would make it appear that it is the way these widely differing workers interpret what they have seen; that it is the adaptation of the unseen realms to the peculiarities of the mentalities which observe them. The mathematicians have simply portrayed as well as they could their conception of the new stage of consciousness and its contents, and following the modus vivendi of all intellects have interpreted these things in the terms of mathematics, merely because mathematics constituted the best available symbology at hand for the purpose. Similarly, the painter sees a new world of color; the politician, a new era of political freedom; the religious enthusiast, a new religious conception; the scientist, a new condition of matter and energy, and so on, to the most ordinary mind, each sees something new while at the same time is necessarily limited to the confines of his own mentality when he comes to interpret what he sees and conceives. Hence, there would appear to be only one way to regard all these advances and that is by synthesizing them, by correlating, and by tracing them to a common source, and finally by seeing them as one general forward movement of intellectual evolution.

Man, the Thinker, who in essence is a pure intelligence, has two mental mechanisms or organs of consciousness. One of these is the brain-consciousness or the egoic. It is so called because the brain is its organ of expression and impression. It manifests through the brain and uses it to further the various objective cognitive processes. The brain-consciousness is a child of the physical body and its life is intimately identified with the life of the body. This consciousness may be called the a posterioristic mechanism or organ of the Thinker and is therefore his means of interpreting the phenomena of the objective world. Cell-consciousness is a phase of the ergonic functions of the a posterioristic mechanism. The other organ of consciousness is an aspect of the intelligence of the Thinker himself and perhaps may be said to be the active, organized portion of that intelligence. It is separate and distinct from the a posterioristic consciousness yet sustaining a substructural relationship with it, being the source of the egoic or brain-consciousness. It may be called the a priori consciousness. Its roots are buried deep within the heart of the space-mind and it is therefrom nourished and developed by what it receives in the way of intelligence. It is the intuitional faculty; knows without being taught; conceives without reason; interprets according to the norms of the space-mind or the divine mind of the kosmos. It always resides on a higher plane than that of the brain-mind or consciousness, only at rare intervals being able to contact it with flashes of its own intelligence as intuitions.

The a priori consciousness being the intuitive faculty of the Thinker is, therefore, a phase of his mental life on a higher plane than the sensuous. All its conceptions constitute the a priori knowledge of the brain mind so-called. The a priori faculty of man's higher consciousness gives the character possessed by that form of knowledge known to philosophy as the a priori. So that the a priori has a more substantial basis than has hitherto been surmised. It is not only that which may be said to transcend experience but that which is the organ of contact with the supersensuous realities as well as of expression through the brain-consciousness.

The mind's method of apprehending objective phenomena is not a direct process but an indirect process by virtue of which neurograms or nerve-impacts registered in the brain are interpreted. External sense-impressions are, of course, conveyed to the cortical area by means of appropriate vibrations which traverse the lines of the neural mechanism. These are recorded in the brain areas just as a telegraphic communication is registered in the apparatus of the receiving end, and in being so, they make terminal registrations which man, the Thinker, interprets after a psychic code which has been built up empirically. That is, he comes to know that certain rates of vibration and certain peculiarities therein mean certain things when referred to the sensorium. He then interprets according to this experience the symbolism of all neurographical impressions. But it is obvious that under such circumstances, where the interpreter is far removed from the thing itself and finds it necessary to interpret rates of vibration or symbols in order to arrive at a knowledge of the intelligence which is conveyed to him, the chances of inadequate conception are very great indeed. In fact, it is not possible through the use of neurographical symbols alone to get any complete notion of the phenomena considered. And thus there stands between the Thinker and absolute knowledge a barrier which prevents his arriving at a state of certitude in his knowledge of the world of sensible objects. It is, however, a barrier which will always remain, checking ever his approach to finality in his understanding of the universum of appearances.

A markedly different condition obtains in the realm of the a priori or intuitional for the reason that the barriers which inhere in the neurographical or a posterioristic method are absent and the Thinker has a more direct approach to the objects of cognition. Hence the chance for error is very small indeed. This will account, therefore, for the superiority of the intuitional over the rational or the perceptual. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the purely rational possesses any value whatsoever when its modus vivendi is unsanctioned by the intuitional.

Else why can we not be certain that the results of our rational processes are correct at all times? Is it not because we lack the power to perceive whether our premises are correct in the first place? Quite truly. For if the Thinker can intuit the necessity and certitude of any given premise it follows that the consequences of that premise are true. It would, therefore, appear that the more the intuitional faculty is developed the clearer will be our perceptions not alone of abstract values but of objective things themselves. Further, it is doubtlessly true that the more the space-mind is developed in the human race the deeper will become our perceptions of the essential be-ness of things so that whatever may be the presentations of the space-mind to the brain-mind they will be by far more accurate than the impressions we receive through the latter as a medium of apprehension. It is but natural, however, that in the present more or less chaotic condition in which the faculty of the intuitional is found it should be difficult even to interpret its presentations accurately. It is perhaps due to the fact that we are unused to its deliveries and mode of registration as well as to the fact that it has been overshadowed by the intellectual or rational faculty. But the mere fact that it is present and functioning, even if but rudimentarily, is evidence of its potentiality and the possibility of its future development to a still higher degree of efficiency.