TGU – understanding 3D and non-3D

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

3:55 a.m. The question we were to begin with is: Can we not understand non-3D without understanding 3D? This, because you indicated that we can’t understand 3D without non-3D: I wondered if the converse was also true.

The question as posed answers itself, really, because obviously nothing can be fully understood unless all its properties are understood. However, the larger question, we realize, is whether the universe as a whole is involved with the 3D to the point that 3D is more than a local phenomenon.

Yes, though that isn’t quite how I should pose the question. I’m really wondering if non-3D exists as a rule or as an exception.

You mean, if all the universe is 100 units, how many units have a 3D aspect and how many don’t.

Yes. Are all units partly 3D, partly non-3D, or is part of the 100 units non-3D without any 3D aspects?

Language is getting in the way, here. If we can agree on how to pose the question, we will half answer it before we need say anything more.

I get the same feeling. We can’t express ourselves very well, because the only words we have are inadequate and misleading. We are better off using 3D, non-3D, and All-D than we would be using physical, spiritual and whatever the all-encompassing terms would be, but we have about reached the limits of whatever advantage we achieved.

So this merely tells us we need to carefully carve out new understandings and pin them to words: new words if necessary, but it would be better if we can use existing familiar words in a carefully bounded way. Specialized vocabulary, or specially defined meanings: It is a dilemma that arises every so often in such explorations, because language as it exists always expresses past understandings. As we have said many times, expressing new understandings sometimes involves using tortured language.

A la Bronson Alcott.

Bear in mind, Alcott is no worse, in his obscurity, than many a professional philosopher. Even if he had been able to use a more relaxed vernacular, as Emerson did for example, the difficulty in understanding him would have remained, for it would inhere in the remoteness of his mental world from common assumptions. It requires work to make the translation.

So let us consider the root question: Is the existence of 3D conditions a localized phenomenon in all-that-is, or is it the rule? Is it even, perhaps, universal? Answer this question and we will have eliminated whole classes of questions that stem from alternative answers, you see.

I do. If the 3D is only a localized phenomenon (as I guess I have been assuming), then most of all-that-is probably can’t even be guessed at by 3D logic or even 3D imagination (to the extent that our imagination is not really 3D-plus-non-3D functioning).

And, conversely, if 3D is a pretty generalized, or perhaps even a universal, phenomenon, your imagination – our imagination – will be able to conceive of it, or describe it, or, really, sort-of-describe it.

I hear, “As above, so below.”

Can you see how valuable a few rules of procedure can be? That rule embodies the underlying structure of reality, so time and again it points you toward the way to understand things.

I am right at the edge of sleep, now, and I get that I am being held here because I can get closer understanding than if I retreat (for “retreat” is what it feels like it would be) toward more normal daylight consciousness.

If you can remain here and yet hold your focus, it will be well.

Go ahead. I guess I shouldn’t get up and refill my coffee cup.

No. Stay as physically quiet as you can, sink into yourself while not letting yourself fall asleep sitting up.

Staying focused on the question.

Return to writing when you feel so moved.

The ringing in my ears is deafening. By design?

Concentrate

[Pause]

It would imply a dichotomy.

It would. Say a little more.

You have often said, there are no divisions in reality except provisional ones. There is no absolute dividing line between anything. “All is one” doesn’t mean, “We will consider all these various things as part of one over-all thing,” it means, more, “Everything, that seems to be so different when examined in detail, is actually the same thing, exhibiting different aspects in different contexts.”

And so –

And so there can’t be two kinds of universe. There isn’t one kind that contains a non-3D/3D combination, and another kind that functions under different rules and thus doesn’t have a 3D component.

Are you sure?

Of course I’m not sure. How could I be? But that’s what I get.

Note that the ringing in your ears continues but is more like a background annoyance than like a commanding presence.

I do. It makes me think of my experience with anesthesia that time in my 30s. As I was going under, a buzzing began and rapidly increased in intensity until it became unbearably loud, and although my body was unmoving, as far as I know, my mind was getting increasingly frantic – oh my God, ohmyGod, OHMYGOD! – and I was gone as the buzzing overwhelmed everything – and then I was back a few minutes later, the doctor having done his work. I realized this is why they had pinned my arms by some arrangement I can’t quite recall, because if my body was responding to that mindless panic, it was trying to thrash around.

Only, this time your change of consciousness was by will and intent, rather than by the overruling of your state by change of chemical balance.

Yes. Still pretty strong, though.

You can do it any time; anyone can, only not by fixating on the way it manifests, be it a ringing in the ears or a dizziness or any other specific manifestation, but by holding to an intent. It is intent that will keep you from drifting into unconsciousness, you see.

A boatload of questions could come to mind about that, but let’s finish with the subject rather than the process of inquiry. So, 3D is as much of the fabric of reality everywhere as it is here?

Given that even such concepts as “here” are translations of reality into 3D terms, yes.

So it isn’t like we have to imagine a universe disconnected from us, or let’s say a universe in which 3D doesn’t exist.

Sink in, again.

It couldn’t be done. I mean, there can be 3D realities with different rules, different manifestations, so they would appear quite alien to us in our piece of 3D, but if we were able to look at the whole picture at one glance, we would see that the overall unity vastly outweighs localized differences.

But understand, this will seem like merely playing with words, to anyone not at this level of closeness; even to you yourself, perhaps, when you retreat from this level of closeness (though you will have your memory of the state, to reinforce you).

So in describing to us the universe not in connection with 3D –

We can’t. There isn’t any. Everything connects, as we keep reminding you. However, we can (we hope) describe the universe as it appears without reference to the 3D.

And, I hope, you’re going to explain what you mean by that, even though we have gone through our customary hour.

You have come to dislike the sound of “our hour.” Your tolerance for our habitual repetition of sound or even of word is cumulatively bothering you more and more. Do you know why?

No. Can you explain yours statement before we run out of time? What difference are you drawing between “the universe not in connection with 3D” and “the universe as it appears without reference to the 3D”?

It ought to be obvious. The former implies some sort of division of reality; the later points out that it is a matter of conceptualization, definition of area of focus, and description of a microscopic v. telescopic view.

Do you really not care why you are becoming more sensitive to the sound of our language?

Can you give it to me in ten words or less?

Sink in. It is not a trivial inquiry, despite appearances.

Interesting. I get the answer, and along with getting the answer, the ringing in my ears diminishes markedly, and all at once. The answer that I got is that I am becoming more aware of the effect on the reader of the words as they come out. Like Hemingway, I guess. Like poets. The sound interacts with the sense. I have never understood why or how, and now I do: It is a question of what will assist or impede the reader’s attention.

And there – to coin a phrase – is your hour.

Thanks as always. Interesting experience.

Yes. Don’t let it be a one-off. It is always available, with or without the side-effects such as, in your case, ringing ears.

Till next time, then.

–