Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Dimensional Thinking
Originally posted on March 6, 2018
There is a hidden assumption that everything can be presented in terms known to all. This is as fallacious as saying that all higher mathematics can be symbolized by simple arithmetic and no other symbols are needed. It’s a matter of trying not to be all “stuck up”—we learned to try to not be this way in early junior high (or “middle”) school. But it is fallacious. Some concepts really, truly require a more complex mode of cognition.
It’s like hormones. Try to explain why members of the opposite sex have some attractiveness instead of being “icky” and you’ll hit a blank wall, blank stares. It takes horomones. Yes, I am being reductionistic in a way: There’s a myth that complex and subtle ideas can be presented in simple ways—non-mystically—that is pervasive. That’s why there are initiations. That’s where “democracy” gets over-generalized.
This perception is common where athletes are valorized. It’s a world where everyone (who buys into the myth of intellectual egalitarianism) tries to be not “flaky.” And mysticism is flaky, or can seem that way, because mystics use language to reflect experiences that are ineffable—a fancy word that means that you can’t pin down what you’re talking about!
I have an acquaintance who is being pressured to not be mystical, but she is writing about things that are indeed quintessentially mystical. Mysticism is 8th dimensional, you see, and even 7th dimensional folks don’t all see it. Some do, but many try to express themselves in terms that can be understood by most people—i.e, "dumb it down."
6th dimensional beings think about thinking. (5th dimensional being think—but like animals think 4th dimensional being operate in time—remembering the past and anticipating the future. Three dimensional beings are—how shall we say?—not alive. Ditto for the theoretical 2nd and 1st dimensions.) Humans don’t know it, but they are capable of thinking about thinking about thinking, and 8th dimensional folks are a bit mystical.
There are many people who think about thinking, but don’t realize that one cannot describe that except at the level that they see it. What I call 7th level thinkers who try to be 6th dimensional diminish themselves. Then there are 7th dimensional thinkers who aren’t trying to be precious; they KNOW that some 7th dimensional perspectives cannot be reduced to the sixth dimension without losing something.
Just thinking.
Leave a Reply