Adam Blatner

A correspondent asked me about alchemy and process philosophy, of all things. Here is the gist of my reply: There is a spiraling upward happening, metaphysically speaking. It must be imagined on a higher dimensional level, weaving together all of the accumulating advances. These advances are happening more rapidly, I think. Saying it another ways: Progress is accelerating here on earth, and more advances in culture are made in every field, informed by progress in associated fields.

Indeed, we are at a point of discernibly breath-taking acceleration, so that historians cannot keep up! There are other things whose odd properties are distorted by reduction to our familiar realm of three dimensions. Space-time, for example. I submit that we live in not only a seemingly i-finite universe in three dimensions, but rather that is in a universe of many more dimensions.

This is difficult to appreciate unless you recognize that we are really four-dimensional beings, including time. I think of mind also as a dimension, so it’s five (5) -dimensional. Still, many animals also have minds. There is yet another dimension, the sixth (6th) dimension, that are aware of thinking at the level of the human mind! This is seventh (7th) dimension, thinking about mind operations. This is somewhat analysis to the way three dimensional space-time is related to two dimensional space-time—figures drawn on paper.

Note that mind being aware of mind being aware reflects a peculiar activity of consciousness. The seventh (7th) dimension addresses the ability of self-reflection not only about mind, but about reflecting on mind—psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and other “humanities.” Only humans do this. (We even reflect on animal thinking and communications!) This is seventh dimensional thinking and you in reading this partake of that dimension, too. Then there’s a yet-higher dimension that imagines human consciousness from a spiritual viewpoint —this is the Eighth ( 8th)  Dimension. Perhaps—and this is science-fiction—there are extra-terrestrial mind that are more multi-dimensional. but that’s what I’m noticing.

It’s highly complex. There are levels quite beyond our capacity to keep in touch with all facets of it. This is new—a bit of creativity that includes our own hubris, our own tendency to assume that there’s nothing we 21st century humanity can’t explain. But we are hitting the edge and there are. It’s a kind of transformation!

The chart that was sent me shows humanity as looping, but this is illusory, I disagree: It doesn’t loop, but advances in yet another dimension. That is to say, complexity doesn’t go backward so much as around, including all arenas and drawing from each in its march forward. Yes, it might be said that there is some regression, some moving backwards, but overall it’s a spiral pattern forward.
 
Perhaps alchemy, too, is included—creation and transformation. And the process philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (with whom I was acquainted) and before him by a half-century Alfred North Whitehead, who  anticipated a creative advance. I cannot quote —and don’t know—if they anticipated this creative transformation, though. It jumps ahead with computers! And there are many spin-offs—inventions — related to computers, including self-driving cars. So the rate of change is rising exponentially, and also laterally in that it involves ways of thinking new thoughts quite beyond Whitehead and Hartshorne, as great as they were.

There is a spiraling upward happening, metaphysically speaking. It’s trying to weave together all of the accumulating advances. It’s not forward and back, that’s an illusion. Progress is accelerating here on earth, and more advances in culture are made in every field, informed by progress in an associated field.

Indeed, we are at a point of discernibly breath-taking acceleration, so that historians cannot keep up! There are other things whose odd properties are distorted by reduction to our familiar realm of three dimensions. Space-time, for example. The idea that we live in not only a seemingly infinite universe in three dimensions, but rather that it in turn is in a universe of many more dimensions, is unthinkable by we physically four-dimensional (and if you count mind, even higher) dimensional beings. That there are even higher dimensions and that mind is multi-dimensional is too mid-boggling in this era, but that’s what I’m noticing.

It’s highly complex. There are levels quite beyond our capacity to keep in touch with all facets of it. This is new—a bit of creativity that includes our own hubris, our own tendency to assume that there’s nothing we 21st century humanity can’t explain. But we are hitting the edge and there are. It’s a kind of transformation!

Complexity doesn’t go backward so much as around, including all arenas and drawing from each in its march forward. That’s misleading. There is some moving backwards, but overall it’s a spiral pattern forward.
 
Perhaps alchemy, too, is included in this process of creation and transformation. And the process philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (with whom I was acquainted) and before him by a half-century Alfred North Whitehead, who  anticipated a creative advance. I cannot quote —and don’t know—if they anticipated this creative transformation, though. It jumps ahead with computers! And there are many spin-offs—inventions—related to computers, including self-driving cars. So the rate of change is rising exponentially, and also laterally in that it involves ways of thinking new thoughts quite beyond Whitehead and Hartshorne, as great as they were.