A Passing Thought On A Wonderful Dream

I had a dream last night in which this equation was revealed to me that was supposed to be the one unifying theory of everything. Staring into it was like looking directly at the Logos, like the foundations of creation were laid bare. It was pretty awesome. I could not reproduce it if I tried. It made some sense to me (though in no way perfect sense) in the dream but now it slips away. What I do remember clearly is that on one side of the paper was all this math and on the other the math sort of transformed into beautiful artwork. The message to me was clear.

Reality is one. Underneath the multiplicity there is some kind of unity. To be a monotheist, or a pantheist for that matter, is to be convinced that this is so. Scientists so rarely recognize the religious underpinnings of their convictions. The search for a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) or a Theory of Everything (TOE) is motivated by a religious inclination. It is the 2000 year dominance of belief in One God that has made this quest so all-encompassing for the scientists of our day. I do not think the over-riding conviction of there being one all-encompassing theory of everything would be as strong as it is had polytheism maintained it's dominance in the west.

Religiously, we also seek a Grand Unified Theory of sorts. The First Great Commandment for Christians is "Hear O Israel your God is One, and you shall love the Lord Thy God with all your heart, mind and strength." We are motivated by a sense of underlying unity. Yet the unity that underlies the universe cannot be simply expressed in a mathematical formula. For even if all facts were included in such a formula, there would be left out the quality of those facts. And if the quality is included in the facts there remains the quality of the quality (Whitehead). Science is a grand scheme that tells us much, but it doesn't tell us everything. Art, philosophy, religion, these too are ways to gain truth about the world, and they have to have a place in an over-arching vision if the whole of human life is to be included. Indeed, a good sense of aesthetics is useful to adjudicated scientific theories. So the art bleeds into the math and the math into the art. The religious quest is to be able to take that outside view and see into the equation, to recognize the qualitative truths of what one is looking at.

Yes it was a good dream, and reminded me of a profound truth. Sad that my mind is too small to hold onto it all. I must wake up from every dream and every trance and move from the overall back into the particulars. After all, there is still much work to be done in the world of multiplicity, even as one slowly moves back home to the world of Unity.