Death, duality and dimensions

Human civilisation has made remarkable strides during the past two millenniums. However, the fundamental equation for individual human beings - life and death - has remained unaltered. Great improvements may have been made in technology, lifestyles and mobility, but the ultimate destination of human lives has remained the same as ever before and is almost certain to remain so despite tremendous improvements in longevity and health-care.

There have been innumerable attempts since time immemorial to explain death from religious, scientific and other perspectives. But those have not always succeeded in reassuring the ordinary mortals about the nature and aftermath of death. What follows is a humble attempt to explain death in terms of dimensions and duality of nature.

Where is this world of ours heading for? Where is the speed and mobility of modern civilisation inexorably dragging us to? The answer would probably depend on the framework we apply in the analysis. However, to me as an individual, the most obvious answer seems to be 'death', similar to claims by Sigmund Freud who said the aim of life was death. Like billions of our predecessors, we too are heading towards death. If there is one single irrevocable truth in this universe, this is it.

But many of us seem to be unduly worried about the prospects of death and the life thereafter. We tend to ignore the fact that we were non-existent before our birth and consequently dead before we were alive. So why fear death?

Now, can the technological progress of modern civilisation ever hope to conquer death? Possibly never! Not even the 'Time Machine' of H.G. Wells is ever likely to deliver the goods. The real answer may lie in the dimensions and duality of nature, encompassing life and death, light and darkness, which some people consider as the very basis of human existence. Opposites in life like male versus female, love versus hate, action versus reaction, hot versus cold, attraction versus repulsion, good versus bad, trough versus crest, tide versus ebb, night versus day, push versus pull, positive versus negative, progress versus regress, freedom versus subjugation - are all expressions of this duality of nature. If Albert Einstein was in search of a unifying theory of the universe, trying to relate the microscopic world with the macroscopic universe, this could have been a fertile ground.

Nature seems to have spread a canopy of duality throughout the length and breadth of this universe. This yearning has been passed on to even living entities like us. Thus tired of waking hours, we surrender to sleep. Dejected with urban life, we rush to the greenery of the countryside, and sick of moving around in great speed, we opt for respite and rest. Bored by the daylight, we welcome the darkness of night. And tired of life itself, we embrace death.

Now, what exactly drives our lives in this constantly pulsating universe? Is it our destiny - itself a mere part of a bigger whole? By combining time and space, our destiny can be considered to be at least a four dimensional entity. So could it not be a part of a five or six dimensional whole? That might remind many of us about the ten dimensions of the String Theory. Some may even look for answers in the multi-verse (multiple universe) and the parallel universe. And for the adherents of Islamic faith like me, the seat of Allah above the seven skies (is it dimension?) may readily come to mind. It may even be that in death, we merely pass on to a higher dimension.

The speed and mobility of life and its surroundings is in fact a three dimensional terrestrial concept, which may be irrelevant or inconsequential for the higher dimensions. For example, can we speed up time? Or slow it down? Probably not; or may be we lack the framework for that analysis. This is because the assistance of a higher dimension is required for comprehending the speed or position of a lower dimension. That is why, the speed of a three-dimensional space can only be measured or judged in terms of a four dimensional entity called time. But for analysing the speed of time, we seem to be lacking the framework of a higher dimension.

This leads to another interesting aspect about the dimensional relationships. And that is -- the higher dimensions take shape only with the aid of frameworks based on lower dimensions. Thus, one dimension has two sides of zero dimensions, two dimensions have four sides of one dimension and three dimensions have six sides of two dimensions. So, the number of sides (composed of lower dimensions) in a dimension is exactly the double of that dimension. Extending this argument to four dimensions, four-dimensional time should have eight sides of three dimensions and five dimensions should have ten sides of four dimensions. That probably would seem to many as the limit of sides in the terrestrial world.

Some may even argue that the fifth dimension may represent the collective consciousness of destiny sitting above the temporal fourth dimension. In that case, is sixth dimension the place where the soul passes to after death? And is seventh dimension the framework where the soul resurrects itself once again to face the judgement of the Creator? That seems to be consistent with the Quranic injunctions of Islam - if the reference to the seven skies is in fact a reference to the seven dimensions. But we probably would never be able to say that with any certainty, as we would be lacking those dimensional frameworks as long as we are living in this four-dimensional terrestrial universe.

Helal Uddin Ahmed Ph.D is a former Editor of 'Bangladesh Quarterly' published from Dhaka. [email protected]