The Logs Have It
So after God and I had discussed, as some physicists propose, the possibility that the universe we live in is a three-dimensional projection of a two-dimensional description, we decided to take this dimensional duality and use it to inform our take on another universal description. It didn’t originate with the movie The Matrix, but that film and its sequels did a lot to popularize the notion that the universe we live in is actually just a computer simulation.
Certainly computer sims have come a long way towards being able to portray the world around us, pathetically short of the reality mind you, but getting close enough to whet the imagination with the potential. I pointed out that for all the touting of 3D graphics, the actual display of them is 2D. Even 3D movies are merely two slightly different 2D images displayed in a way that engages our stereoscopic view of the world. We don’t get to change our focal depth the way we would with something that actually was presented to us in three dimensions. But my point was that a computer’s presentation of a 2D image, calculated from a description of three dimensions, matches fairly well to the notion of the universe as a holographic projection.
God then pointed out that the very language we use to effect our transfer into cyberspace, such as it currently is, confuses the interpretation of the space as being either 2D or 3D. She suggested that if the universe really were a 3D projection from a 2D description that maybe our subconscious knowledge of this would inform our choice of terms and lead to that very confusion. When we “log in” to a computer system, it suggests that the cyberspace we are entering is three-dimensional, that it is a space we enter into the inside of. When we “log on” however, we just admit to a surface. Cyberspace is then like that two-dimensional plane that holds the description of the holographic universe just at the edge of a black hole, just outside its event horizon.
So maybe Timothy Leary was anticipating what the physicists have enshrined as String Theory, when he told us to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” We might suppose the “tune in” part was like the tuning of a guitar; we tune the guitar to match the frequencies of our musical scale, but we tune ourselves to match the oscillating strings that make up the universe. Then maybe the new catch phrase could be “log in or log out” meaning that we can choose to join the universe-as-simulation or to separate ourselves from it and by making it a conscious choice, we make the universe our own.
And when it becomes our own, maybe it’s 2D when we log “on”, and maybe it’s 3D when we log “in.” Or maybe it’s just that English speakers like having more than one way to say things.
No comments yet.