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בס"ד
G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
Introduction
Since the beginning of mankind, the quest to know what laws govern our universe and how
this helps to comprehend its creation and functioning to take advantage of the use of these
laws of nature in the life of humanity, was a deep concern of thinkers of all times. Similarly,
the seeking for knowledge and understanding of the spiritual background of such laws were
part of the same quest. Old traditions treat the laws of spirituality, society, the human mind
and the laws of nature in a holistic manner.
The ancients throughout the world treated physical observation and spirituality in a “mixed
state”. Clearly scientific thought based on detached observation without emotional
involvement in form of prejudice or false beliefs, which distort such observation’s
interpretation, was and partially even today is a very difficult task to achieve. Ways and
methods of scientific reasoning were refined during the last nearly three thousand years on a
journey through philosophies which led to both true and false conclusions about the laws
governing the behavior of our universe and the objects therein. Many theories and
descriptions of ancient origin are formulated in cryptic language, where oral traditions are
needed to elucidate the subjects treated. Only with the emergence of mathematical reasoning
in a framework of qualitative and quantitative descriptors in form of logical and provable
theorems, lemmas and corollaries, a systematic scientific edifice could be built on the basis of
self-evident axioms.
Basic laws of Physics were kind of known for purposes of engineering like building roads,
architecture, water supply and sewage systems, but not put into a fundamental mathematical
framework of rigor until the time of about 600 years ago. Before that only mathematical and
geometrical edifices were built on idealized forms and shapes, leading to a mathematically
idealized approximate modeling of natural phenomena. Euclidean geometry did not provide
possibilities for curved coordinates. Besides this a relatively precise description of astronomy
as seen from our planet Earth was available, which led to very accurate calendars like the one
issued by Hillel before the destruction of the second Beis HaMikdash and very well
mathematically treated by the Rambam in his Hilchot Kiddush HaChodesh, despite his
cumbersome corrections to fit observational data with the flat Euclidean geometry available
to him at that time. Planetary orbits were very well known since ancient times, at least back
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
to the times of the Exodus of Egypt and the giving of the Torah, as is explained for example
in Tractate Rosh Hashanah, which was written down in the time of the Babylonian Galut
straight after the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash. So was the mechanism of the ever
renewing moon of the Earth, which is a precise monthly play of light and shade. Earlier
works like Sefer Raziel HaMalach still show a different picture: the orbits of the planets of
our solar system begin and end in an ocean, but the sequence of the distances of these planets
from the earth are surprisingly correct. Whether this is due to lost knowledge re-gained at the
giving of the Oral Torah, remains speculation, at least for now.
Sure is in any case, that with the giving of the written and oral Torah, which includes the
Kabbalah in form of visions, prayers and descriptions from as early as Adam HaRishon,
Chanoch, Avraham Avinu, and our Prophets, the full concepts of the structure of the created
worlds were also given, but not always very well understood. With today’s knowledge and
methods of modern Mathematics and Physics, we try to take the reader on a journey through
the ancient literature of Judaism, the only original philosophy ascribing the creation of the
physical, mental and spiritual worlds to a one and only origin or Creator as stated in the
Torah:
[7] G-d is a single entity of an oneness even more single and unique than any single thing in
creation. [8] G-d has no physical form …
[11] Once it is known that G-d has no physical body it will become clear that he does not
experience any bodily sensations either, sensations such as formation, decomposition,
occupying a physical space or size, rising or falling, a left or right side, a need to stand or sit
etc. G-d does not exist in time, so he has no beginning or end. G-d cannot die, and does not
live as life is known.
Ari HaKadosh (Rabbi Yitzhak Luria z”l) says in Etz Chaim, as written down by Rabbi Chaim
Vital z”l: “In the beginning the Or Ein Sof (Or Elyon) filled the entire Existence” (not
space!), which emerged from a singular point in infinity, as space and time were not created
yet. A distinction between an infinite sphere or space and a point in infinity is not possible, as
will be explained later. From this state the infinite light got expelled beyond the infinite
sphere and a vacuum was formed inside the sphere, into which a thread of light was drawn,
finally forming the ten sfirot of the Tree of Life, which contain our physical world as well.
As we will see later, dimensionality and viewpoints of observers play an important role in the
understanding of this philosophy. Whether and how this agrees with modern science and
what hints it gives to achieve a better understanding of the worlds we live in, physical, mental
and spiritual, will be discussed in this treatise.
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
It is quite puzzling, that modern Physics and Mathematics should be confirming an ancient
philosophy of religious origin, but exactly this seems to be the case, if one researches
carefully both the Kabbalah of the Torah and Physical and Mathematical Theory. In
particular General Relativity and especially Quantum Theory with its involvement of the
observer into the process of finding the truth hint to some spiritual extension of the purely
physical world we try to observe and understand today.
Higher worlds are described in Kabbalah, worlds of action, formation, creation and
emanation, which are crowned by the world of primordial “man”. It is also taught, that those
worlds contain each other from the highest to the lowest, where one can see from the higher
to the lower but not from the lower to the higher [Etz Chaim]. This hints naturally on the
dimensionality of those worlds, which, in a way also plays a role in the mathematical
treatment of the modern model of the universe. Relativity and Quantum Theory include the
role of the observer as part of and influencing measurements and observations. This is the
point where the infinite number of dimensions of the mind comes into play, where besides
strictly logical thinking effects and observations beyond possible physical realization or
beyond logic are possible and conceivable.
As an example for this we may take a picture of a flower under which we write “This is not a
flower”. This seems very out of place and bordering on ridiculosity, but exactly it represents
a typical case of Gödel’s un-provability theorem. What has that to do with our question to
understand the different worlds and dimensions? The answer is, said picture is an example of
a “projection” of an object of four-dimensional dynamic physical space onto two-
dimensional static space representing the “real” object. The picture is taken as a very unique
and selective representation of the real object in regard to view angle, instant of time the
picture is taken, size due to distance and other optical imaging constraints, and color, to name
only a few constraints. All these parameters are responsible for the formation of the
projection. In addition, the physical and mental state of perception of the viewer or observer
plays a crucial role how this projection is perceived and recognized. This is why it is not a
flower. On the other hand the mental recognition system of the brain of the observer tells
clearly that it is, at least a picture of it.
Now we can try to move into the other direction of dimensionality. Let us suppose a real
flower in three-space, which we see in nature. We see again a projection of the flower from
four-space, but now only one parameter is not perceived, its change in time. If we sit long
enough in front of it, we can see its entire life from the seed growing into a plant, the flower
emerging and finally being transformed into seed again. The original flower then seizes to
exist.
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
Let us suppose we see the flower in one year at a certain place and do not know the Biology
of it. We leave its presence and come back exactly a year later. On the same spot we see a
couple of flowers. We may conclude, it replicated, maybe got children, conjecturing from our
own life-cycle, but do we know whether the original flower from last year is still here? – No,
if we have not tagged it, we cannot say, but resemblances of it are there. What do we
conclude? Either it is still there or it is not. Unless we observe its complete life-cycle, we do
not know for sure. So at least one dimension, time in this case, constrains our perception of
the truth. But it is still a flower, isn’t it? – Maybe it is not, if we do not touch it, we will not
know for sure. Maybe it is a replica from plastic. – So it is not a flower?! We can argue
whether it is a flower or not until we know all necessary details and criteria to recognize the
observed object. Whether we arrive at a conclusion depends on the criteria used in the
definitions of the object itself, which are, let us always remember, made by the observer(s).
Now let us go even further. The four-dimensional flower in space-time is a projection from a
world of higher dimensionality. It has a life-force, which is called in Jewish philosophy a
Nefesh, which is the lowest level of spiritual or mental dimension of the soul. We refer here
to the Baal Shem Tov as cited in [Sefer Tanya, Shaar HaYichud, Chapter 1]. He states that
even a stone has a life-force that makes him exist, and this life-force is always renewed in
every instant of time by the Creator. Suppose we know all the Chemistry and Biology to
synthesize the flower in the laboratory. Will it live? – We do not know, we do not have a
detector system for Nefesh, or do we? – Can we develop it and how? – How do we define
Life?
At this point the infinite number of dimensions of the mind comes into play. We still know
very little about detection methods on these levels. Information Theory tries to find answers,
so do Physics, Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry. The pace of these sciences is
breathtaking, but still, in Physics we battle with a clear understanding of what are space,
time, mass and charge. May we soon shed light on this, with the help of the information the
Creator has given us, but we have so far failed to understand.
In Physics we have detector systems to observe, man has senses to observe, but what are the
detectors in higher dimensions or worlds? How do they work? -- Questions that belong to
Information Theory, a branch of Mathematics. We will encounter them again on the journey
this book is taking us on.
In the following chapters we will give a brief overview about the views of Science and Torah
on the creation of the universe. We will elaborate on physical principles and mathematical
concepts underlying current theory how our world works, and on the principles of Torah and
its Kabbalah, to be precise, on the principles of the world of Adam Kadmon or primordial
man which contains all other worlds mentioned above, spiritual and physical. The observable
physical world is said to be a projection of the higher spiritual worlds, which gave rise to our
assertion that physical and in particular mathematical principles should hold and be
represented in the descriptions of those worlds.
Furthermore, the questions of the singularity of a Creator and its existence as well as the
inevitability of the emergence and existence of the One and none other will be thoroughly
discussed. We will try to explore Physics, Mathematics and Information Science to find
answers to some age old questions, still hidden in the Secrets of the Torah, namely its
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
Kabbalah. Let us shed some light on the traditionally handed down secrets and reveal some
answers to these questions.
This book will be incomplete despite of our quest for completeness wherever possible, but as
Kurt Gödel has proven, anything attempted to be proven in finite dimensions by finite man
will be incomplete in an infinitely dimensional world.
• Before the creation of space and time, what did exist, or what represents such
Existence?
• Why is the existence of One as the beginning of all worlds inevitable?
• Are actions beyond the observable laws of nature possible or do actions beyond
nature not exist?
• Are miracles or actions as a result of the will of a creator possible?
• Can laws of nature be temporarily influenced or changed by such will or are
such influences or changes part of laws of nature which we not yet fully
comprehend?
• What are the structures and mechanisms of the higher, spiritual worlds?
• What role do the human mind and consciousness play in the system of physically
observable and physically non-observable worlds?
• Is sentient being or life inevitable for the existence of a universe or system of
worlds?
• What is the reason of creation?
• Is communication with the creator possible or only a myth?
• What are angels, persons or psychological forces?
• Are the Laws of Nature Divine Will or created by chance?
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
1
Absolute Nothingness, Non-existent?
The main belief in Judaism is that there is one Creator who brought everything into existence
from nothing. We call this יש מאיןor creatio ex nihilo. The oneness of the Creator is a
commandment of the Torah that is interpreted as an immutable oneness or absolute oneness.
This presents us with a formidable paradox, because in regard to the Creator the definition of
a space-time or any other multi-dimensional space related to the Creator before Creation
constitutes already a violation of the conditions given above by Rambam. According to that,
the Creator is absolutely simple and perfectly One without any shape, structure or attributes.
Hence the “Existence” referred to in Sefer Etz Chaim, as cited below, being filled with the
“Infinite Light” (Or Ein Sof) could not fill any space at all. There is no geometrical shape
spanning up entities like space or time not comprising any structure in the mathematical
sense, may the entity be physical, spiritual or anything beyond that.
Bear in mind, that before the emanations were emanated, and the creatures were created, the Upper Simple Light had
filled the entire Existence. And there was no empty space whatsoever, namely as empty air, a hollow or pit. For
everything was filled with that simple boundless light and there was no such part as head and no such part as tail. That
is, there was neither beginning nor end, for everything was simple or smooth light balanced evenly and equally in one
likeness or affinity, and that is called the Endless Light.
And when, in His simple and smooth Will, the desire arose to create the world and to emanate the emanations, to bring
to light the perfection of His deeds and His Names and His appellations – which was the cause of the creation of the
world – behold he then contracted Himself in the middle point which is in Him, precisely in the middle, He contracted
the Light. And the Light has withdrawn to the sides around the middle point, and there has remained an empty space
and a vacuum surrounding the exact middle point. And the Light has withdrawn to the sides around the middle point.
And behold, this contraction was equally balanced around that middle empty point in such a manner that the vacuum
was circular and in complete balance and sameness all around.
The descriptor of such entity before or at the onset of Creation must be called “absolute
nothingness”. This seemingly contradicts the statement of “absolute oneness” demanded by
the Torah, but let us examine the possibility of considering an entity mathematically
describing nothingness. The Empty Set contains no elements whatsoever, and it needs no
space to fill. As we consider further, along the lines of Etz Chaim, that all the Divine Light
filled the “existence” and said nothingness is after the 2nd Tzimtzum contained in a boundary
which is spherical and infinite from which the light had been expelled, there are two
possibilities for such a boundary:
a) a sphere with its radius going to zero, will construct a point, albeit in three
dimensions;
b) a sphere of infinite dimensions with any radius (it can go to infinity), which surface
area and henceforth its volume tends to zero1, which constructs also a point, now in
infinitely many dimensions. Furthermore such infinite dimensional sphere is
indistinguishable from a sphere of zero dimensions for reasons which will be
explained below (the point being in infinity, if the sphere is the one and only
available).
1
The volume of a sphere of infinite dimensions approximates zero. See proof in the Appendix.
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
The -hypersphere (often simply called the -sphere) is a generalization of the circle (called by
geometers the 2-sphere) and usual sphere (called by geometers the 3-sphere) to dimensions
. The -sphere is therefore defined (again, to a geometer; see below) as the set of -tuples
of points ( , , ..., ) such that
(1)
Unfortunately, geometers and topologists adopt incompatible conventions for the meaning of " -
sphere," with geometers referring to the number of coordinates in the underlying space, and
topologists referring to the dimension of the surface itself ("the -dimensional sphere is
defined to be the set of all points in satisfying ,"
"the -sphere is ). A geometer would therefore regard the
object described by
(2)
(3)
as a 3-sphere, while a topologist would call it a 2-sphere and denote it . Extreme caution is
therefore advised when consulting the literature. Following the literature, both conventions are
used in this work, depending on context, which is stated explicitly wherever it might be
ambiguous.
Let denote the content (i.e., -dimensional volume) of an -hypersphere (in the geometer's
sense) of radius is given by
(4)
where is the hyper-surface area of an -sphere of unit radius. A unit hypersphere must satisfy
(5)
(6)
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
(7)
so
(8)
(9)
(10)
Strangely enough, the hyper-surface area reaches a maximum and then decreases towards 0 as
increases. The point of maximal hyper-surface area satisfies
(11)
where is the digamma function. This cannot be solved analytically for , but the
numerical solution is . As a result, the seven-dimensional hypersphere has
maximum hyper-surface area.
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G. Maimon, S. Makmel, P. Ben Avraham, רקיעים ספר
Case a) has to be discarded, because it has the limit of being finite dimensional, while case b)
fulfills all possible conditions of infinite radius and infinite dimensionality, and has the
highest possible symmetry a geometrical object, besides absolute nothingness, can have.
Since we considered this geometrical object as spherical in all dimensions, and its volume
tends to zero, it still can contain something, let us say its center point. Let us consider the
infinite-dimensional sphere enveloping this center point which is containing all energy
necessary to create a universe2. It can be called:
How can an infinite-dimensional sphere with infinite radius, explained above as having an
infinitely small volume, be inflated in volume to create a space to contain a void or vacuum
as described in Etz Chaim? The answer is, the symmetry of the object described above must
be broken, until a sphere of reasonable volume is created3, but this is not so simple. First of
2
Why this system contains energy is for quantum mechanical reasons which will be explained later when
we will talk about uncertainty relations.
3
For an explanation of symmetry breaking, see the Appendix.
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all we have to consider a mechanism that breaks the symmetry and second, we have to
discuss how it is possible to break the symmetry effectively to create a voluminous space for
a physical world as we know it, where this volume can be very small like for instance have
an order of magnitude of the Planck scale. If the symmetry is broken from an infinite
dimensionality, a voluminous space is only achieved if a finite number of dimensions is left
over after the symmetry reduction. This poses a mathematical dilemma, because infinitely
many dimensions have to be partitioned into at least one finite dimensional subset and at least
one infinite dimensional subset. Two other possibilities would be to partition the infinite set
of dimensions into infinitely many finite sets or a finite set of dimensions (spheres)
containing infinitely many subsets of dimensions (spheres). This last possibility is favored by
the Kabbalists4. We will discuss this in the next chapter in more detail. For now, it shall
suffice to remark that for a finite dimensional observer the volume of a sphere of the same
dimensionality as that of such observer does not depend on the observer’s subset of
dimensions particular location inside the infinite set of dimensions. The observer will always
perceive the volume of such sphere as if all other dimensions he is unable to perceive do not
exist. We shall call this “relativity of space”.
With the advent of creation, our empty set containing absolutely nothing constitutes without
its boundary of an infinite-dimensional sphere absolute unity with the intrinsic property of
containing light or energy, whose properties are yet undefined. Why this light or energy is an
intrinsic property of our empty set as a precursor of space and time has to do with the
peculiar geometry we are confronted with at the onset of creation5 and will be explained in
the next chapter. For now, may the reader accept this as fact.
Above we have seen how difficult it is to understand absolute nothingness. The critical reader
might now ask the question whether this nothingness at the onset of creation contradicts the
commandment of the Torah that asks for “absolute oneness” as the source of all being, while
another might argue that “absolutely nothing” very nicely fulfills the request for structureless
indescribability of such a source. Both readers have very good reasons for their
argumentation, but should now read on extra carefully.
4
See Sefer Etz Chaim 1:1-4, and Sefer Otzrot Chaim 1:1
5
We have here to do with a very small volume of space-time so that time is squashed into a very small
length. This leads to the creation of energy according to the relationship ΔE Δt ≥ ħ/2 as will be explained
later.
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paradox. The nothingness exists in no environment, is not having any structure and is neither
represented by anything nor distinguished from anything, space, time, energy, or any
mathematical-physical concept whatsoever, but constitutes One absolute nothingness. How
can such nothingness then suddenly have a boundary and light or energy which can be
expelled to outside this boundary? And where to is it expelled if there is no environment the
absolute nothingness is in and where comes suddenly an oneness from? – We try to suggest
an answer.
As we will see later, Mach’s principle which is the precursor of the principle of relativity
explains that space is created by its contents and needs not to be a prerequisite for placing
anything created like in the Newtonian view of the world contained in an absolute and rigid
space.
עשר ספירות בלי מה נעוץ סופן בתחלתן ותחילתן בסופן כשלהבת קשורה בגחלת שאדון
יחיד ואין לו שני ולפני אחד מה אתה סופר:
Ten sfirot of nothingness, their end is embedded in their beginning and their beginning in
their end, like a flame in a burning coal, for the master is singular, he has no second, and
before One, what do you count?
In the state of absolute nothingness no means of distinction and no structure exist, so this
nothingness is the one and only nothingness available. We therefore can postulate the
absolute nothingness being identical with absolute oneness, and the concept of One did not
have to be created, it is an intrinsic property of absolute nothingness. In this state, numbers
need not be created, and counting is impossible for lack of any second entity or concept
besides the absolute nothingness. This is denoted by “before One, what do you count?” – a
very clear hint how to get to an acceptable solution to the above conundrum. Let us for this
purpose conjecture the identity of absolute nothingness (non-existence) with absolute oneness
(existence) and see which of the two is able to “survive” alone:
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nothingness does not exist, only absolute oneness or plurality can exist. Hence, if absolute
nothingness and absolute oneness do not exist, only plurality does exist. Plurality cannot exist
without a space at least of natural numbers. This shows that since before creation absolutely
nothing existed, there was only one absolute nothingness which cannot exist without being
exactly one, but exactly one or oneness can exist on its own, without any nothingness.
Hence the origin of existence is ONE, since only absolute oneness can exist as an only
entity, and absolute nothingness requires oneness for its absolute existence.
The same conjectures are valid for absolute non-existence (equivalent to absolute
nothingness) and absolute existence in oneness (equivalent to absolute oneness). A further
reason for existence superseding non-existence or negative existence is the intrinsic
asymmetry of NOT ( )לאor negativity as such which is also shown in the asymmetry in the
Baryogenesis in favor of matter over antimatter. A nice example to make this plausible is that
additions or subtractions which are commutative in regard to multiplication, behave as
follows:
+.+=+
+.- = -
-.- = +
This or similar reasoning might be underlying the idea of Parashat Beshalach (Shemot 17:7),
commented in Idra Rabah 83, punishing the questioning of the identity of Existence in favor
of Non-Existence, which is also a clear rejection of a negative existence of the Creator. Sefer
Yetzirah 2:6 states: “He formed substance out of chaos ( )תוהוand made nonexistence into
existence …”
The concept of absolute oneness or unity of which absolute nothingness is part of, is at the
same time part of the concept of existence, which we want to call “somethingness” (cf. Sefer
Yetzirah 2:6 as cited below). This somethingness can be described in absence of any space
and time as either a point or, with some caution, as our infinite-dimensional sphere lacking
any volume as discussed above. Before we look deeper into this issue, let us first consider
how from absolute nothingness, which constitutes absolute oneness, space could be defined.
Above we proposed inflation of a finite-dimensional space from that infinite-dimensional
sphere by symmetry breaking. The Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) describes the
formation of a reshimo of the sfirot in a void space evolving from a singularity. This space,
as we have remarked already, does not need to have a large volume, it can be infinitesimally
tiny. How can this happen?
To distinguish between two basic entities or properties in the state of absolute nothingness we
need to take two things into account:
If we take these two identities together we can deduce, that absolute nothingness and absolute
oneness (somethingness) represented by, say, a point can coexist as the same system unless
any action occurs. Since this point does exist in a space of no dimensions or no space, it has
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no coordinates. We can say it lies in infinity. As is very well known to mathematicians, such
point in infinity represents a circle or sphere with infinite radius, dependent on the number of
dimensions involved. To explain this, consider a circle with two points marked on it on
opposite sides, i.e. the points are the intersections of a straight line containing the middle
point of the circle and intersecting with the circle. Suppose the radius of the circle becoming
infinite. The circle approximates in the two intersection points straight lines, but they meet at
the respective antipodal point forming a circle. This can be done in three dimensions with
planes and spheres and in higher dimensions with hyperplanes and hyperspheres.
From this we can conjecture, that our point representing oneness represents an infinite sphere
and both are not distinguishable or as we say in Quantum Physics, the system fluctuates
between the two states point and sphere. With this, primordial space is already created, as
well as at least one second dimension, so that this space at least consists of the dimensions 0,
1 and 2 as we will see in the kabbalistic view of Creation with the creation of the letters ו,י
and ד. We have to remind the reader that such a space is still not distinguishable from our
point in infinity, because it is at that stage fluctuating wildly between voluminosity and zero
volume, so to say at infinite frequency, since time does not exist yet 6, as will be explained
later. Still we have to explain, how the point in infinity which represents an infinite sphere
could be transformed into a space that is stable, expelling all energy (light) out of such space.
If we assume that the laws of Physics were valid from the onset of creation, and there is no
6
Since time is not defined as a dimension yet, but is just one of many latent dimensions, one can not define
a frequency with which the system is fluctuating or oscillating. This leads to infinite frequencies if one
considers time zero and energy as infinite, which is one of the reasons for very rapid inflation or explosion
of such a system.
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Since it is very well known in Physics, that quantum effects prevailed at the very onset of the
existence of the physical universe, let us assign state vectors (wave functions) to each of the
observables defined above, namely absolute nothingness, point in infinity, infinite sphere,
energy and time. Additionally we can assign non-commuting operators to each physical
quantity, namely space, energy and time, which are some of the dimensions of our sphere
system.
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consideration, that in Quantum Theory we can assign two different states to one physical
reality, where observation determines, which state is representing such reality in question. In
our case, the obvious result of observation is, that we have permanently the state of infinite
space and an immensely large energy prevailing. The question to be resolved is, how the
formerly ambiguous system arrived at exactly those observed properties and what caused
time and energy to exist. An extensive explanation of those questions will be given in the
next chapter, but for the moment it seems to be that the “freezing” of the ambiguous system
into a definite one needs some action to be performed, which for example can be an
observation, which causes the system to “freeze” or as we say in Quantum Theory, leads to
the collapse of the wave function (Copenhagen mechanism). The wave function collapse can
either be happening spontaneously or through a defined action. At the moment of our
discussion this is not yet clear. For spontaneous collapse a probability has to be defined or
another reason has to be found, why the system would prefer to freeze. The defined and
willed action needs a separate entity to act or at least a subset of the system needs to act.
Another possibility is that the whole system wills the action. The possibilities of such
freezing mechanism by quantum decoherence and/or delocalized counterpropagating wave
functions will be discussed as well. This will lead to a better understanding, whether and how
any willed action is necessary to bring a stable system like our universe into existence and to
sustain it. We will discuss this issue in detail below.
Any action needs a new concept to be created, either cause and effect or probability. We will
discuss in detail, whether there is any minimum causality necessary to start any action in the
above sense even if we base a physical theory on fluctuations and probability.
Philosophically this arises one of the toughest and most fundamental questions: Is causality
as we observe it on a macroscopic scale a must also in the quantum world of microscopic and
mesoscopic systems or is it sufficient to collapse our ambiguous system into a stable one
purely by chance? A most important effect of such collapse is the choice of the values of
Planck’s constant, the elementar electric charge and the velocity of light in vacuo which all
together are represented by the fine structure constant with a value of 1/137. This is the only
fundamental constant the value of which cannot be derived by any theory and cannot be
mimicked by any condensed matter system. To shed some light onto this issue, we should
remind ourselves:
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• Simplicity and oneness of the Creator: both simplicity and oneness are of the utmost
extreme, so that no structure or attributes can be applied to that Creator.
• Namelessness of the creator vs. names used to describe the creator (or its creation)
and possible implications of Idol Worship by the inappropriate use of such names:
such names describe only certain aspects of the Creator or His Creation.
• Problematics of names and attributes related to different stages of creation and
different world levels.
• Role of sfirot, vessels and light in creation.
• Divine will and reshimo principle: before light can interact e.g. with free space to
form a vessel, that space needs to be prepared by a structure called reshimo.
• Way and time of the decision for Adam Kadmon to emit light; is this spontaneous
action?
Up to now, we only have established the intrinsic properties of nothingness and oneness, and
no initiation process for creation, or better, stabilization (“freezing”) of any space or world
has been established, except the possible processes as proposed in Etz Chaim and some
vague spontaneous action as proposed by science. To follow along these lines, we need to
establish very carefully, what has to be created to facilitate such a process. Examples for such
facilitating entities are, in order of fundamentality [ דף ג' פרק ו,]ספר אלימה:
A possibility is to carefully look at the dichotomies mentioned above to explain the state of
affairs at the onset of creation, where clear definitions and distinctions, which are part of the
concept of plurality or at least duality, are not yet made. We have:
7
As we will see later, information and with that spiritual entities need a physical carrier to be actively
exchanged or interactive with other entities. According to quantum field theory the vacuum can constitute
such a physical carrier.
8
Since what is regarded as cause and what as effect depends on the observer, and in Quantum Mechanics it
has been proven theoretically and experimentally that causality as it is known in daily life can be violated.
As we will see in our later discussions, such “relativity of cause and effect” can also be shown in a classical
environment.
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Let us first look carefully into the Physics of the Big Bang with all its open questions to see
whether we can reach a more enlightened view of the beginning of our worlds we live in.
After that we will look at the view of the Secrets of the Torah, how the process of creation is
described there.
9
Violations of causality are only a reversal of same and depend on the observer and the statistical behavior
of the phenomenon observed.
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2
Space, Time and Energy, Created at Will or Inevitable?
1. Planck epoch
2. Grand unification 10-43 sec
3. Inflation causes Big Bang 10-35 sec
4. Baryon genesis 10-33 sec
5. Weak and electromagnetic forces separate 10-11 sec
6. Protons and neutrons created 10-5 sec
7. Electron-positron pairs annihilate 1 sec
8. Nucleo-synthesis 3 min
9. Decoupling of light from matter 300,000 years
10. Protogalaxies and first stars 1 billion years
For later discussion please note that we have seven epochs from the Big Bang to the existence of first
stars, while we have three epochs before the universe had any significant size. We also have seven
significant spontaneous symmetry breakings (3. – 9.) during the formation of our observable universe,
where the symmetry breakings after the Big Bang are connected with a cooling of the universe.
Physics explains, according to measurements and observation, that the physical world
emanated from a singularity, a point, where all physical forces and objects were unified at an
energy density, which is hard to grasp. The entire universe, concentrated into a very small
sphere, contained a “substance”, which unified all particles and space-time. This is known as
the Planck state of the universe and the grand unification of all laws and objects of physical
space. In Kabbalah this is referred to by the expression “ineffable infinite light”. This state
lasted about 10-43 seconds after the point started expanding. Up to 10-35 seconds, the universe
inflated to nearly half of its present size in a process faster than the speed of light. This shows
that inflation of space-time, not matter or energy, took place, hinting to a process similar to
that described in the old Sfarim of Kabbalah.
Although the properties of the Big Bang are very special, as we will see below, we now know
that the laws of Physics provide a mechanism that produces exactly such a bang: cosmic
inflation. What makes inflation possible is a high energy density that cannot be rapidly
lowered. Such a state is called a false vacuum, where vacuum indicates a state of lowest
possible energy density. For a period of time, where time emerges out of the fluctuation of
the Planck state of space-time, the false vacuum acts as if the energy density cannot be
lowered. This creates a negative pressure causing a repulsive gravitational field, which is the
driving force behind inflation. With the onset of such inflation time as we know it is created.
Only a small patch of the anyhow at that time small universe needs to be in a state of false
vacuum such as in a random fluctuation, and it will enlarge by many orders of magnitude,
while other regions remain microscopic. Typical expansion factors are in the order of at least
1025. There is no upper limit to the amount of expansion. Eventually the false vacuum decays,
and the energy that had been locked in it is released, producing exactly the Big Bang as it
started, containing a hot soup of particles10. As we will see in our later discussions, gravity
plays a very special role in this scenario and is also responsible for the 2 nd law of
10
We will discuss the implications of Inflation in detail in our later discussions.
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thermodynamics that gave us the direction of time, at least macroscopically in the physical
environment we are in.
Within three minutes nuclei of atoms of the chemical elements were formed. From then
onwards, matter plasma prevailed for about 300,000 years. Then a decoupling of matter and
radiation took place, which allowed the formation of stars and galaxies as we know them
today. Let us look now in detail at the Physics at the onset of creation. Particularly interesting
is the specialness and uniqueness of the Big Bang emerging from a singularity with an
immense amount of energy.
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beginning we have an immensely strange geometry. Space and time are squashed into an
infinitely small sphere with a mass distribution of a δ-function. According to the general
relativity principle, such a scenario is unique for our universe as it is not Lorentz invariant. It
also immediately follows from t ≈ ħ/E, where t is the time, E is the energy and ħ is Planck’s
quantum that E reaches infinity. In practice and along the lines of observation as a means of
wave function collapse as discussed above, before any action took place, the following
scenario prevailed:
The question arises, what would happen, if such metric is constraint by the sheer microscopic
size of the available space (cf. John Wheeler’s suggestions of 1950 and later)? In case of a
space-time singularity or even in case of a size of the space of the order of magnitude of the
Planck scale (10-35 m and 10-43 s), such metric’s fluctuations would very likely lead to a wild
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explosion. One could imagine, if space-time is such constraint, the uncertainty of the energy
(mass) of the system causes fluctuations from zero to infinity. Such fluctuations have to be
understood in a very special way, since, as we said, space and time at the beginning of the
universe were not formed yet in the way we know it. Hence, such fluctuations of the
dimensions of space-time have to be understood rather as having some sort of yet undefined
properties in the way that their magnitude is at the same time infinitely small and infinitely
big or somewhere in between. Only through an action like observation or similar interaction
the system’s dimensional properties can become defined. Such action is to be understood in
the same way as we explained it above with the point in infinity and the infinite sphere. We
will discuss this issue below in our discussion of the scientific and the kabbalistic views of
creatio ex nihilo. This issue is also the very central problem of Quantum Physics and known
as the measurement problem of complementary observables underlying the uncertainty
principles of Heisenberg. In this discussion philosophical implications of causality, locality
and the act of observation or measurement (which is related to the collapse of the
wavefunction of the observable) will be uncovered.
Evidence for the early universe being in a thermal state is the close resemblance of the
universe’s background radiation of the Planck black body radiation curve. This is observed
experimentally by the 2.7 K background microwave radiation, which is the remnant of the
flash of the Big Bang. Further evidence can be found in nuclear processes in the early
universe. There prevails a thermal equilibrium of its matter in conjunction with the rapid
expansion of the universe. Hence, it must have been in a highly organized state of low
entropy. Inflationary expansion provides a completely homogeneous highly organized state.
One could argue that soon after the Big Bang the universe was small, so its degrees of
freedom were very limited, so only low entropy was possible. This is not the right view, in
particular regarding the still possible infinite dimensionality, which must be affected by the
fluctuation, the dimensionality then also fluctuating between zero and infinity11. In such a
highly fluctuating undefined state, the gravitational degrees of freedom, which depend on the
mass12 as an energy form of the universe, have not been thermalized with the other
parameters of matter and electromagnetic states which are involved in the thermal state of the
11
It is not entirely clear whether this would affect the entropy of such a fluctuating system. One has to
remind oneself that inflation, explosion and rapid cooling all happened in about 10-12 seconds.
12
The question is whether such mass had gravitational interaction at that stage or whether such mass could
be defined as such in a stage of Grand Unification, is pretty open and any answer would be highly
speculative. If mass was not de-coupled it cannot contribute to the thermal state like the de-coupled ones.
Hence the following argument above is a very valid one.
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universe. This means, mass was not yet de-coupled of the other properties and henceforth the
gravitational degrees of freedom provided a huge reservoir for entropy like in a black hole 13
as a cluster of gravitational matter. This different behavior of gravitation (high entropy in
clustered masses as opposed to high entropy in spread out gas) gave us in Inflation and the
Big Bang the second law of thermodynamics as we observe it, and with that the deterministic
forward movement in time. It makes time an arrow. Gravity had a very special status at the
beginning of the universe, different from that of any other field. Rather than sharing in the
thermalization like all the other fields gravity’s degrees of freedom were lying in wait, so that
the second law could come into play as these degrees of freedom begin to be taken up.
Gravity’s behavior seems to have been different from all the others, but why? Answering this
question is entering the speculative area of Physics, and since at the very beginning of the
universe definitely quantum effects dominated the scene, we have to go right back to the
fundamental questions of Quantum Theory and to the most pressing question regarding
gravitation: what is mass and how did it emerge? At the moment of the writing of this book
there are only theoretical explanations or better, proposals to explanations. The most favored
mechanism for giving mass to particles and making them into matter is the Higgs
mechanism, but until now the Higgs boson, which is one of the four gauge bosons, eluded
any conclusive experimental verification of itself. At this very moment the high energy
Physics experiment ATLAS at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN in Geneva,
Switzerland starts getting into the stage to produce data very soon, so that the existence of the
Higgs particle, supersymmetry and related issues can be either verified or the door to some
new unknown Physics may be opened, which may require us to again re-think our perception
of how we understand the Physics of the world(s) we live in.
13
Please consult the Appendix for a popular description of black holes.
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Concerning the probability of the occurrence of the Big Bang, conventionally one assumes a
phase space describing the thermal and other conditions leading or not leading to a universe
as we observe it. The “box” in such phase space for the occurrence of our Big Bang is
ridiculously small with a probability value of about 1:1010^123, so it would require a nearly
infinite precision to choose all necessary parameters to let such a Big Bang happen. This fact
is often used to argue in favor of an intelligent Creator.
Strictly speaking, such phase space also needs to be created or has to emerge, as all space is
in a highly fluctuating state, and that includes such phase space as well, if one is to take the
term creatio ex nihilo seriously. Thus we can argue that phase space was just as small as the
singularity, so no precision at all was needed. The question still remains, what happened with
the high entropy of a normally thermally homogeneous system. A possible answer to this lies
with the above mentioned anomaly of the thermodynamic state of the Big Bang and its
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consequences, namely on the not yet thermalized gravitational degrees of freedom at its very
beginning. Quantum theoretically, these special conditions dictate that configuration space
also underlies the same conditions as physical space in the beginning of Creation. We will
discuss why this should be the case in our discussion of scientific and kabbalistic views of the
role of such configuration space and its history since the inception of creation. This will be
important for the discussion of the kabbalistic view of Creation, because we can interpret the
vacated space before the introduction of light as the configuration space of the still not
stabilized set of worlds which includes the reshimo of all sfirot that will ever exist.
Let us now explore how the second law of thermodynamics causes time to behave as we
observe it. We should remember that we can mathematically model systems’ dynamics into
the future or into the past. The only things needed therefore are initial or final conditions of
such system and the knowledge of all interactions during the dynamical process, but there
arises a fundamental difficulty caused by the second law of thermodynamics. Consider heat
flowing from hot to cold until thermal equilibrium is reached. In this case a retrodiction is
impossible, because one cannot determine from a system in thermal equilibrium, which of the
originally thermally unequal sides of the system becomes hot and which cold, spontaneously.
Similar to this, if a system is in a fluctuating indeterministic state, it is not possible to predict
with certainty or by strict causality, in which state the system will be when it stabilizes or as
we called it, “freezes out”. This difficulty arises, because of the statistics we use to predict
and retrodict the behavior and status of a physical system. The Second Law states, that
entropy grows with time. Re-ordering the system costs huge amounts of energy, while to
bring the same system into disorder costs no or a lesser amount than to order it. This
constitutes an asymmetry between the ordering and disordering processes, which is expressed
in the asymmetry of time, which is in contradiction of time symmetry assumed in both
General Relativity and Quantum Theory. So, what has gone wrong here with our Physics?14
The answer to this question lies in the global properties of the universe, whether it is finite or
infinite and whether we consider the presence of black holes in the universe as part of such
universe or as “gates” to another world or parts of another world altogether, in different or
adjacent dimensions to our universe. In order to have a discussion that is completely
according to general covariance of General Relativity, it would be necessary to have no
special choice of time coordinate with respect to which the universe is “evolving”. This
seemingly contradicts the requirements laid down by the second law which gives time its
specialness, but we learn on the other hand that inside a black hole the space and time
coordinates swap roles. So, does the second law jump coordinates? A detailed discussion of
these possibilities we want to spare for later, when we have looked onto more facts in both
Physics and Kabbalah.
In opposition to the Big Bang a black hole has maximum entropy by concentrating all gravity
in one point. Subramanian Chandrasekhar said about black holes: “The black holes of nature
are the most perfect macroscopic objects there are in the universe; the only elements in their
construction are our concepts of space and time. And since the General Theory of Relativity
provides only a simple unique family of solutions for their descriptions, they are the simplest
objects as well.” The configuration of a black hole is described by ten parameters:
14
As we will see later, this time symmetry has been upheld by the latest quantum mechanical experiments
(delayed choice and quantum erasure). This however does not render the 2nd law of thermodynamics
invalid.
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The difference between the Big Bang and a black hole is that in the Big Bang the time is
squashed to zero as is space, despite the high concentration of energy, while in the black hole
the time is stretched to infinity while space is contracted to very small distances. This is the
reason why the Big Bang explodes immediately and the black hole does not, it may evaporate
with time. A still open question is: where does all the massive material and information 15 go –
out of our universe? Only the gravitational field of a black hole, and with that indirectly its
mass, remains observable.
For future discussion, let us keep the following facts in mind: The growth of entropy from a
very low entropy of the Big Bang, as matter was distributed into expanding space, to cluster
gravitationally and finally collapse into black holes with maximum entropy defines the arrow
of time. It begins in the Big Bang passing very fast and ends in black holes stretching to
infinity and not passing at all. Hence, the reason for time as we observe it is the distribution
of matter and its dynamics, which is in accordance with General Relativity. A second fact is
that in the standard picture, the universe initially expands very rapidly away from the Big
Bang, but it is incorrect to think of an explosion away from a central point. A more
appropriate image is, in two spatial and one time dimensions, the surface of a balloon as it is
blown up. Each point of the surface gradually recedes from each other point, as time passes,
and there is no central point in the universe model, as the surface of the balloon represents
the entire universe. Thus, the center of the balloon does not count as part of the expanding
universe, nor does any other point that does not lie on that surface. Whether the singularity of
a black hole lies on it we leave open for now.
Hence, we can conjecture that any worlds of different dimensions from our physical world
also lie on such surfaces and the point of origin is isolated from those worlds. In N
dimensions, if one dimension is time, N – 1 become dynamic, but then the N – 1 must move
along the one. As a remark, we suggest to keep this fact as it is established by Physics in
mind for the description as it is rendered by Kabbalah.
Henri Poincaré and Norbert Wiener state that a cognizant being could not exist in an entropy-
decreasing universe, because one needs a uniform flow of evolving time to be able to
communicate. This statement is based on the very simple fact that with a reverse order of
events and back-flowing time or with an ever changing direction of time communication as
we know it would become very strange as would the dynamics of physical entities. The
special cases of exactly reversed time, infinitely stretched time (timelessness) and infinitely
contracted time still need a very careful analysis in regard to their consequences in the
physical, information-theoretical and also kabbalistic realms. For now we can say that in the
physical world an exact re-tracing of a history is impossible, if inside that history irreversible
processes took place and information or other entities got lost and were transformed into
15
Any information entering a black hole is lost. When the black hole finally evaporates, this information is
not reconstructed.
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energy. The same is surely true for information spaces, and it is very likely that the same is
valid for any other spaces or worlds such as Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah.
We have, as we have seen above, a wildly fluctuating system, where all its dimensions
“oscillate” completely irregularly between their extremes. This happens in an unsynchronized
manner, which gives rise to the conditions for inflation. Exact parameters and boundary
conditions underlie the laws of statistics and not causality. This means, at the time and place
in the not yet stabilized space-time, where the conditions for a false vacuum are given “first”,
the inflation starts and gives rise to the Big Bang. Strictly speaking, such “first” needs time
and space to have some extent, even on a minute scale of about 10 -34cm and 10-43 seconds,
and the energy density there needs to be not lowerable for at least that amount of time. After
inflation, space-time stabilizes and the temperature of the system lowers itself drastically,
making possible all observed symmetry breakings in the process of the Big Bang. It is hard to
conceive of an alternative theory that could explain the basic features of the observed
universe. Not only does inflation produce just the kind of Big Bang that is as special as the
observed one, but quantum fluctuations during inflation could have produced exactly those
non-uniformities which were the seeds of cosmic structure. These non-uniformities can be
observed directly in the cosmic background radiation with an amplitude of about ten parts per
million16.
At this point, we want to remind the reader about the Kabbalistic view of the beginning of the
universe as an inflating space that stabilizes with the “birth of time”, which we will discuss
after we exactly analyze these ideas of the Kabbalists.
16
We do not particularly favor Inflation, for cosmic strings also explain non-uniformities, but they cannot
account for the large-scale homogeneity and the flatness of the universe.
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The Ari z”l describes the first phases of creation in Sefer Etz Chaim as follows:
Bear in mind, that before the emanations were emanated, and the creatures were created, the Upper Simple Light had
filled the entire Existence. And there was no empty space whatsoever, namely as empty air, a hollow or pit. For
everything was filled with that simple boundless light and there was no such part as head and no such part as tail. That
is, there was neither beginning nor end, for everything was simple or smooth light balanced evenly and equally in one
likeness or affinity, and that is called the Endless Light.
And when, in His simple and smooth Will, the desire arose to create the world and to emanate the emanations, to bring
to light the perfection of His deeds and His Names and His appellations – which was the cause of the creation of the
world – behold he then contracted Himself in the middle point which is in Him, precisely in the middle, He contracted
the Light. And the Light has withdrawn to the sides around the middle point, and there has remained an empty space
and a vacuum surrounding the exact middle point. And the Light has withdrawn to the sides around the middle point.
And behold, this contraction was equally balanced around that middle empty point in such a manner that the vacuum
was circular and in complete balance and sameness all around.
It was not in the shape of a cube, which has straight angles, because the Boundless also withdrew His Light in a circular
form equally on all sides. This is due to the fact that the Endless Itself is equal. That is, since the Endless Light is in
complete omniparity, it follows that It must contract Itself in omniparity on all sides.
The reason for this is that the Infinite Light was symmetrical with a complete symmetry, so that it felt compelled to
contract itself on all sides. And it is known that geometrically there is no figure of such symmetry as the sphere –
certainly not the rectangle, with angles jutting out, nor the triangle, nor any other figure.
He was therefore compelled to contract Himself to the shape of a sphere, there being no symmetry greater than that of a
sphere. In the Zohar Parashah Bo, “a vessel in the sphere which is Yud”.
There is a further reason: that is, for the sake of the emanations which in the future will come forth in the place of that
empty void space. And behold, after the contraction mentioned above, It drew from the Endless Light one line direct
from His circular Light from above downward, and it gradually descended by evolution into that hollow or vacuum.
The Upper Head of the line was extended from The Endless Himself, and it contacted Him. Verily, the end of that line
below did not contact the Endless Light. The line was drawn and extended below, and in that vacuum He emanated,
created, formed and made all the collective worlds.
Prior to the four worlds, there was only the Endless, in the form of “He is One”, in a wondrous concealed unity, for it is
beyond the power or capacity of even those angels who are near Him to conceive of it. They have no conception of the
Endless, blessed be He. There is no intellect created which could conceive of Him, since He has No Place, and No
Boundary, and No Name.
And lo, as the Infinite Light extends in a direct line in the midst of space, it does not extend and disperse immediately
to the bottom; but rather slowly, slowly. That is, at the beginning, the line of the light started to flatten out; and at the
beginning of this spreading out of the line in all directions – in the mystic meaning – it dispersed and extended and
became a sort of wheel, completely round and detached from the Infinite Light, which imbues it from all sides. If it
becomes attached it returns to its previous condition, it disappears in the Infinite Light, and its strength is NOT seen at
all, and all becomes Infinite Light as it was at first. The sphere is therefore close to that of the Infinite and not attached
to it. The only main connection, or joining of the sphere of the emanation with the Infinite that causes the emanation, is
by means of the abovementioned line through which the light descends and extends from the Infinite, influencing the
sphere.
And the Infinite surrounds and encompasses it on all sides, being but a iota removed from it on all sides, for that also is
of round, encompassing aspect, as mentioned before, so that the illumination by the Infinite of those receiving the
emanations must come through this line only.
For if the light spread round on all sides, the recipient of the emanations would be like the giver Himself, that is,
limitless and boundless. Furthermore, even that line, too, is very narrow and fine and does not make a wide connection,
so that the light extended to the emanated is in fixed amounts and measures. Because of this, the emanated is called the
Ten Attributes (Yud Middot), and the Ten Sfirot, to show us that there is a fixed amount and measure and a limited
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number, which does not apply in the case of the Infinite. As it is written in the Zohar Parashah Pinhas: “The thirteenth
command is the reading of the שמעbut it has no measure or specific Name in the way that every Sfirah has a specific
name for its measure, its boundary and its limit”. And since the line is thin, they will receive abundance only to the
extent it is required, as they are the recipients of emanations, rather than the givers of emanations.
And behold this first sphere, most closely attached to the Infinite, is known as the Crown (Keter) of Primordial Man
(Adam Kadmon). After it, the line is extended and continued this way, then coils round in a sphere and becomes sphere
number two within sphere number one. This is known as the Wisdom (Chochmah) of Adam Kadmon. The line extends
then downwards again, coiling round to become a third sphere within the second. This is known as the sphere of
Understanding (Binah) of Adam Kadmon. In this way, the spheres are made one within the other, up to the sphere
number ten, known as the sfirah of Kingdom (Malchut) of Adam Kadmon. Here is revealed the nature of the ten sfirot,
which were emanated by way of the ten mystic concentric spheres. All this is an aspect of the ten sfirot, which includes
all aspects of all the worlds; but in fact it is explained – and it is a simple explanation – that many kinds of worlds were
emanated, created, formed, and made a million or a billion times over, all being equally in the middle of the empty
space already referred to, with Nothing outside it.
Sefer Etz Chaim explains the inflation of space and the expulsion of light from same space as
the first creative action of the Creator. Here we are introduced to the concept of Tzimtzum,
the self-constriction of the Creator’s light. This involves one of the most important
philosophical concepts of Kabbalah, as well as one which has been a source of confusion to
many scholars. The Zohar 1:15a, which is the opening statement of Bereshit, states:
“At the head of the King’s authority He carved out of the supernal luminescence a
lamp of darkness. And there emerged out of the hidden of hidden the Mystery of the Infinite,
an unformed line, imbedded in a ring … measured with a thread …”
The Bahir 25 cites Rabbi Berachia saying that “the light was like a beautiful object for which
the King had no place in which to put it”. Only after a “place” was provided could the light
be revealed.
This suggests that the light, besides the absolute unity, is intrinsic to the singularity at the
beginning of the creation process, which is justifiable by Quantum theoretical argument as
we have seen above. Time and space are squashed into the singularity, and according to the
relation t ≈ ħ/E we create besides wild fluctuations a veracious explosion. We need to be
careful in saying light and unity are intrinsic rather than separate properties, as we would
destroy the absolute unity, if we said otherwise. The solution to this difficulty is to regard the
light as a product of the fluctuations. Before we discuss this issue, let us look at the effects
the inflation of space was involved with. The process of carving out or engraving a reshimo17
into the vacated space took place with the creation of space and time at the expansion from
the infinitely small into the infinitely big, which is mathematically imbedded into each
other18. A conformal mapping of an infinitely small sphere or point into an infinitely big
sphere in finite dimensions is possible and part of complex number theory. An explanation
was given above. The engraving of the reshimo can be seen as a symmetry reduction with
that information is discarded, in this case all the information lying outside of the reshimo.
The lost information is transformed into energy or light, as we will see in detail later.
This engraving process can be directly connected with the creation of the concept of natural
numbers out of nothingness. With the expansion or inflation into infinite space and the
17
The concept of a reshimo is explained in Otzrot Chaim as an imprint made onto space without substance,
more or less as a sort of memory that, when interacting with light, brings the “planned” object into being.
18
May the reader be reminded that the structure of the sfirot and space-time was still latent at that stage.
Only with the filling with light of the reshimo structure the space-time and its contents were stabilized.
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creation of a void inside the light of Ein Sof, we have an empty set within an empty set,
which defines the number 1, which is according to our definition above equivalent with an
empty set. With the creation of the reshimo structure, ten empty sets were imbedded into
each other after the following rule:
The empty set can be written as Ø = { }, where the brackets delineate a set. If we associate Ø
with the number 0, we can further define an empty set within an empty set {Ø} = 1, since this
set contains one element, namely an empty set. The next number is then defined as {Ø, {Ø}}
= 2; {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}} = 3; and so on to infinity. This rule to create the natural numbers ex
nihilo was developed by Cantor and Peano.
According to Otzrot Chaim, the dimensional order of the sfirot in the state of reshimo is the
following (lowest to highest dimension), cf. also Zohar Bereshit B:
Inside each of the sfirot, there exists a full set of all ten sfirot ad infinitum. Hence we can
conclude that with the engraving process of the reshimo the concept of natural numbers by
infinite symmetry breaking into infinitely many numbers, representable by ten different
digits, resulted. With this the duality of nothing and one, which has been defined by the
identities explained above, became extended into an infinite plurality. We can see that the
reshimo as the precursor of the sfirot defined the natural numbers.
A further source in Kabbalah is a study of the Preface to the Zohar with the Sulam
(commentary of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag). It is written there, that the letter יis the
forerunner of creation. It is the dot or point that everything started with. In our interpretation
of the duality of non-existence and existence a line is created between these opposites. One
can say the same about the other dichotomies mentioned above. Since these dichotomies are
dependent onto each other, one cannot consider them as independent from each other. Hence
these opposites form one dimension or a line separating the opposite properties of the
dichotomies. This can be represented by the letter וor its reshimo, which can be looked at as
the first and primordial separation or רקיע. We will see later, how such separation or
demarcation between a system and its observer is essential for the system to come to a stable
state, both in Physics and in Kabbalah.
It is stated that the letter יis the root of all letters. The reshimo is the cause of the springing
into existence of the vessel (letter), to be precise; the withdrawal of the light is the cause for
the vessel to begin to exist. Again, information is discarded with the formation of the vessel
by state reduction, and the vessel sends light back. The source of the worlds is then the
second Tzimtzum, which took place after the Infinite Light was withdrawn after the same
light was introduced to interact with the reshimo to form the Sfirot. יis called the fourth
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The vessel and the world have two consecutive sources, the יand the א, where the first
engendered the letters in concealment (reshimo), while the second brought them into being
after the point rose to Binah (logical planning or blueprinting) 20. This action can be
interpreted as the creation of a configuration space on which the Laws of Nature in all the
worlds were defined.
According to the same Preface to the Zohar the following names represent the states of
creation:
• First Tzimtzum: Chochmah ()י, Binah ()ה, Zeir Anpin (,(ו = ז"א = ע"ב72
• Second Tzimtzum: 6 days of Yetzirah ((א = ס"ג63
• } (ז"א)ת"ת = מ"ה45
• Malchut 2 x הויה = ב"ן52
First Tzimtzum:
It is clearly stated, that with the first Tzimtzum the Divine Light was expelled from the
original “point in infinity”, which mathematically represents a sphere of infinite radius that is
still not stabilized, or as we say in Physics, fluctuating (Sefer Yetzirah 1:6):
עשר ספירות בלי מה צפייתן כמראה הבזק ותכליתן אין להם קץ ודברו בהן ברצוא ושוב
ולמאמרו כסופה ירדופו ולפני כסאו הם משתחוים:
Ten Sfirot of Nothingness, their vision is like the appearance of lightning, their limit has no
end, and His Word in them is running and returning, they rush to His saying like a
whirlwind, and before His throne they prostrate themselves.
Here it is clearly stated that the sfirot were in a yet unstable state, unless they are “spoken” to,
which can be generalized to interaction. Aryeh Kaplan comments: “It is only with regard to
the generic speech that the sfirot oscillate [fluctuate], running and returning, but when there is
a specific saying []מאמר, they no longer oscillate, but rush like a whirlwind.” The running
and returning speech here denotes all concepts necessary for creation as well as all ever
possible mental, physical and other activities or concepts are all latently present, but not in a
stabilized or condensed form as after creation. The prostrating after the specified speech of
the מאמרcan be understood as such stabilization, which alludes to the second Tzimtzum.
This can be seen as a wave-function collapse by observation or a similar action that still has
19
At the time of writing, a source for such “fourth distinction” in scripture eludes us. We therefore inform
the reader that this expression was used by Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag in his aforementioned study of the
introduction to the Zohar. He also gives no further explanation.
20
בריאה
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to be defined. Such wave-function collapse stabilizes the system and makes the process
irreversible. The exact mechanisms for such a process are described in our separate treatment
of Quantum Theory in the Appendix, but the issue will be much better understood towards
the end of this book.
This allows the creation of the first reshimo without the necessity of the presence of time.
The reshimo was created in the first Tzimtzum and needs to be voluminous only later after
the second Tzimtzum where such volume is needed: in the physical world of Assiyah and in
the realm of Yetzirah (formation). Whether voluminosity in the physical sense is needed in
the higher, spiritual worlds remains doubtful. On the other hand the formerly established
relativity of space-volume allows such spaces to appear voluminous to “observers” inside
them. Additionally, the first Tzimtzum appear only as an engravement in n-space 21. Let us
now analyze how it is possible to create such a thing without specifying or creating time or
stabilizing the system through any interaction or observation. We have seen above in our
scientific view that with the emergence of the universe, light or energy is also latently
available in abundance, because of the yet in-phase fluctuation of time with space22.
1. The dichotomy of absolute nothingness being absolute ONE at the same time
“creates” automatically the point in infinity, the letter י.
2. The dichotomy of such point in infinity being an infinite sphere at the same time
allows the following: it can be such sphere in all possible dimensions from zero to
infinity. This builds mathematically a set of infinite spheres around a point. All these
spheres are not materialized, but only latent, as they are simultaneously infinitely
small and infinitely big. This is called in Etz Chaim “Reshimo”.
3. The above concepts of being and not being or small and big create a set of dualities.
This very set of dualities can be represented by a line, represented by the letter ו,
which is created herewith.
4. With the creation of the still imaginary spheres of the reshimo the concept of natural
numbers was also given as has been shown above by Cantor’s theorem.
5. The expulsion of the light to the outermost sphere (or point) can be explained by an
energy fluctuation in form of a δ-function explained above. This is the Light of Ein
Sof which provides energy for the system. In the not yet stabilized system the
innermost sphere can be the outermost at the same time23, if the relativity of space as
described above is taken into account. In the fluctuating state one cannot say, where
and what of the system may be the observer. Hence, the light is inside the point and
outside the sphere system at the same time.
21
As stated in Etz Chaim this n-space is divided into ten cardinal parts, namely the sfirot of Adam Kadmon.
22
In-phase fluctuation means, that time is not yet distinct from other dimensions and still is symmetric,
because the second law of thermodynamics is not yet in place, neither is any Lorentz-invariance. This is the
case, because all interactions, i.e. inter alia the physical interactions like gravity, electromagnetism and
nuclear (strong and weak) fields are still indistinguishable inside grand unification. This however does not
mean that all dimensions fluctuate strictly in-phase. It means only that the time is not yet distinguishable
from space and other dimensions and therefore the Lorentz-invariant dependency of space and time does
not exist yet: So, if space shrinks, time not necessarily expands synchronously.
23
Cf. "וזהו בערכנו אנחנו בני אדם היושבים, דף יד, שער א דרוש עגולים ויושר ענף ד,ספר עץ חיים
וכל מה, אדרבה עולם העשיה הוא הקליפה החופפת על כולם, אבל בערך א"ס הסובב הכל,בו
שנתקרב אל הא"ס הוא יותר פנימי..."
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This allows to have created n-dimensional space and infinite energy, which allows now
creation on the level of emanation ()ע"ב. For an explanation of this name please refer below
to the second Tzimtzum. Whether the energy really needs to be infinite from the very
beginning is questionable as we will see in the description of inflation of the physical
universe. For infinitely dimensional space it will definitely have to be infinite, because it is
quantized.
Second Tzimtzum:
Etz Chaim states that a line of light was drawn into the reshimo to manifest the spheres,
which can be interpreted as a “freezing” (according to the Copenhagen interpretation the
wavefunction of the fluctuating precursor of the universe collapses) of the latent structure of
the first Tzimtzum into a configuration space which allows basically the creation of anything
there could be thought of. The implications of such a ”freezing” into configuration space like
conscious observation or conscious willing will be discussed in the next chapter. The
following conditions are known:
1. The light from Ein Sof proceeded from the outer infinity (from outside the sphere
with infinite radius) to fill the reshimo sequentially from outside to inside until it
stopped before the original point leaving it untouched. In Kabbalah the introduction
of the line of light and its stopping are caused by Divine Will, while in Physics such a
process needs an observer-interaction or objective state reduction process24. This
clearly is the creation of time, because it represents the onset of dynamics in the
classical limit. The light drawn into the sequential manifestation of the sfirot was not
supposed to touch the inner original point because a unification of such light would
have made the whole structure latent again as is explained in Etz Chaim (this
constitutes the second )רקיע. This unification would constitute an uncertainty of the
location of the Infinite Light and with that an entangled or evolving state and not a
reduced state of the world system just created. As we will see later, such a state of
affairs enables the undoing or quantum erasure of a state reduction as demonstrated in
quantum erasure experiments. Surprisingly, the conditions given by Kabbalah are
very similar to the conditions of Physics.
2. The sfirot were manifested in such a way that
• The sfirah of Keter was next to the light of Ein Sof;
• Next to that were the sfirot of Chochmah and Binah with Zeir Anpin;
• Last the sfirah of Malchut, left without light inside, so the middle point of the
beginning including its remaining light was separated from the worlds. The
physical world is on the surface of the sphere, while the Sitra Achra (other
side) of that sphere represents the world of the Klipot and dwells in darkness.
• The sfirot separated with the introduction of light which then can be seen as
“concentric” spheres with a middle point, while the צינורstill falls short of
the distance between the original radius of Keter and that of the Or Ein Sof.
Now we have the concepts of space and time defined as well as the concept of numbers. It
naturally follows from the above, that a configuration space on (or in) which all the worlds
could be defined mathematically was also created, as well as energy was brought into being.
24
This issue needs careful elaboration, as the question remains: how did the Creator effect these actions?
The possibility of inevitability of these occurrences needs to be taken into consideration, too.
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The configuration space comprises the created void including the border to the infinite light.
The space around the original point as well as the realm of the expelled light does not count
as configuration space according to our definition. We do not want to include the infinite
evolving part of the Total Existence and its infinite light into such configuration space. We
rather propose the border between such configuration space containing all creation and the
Creator with his light as the demarcation and henceforth stabilization of both the realms of
creation and the Creator as opposites to be able to interact. Strictly speaking such
demarcation does not affect the absolute oneness of the Creator, because as we learned
above, opposites form one dimension or set of dimensions. In this case we conjecture the
possibility of one set of all possible dimensions made up of all possible observables on the
side of the creation and all observations on the side of the Creator. We will see later how by
such observations alone it is possible for the Creator to interact with all observables in any
manner whatsoever, leave free will and influence of the creations untouched in their realm
and sustain and guide the creations at the same time. The totality of Creator and creation
together remains henceforth one single entity, but now in a stabilized state allowing further
creation, formation and action, as distinct to the state before space, time, matter, morality and
all other created concepts were in a grand unification but yet undefined. This Total Existence
is now divided into a part of a manifest state reduced part that is stable, represented by the
vacuum with the sfirot system and the created worlds and the ever evolving part of the
expelled Infinite Light. Both are separated by a רקיע, represented by the border of כתר עליון
to the Infinite Light. This can be interpreted as the configuration space of all worlds including
that of Adam Kadmon.
According to Y.L. Ashlag’s study of the preface to the Zohar, in a second withdrawal of
light, the letters were formed as vessels. This happened as the light overtook the already
existing letters ו, יand הas Binah was created during the first Tzimtzum as well as ז"א,
which is denoted by א.
Now the following process took place: The creator now consciously had the vessels created
latently in the brain of Chochmah and Binah (Abba and Imma): The letters of Zeir Anpin
(Partzuf Tiferet and Malchut), which here belongs to the spiritual worlds, contain both the
letters of the א"ב. Zeir Anpin was included in Chochmah and Binah. At the second
Tzimtzum the light pervaded the Sfirot only up to Binah, where it terminated. Rabbi Ashlag’s
study of the preface to the Zohar explains, that the point (or screen or curtain) of Malchut
rose to Binah creating an immature Partzuf and remained there. Hence, the light stopped at
Binah. The effect of this was that at Binah, the two points met and formed the line mentioned
above. This is the creation of the second רקיע. It has to be remarked, that the two points are
in essence the same point (before and after Malchut moved). The implications of this are
manifold. With the creation of the second רקיעa principle of opposites, which permeates all
creation, is brought into existence. While in the first רקיעthe opposites were not
distinguishable and only a polarization or fluctuation took place, now the opposites were
separated and “frozen in” (consciously observed). This constitutes the most important aspect
of symmetry reduction in this process. Now spaces and realms could be defined as described
in Sefer Yetzirah: a set of worlds could be created, one of which is the physical world. Still
the question arises whether the worlds, which at the same time represent the stages of
creation, were created consciously and willingly or by statistical chance. Logically,
emanation, creation, formation and making or action must follow that order, and hence, these
worlds were created in this order inevitably. The worlds of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut
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however do not follow such logic, because no time in our sense exists there, only an order of
time. This would agree to our conjecture that only after the emanation of space-time and all
other dimensions the creation and formation processes can follow the (time-asymmetric!)
laws of Nature. It still remains open to discuss how order of time violations are possible to be
observed on the level of the lowest of the worlds, Assiyah, the world of making and action25.
עשר ספירות בלי מה מדתן עשר שאין להם סוף עומק ראשית ועומק אחרית עומק טוב
ועומק רע עומק רום ועומק תחת עומק מזרח ועומק מערב עומק צפון ועומק דרום אדון
יחיד אל מלך נאמן מושל בכולם ממעון קדשו ועד עדי עד:
Ten Sfirot of Nothingness: Their measure is ten which have no end, a depth of beginning, a
depth of end; a depth of good, a depth of evil; a depth of above, a depth of below; a depth of
east, a depth of west; a depth of north, a depth of south; the singular Master G-d faithful
King dominates over them all from His holy dwelling until eternity of eternities.
And 1:13:
בירר שלש אותיות מן הפשוטות בסוד שלש אמות אמ"ש וקבעם בשמו הגדול וחתם בהם
שש חתם תחת ופנה למטה. חמש חתם רום ופנה למעלה וחתמו ביה"ו.ששה קצוות
שמנה חתם מערב ופנה לאחריו. שבע חתם מזרח ופנה לפניו וחתמו בוי"ה.וחתמו בהי"ו
עשר חתם צפון ופנה לשמאלו. תשע חתם דרום ופנה לימינו וחתמו ביו"ה.וחתמו בוה"י
וחתמו בהו"י:
He chose three letters from among the Elementals, in the mystery of the three Mothers Aleph
Mem Shin, and set them in His great Name and with them, He sealed six extremities. Five
He sealed above and faced upward and sealed it with יהו. Six He sealed below and faced
down ward and sealed it with היו. Seven He sealed east and faced straight ahead and sealed
it with ויה. Eight He sealed west and faced backward and sealed it with ויה. Nine He sealed
south and faced to the right and sealed it with יוה. Ten He sealed north and faced to the left
and sealed it with הוי.
From these two verses we can learn a few aspects of the creation of the space-time we are
observing in our universe. 1:13 defines all three spatial dimensions and six orientations of
physical space-time, while in 1:5 two more dimensions with four orientations are defined, but
not “sealed” as the spatial ones. From this we can conclude the dimensions being in the state
of a reshimo there, while in 1:13 the action of “sealing” can be interpreted as an observation
and henceforth the dimensions named here were stabilized26. Note carefully that the time and
moral dimensions are only mentioned in 1:5 as “depths”, their orientations being defined by
sfirot representing opposites. We see, as commented by Aryeh Kaplan, that “space-time-
morality” is defined as a five dimensional space with five pairs of sfirot as denominators of
its orientations. The spatial dimensions are additionally sealed by permutations of the three
25
We refer here to the quantum mechanical experiments that violate such order of time, which are
discussed below.
26
Let the reader be reminded that here we are not talking about Newtonian space-time. The sealing of
dimensions takes place in relativistic space-time, so that under special conditions like e.g. in a black hole
such dimensions are freely exchangeable. The sealing denotes the names of directions and not their lengths
or positions.
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letters making up the Tetragrammaton. According to Sefer Raziel 12a (31), the primary order
of these letters is יהו, because the יincludes the first four letters of the alphabet since it has
the gematria 10. After the first four letters הand וfollow.
In the system of the letter permutations the letters יand הare determining the orientations
while the וis the neutral letter whose position determines the axes of the dimensions and
henceforth the origin of the coordinate system denoted by the Tetragrammaton. Opposite
permutations of the first two letters denote opposite orientations. Concerning the וas a
separator or origin between opposites, the Sefer HaBahir 30 states: “They said to him: But
what is ?וHe said: The world was sealed with six directions. They said: Is וnot a single
letter? He replied: It is written (Tehillim 104:2), He wraps himself a light as a garment, [He
spreads out the heavens like a curtain].” In Kaplan’s commentary we can find the יdefining
the beginning of time, which is the past, while one הof the Tetragrammaton is supposed to
denote the future, while the other one is used for the definition of spatial dimensions27. Up to
now, nothing is said about the moral dimension of Good and Evil. Instead the relation of the
three letters of the Tetragrammaton to the three “mothers” ( )אמ"שis pointed out, which
alludes to the separation of opposites in two ways:
• The אdenotes the רקיעbetween the upper and lower waters, and breath or air28;
• The מdenotes water and the שfire, which are opposites;
These opposites are separated by the א, which contains the separator ו.
We suggest the “sealing” process in the manner using opposites defining dimensions
spreading orthogonally to the וas a separation, distinction or demarcation ( )רקיעis essential
for the stabilization or “freezing out” of a latently created space of whatever generalized
dimensions as we will see later in our discussion of the measurement problem of Quantum
Theory. The fact that time is not sealed but only given a beginning with the יmay show the
asymmetry of macroscopic time as determined by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It is also
the malleability of time as seen in relativity that affects space. Let us quickly see how space-
time29 is affected by the distribution of matter and radiation. As we have seen earlier, the
contents of a space determine its voluminosity, while the dynamics of those contents
determines the flow of time and of course the time as a dimension of space-time. All
dynamics of all possible spaces and their contents originated in the still not stabilized י, and
from there an arrow of time was created for all worlds with demarcations.
As mentioned above, the 2nd רקיעgave rise to a second source besides the י, namely the א,
which is the source of all letters. יwas responsible for the creation of the letters in
concealment (reshimo), while אserved as their source in reality or in the stabilized creation.
A set of names for the Creator depicting the different worlds or universes was created
herewith also in the manner as stated above (Havayah)30:
27
That the time has not been sealed in the future like the spatial dimensions may allude to its malleability as
we see it in General Relativity, where it is also freely interchangeable with other dimensions. The spatial
dimensions represent physical reality in the sense of substance while the time as well as morality are only
“felt” in form of dynamics (time) or as mind-sets (morality).
28
In Hebrew, the word for “direction” is the same as for “air”, רוח.
29
Strictly speaking, it is the voluminosity of space-time we are referring to here.
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The אonly appears in the lower part of the name ס"ג, in the ואו, which is showing that the
origin of the worlds is Zeir Anpin, the body of the Etz Chaim, or Adam Kadmon or any full
set of the ten sfirot. An arrow of time we will have only after distinctions and classifications
are made in Binah of any world, otherwise we have only statistical time or an “order of time”
as we will discuss at length later.
To be consistent, one must now ask a question concerning the existence or creation of the ה,
if there is only י, וand אpresent. The answer is, from the אof “( ”ע"ב דס"גlower part of
the )א. Combined, the דand the וgive a ה31. The דrepresents two dimensions, while the ו
represents one; together they represent three dimensions of physical space. The
Tetragrammaton then represents seven dimensions, because the יrepresents zero dimensions.
We will see later that Malchut must have seven dimensions for this reason, and because in
the view of Malchut being the shell of all worlds, seven dimensions provide the biggest
possible volume so that all higher dimensional spheres that have a smaller volume will fit
into the sphere of Malchut in the appropriate order, Keter being the smallest one.
The rest of the letters were formed according to Sefer Yetzirah 1:11:
שלש מים מרוח חקק וחצב בהן כ"ב אותיות מתוהו ובוהו רפש וטיט חקקן כמין ערוגה
חצבן כמין חומה סיבבם כמין מעזיבה ויצק עליהם שלג ונעשה עפר שנאמר כי לשלג
יאמר הוא ארץ:
Three: Water from Breath. With it he engraved and carved 22 letters from chaos and void,
mire and clay, He engraved them like a sort of garden, He carved them like a sort of wall, He
covered them like a sort of ceiling, And He poured snow over them, and it became dust as it
is written: “For to snow He said, ‘Become earth’”.
We will come back to this in our discussion of the philosophical implications of Quantum
Theory.
For our discussion now the created letters are five letters of the Hebrew alphabet, all of them
representing three groups of letters: mothers ()א, doubles ( )דand Elementals ( ה, ו,)י.
As we saw above, according to Sefer Etz Chaim the interaction of the light drawn into the
thread from the outer light of Ein Sof towards the center point with the engraved structure
then manifested the ten sfirot of nothingness, from which the world of Adam Kadmon
30
Insofar as the Creator is concerned such names should not be used to address Him as they denote only
parts of His creation and not Himself, G-d forbid. As it is stated in Etz Chaim and elsewhere, He has no
name. Denominations like the Tetragrammaton etc. are merely used as variables in blessings and prayers,
not as the Creators real name. This is one of the reasons it is forbidden to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.
Its letters are also His creation, not Him. This issue will be discussed in the framework of our treatment of
idol worship.
31
Cf. Raavad on Sefer Yetzirah, also Gra on Sefer Yetzirah 1:2.
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emanated together with the worlds of Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah, which includes
the physical world. The reshimo of the sfirot was filled with light in a sequence, so that we
can say, this was the onset of primordial time, which with the same action “froze out” n-
dimensional space-time. This primordial time is to be understood rather differently than the
time we know in our physical universe. It is rather a sequence of time created by the
dynamics of the filling of the reshimo of the worlds with light. The sequence was created by
the evolutionary bringing into a stabilized reality the system of the sfirot, sfirah by sfirah, as
presented in Etz Chaim and elsewhere. In contrast, our time is an arrow of time given by the
thermal conditions and the dynamics of the distribution of matter in our universe; it is
dependent on the second law of thermodynamics32 and valid on the surface of the sfirah of
Malchut. In the study of the Torah the difference is known as the order of time ( )סדר זמןand
time ()זמן.
A detailed account of this is given in Otzrot Chaim and in Etz Chaim as well as in the Sefer
Yetzirah, Sefer HaBahir, and Sefer Pardes Rimonim and in the Zohar.
We have to remind ourselves here about the fact that the Kabbalistic treatment of Creation
and Formation is only qualitative and does not define the boundary conditions of spontaneous
symmetry breaking or “system freeze-out”. In Quantum Theory we will see that the
conditions of those are mainly dependent on the thermodynamic conditions prevailing in the
early universe, manifested in the form of phase transitions and other critical phenomena.
From these mechanisms we can conclude, how in the higher dimensions of the higher worlds
such phase transitions took place. Such a process of evolving and reducing states is described
in detail in Etz Chaim33.
T he Ari z”l writes in Etz Chaim a remarkable condition of the Tzimtzum: The resulting
vacuum, in which the worlds would be located, had to be as symmetric as possible to allow
creation. In addition, no vertices or other singularities were allowed, i.e. the whole structure
had to be differentiable, as cited above (Etz Chaim 1:2). In terms of the Physics of such
space-time or vacuum he asserts full isotropy which due to very recent ideas need not be an
intrinsic property of our universe, if observed from outside. Observed from inside, however,
we can postulate isotropy34. Then a line or pipe of light ( )צינורwas drawn from the outer
light into the spherical vacuum, as it is written, by evolution, which denotes its interaction
with the engraved structure of the sfirot in a defined course of time, bringing them into
reality. Remarkable is, that the line of light only touches the outer light and not the light of
the ce nter point, since then there would be no directions or dimensions possible as well as
the freezing-out of space-time would have been reversed like we know this effect from very
recent experiments which confirmed quantum erasure. In this case the information and
energy flow from the source to the detecting and registering system was not interrupted by
producing communicable information distinct from the source of information, so this
information could be changed even after detection. That means the system never got out of
the undefined state, in kabbalistic terms, there was no רקיע. Here the separation of the light
32
In quantum mechanical experiments violations of the orientation of time are measured as separated
events at instants of time. A reversal of the continuous evolution of time was not observed, as we will see
below.
33
Cf. שער מטי ולא מטי,ספר עץ חיים
34
Simulations with condensed matter like liquid Helium which mimics the quantum behavior of the
universe hint to anisotropy. This could explain the asymmetry of time and the 2nd law of thermodynamics in
the classical limit of the universe.
38
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of the original source ( יpoint in the center) and the light that got expelled to the outside of
primordial space and drawn back through the צינורis accomplished by not letting the latter
light reach back or connect with the light of the point. We will discuss this effect which
seems so equally fundamental in both the kabbalistic and Physics account of the onset of
creatio ex nihilo.
So far, the creation of space and time in Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah seem to crystallize. Etz
Chaim speaks about the creation of Adam Kadmon with the main partzufim Arich Anpin,
Zeir Anpin, Chochmah, Binah and Malchut, while Sefer Yetzirah elaborates on the role of
the letters as denominators of formation.
Etz Chaim 1:2 goes on to describe the creation of the world of Adam Kadmon and the other
worlds as follows:
And behold, each world has its own ten sfirot. And each individual sfirah in each world is composed of ten distinctly
separate sfirot. Each one is in the form of a sphere, one inside the other, and one after the other, endless and
innumerable; one inside the other like the layers of an onion, like a picture of wheels.
We now come to explain the second aspect of the ten sfirot, namely the Light of Righteousness, in form like three lines
in the shape of the supreme man… It extends from the top downwards, enclosing the ten sfirot in the mystic similitude
of the upright man standing upright and comprising 248 limbs imagined from the ten sfirot, both in totality and each
sfirah separately – of the ten without end in the same form as the ten sfirot which are as spheres.
This aspect is termed “the image of Elokim”, … Torah Bereshit 1:27: “And Elokim created man in His Image, in the
image of Elokim”, and almost all of the Zohar and the Tikunim HaZohar are concerned with this second aspect alone,
as indicated elsewhere.
… it is quite obvious that the largest of these spheres, encompassing all the others, is the wheel of the Crown (Keter),
which is more closely attached to the Infinite than the others, and is therefore more excellent and laudable.
But the second wheel, known as Wisdom (Chochmah) has a space between it and the Infinite, which is the wheel of the
Crown, so that its degree of superiority is one less than that of the Crown. Similarly, the wheel of Understanding is
double the distance away from the Infinite that is two wheels away, so in grade it is inferior to Wisdom. Thus, the
nearer to the Infinite is the world’s sphere in space, the more superior it is and the greater its excellence, down to this
world, which is in the very center of all the spheres, within the void space mentioned above. It is far removed from the
Infinite, farther than all other worlds, so that it is so material, so mundane, that it has no peer, being in the middle of
circles. Understand this well.
There is also a second reason, connected with the first. As has been explained, the line extending from the Infinite
stretches then to form a sphere, expanding further down wards and circling up to the very last of all the spheres. And
the first sphere at the beginning of the line is superior to, and more excellent than all the spheres below it, as it comes
from the top of the line, and furthermore it is illumined, being in the highest place – the highest sphere of all, known as
“upward”. The sphere next inside is middle and center – the lowest of them, illumined from the bottom of that line, is
known as “downward”.35
1:4… Similarly, all were required by the Holy one, blessed be He, with which to create the world and perfect it – the
brain at the center, with layers surrounding it, all worlds likewise, one within the other, so that each one surrounds the
next…The innermost is the outer shell, and surrounding the rest of the brain…
Again here we see (1:4) relativity of space, and definitely the differences of the spheres in
dimensionality (1:2), as there is no up and down in space. The Ari z”l tries exactly to explain
that, but in very cumbersome language. He refers to different degrees of superiority. As we
have discussed earlier, this means that one can see from a superior sphere to the lower ones
but not vice versa, in our opinion a clear hint to the different dimensionality of the spheres.
35
See also Sefer Yetzirah Chapter 1 on this issue.
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How did this spiritual creation affect the level of Assiyah and the physical universe? It is
said, and one can deduce this from the dimensionality theorem and the passages cited above
that the physical world including man is a projection of all the higher worlds. This means that
if one follows logic, the physical world inside Assiyah must be together with Assiyah a
projection of Yetzirah, which is itself a projection of Beriah, which is itself a projection of
Atzilut. This means also that due to different dimensionality these projections, when looked
upon them separately, will look different. Even self-similarity may not necessarily be
obvious. These worlds known to us either by scientific observation or by handed-down
tradition work differently, their “Laws of Physics” look different, but that does not
necessarily mean that the underlying common principles of Mathematics will after thorough
examination yield different “Physics” for the different worlds 36. The idea of projections rather
lets us expect “common laws of functioning” or if we want to define it like this, “Physics”.
Definitely, we are not only looking at our physical universe alone, but together with the
spiritual worlds we know from tradition, also at the realm of the mind, may it be the human
mind or the “mind of the worlds we live in”. In the following chapters we will try to
understand the different worlds according to mathematical consistency, which may include
besides strictly logical processes also effects and observations beyond logic. We remind the
reader of the existence of Information Theory, which examines systems inter alia on logic,
provability and computability. This is in the “hard sciences” the border to processes of the
mind, which, as we will see, can conceive physically non-realizable objects.
A non-realizable object in
geometry:
36
Higher dimensions than the ones we can observe have more degrees of freedom than what we are used to.
Only this can be a reason that in those higher dimensions the laws of Physics would appear strange to us.
40
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The process of the first Tzimtzum as described in Sefer Etz Chaim and elsewhere has certain
conditions attached to it, which can shed light on the Physics of the creation of the physical
world. Those conditions are:
1. When you are in the realm of a sfirah, you can see all the realms of this sfirah and of
all lower sfirot relative to that one you are in.
2. When you are in the realm of a sfirah, you cannot see all the realms of the sfirot
higher than that one you are in.
3. The relative surroundings (other, visible sfirot) of the sfirah you are in seem to
envelop your sfirah or vice versa.
4. The entering light fills the engraved structure of the reshimo sequentially, where the
sequence is the rank of symmetry from highest to lowest, also according to their rank
in dimensionality37.
5. The entering light does not touch the original source, which is the point at the
beginning.
6. The sfirot are exactly spherical, any vertices or singularities or edges are not allowed.
7. The appearance of volume underlies the laws of relativity of space as defined above.
Let us now explore, under what conditions these statements are true in the mathematical
sense. Due to statements 1 and 2 the sfirot must differ in dimensionality, because we have
here a purely mathematical structure. A set of three-dimensional spheres as they are very
often perceived, would allow the view to the higher sfirot in the same way the lower ones are
perceived. The only condition where asymmetric perceptionality as stated in these conditions
is valid is a regular order of dimensionality. Supported is this by the statement in Etz Chaim
that there is a ranking of superiority between the sfirot.
Due to statement 3 a relativity of space must prevail. As the planetary motion of a solar
system appears to the observer as if he is always in the center, the “visible sfirot” also follow
that rule. Group symmetrically from sfirah to sfirah in descending order of dimensionality,
symmetry is broken in the sense, that below each transition between sfirot the lower one is no
longer invariant under the full group transformations as it was above the transition. The same
criteria apply when assemblies of sfirot move up or down relative to others. Certain
symmetries are broken, such that a sfirah is now only invariant under a subgroup of the
relevant higher group symmetry transformations. While the subgroup describes the remaining
symmetries of the lower sfirah in question, the co-set space R = High/Low characterizes the
broken symmetries, i.e. those transformations that change the “ground state”, which is the
lowest possible energetic state of a system, in its perception. The co-set R represents the
manifold of internal states or, as it is called in Mathematics and Physics, the degeneracy
space. According to 4, the symmetries are broken sequentially in a proper order of time, as
the light interacts with the reshimo. This sequential symmetry breaking is a parallel to the
symmetry breakings of the physical universe after the onset of the Big Bang. Since we have
to understand this “explosion” as a rapid filling of the Riemann sphere with energy and
matter as described before rather than as a central explosion from a central point in three-
37
The light not necessarily followed in this process time as a continuum, but rather an order of time.
41
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space, this can be alluded to the filling with light of the respective sfirah representing that
Riemann sphere. In 5, we state the entering light is not touching the center point, as stated in
Etz Chaim. This has two implications in Physics, one being the establishment of a
demarcation between the entering light and the center point, and the other a possible
reunification of the center point with the light from outside would reverse such a demarcation
and reinstate the dichotomy of the original point-sphere system. An experiment for
demonstration of such a reinstating process is the quantum eraser we will explain extensively
later. Vertices or sharp edges as mentioned in 6 would constitute lines and points in the
system and allow relative coordinates of those objects which make the original point in
infinity system just another point in such coordinates and with that a defined space. That
would make the point-sphere fluctuations impossible, because only a point in infinity in no
space can constitute such fluctuations, and for the system to be self-emerging until stopped
by the bringing in of the light from outside the system it is necessary to have the point-sphere
system in a space-free environment enabling creatio ex nihilo. Philosophically we can argue
this may also be the real reason for the validity of general relativity: space-time wraps around
its contents rather than the contents being put into a rigid Newtonian space. The relativity of
space or its apparent voluminosity depends on the viewpoint of the observer as stated in 7.
This means, volumes of sets of dimensions or spheres of different dimensions will appear
different to observers in different spaces made up by different or partially overlapping sets of
dimensions. Any motion within these spaces will therefore look entirely different to different
observers. For example a moving object in dimensions 1, 2 and 3 may appear to the observer
in this space moving moderately while for an observer in the dimensions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6
the same motion may appear much more vehement as the voluminosity of that space is
greater than in the former three-space. In the contrary, an observer who resides in 3 to 25
with his physical dimensions in 23, 24 and 25 will observe no movement at all and possibly
will not even be aware of that particular object for reasons of resolution of his sensing
system, because for him dimension 3 is one of the small volume dimensions.
We can speak of a sequential symmetry breaking during the interaction with the engraved
reshimo structure of the world created during the “drawing back from the expelled light into
the vacated space” until the state of the physical universe was reached. All higher symmetries
relative to the symmetry group of the physical world still exist and certain interactions
between their “phases” (sfirot) are possible38. We use here the word “phase” for a sfirah to
connect the principles of Physics with those of Kabbalah in the sense that the sfirot can be
mathematically modeled with the same methods as the phases of the observed universe,
which includes also in science realms of consciousness and other non-material subspaces.
Before we further analyze the creation process in respect to both sfirot and physical-
mathematical phases, there should be a reminder to the fact, that all sfirot can contain the
whole set of sfirot “ad infinitum”.
Let us discuss the writings of Sefer Etz Chaim as a manifestation of symmetry breaking and
propose a possible scenario. In the beginning (point in infinity / sphere with infinite radius)
existed the highest possible symmetry as well as the highest and lowest possible
dimensionality indistinguishable from each other. All possible combinations of infinite and
finite sets of sfirot were contained in the then prevailing fluctuation. With the expansion into
38
Letters connecting the sfirot could represent partition functions distinguishing between these phases of
different symmetry or dimensionality.
42
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a void with a boundary separating the light of Ein Sof to the outside of a void that contains
the engraved structure of the reshimo, the first set of symmetry breakings was effected. With
the bringing in of the צינורcontaining a string of light coming from the now expelled Or Ein
Sof, the structure was “frozen” into a stable structure which can be seen as configuration
space of all the worlds to be created including the vacua (yes, there is more than one vacuum)
of the observable world(s). This proposed configuration space deduced from information
provided by Kabbalah may be regarded as the platform for inflation and was brought into
existence by the following symmetry reductions:
• Singularity to duality: our point in infinity becomes a void with a boundary and the
light gets expelled outside the boundary. The system is still in an evolving state and
not stabilized. The symmetry breaking is effected by the separation of light and
“empty” space, but at this stage the symmetry breaking is still reversible. The
smoothness and high symmetry of the light and the point-sphere system mentioned
seems to be in accordance with the low entropy of our universe at the pre-inflationary
stage.
• Plurality is invoked by the reshimo of the sfirot system, but also in a reversible
manner.
• With the bringing in of the string of light preferred directions and an asymmetry of
space were created and the system was stabilized through the demarcation between
the center point and the end of the string of light. The emphasis of Etz Chaim on the
sequential entering of the light into the reshimo system as well as the asymmetric
location of the string of light may be interpreted as the emergence of time. This
asymmetry of the resulting space-time also “freezes” the number of dimensions of the
system. A naturally emerging number of such dimensions, however, is not
determinable and may well lie in infinity. We have now a defined region of space-
time within the demarcations between the system and the middle point as well as the
formerly expelled Infinite Light on the outside of the system39. The outside of the
system is now fully disentangled from the center point system while it is still
entangled with the formerly expelled light which is connected with the sfirot system
through the thread of light. The Infinite has now two aspects: the totally detached
center point and the connected Infinite outside. This will be a very interesting subject
for further discussion when we have learned more about the underlying physics.
• The sfirot system of the worlds is now established and allows further symmetry
reductions within each sfirah. Sets of sfirot make up different worlds that have the
remarkable property to be connected with each other and the Infinite through the
thread of light and the צינורwhich allows entanglement over the boundaries of the
sfirot and the worlds created40. The sfirah of Malchut of the main sfirot system is now
ready to receive the Creation of our physical universe on its surface41.
39
Inside and outside are not in a fluctuating state anymore but are dependent on the viewpoint of the
observer.
40
We regard this as a possibility of communication gateways to the “higher” worlds, be it physically or
through the faculties of the mind. We regard divine service as such way of communication but remark that
the exact mechanisms of such service are not fully understood and desperately need further research.
41
According to our interpretation any worlds are contained on the surfaces of sfirot or sets of sfirot, not
within their volume, otherwise we create a mathematical blunder regarding special and general relativity.
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All this structure needs not to occupy a large volume. It can have a size of the order of
magnitude of some Planck scales, because up to now it is not filled with anything except the
primordial Light which in the physical realm is now in the state of grand unification. With
the asymmetry of time and the boundary between the Infinite Light and the worlds system the
platform for inflation is now ready. With the onset of inflation time as an arrow in its
classical physical sense begins to exist as opposed to the Planck state where we have an
evolving system with symmetrical time which is reversible and statistical. All we need now is
an irregularity to start inflation. Since the system freezeout was connected with the loss of
complementary information, we need to take into account that such “lost” information is
transformed into e.g. thermal energy42 which is correct according to inflation theory which
contains a heating up phase of the universe before the Big Bang. Observational evidence for a
small positive vacuum energy of the universe exists 43 which is an asymmetry between the
positive field energies of the standard model and the negative gravitational field energy. It is
very interesting that the conditions described in Kabbalah have a cosmological constant as a
consequence. This tiny energy surplus has, due to quantum mechanics, a complementary
observable – time. In our tiny universe at the onset of inflation the necessary irregularity may
be delivered by this uncertainty. To prove this is subject of ongoing research by one of the
authors and others.
With the stabilization of the empty space44 or vacuum which at this stage was still tiny as
described above, the platform for creation was brought into existence. We spoke about
“freezing of the system” by the formation of a first and second partition ()רקיע. Such a
partition separates something, makes a demarcation between opposites, in short, creates a
dimension. The demarcation between the point symbolizing oneness and the expelled infinite
light made it possible for the two opposites to communicate or interact without being
entangled. Above we spoke about an unstable, fluctuating and relatively undefined
primordial state, which got stabilized by the action of separation. In Physics, this is the
separation of energy and space-time, unfolding a multi-dimensional space, whose at least one
dimension is time, while in Kabbalah the introduction of the צינור, which made space
asymmetric by symmetry reduction and with that stable, because the light of the point and the
expelled light could not anymore unite and un-do the stabilization, and its sequential filling
with light (creation of time) unfolded a space-time. In Kabbalah, the creation of the
demarcation or firmament ( )רקיעis symbolized by א, the first “mother” of the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. We have seen above, how from that and the Tetragrammaton four worlds
were created. One can say, this is how G-d made it and let it suffice, or we can decide to find
42
We shall see this later in detail when we will talk about information theory and state reductions.
43
A.G. Riess et al. (Supernova Search Team Collaboration), “Observational Evidence from Supernovae for
an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant”, Astron. J. 116, 1009 (1998); arXiv: astro-
ph/9805201.
44
This could be seen as happening after inflation, since the bringing in of the Line of Light stabilized an
inflated void. It would be interesting to see whether such inflation process took place causing the Planck
state to be replaced by Grand Unification, ultimately leading to Baryo-genesis and with abrupt cooling of
the universe lead to the U (2) symmetry breaking and formation of the four gauge bosons at the time of the
decoupling of electromagnetism.
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out, how he did it and what principles and laws of nature he created with that. Let us first
look at the role of a demarcation or partition ( )רקיעin Torah, Mathematics and Theoretical
Physics.
“Chochmah is found from nothing” (Iyov 28:12, Proverbs 3:19), i.e. from the concealed
Chochmah which is called the Depth of Chochmah. Along these lines the nothingness needs
to release Keter and Chochmah / Binah to make a partition in itself to “exist”, i.e. to make a
difference between “non-existence” and “existence”. The first partition therefore is the first
symmetry breaking to polarize the two opposites of “non-existence” and “existence”. This
existence from said polarization creates the first “duality”. This is true, but those two exact
opposites constitute the extrema of one dimension and hence, the law of oneness is not
violated, they together make ONE, initiating a partition, whose concept holds throughout
creation: the definition of created concepts or physical or even massive entities by their
opposites. Some examples are:
to name only a few. Examples of opposites are given in the formation process described in
Sefer Yetzirah everywhere. Those dualities seem to be inherent in the entire Jewish
philosophy of Creation, only the Creator is unmistakably One. Kabbalah speaks for instance
of a world of Kedushah and a world of Tum’ah which are exact mirror images of the worlds
of Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah on both sides. Nevertheless they are asymmetric by
their information and light content.
The only dimensions and field energies in Physics which seem not to be created alongside
this otherwise ubiquitous principle of duality are gravity45 and time. There is, as far as we
know, no repulsive force in gravity, except for the state of a false vacuum during inflation
and that with a good reason: this universe could not exist with it, and so could not the second
law of thermodynamics46. Time is asymmetric according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics
and cannot run backwards continuously, so it has no opposite47.
45
As we shall see later, gravity is also the only form of interaction that allows an objective state reduction
that makes an observer obsolete. One can interpret this as the means of the Creator to keep His Creation in
a stabilized unentangled state.
46
Or could it? – The only reason for this argument is Norbert Wiener’s condition for a universe supporting
intelligent sentient life which would make no sense without a macroscopic arrow of time. We will discuss
this argument in favor of the anthropic principle at the end of this book, but we tell the reader now that we
have our doubts about its validity.
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We saw above that at the onset of the Big Bang there was (at least in the physical world’s
precursor) prevalent the Grand Unification and before that the Planck state. Energy and
space-time were fluctuating wildly as we said, if the system is observed or otherwise
interacted with. We also presumed that the laws of Physics did never change and always
existed in the form known to us. With the very special conditions of the Big Bang described
above, we have to answer two essential questions: If quantum mechanics was valid, what
made the separation of space-time and energy stable as it is today? We need a measurement
or other observation, if not conscious observation to do that, so what happened so long before
we existed? Let us try to find some answers to these questions.
The freezing of the wavefunction or collapse is a stabilization of the state of the system as
measured at the instant of observation. For spontaneous collapse either a probability has to be
defined or a cause for such collapse has to be found. For a causal explanation at least one of
the following entities has to act as a cause:
The question is now, what constitutes a phenomenon related to an observable and what has
consciousness of the observer to do with it? John Wheeler writes:
We cannot speak in these terms without a caution and a question. The caution: “consciousness” has nothing whatsoever
to do with the quantum process. We are dealing with an event that makes itself known by an irreversible act of
amplification, by an indelible record, an act of registration. The question: Does that record subsequently enter into the
“consciousness” of some person, some animal or some computer? Is that the first step in translating the measurement
47
Or has it? – Delayed choice, barrier tunneling and optical phase conjugation experiments justify that
doubt for now, but do not prove any continuous time reversal.
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into “meaning” – meaning regarded as “the joint product of all evidence that is available to those who communicate”?
Then this is a separate part of the story, important but not to be confused with “quantum phenomenon”. – From this
question we turn to the question: Is the elementary quantum process an act of creation of any other kind required to
bring into being all that is? – At first sight no question could seem more ridiculous. How fantastic the disproportion
seems between the microscopic scale of the typical quantum phenomenon and the gigantic reach of the universe!
Disproportion, however, we have learned, does not give us the right to dismiss. Else how would we have discovered
that the heat of the carload of molten pig iron goes back for its explanation to the random motions of billions of
microscopic atoms and the shape of the elephant to the message on a microscopic strand of DNA? Is the term “big
bang” merely a shorthand way to describe the cumulative consequence of billions upon billions of elementary acts of
observer-participancy reaching back into the past? – An old legend [he means the Torah] describes a dialog between
Abraham and [G-d]. [G-d] chides Abraham, “You would not even exist if it were not for me!” “Yes, Lord, that I
know”, Abraham replies, “but also You would not be known if it were not for me.” In our time the participants in the
dialog have changed. They are the universe and man. The universe … says, “… I supply the space and time for your
existence. There was no before before I came into being, and there will be no after after I cease to exist …” How
should we reply? Shall we say, “Yes, oh universe, without you I would not been able to come into being. Yet you, great
system, are made of phenomena; and every phenomenon rests on an act of observation. You could never even exist
without elementary acts of registration such as mine”? – Are elementary quantum phenomena, those untouchable,
indivisible acts of creation, indeed the building material of all that is? Beyond particles, beyond fields of force, beyond
geometry, beyond space and time themselves, is the ultimate constituent, the still more ethereal act of observer-
participancy? For Dr. Samuel Johnson the stone was real enough when he kicked it. The subsequent discovery that the
matter in that rock is made of positive and negative electric charges and more than 99.99 per cent empty space does not
diminish the pain that inflicts on one’s toe. If the stone is someday revealed to be altogether emptiness, “reality” will be
none the worse for the finding… Are billions upon billions of acts of observer-participancy the foundation of
everything? … The very fact that we can ask such a strange question shows how uncertain we are about the deeper
foundations of the quantum and its ultimate implications… Could it be that all the time we have been missing the
central point, the use of the quantum phenomenon in the construction of the universe itself? …
Eugene Wigner cites Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum”, so that mind and thought are primary.
Existence in Wigner’s sense is directly connected with interaction or observation (as a
secondary effect thereof) as George Berkeley said: “Esse est percipi.” – Or as Wheeler puts
it: “G-d willed it? Why demand of science a cause if cause there is none?” – Let us counter-
argue for now: Since the source of all is One and not absolutely nothing, the coming into
being of at least the potential of a universe or some wildly fluctuating space(-time) came
into being inevitably. How this system stabilized and defined its dimensions and what level
of self-consciousness is minimally needed for that, and what type of separations have to be
made and how, and what sort of being this self-conscious being or system has to be to bring
into existence and stabilize itself and its creation, remains an open question, which is neither
answered by the allegation there is no primary cause nor that some ineffable being separate
from this system willed it. Both would contradict the “oneness-condition” of the Torah
explained by the Rambam and our earlier proof that absolute nothing cannot be or be alone
and one. As soon as the slightest dynamics emerges, even in form of fluctuations or noise,
time starts to exist and with that energy that leads to a rapid expansion of the system.
We need to pose the question differently: What is an elementary act of creation? – Let us go
with Wheeler: “There is an untouchable interior of an observed phenomenon. Until the act of
detection the phenomenon is not yet a phenomenon. The quantum phenomenon is
independent of consciousness insofar the translation of the observation into meaning is meant
as observation. Before that translation the observation has already been made.” – He allows a
registration of the event without acclaim to meaningful interpretation as an observation,
which makes sense insofar as a phenomenon can be observed but need not to be interpreted
in the correct way, so despite reality may be distorted, the measurement or observation has
been registered. How this fits into the EPR statements is partly questionable, but the question
whether reality can be determined completely has Gödel’s incompleteness theorem hovering
over it. With the conditions inside a black hole for instance, where time and space swap roles,
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we know that space and time are not the ultimate categories in the description of nature. Only
the interplay between space, time, interactions and observations together with information
theoretical considerations can bring us any further in reaching satisfactory descriptions of
what we call reality.
With all this in mind let us return to our primary issue: creatio ex nihilo. Wheeler states, we
need to look at the creation of the universe as out of nothingness, not out of vacuum! –
Vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles are too much structure for that.
It is remarkable, how this statement resembles the Rambam’s definitions of the Creator. Also
Leibniz remarks on this issue: “Omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum.” – We immediately
can deduce from that the oneness of the all encompassing origin as we saw and have proved
before. So, how do we explain within the quantum realm a stabilization or freezing out or
collapse of the wavefunction of primordial configuration space? – We need a partition, a
רקיע, between the quantum and the observer; otherwise the quantum has no counterpart.
Observer-participancy of quantum theory is the mechanism for the universe to come into
being. Or we can put it also this way: the necessity of the quantum as we see it comes from
the requirement that, via observer-participancy, the universe should have a way to come into
being. Hence, we can propose on the grounds of what we have proved above about our forced
explosion that we can also try to derive quantum theory from the requirement that the
universe did not have a choice but to come into being. Now our argument has become nicely
elliptic up to the question of ultimate stabilization of space-time structure. Wheeler asks how
much arbitrariness is there in this kind of demarcation or partition between universe and
observer (who by his very nature is part of that universe), arbitrariness for the location of that
line between “system” and “observing device” and “observer”. He says, existence, not
position is important for such a partition. And he states: “What we have the right to say of
past space-time and past events is decided by choices of what type of measurement to carry
out, made now.”
People who believe the universe is a machine functioning according to immutable laws
which are completely deterministic in Laplace’s sense have to be told that this is a cracked
paradigm. Quantum mechanics allows us to know one of two complementary orthogonal
observables but not both at the same time. As Wheeler puts it: “Of the initial-value data that
Laplace needed, the principle of complementarity or indeterminacy says half do not and
cannot exist”. Again, this leaves us with the only condition for “existence” to come into
being: the partition between the “existing” system and the observer. He argues further along
the lines of our proof that absolute nothingness can only exist as oneness and becomes
henceforth meaningless by the line of distinction that rules it out, that the universe evolved in
the past from phenomenon to phenomenon, observed today after it gave rise to observership,
after having reached regularity and structure out of the statistics of many phenomena, to be a
self-excited circuit. Whether he is right or not, including or excluding a Creator who evolved
with his universe and such universe being a subset of His, very recent experiments have
shown the correctness of one principle, observer-participancy and a demarcation between
observer and observed system (universe) suffices to create everything: the building of law (of
Nature), and space-time as part of law, and out of law substance. But, he cannot prove or
disprove the way of building law: whether it is by pure statistics of myriads of phenomena,
and its wave-function package collapsed to stabilize it spontaneously or by a defined
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conscious will. It is still open, at which point the system “froze” – to get the universe we
have, the chances are one in 1010^123!
יצר ממש מתוהו ועשה את אינו ישנו וחצב עמודים גדולים מאויר שאינו נתפש וזה
סימן א' עם כולם וכולם עם א' צופה וממיר ועשה את כל היצור ואת כל הדבור שם אחד
וסימן לדבר עשרים ושתים חפצים בגוף אחד:
He formed substance out of chaos and made non-existence into existence, He carved great
pillars from air that cannot be grasped. This is a sign, Aleph with them all, and all of them
with Aleph, He foresees, transforms and makes all that is formed and all that is spoken: one
Name. A sign for this thing: Twenty-two objects in a single body.
Aryeh Kaplan comments that chaos was engraved and carved from water, which comes from
Chochmah, the basis of all physical creation. It is supposed to be the most primitive root of
water as it exists in Atzilut, the realm of the sfirot. Chaos was formed out of this and matter
from chaos. – In our opinion chaos is a system underlying statistical and not causal laws.
Hence, the view of quantum theory seems also to be favored by Sefer Yetzirah for the
beginning of the universe as quantum theory is favored by Physics to describe the processes
of bringing matter into existence and last not least the (microscopic and mesoscopic)
behavior of matter itself. The chaos can be seen as an evolving state where details are
indistinguishable, and only by a state reduction (Binah) such distinctions and with that order
can be achieved. This constitutes an entropy reduction which requires the input of energy.
שלש מים מרוח חקק וחצב בהן כ"ב אותיות מתוהו ובוהו רפש וטיט חקקן כמין ערוגה
חצבן כמין חומה סביבם כמין מעזיבה ויצק עליהם שלג ונעשה עפר שנאמר כי לשלג
יאמר הוא ארץ:
Three: Water from Breath. With it he engraved and carved 22 letters from chaos and void,
mire and clay, He engraved them like a sort of garden, He carved them like a sort of wall, He
covered them like a sort of ceiling, And He poured snow over them, and it became dust as it
is written: “For to snow He said, ‘Become earth’”.
Chaos and void here allude to the initial state of creation of the physical universe in its
Planck state (Genesis 1:2). With 2:6 above we see that substance was formed from chaos,
which contains no information, but is pure material. The void is considered pure content of
information48 that does not relate to any substance. Both are not differentiated and therefore
included in Chochmah. With void the 22 letters could be engraved on chaos. The bottoms of
the letters were engraved like a garden, the sides are carved like a wall and the tops are added
as a ceiling. According to the Ramak (Rabbi Moshe Cordovero) this alludes to the creation of
space (Pardes Rimonim 3:5). Raavad in his introduction to Sefer Yetzirah 2a says that both
chaos and void are intermediate to actuality and existence. Quantum theoretically this would
mean they describe the unstable or not yet “frozen-out” system to be formed. Hence, such
48
We say here content of information to maintain non-physicality as required by Kabbalah. To become real
information, this content has to be encoded onto a physical carrier as we will discuss later.
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descriptors must refer to a space on which the later stabilizing creation, namely all the worlds
from Adam Kadmon down to Assiyah, are constructed onto: configuration space. It is
possible to subdivide such configuration space into several configuration spaces, which are
then interrelated by at least the one main configuration space. Let us now explore how such
configuration space allows constructing a world or a universe.
The (well-behaved) solutions of the stationary Schrödinger equation that describe the
characteristic structures of atoms, molecules and condensed matter are determined by the
complete structures of the configuration spaces on which they are defined. This shows first
that the governing equation does not necessarily contain time, and that all possible behaviors
of any elementar particle, atom, molecule or what is made of them can be described in a
timeless manner49 as also general relativity treats time just as another exchangeable
dimension of the physical world. That means simply that with the engraving of the letters and
through their combination the structures of the configuration spaces must have been
predetermined and brought into existence before the formation process of creation. If we
assign a configuration space to the entire creation, i.e. all possible worlds, then the shape of
such configuration space determines the laws of the “Physics” of such entire creation.
Such configuration space encompassing all creation should be a subspace of the entire
infinite dimensional Total Existence, so that the One from which everything emanated and
emanates comprises the entire creation. Tikun 57 in Tikunim states: “There is no place
devoid of Him, not in the upper worlds or in the lower worlds.” (cf. Sefer Tanya, Shaar
HaYichud 7:166). Time evolves as any other physical law50 and maybe all other laws like for
example the axiomatic of Mathematics due to the geometry of that configuration space,
which not necessarily has to be entirely static and rigid. According to General Relativity and
Quantum Theory it would be very probable that it is as malleable as our physical space-time.
It is also conceivable that such geometry of configuration space could be influenced from a
space this configuration space is a subspace of.51 Hence, any temporary and willed change of
such geometry may change the prevailing laws of Nature temporarily and constitute
anomalies regarded by us as “miracles” or “divine intervention”. Another possibility is that
configuration space might be influenced by actions performed in the physical universe and/or
in the worlds accessible by the mind in form of prayer, practical Kabbalah or the like. This
could have consequences which may be beneficent or detrimental to this universe and the
accessible higher worlds. Utmost caution has to be exercised in two ways concerning this
issue:
• Traditional methods how to influence or ask for influence of any powers like angels
and other spiritual beings with the quest for change of circumstances need to be
carefully understood before one embarks in using such techniques. Halachic
restrictions should be strictly observed and in every case professional guidance is
highly recommended, and even then utmost caution is recommended, because
individual interventions may be detrimental to the whole.
49
This can be done as long as there is no state reduction.
50
As we will see later, this is valid for all physical laws except the numerical value of the fine structure
constant which comprises the electric charge and Planck’s quantum, because this prevailed right back to the
very onset of time.
51
The “Total Existence ONE” being infinite dimensional allows any subspace also to be infinite
dimensional.
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The still open question is, how the conditions of stabilization or “freezing out” of the Total
Creation (not the Total Existence) were determined and what caused the system to stabilize.
This refers to the name אל שדיand the saying of the Creator “ ”דיto finalize the process of
stabilization. We leave this question for the moment alone and allow to first look at other
experimental evidence.
With this citation in mind, we want to show some experimentally verified discoveries that
promise to give us the opportunity to suggest further thinking in Physics under reference to
the Torah and its secrets and vice versa.
The results of delayed choice experiments and group delay in barrier tunneling experiments
have been performed and published very recently. Their results show agreement with
Quantum Theory as explained above. Quantum erasure obviously also suggests the time
reversed recovery of information even after the measurement has been done. Suggestions and
objections have been raised concerning the issue of quantum entanglement and its
implications concerning the validity of the conjecture that the speed of light as an upper limit
of communication or information exchange would render such experiments contradicting
quantum theory, but both types of experiments have proven otherwise: Quantum mechanics
is right with all the philosophical implications discussed above. Wheeler’s and Wigner’s
points of view have been proven: objects on a microscopic level measured over macroscopic
distances behave acausal. – Our physical universe as we observe it, at least in its beginnings
and definitely its microscopic constituents now, underlies the laws of quantum behavior, not
causality in the Einsteinian, Newtonian or Laplaceian sense. This suggests that causality as
we perceive it may only be a mirage, induced by the second law of thermodynamics,
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camouflaging reality. The details and reasons for this hypothesis we will discuss after we
looked carefully at the experiments and their possible interpretations.
A very recent delayed choice experiment was performed by V. Jacques, A. Aspect et al.
taking relativistic space-time separation into account, meaning the photon has long passed the
beamsplitter (or double slit) when the choice is made whether to measure the wave or particle
property of the photon, which should exclude entanglement through the source of the photon
observed. This realization of Wheeler’s gedankenexperiment demonstrates beyond doubt that
the behavior of the photon in the interferometer depends on the choice of the observable
measured, even when that choice is made at a position and a time such that it is separated
from the entrance of the photon into the interferometer by a space-like interval. In Wheeler’s
words, since no signal traveling at a velocity less than that of light can connect these two
events “we have a strange inversion of the normal order of time. We, now, by moving the
mirror in or out have an unavoidable effect on what we have a right to say about the already
past history of that photon.”
It can, with this information, be said that Nature behaves in accordance with quantum
mechanics even if there is a seeming tension with relativity. Two other effects also seem to
contradict relativity: barrier tunneling and optical phase conjugation. In the following we will
look closer at these two effects and what seems to appear to happen in regard to the light
cones of these events. As a fourth effect anomalous dispersion in a medium might be
considered, but at this moment great caution has to be exercised, as relativity only considers
the very front of the light-wave as having maximum and absolutely constant velocity in
vacuum. Experiments with resting or trapped photons also raise some fundamental questions
about the interplay of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Barrier tunneling is surprising scientists with a very strange behavior concerning the
propagation velocity of particles going through a potential barrier, which is called the
Hartman effect: The average duration of a tunneling process does not depend on the width of
the barrier, but only on its (energetic) height. This implies that for large opaque barriers the
effective tunneling-velocity can become arbitrarily large: τeff. = ħk / (κV0), but it seems to be
that the tunneling time is proportional to the wavelength of the tunneling particle.
According to relativity, cvac is the upper limit of velocities particles can reach and information
can be transmitted. R.C. Tolman in 1917 believed to have shown that the existence of
particles with v > c would allow to send information into the past. We refer here to V.
Jacques’ and A. Aspect’s experiment, where this actually seems to be the case. One has to
carefully investigate, how these seemingly reverse time effects can be seen from other
reference frames, such as explained in several publications on phase conjugation
experiments. The question there still remains open, how the produced and reconstructed
picture is “known” by the phase conjugating mirror.
52
Preprint arXiv: quant-ph/0412146v1 19 Dec 2004, G. Privitera, G. Salesi, V.S. Olkhovski, E. Recami,
Tunneling Times: An Elementary Introduction.
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magnetic monopole moving backwards53. We argue similarly, other charges will appear as
their complementary orthogonal ones, if they themselves are superluminal. Hence, it seems to
be that charges (in their extended meaning also as topological charges) change into their
orthogonals when crossing the “light-barrier”. Similarly, with the crossing over an event
horizon of a black hole, space-time coordinates of a particle change also into their
orthogonals. In non-resonant tunneling the speed of the tunneling particle does not depend on
the width of a spacer (consisting of regular space) between the barriers. This sounds rather
strange, because one could imagine the two barriers being infinitely far apart from each other.
Would they then not act like single barriers? – And if not, what lets the two barriers know
from each other, or how does in the case of two barriers the particle know there is a second
barrier ahead, so that with that knowledge it keeps on traveling faster than the speed of light
outside of any barriers, so one cannot argue for an imaginary wavefunction either? – Does
that mean, also according to Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment that a photon sent from a
galaxy 1.5 million years ago “knows” about our detector which will exist in its future and be
in its path? This is highly speculative, but would strongly ask for an explanation along the
lines of Barbour’s interpretation of configuration space. Kabbalistcally it would favor
hashgacha pratit of the particle, but in a restricted sense that only if such detection device is
moving into its path it will know it, which is again dependent on the free will of the observer.
Furthermore it looks suggestive that corresponding anti-particles move opposite to particles.
Could this be the solution of the conundrum of “knowledge before it happens”? If some but
not all of the dimensions of the “brother”-particles would change into their orthogonals this
could actually make sense.
The changing of the meaning of coordinates (dimensions) of observed objects into different ones
must open the gate to “other worlds” as it is in the case of a black hole. The only difference to
this case is that some of the dimensions keep accessible to observers in this physical world, while
in a black hole the only “communication line” is the gravitational field. Hence, in this light we
can conjecture, the judgment about what is cause and what effect is not independent of the
observer. In fact, in case of cause and effect inversion, with a dependency on the observer, all
observers could see cause and effect valid in their reference frame in the proper chronological
order. Further we can conjecture from the influence of the observer on the observed phenomenon,
as shown in our delayed choice and quantum erasure experiments, that there exists an influence
of the consciousness of observing entities on the physical world and its time-like behavior and
vice versa, because we do not know of any phenomenon in which one subject is influenced by
another without exerting an influence thereupon. This is the key to possible observation of
interactions between the observable physical world and the “higher” or “parallel” worlds as
described in Kabbalah.
The effect of optical phase conjugation is still open to discuss along the lines of “swapped
meanings” of dimensions. If we look at complementarity, space coordinates and momentum
are orthogonal to each other, similar to a superluminal charge that becomes a magnetic
monopole moving at subluminal speed. Thinking that orthogonals of superluminals are real
(slow) observables, could also give some plausibility to uncertainty relations as well as to
light or the photon as a particle constituting the demarcation between worlds with swapped
coordinates54. Again, we have time, or better, its defining quantity cvac involved here as an
observable of both types of “worlds”, ours and the one whose dimensions are swapped. If we
53
One could argue that magnetic monopoles are not observed in nature, but it is conceivable, that
superluminal electric charges have no divergence. One has only to modify Maxwell’s equations
accordingly. We will do this for the interested reader in the appendix.
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want to say so, the photon travels in the רקיעseparating these space-times or “worlds”, but it
is able to participate in interactions in both “worlds”. Are there other such invariant
observables like the photon in Physics? – It remains to be seen. Kabbalah, at least it seems so,
knows only light as a common observable in all the worlds.
• The sequence of time and maybe even the flow of classical time seems to be violated;
• Causality seems to be broken in the sense that not the observed object but the
observer’s choice determines the outcome of the measurement even after detection;
• There seems to be irreversible evolution of our universe macroscopically insofar as
the second law of thermodynamics is concerned, but there is obviously reversible
evolution insofar as microscopic entities of our universe are concerned.
Why are we speaking of a spiritual life of a computer here? First, we conjectured according
to Bohr that any communicable measurement result closes the measurement process. The
double delay experiment by V. Jacques et al. showed also very clearly that the choice does
not need to be made by a human being, but by an electronic device which makes the choices
and records the phenomena. After the recording process, which transforms the measurement
data into a communicable set of information, the measurement outcome could not be
reversed. This is also clearly shown in the delayed choice quantum erasure experiments so far
discussed. Ergo, Bohr was right all the time.
From all the above we can conclude the retroactive reconstruction of information by erasure
of information complementary (orthogonal) to the reconstructed information is possible
under violation of a forward-in-time causality. For the realization of such a process the
observation not necessarily has to be made by a human conscious being. Communicability of
the information seems to be the most important property of the produced, erased and
reconstructed information rather than its communication to a sentient being. Evidently, as
Eugene Wigner argues, there are enormous gradations between consciousnesses, depending
on the elaborate or primitive nature of the structure on which they can lean: the sets of
impressions which an ant or a microscopic animal or a plant receives surely show much less
variety than the sets of impressions which man can receive. Hence, electronic devices
designed to receive certain impressions and to recognize them as such, are valid receptors of
observed information with enough “consciousness” to qualify as “first observers”, despite
they might be very simple and primitive devices. Recalling the situation at the onset of
Creation, the implications this fact has philosophically and scientifically is the possibility of a
very simple self-observing Total Existence in the state of un-defined dimensionality in yet
undefined space-time. We refer here to our citation of Etz Chaim 1:2 above that states:
54
We remind the reader of the photon traveling on the demarcation between the observable space within
the relativistic light cone of our space-time and e.g. Rindler space.
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“When in His simple and smooth will the desire arose…” – How simple can such a “will” be
to be able to observe itself to stabilize a structured universe in the state of fluctuation between
a point in infinity and an infinite dimensional sphere with its number of dimensions also
fluctuating between zero and infinity? What are the minimum conditions for such a
“measurement”? What is the simplest form of self-observation?55
In Etz Chaim and in Otzrot Chaim the creation of vessels or substance, here represented by
letters of the Hebrew alphabet, takes also place by a specified process of observation. In this
case the observer is Adam Kadmon in the first phase of the creation process, which we will
describe in the following section.
Another conclusion follows logically and very clearly from the above: under certain
circumstances, the apparent indeterminism of the object due to the measurement back-action
can be undone by the action of a local operation on the probe, which does not mean that both
orthogonal observables have been simultaneously measured in one and the same process.
This quantum erasing is a manifestation of the non-locality of quantum mechanics, which
herewith has been proven. A further implication is the apparent disruption of the order of
time. The possibility of un-doing an event, however, does not necessarily mean that an exact
backtracking of time took place. It may be mentioned here as well that phase conjugation
experiments do not prove such exact backtracking. There can be a complete reconstruction of
a formerly distorted wavefront, but whether the conjugated wave really backtracks exactly
the incident wave remains open.
Furthermore, the possibility of the relativity of cause and effect has to be looked at more
closely. As we stated before, for two different observers in two different reference systems
cause and effect may be interchanged. We suggest the following gedankenexperiment:
Suppose two sources of sound capable of releasing loud bangs of different sound, are located
at a distance from each other. Each of the sources contains a sensor that can be activated by
sound and triggers the bang to be released. If one source is triggered, the sound-wave will
travel spherically away from it and after some time trigger the other source of sound.
Suppose the exact front of the wave triggers the second bang. There exists a geometry where
the wavefront of the second bang arrives at an observer before the wavefront of the first
bang. If the observer has the knowledge that one bang causes the other, he will conclude that
bang 2 caused bang one, which is according to another observer who, let us say, stands on the
side of source 1 opposite to the side where we find source 2, false, since he will state that
bang 1 caused bang 2. The reader is reminded that this effect will be increased, if the sensors
are placed somewhere near the sources, but in between them and the triggering signal is
transmitted from the sensor to the source electrically or by light, which both travel faster than
sound. One can say in this case, if the observers do not know the wiring of the experiment
and have no way to find out, but only know that one bang causes another, their observations
are both correct.
Now let us consider a similar experiment with light of different color (wavelength) instead of
sound. We place two lightsources a distance apart from each other in the same way that one
light source triggers the other. Even if the sensors are placed in between them and the
transmission from the detector to the trigger would be at the speed of light, an observer
55
We suggest self-observation for the reason of absolute oneness of the Creator.
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placed in such a way that the triggered lightsource is located between him and the triggering
lightsource would in the most extreme possible case see both signals arriving at his location
at the same time. Hence he would still be able to deduce the correct causality, knowing that
the triggering lightsource is further away from him than the triggered one and knowing that
the fastest velocity for signal transmission is that of light.
Let us now place a tunneling device between the triggering lightsource and the sensor of the
triggered lightsource. Due to the Hartman effect as discussed above, the light of the
triggering lightsource would arrive after the light of the triggered one and arise in the
observer the impression of an inverted causality.
In both cases, the impression of an inverted causality depends on where the observer is
located relative to the experimental arrangement. Another important condition for the
perception of an inverted causality is the lack or availability of certain information about the
exact experimental set-up. It is therefore highly questionable, whether an experiment such as
that with two lightsources would be sufficient to accept causality inversion as a result of that
experiment. If, on the other hand, one discusses the experiments on the basis of either a
constraint dimensionality of the observers or allows for the lack of information the same way
Einstein did with his man in the elevator, we think such experiments, and in particular the
one with light, can illustrate the phenomenon of causality inversion very nicely. It also
becomes clear that a proper time reversal in the form of back-flowing time 56 does not and
does not need to take place to show this effect.
As we remember the delayed choice and quantum erasure experiments and compare the
results with these gedankenexperiments of causality inversion we see again the already
mentioned result that the order of time seems to be reversed rather than the continuous flow
of time. This inevitably must lead to the question whether we observe in these experiments a
“backflow” in time or causality or rather a reversal of distinct instants of time as perceived by
a particular observer. Similar to Einstein’s “man in the elevator” who is deprived of knowing
that he is continuously accelerated interpreting this as being in a constant gravitational field,
our observers are deprived of knowing the exact wiring of the experiment, i.e. the exact flow
of events with time represented by the shortening effect of the transmission time of the
triggering light coming from the “real” triggering source. So he interprets the sequence of the
different lights as inverted. Note that for the other observer the events occur in the “right”
sequence, but both observers experience the events, whether inverted in causality and time
sequence or not, in a perfectly logical chronological order. The observer never has the feeling
that time flows backwards.
The observer who perceives the causality inversion lacks the knowledge that by insertion of a
tunneling junction the triggering signal “overtakes” the emitted light of the first lightsource,
and hence his perception and interpretation of that perception is flawed as well as that of the
second observer who will perceive an anomaly in the speed of light of the triggered light
source. Only the “independent” third observer who set up the experiment knows the “true”
sequence of events and hence the order of causality, if one can speak about this as such. We
have to be very careful about that, because the perception of the one observer records
something else, a totally reversed causality. In the light of the different perceptions we need
to ask whether it could be possible that in the case of other observed sequence-of-time
56
This has to be understood in the sense that the arrow of time would be reversed.
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reversals such overtaking effects are responsible for the “flawed measurement” or whether
there exists really relativity in the sense of the Einsteinian simultaneity paradox57.
Let us now take a good look at our delayed choice and quantum erasure experiments. In
Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment carried out by V. Jacques et al. the choice whether to
measure wave or particle property of the photon is made after the photon passed the beam
splitter (or double slit). Hence, under “normal causal” circumstances the outcome of the
experiment should not be changed by the choice, but it does. It appears here that the already
written history of the photon is re-written; or is also here some signal overtaken by a faster
one like in the tunneling experiment above? The same question has to be asked for the
quantum erasure experiment, where already registered information is “quantum erased” and
replaced by other information complementary to the first.
We need to look carefully at the space-time conditions for the photon before and after it
passes the beam splitter. Jacques claims in his publication58 a space-like separation of the
choice from the passing of the beam splitter, but makes no remark about a separation in the
time-domain. The question remains whether there could be an “overtaking signal” governing
the outcome of the experiment setting causality “right” via any superluminal or other effect
and “reality” is only “camouflaged” by that. We will discuss this later in a chapter presenting
open questions and suggesting new experiments that can help to shed some light on these
questions.
The only conclusion we can reach for now is that causality and order of time as we know it
and interpret it in daily life as well as in our view of Creation both physically and spiritually
are seriously threatened as means for explanations of what we believe to observe or to have
observed. The experiments clearly show that perceived or measured causality can be, under
certain circumstances, even under non-relativistic and non-quantum conditions, inverted due
to the reference system of the observer, but under circumstances where quantum behavior
dominates like at the onset of Creation before an arrow of time could emerge, such causality
and order of time violations were part of the Existence. To be more blunt, in this state of
affairs no causality or time existed, everything was in an evolutionary state and completely
reversible and time-symmetric.
The Rambam59 clearly states about the arguments and proofs of the Mutakallemim, who
pursued an atomistic and probabilistic theory of Creation: “They denied the nature of the
existing things, misrepresented the properties of heaven and earth, and thought that they were
able to prove the creation of the world, but in fact they were far from proving the creatio ex
nihilo, and have weakened the arguments for the existence, the unity, and the incorporeality
of G-d. The proofs of all these doctrines must be based on the well-known nature of the
existing things, as perceived by the senses and the intellect.” In the second part of his work 60
he analyzes the views of the philosophers inter alia concerning an eternity of the universe.
He clearly states that time and space have a beginning. Before that there existed only an
absolute nothingness. He does not propose the same solution for a proof of the unity of the
Creator as we have done above, but argues in a much more cumbersome way in favor of the
57
An explanation of special and general relativity is given in the Appendix.
58
Pre-print arXiv: quant-ph/0610241v1 28-Oct-2006.
59
Moreh Nevuchim Part I Chapter LXXVI.
60
Ibid. Part II.
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same proposition. He also clearly argues for a definitive beginning of all Existence, while
strongly advocating causality and counter-arguing probability or statistical theories. Neither
the Rambam nor the Mutakallemim could have had any knowledge of the quantum nature of
the Physics of the universe and beyond in the form we know it now since about a year after
the above mentioned crucial experiments have proved the exact behavior of our world.
Whether the principle of quantum theory of evolving, entangled and reduced states of
physical objects was totally unknown, we doubt strongly, as clearly demonstrated in Etz
Chaim’s מטי ולא מטי. We think, some passages in Sefer Yetzirah as discussed above, also
strongly support this view.
In the light of current scientific knowledge we want to propose, the ways in which we see
causality and the order of time must be fundamentally revised to get a clear understanding of
what is presented to us as the paradoxes of Nature and the “Worlds we live in”. We think that
the experiments discussed above give rise to postulate interactions which elude direct
observation and that the choice of the method of such observation as well as the level of
completeness of the knowledge of the observer about the exact conditions of his observation
play a most important role for the outcome of such observation and its interpretation. Let us
return to John Wheeler. He states61 that “we decide what the photon shall have done after it
has already done it. In actuality it is wrong to talk of the “route” of the photon. For a proper
way of speaking we recall once more that it makes no sense to talk of the phenomenon until it
has been brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification62.”
He writes: The “Past” in the light of the delayed choice experiment: To use other language, we are dealing with an
elementary act of creation. It reaches into the present from billions of years in the past. It is wrong to think of that past
as “already existing” in all detail. The “past” is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present.
By deciding what questions our quantum registering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable choice in
what we have the right to say about the past.
What we call reality consists of a few iron posts of observation between which we fill in by elaborate papier-mâché
construction of imagination and theory.
Space-time in the pre-quantum dispensation was a great record parchment. This sheet, this continuum, this carrier of all
that is, was and shall be, had its definite structure with its curves, waves and ripples; and on this great page every event,
like a glued down grain of sand, had its determined place. In this frozen picture a far-reaching modification is forced by
the quantum. What we have a right to say of past space-time, and past events, is decided by choices – of what
measurements to carry out – made in the near past and now. The phenomena called into being by these decisions reach
backward in time in their consequences … even to the earliest days of the universe. Registering equipment operating in
the here and now has an undeniable part in bringing about that which appears to have happened. Useful as it is under
everyday circumstances to say that the world exists “out there” independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.
There is a strange sense in which this is a “participatory universe”.
That this is a participatory universe we have experimental evidence for, evidence that
causality and the order of events not only can be, but always are and must be influenced by
the choices of the observer or experimenter. Jewish philosophy states a few facts that are in
favor of a permanent observation bringing things “into existence”. Kabbalah also speaks
about human participation in the Tikun HaOlam. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi63 states: “It is
written: Forever, O G-d, your words stand firm in the heavens (Tehillim 119:89).”
61
J.A. Wheeler, W.H. Zuker (eds.), Quantum theory and measurement, Princeton 1983.
62
This constitutes, as we explained earlier, a communicable information.
63
Sefer Tanya, Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah Chapter 1.
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He writes further: The Baal Shem Tov of blessed memory has explained that “Your word” which you uttered,
“Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters…” (Genesis 1:6), these very words and letters [i.e. the creating
forces that bring everything into existence ex nihilo] stand firmly forever within the firmament [רקיע, sic] of heaven
and are forever clothed within all the heavens to give them life as it is written, “The word of our G-d shall stand firm
forever…” (Yishayahu 40:8) … For if the letters were to depart for an instant, G-d forbid, and return to their source, all
the heavens would become naught and absolute nothingness, and it would be as though they had never existed at all,
exactly as before the utterance “Let there be a firmament”. And so it is with all created things, in all the upper and
lower worlds, and even in this physical earth… This same thought was expressed by the Ari, of blessed memory, when
he said that even in inanimate matter, such as stones or earth or water, there is a life force – that is, the enclothing of the
“Letters of speech” of the Ten Utterances which give life and existence to inanimate matter that it might arise out of the
naught and nothingness which preceded the six days of Creation (Etz Chaim, Shaar Man U’Mad, 3).
Interesting in this passage is that it again emphasizes the importance of the firmament or
רקיעas the most vital condition for existence as such. We explained above that such a
distinction, very much like the demarcation between observed object and observer must exist
to be able to uphold Creation. This upholding would reverse, if such demarcation would
disappear. Such a statement is not only remarkable; it might be the key to understand our
experimental paradoxes and shed a lot more light on the view of the Torah and its secrets,
how Creation actually took place.
From our experiments we learned they are participatory throughout, whether they are of
quantum mechanical, relativistic or classical nature. In every case there is an observer
involved. In Classical Physics we always speak of reference frames, be it in mechanics or
electrodynamics, from where a phenomenon is observed. We try to make sure that if the
reference frame does change the Physics of the observed phenomenon does not; therefore, we
invented gauge theories, invariant transformations and so forth. Relativistic Physics was
developed as a result of the quest to unify the invariant transformations of electrodynamics
and mechanics. The reason for that was the invariance of the speed of light in vacuo, which
was experimentally demonstrated by Michelson and Morley. The same light gave rise to
Quantum Theory, but in a very different manner it gave rise to Relativity; in fact theories that
do not fit to each other and we have at the moment no satisfactory unification of them.
Newton considered light to be a beam of particles able to bounce back from a mirror as they
get reflected. During the first half of the 19 th century the wave-nature of light was
demonstrated by interference and diffraction experiments. This later enabled optics to be
integrated into electromagnetism. The study of black body radiation, inexplicable by
electromagnetic theory, inspired Max Planck in 1900 to propose the quantization of energy.
Using the elementar charge as a constant he derived what today is known as Planck’s
Quantum h. Einstein generalized this hypothesis in 1905 and proposed that light consists of a
beam of photons, each possessing an energy hν. He showed how the introduction of photons
made it possible to understand the photoelectric effect in metals. 1924 Compton proved the
existence of photons. Since both wave and particle nature of light, and later electrons and
other elementar particles, was experimentally verified, the dualism of Quantum Theory was
born, first looked at as a paradox.
Discussions mainly between Bohr, Einstein and Heisenberg, with earlier contributions by
Sommerfeld, Schrödinger and Planck gave way to a very slow acceptance of duality and
complementarity instead of causality64. Later in the 1950s up to today these discussions were
more and more refined but without fundamental experimental success. Only now in 2007 we
for sure have experimental proof that Quantum Theory as it developed over one century is
64
… Causality as understood in the old unrevised sense of “common sense”.
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right, up to now. General Relativity is also right, up to now. Both do not fit together, up to
now. – We think, we do not need a revolutionary new theory to match the two, we should
only try to understand better what is causality and how does it work, and what is
complementarity and how does it work; and – how do they work together? – Maybe our good
old “Secrets of the Torah” can help us to understand our Physics a little bit better? – Or, if the
reader wishes, the Physics can help us to understand the “Secrets of the Torah” also a little bit
better?
This new theory will be definitely one of both quantum-complementarity and relativistic
causality65. We definitely think we have demonstrated up to now that both cannot be
understood separately, only to a certain degree. Relativistic causality can only be applied to a
system that has state reduced, while quantum-complementarity is influenced by the process
of state reduction itself. The choice, which of the complementary information to receive, is
made by the state reducing system. The reference frame of the state reducing system or
observer definitely has to influence the process of state reduction according to the laws of
relativity. In gravitationally induced objective state reduction breaking an entanglement the
Killing vector of the equation describing the evolving state becomes ill-defined. The system
breaks apart. Hence, relativity definitely plays a major role in the process that holds our
universe in a stable reduced state and hinders entanglement to spread. This process,
surprisingly precise, is also the phenomenon that is said to uphold Creation according to
Kabbalah: if the רקיעwould be taken out only for a moment, all Creation would revert to the
state it was before the six days of Creation66. Since gravity and the curvature of space plays a
major role in this type of state reduction, we think it is an important clue for us where
quantum theory and general relativity are linking together. The questions of how
consciousness is involved in state reductions and how gravity may be connected to
consciousness are a very interesting subject we shall discuss in the course of this treatise, but
rather as an outlook on ongoing and future research than as definite conclusions. We find that
Kabbalah can help here to understand the interplay between geometry as mathematical
structure, information as a spiritual and physical phenomenon and quantum behavior.
Kabbalah tries to explain the functioning of the physical and spiritual worlds while Physics
tried to avoid this for a long time, until Quantum Theory came along and made the
consciousness of the observer part of the experiment or observation. Only the production of
communicable information constitutes the irreversibility of a measurement, and with that the
mind of the observer participates in the process. How does it participate and what exactly
constitutes this mind? A question not to be answered by Science alone as well; Kabbalah may
shed some light on this as well, but let us first discuss reversible state reductions to
understand the question better.
In the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment of Y. Kim et al. 67 the reconstruction of an
interference pattern of a double slit experiment has been shown after the information through
which slit the photon passed through was erased. This erasure could be delayed until after the
observation of the original photon was done. At first sight it seems that the choice to observe
or to erase the path information of the secondary photon can change the position where the
65
… Causality as understood in a new way of being “relative”, dependent on an observer and from where
he looks at it.
66
Cf. Sefer Tanya, Sha’ar HaYichud.
67
Preprint arXiv: quant-ph/9903047v1 13 Mar 1999, Y. Kim, R. Yu, S.P. Kulik, Y.H. Shih, M.O. Scully, A
Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser.
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signal (original) photon is recorded on the detector, even after it was recorded. We need to
note, in this experiment the total pattern never shows interference, only subsets of signal
photons whose entangled counterparts have been detected allow a recovery of interference by
erasure. Hence, no signals are sent back in time, only a backwards causality results from
erasure. The experiment also allows to be interpreted with forward causality, if one interprets
the observations of the interference patterns in terms of the initial measurement of the signal
photon affecting the probabilities of the later measurement of the counterpart photons.
The Schrödinger equation provides us with a precise evolution in time for an entity (i.e.
particle or similar), an evolution that depends critically upon how the phase varies from place
to place. If we ask the wavefunction where the particle is, by performing a position
measurement, we lose this phase information. After the measurement we have to start over
again with a new wavefunction. If the result is the position of the particle, the wavefunction
peaks very strongly at that position, after which it disperses in accordance with the
Schrödinger evolution. That means the wavefunction peaks at the measurement bringing the
measured observable in form of a Dirac δ-function, if this is done with maximum possible
precision. So we learned, the particle wavefunction disperses by evolution and peaks by state
reduction (measurement). When more than one particle is present in a system to be observed,
the dispersion of the wavefunctions leads to a phenomenon that is quite puzzling: quantum
entanglement. Hereby a system of many particles needs to be described as a single holistic
unit with its holistic wavefunction, which we want to call Ψ. Particles that are identical, are
always automatically entangled with one another, although this can be happening in two very
distinct ways, depending on the nature of the particle we are dealing with 68. The
wavefunction Ψ would represent the observed property (position or momentum etc.) of all
particles of the system, so it is really a function on the configuration space of the system of
particles. The Schrödinger equation will tell us how Ψ evolves in time, so Ψ = Ψ (t). This
simple space-time asymmetry of the Schrödinger approach hides something deep that is still
missing from our quantum picture of things. A proper relativistic treatment of multi-particle
systems makes the formalism very complicated, so time is treated by Schrödinger non-
relativistically as a background coordinate. This is a good approximation of the truth in the
non-relativistic realm under omission of gravity, but we should keep this in mind with some
caution.
The first mystery of quantum entanglement is the phenomenon itself. We have to come to
terms with it in a manner that we can comprehend the strange effects which are such an
important part in the workings of our universe. The second mystery is why we barely notice
entanglement in our direct experience of the world, if it is such a ubiquitous effect.
68
Depending on the symmetry of the wavefunction of the respective particle, which is dependent on the
nature of its spin, we have bosons and fermions, which become entangled in different manners.
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Entanglements tend to spread, so that eventually every particle in the universe must become
entangled with every other. So why do we not experience an entangled mess, with no
resemblance to the almost classical world we perceive? Evolution of the wavefunction makes
things worse, so it is no help to answer this question, but state reduction might do the trick. If
we make a measurement of a state of a particle we cut the one entangled with it free of its
entanglement, so it possesses now a state vector and wavefunction of its own. It seems that
measurements or observations all the time cut through entanglements. The performance of a
measurement requires the setting up of an experiment for quantum effects avoiding
entanglement or worse, increasing entanglement. In practice, this is not the case; so do
entanglements average out or has Nature a way of continuously doing state reduction without
the need of an observer? – Averaging out would not convince us because of lacking evidence
for that. So, when, where and how do we have to interpose state reductions within the
evolution of the wavefunction? This is called the measurement paradox of Physics.
Another puzzle is the simultaneity of entanglement effects, which does not sit very
comfortably with the requirements of relativity, where such simultaneity only can exist if it is
instantaneous.
For Kabbalah and Chasidut the cutting through entanglement could be an example for the
direct observation of the continuous upholding of Creation as written by Rabbi Shneur
Zalman of Liadi in Sefer Tanya, as cited above. He is emphasizing the upholding of the
demarcation ( )רקיעas a means of upholding Creation. In this case it could mean the
demarcation between the quantum states and a permanent observer, the Creator Himself or
one of his creations encompassing our universe. The question for us remains: how does the
Creator do that?
Let us remember the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It seems to present us with a time-
asymmetry of the universe, such that the “final” state of it is not equivalent to its initial state,
as we have seen above. In Quantum Theory we do not perceive a time-asymmetry in the
process of the evolution of the wave-function, while the state-reduction definitely is time-
asymmetric. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is brought into existence by the distribution of
matter and the dynamics of that distribution. Matter means massive objects, space-time
curvature and herewith it is related to gravity. Does gravity play a role in the reduction of a
state on measurement or observation?
The gravitational self-energy in a mass distribution is the energy that is gained in assembling
that mass distribution out of point masses completely dispersed at infinity. Furthermore we
can assign to each wavefunction Ψ of the assembly of masses a superposition of states |χ>
and |φ>, so that |Ψ> = w |χ> + z |φ>. If we look at a radioactive Uranium-238 nucleus as an
example for such a state of an assembled mass distribution, we see its lifetime is about 10 9
years, so that with Heisenberg’s energy-time uncertainty relation we obtain 10-51 Joules as an
energy uncertainty which leads to a mass uncertainty of 10-44 of its total mass. Analogous to
that we can say that the gravitational (massive) self-energy is related to a decay time of
TG ~ ħ / EG
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One has to modify Schrödinger’s equation in a way that it includes the mass distribution,
taking Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation for position and momentum into account 69. This
modified equation indeed shows well-behaved stationary solutions for a single particle tailing
off towards infinity. We now have what appears to be a plausible proposal for an objective
state reduction for superposed states like our Uranium nucleus. Such a superposed state will
spontaneously reduce into one or both of its stationary constituents in an average time scale
of TG according to the above relation, where EG is the gravitational self-energy of the
difference between the two mass distributions. This proposal for an objective state reduction
does not run into difficulties with energy conservation as others do, and it provides the time-
asymmetry desired above.
It remains for now one question: we showed that any (not necessarily quantum) system has to
be influenced from outside to possess stabilized unambiguous properties, either by
observations or other wavefunction state reductions, but what is the last and ultimate provider
of such state reductions to uphold a stable set of worlds including our universe – and how can
that ultimate Existence be stable in itself without an additional internal or external
demarcation? – One could also ask whether a single big system of worlds and the Ein Sof
together as One Ultimate and Total Existence can ever be a stabilized system in some sort of
equilibrium71 and exist or “live”72 for ever. We also need to wait for some suggestions
regarding these questions for now and consider a few other facts first. Regarding the
kabbalistic view we at least want to remind the reader that there are demarcations and even
klipot within and between the worlds and that without such demarcations any stabilization of
the Total Existence would become problematic and the commandment about its absolute
oneness could become questionable, if it would be stable without such demarcations inside it.
69
This is subject to active research and henceforth still controversial.
70
Such an arrow of time looks on configuration space like a slope on same space.
71
This equilibrium would of course only be valid if all its dynamic subsystems’ properties would average
out.
72
“Living” how we understand it would not apply to such a Total Existence, as the Rambam has pointed
out (see citation in the introduction). A living system in our sense needs to be out of equilibrium to develop.
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Any system, no matter how large, is, if it is a closed system, described by a wavefunction and
obeys Schrödinger’s wave equation. The next most important fact which was only realized
later by Dirac, Heisenberg and Born, is that if a closed system is going to be observed, then it
is not closed anymore. It is being impacted by the measurement apparatus or any other state
reducing action in an unavoidable, essential way. Then the system does not obey the rules of
the Schrödinger equation any more, but jumps into one state or from one state into another.
This is novel and counter-intuitive, but it agrees with experiment. It is a phase transition from
evolution to steady state, which is not inconsistent at all. Under the influence of an
interaction like a measurement, observation or objective state reduction the evolving state
described by Schrödinger’s equation gets replaced by one of its solutions describing the state
which became reduced. In case of an objective state reduction this happens on initiation of
the evolving system itself, for example by the Killing vector becoming ill-defined and the
system reduces to a new set of states with a well defined Killing vector. This latter process
can be interpreted as self-observation. It is also conceivable that within a system of many
entangled or evolving states there is a possibility to partially reduce the system while its
remainder is left untouched by any state reduction which results in a partially evolving and a
partially reduced system. It is furthermore conceivable that the Total Existence with its
Infinite Light and the Creation inside the vacated space with its realm of Adam Kadmon and
the four worlds may constitute such a partially reduced system. Such a self-observation of a
single and unique Total Existence is possible even if the information produced in the state
reductions is left uncommunicated. The condition for such information being produced and
keep the respective states reduced is that such information is deemed communicable, not
necessarily communicated.
Furthermore it was believed until recently that Schrödinger’s equation only applied in the
microscopic realm where signals had to be amplified by macroscopic systems on which one
could use Classical Physics to describe them. Recent research showed, as we have seen in the
experiments discussed above, that macroscopic quantum tunneling has been exhibited in the
laboratory, and it is no longer believed that one can draw a line between the macroscopic and
microscopic realms. They must be governed by the same laws of Nature and, as we have seen
before, it is not relevant where the line or רקיעis drawn, but whether it exists at all or not. If
it exists, it would allow the laws of Nature to appear different on each side of it. This
obviously seems to be the case if one looks at the macroscopic realm where the laws of
thermodynamics and relativity prevail, while if one considers the microscopic realm both
thermodynamics and relativity seem to make no sense anymore.
To shed some light onto this, let us go back to the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen (EPR) paradox.
Quantum mechanics obviously not only in its mathematical formalism but also in experiment
does not satisfy the locality principle of relativity. In particular the experiments violating
causality and/or the normal order of time suggest quantum entanglement: when something
has an effect on one of two entangled particles, the wavefunction of the other particle
changes simultaneously. The simultaneity becomes ambiguous in relativity insofar such
simultaneity needs either a preferred reference frame or can happen only if signals are
exchanged instantaneously73. Otherwise, in the case of a limitation of information exchange
speed, there will always be frames of reference which place one event first, and others which
place the other one first. In case of entanglement of such events it is difficult to explain their
correlation without invoking some sort of causality, but it cannot be the “normal” one where
73
Such an exchange of information cannot be Lorentz-invariant and contradicts relativity.
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one event can be clearly said to cause another; rather each of the events depends equally on
the outcome of the other, regardless of which one might look like it happens first. This
implies at least two things. Either the Quantum Theory is incomplete, and incorrect in its
assertion that the second particle does not have a property before it is measured, or else the
measurement of the first particle somehow determines the state of the other, however far
away it is. Einstein called this a “spooky action at a distance”. Spooky because there is no
known mechanism for such an interaction, and because it would entail that things can be
affected by events which, in some frame of reference, have not happened yet74. One solution
to this conundrum is instantaneous interaction at a distance, the other entanglement via the
history of the entangled particles75. Since macroscopic entanglement is a fact, we can take
Schrödinger’s equation as exactly valid over laboratory dimensions, including macroscopic
apparatus. Then we have to explain how the wave of the measured system, when interacting
with the wave of the measuring apparatus produces intermittent signals called measurements
or observations. The production of such intermittent signals as a discontinuous transition
from continuous inputs is the result of an interchange of limits 76. It can also be shown that
describing the apparatus with a state space with many degrees of freedom and the particle
with another state space containing the states it can assume only, and combining both state
spaces describing the total system as a closed system leads to non-decomposable states of the
total system, and hence, apparatus and measured particle are entangled. This entanglement
cannot be eliminated. Probabilities can be derived from the amplitudes of the entangled and
un-entangled states, and they can be observed when we do a measurement, but again, only
some distinction ( )רקיעbetween the use of Schrödinger’s equation and the use of the
probability rules can tell us when to use one or the other. The question again arises, where to
put the distinction. We said above in the microscopic realm thermodynamics does not make
sense, and in some way this is also true for gravity with the exception of processes related to
the gravitational self-energy of the system; otherwise, they only make sense in macroscopic
realms. Our proposition is therefore to examine the possibility to put the distinction at the
thermodynamic limit. This allows us to leave the wave equation untouched and it shifts the
place of the distinction to infinity, so that we reach the limit to Statistical Physics.
It is, however, not always necessary to shift the distinction to infinity, but in the case of our
universe and the spiritual worlds we were speaking about above, such shifting to infinity
suggests to draw the line within the Total Existence at a place beyond the worlds including
our universe and beyond the boundary between the Or Ein Sof and the vacated space.
Up to now we think it is clear that with Creation of something, opposites began to exist and
the distinctions between them led to worlds including our universe that are in a state of a
relatively stable dynamics, as we can observe experimentally. This does not at all mean our
world is in some sort of equilibrium, because this would cause dynamics to seize or exist
only in selected parts of that world, finally getting into total equilibrium, representing a dying
world. So the stable dynamics is in a state out of equilibrium, macroscopically evolving in
time, yet decaying like our Uranium nucleus above77, rendering objective state reductions all
the time, disentangling quantum states, gravitationally. Furthermore, all the above mentioned
distinctions between observed and observing systems are stabilizing actions for such a
74
This could be interpreted as a confirmation of what is called hashgachah pratit, but is such an
interpretation reasonable? – We shall see this in the course of the rest of the book.
75
This is known as the transactional interpretation of quantum measurement.
76
J.F. Johnson, Thermodynamic limits…, quant-ph/0507017v1 2 Jul 2005.
77
For example even a proton has a half-life: 1032 years.
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dynamics of our universe. As we learned before in Kabbalah, all Creation exists in a space
from which the “simple infinite light” is expelled by a distinction, but still the light, the
vacated space and all that is therein is part of a Total Existence, of what we may want to call
the Creator.
For now, we have ascertained an explanation how Creation is held in existence, but what
about the Creator or the Total Existence, is it needed after all the mechanisms of the creation
are in place? – Our experience with causality and time seem to magnify that question-mark,
and so does the obvious self-emergence of the Planck state of the universe from the point in
infinity. Is then the Creator together with His Creation one big closed system forming a Total
Existence beyond time and causality at the onset of Creation?
To answer these questions satisfactorily, we need to remind ourselves that we are part of that
Creation, and still function very well as observers from inside the system, sentient observers,
but physically finite. Therefore, any answers will remain incomplete. Besides the points to be
examined further in regard to the Total Existence, there is something left that could shed
some light on gravitational or similarly induced objective state reduction: space and time
themselves.
The plane of the present in space-time represents the demarcation or רקיעbetween the past
and the future. Why do we say the present is a plane? – Relativity sets the dimension of time
on equal footing with space and energy. Hence, space-time provides a hyper-plane in four-
dimensional space that prescribes the geometry of the present from the viewpoints of all
observers. This is a rather convoluted geometrical form as it contains moving frames of
reference and the like. Causality in such a view is then dependent on the place on that plane
(or better surface) the respective observer is on and how the sequence of events appears to
him. Furthermore we need to remind ourselves about the fact that three-dimensional space
may be extended by information coordinates and other useful dimensions concerning the
determination of the observer’s view of causality.
In this context the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics is the most convenient
interpretation as it does not give a preferred role to special observers or measurements. It
gives, however, a demarcation between them, which, in the thermodynamic limit leads to
exactly the macroscopically observed effects including entanglement. This entanglement gets
broken at space-time coordinates depending on the frame of reference of the interpreting
observer, meaning the causality of the process depends on a second demarcation, which
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separates the “straight” observers from the “inverted” ones, without altering or violating the
Laws of Physics; they have to remain invariant to such reference frames. From relativity
follows, there must be at least one observer who sees the “causality-pretending” events as
“synchronous”, as being neither the one nor the other as he must be located on the
demarcation surface that is neutral to causality. A good example for such an observer seeing
“superluminal” and “subluminal” phenomena as neither cause nor effect is the photon itself,
because it travels exactly on the demarcation between “straight” and “inverted” phenomenon,
be this time, causality, space or any other inversion of the meanings of opposites, if the
photon is not involved in tunneling effects. We also remind the reader at this stage about how
different observers see particles and their anti-particles, where again the photon is its own
anti-particle, just the chiralities are opposite to each other. Hence, we can propose light as a
neutral mediator between opposites in general, if we generalize the term light in an
appropriate manner. How that can be done will evolve from the following discussions of
Science and Kabbalah, but first we need to clear up the exact meanings of causality, sequence
of time and observation as well as of the term information.
Information Theory78 provides us with some insight into how a proper understanding of these
and related terms can resolve confusions related to the obvious relativity of all opposites and
the puzzling way in how their meanings depend on the viewpoint of the respective observer.
This viewpoint of the observer categorizes sequences of events and phenomena by means of
distinctions which seem to be dependent on conditions dependent on how the information
gathered by observations is processed by the sentient observer. Without consulting
Information Theory, we may discuss the above issues at length, but never understand them.
For example, the question of how primitive the process of producing communicable
information for the establishment of a valid observation can be needs some rigorous
treatment within this theory.
Information Theory treats the production, processing and transmission of information and
henceforth the for our discussion so important creation of distinctions or רקיעיםto produce
stable physical or other (spiritual) systems or phases (sfirot) or more general, classifications,
in a rigorous mathematical and logical way, but a few limitations have to be taken into
account. In logical treatments of categories the distinction rules for such categories are made
It follows that any categorization cannot be made in an absolutist way. For example:
78
Information Theory is a branch of applied mathematics involving the quantification and qualification of
information to find fundamental limits on processing and communicating data. A key measure of
information is for example information entropy that quantifies the uncertainties involved in random
variables as encountered in measurements or more general, quantum state reductions. The field is at the
crossroads of mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, neurobiology, and electrical engineering.
Its impact has been crucial to success of missions to deep space, the understanding of black holes and the
study of linguistics and human perception, to name only a few. Much of the mathematics behind
information theory with events of different probabilities was developed by Ludwig Boltzmann and J.
Willard Gibbs for the field of thermodynamics and statistical physics, which is the classical limit of
quantum physics.
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Does a + 0.i, for a = 1, 2, 3, 4, …, n belong to the natural or complex numbers? – The answer
is: Since the natural numbers are a subset of the complex numbers, it belongs to the complex
numbers, and because i is multiplied by zero, it belongs to the natural numbers. Despite the
ambiguosity involved, the answer is absolutely correct, but incomplete, as it is individually
arguable, whether the above number is belonging to the one or the other set, despite this
example is one of the most absolute categorizations possible. The most definite example for
indeterminism is the location of the place of a distinction between two empty sets. They can
either be nested into each other, partially overlap each other or be completely separate from
each other; the shape of the boundary of each of the two sets can also be freely chosen
without affecting the structure at all. Categories such as sets do not exist in the physical real
world, but only in the mind of an individual. This mind processes the information about such
a categorization by electrochemical processes in the brain of the individual, which makes the
information a physical entity in form of physical memory and the like. Mutual agreement
between a group of individuals about definitions and other properties of such categorizations
leads to communicable sets of information which are uniformized. Uniformization of sets of
information within large groups of individuals or societies is called education. A further
result of the availability of information carried by a physical carrier such as the brain is
implied by the condition that without such availability of at least an infinitesimally small
accessible memory time becomes meaningless for the individual in question.
It is further questionable whether objects such as categories or objects within categories are
completely separable. For example they are never completely separable from their context in
which they are observed by either a sentient observer or a registration device. As we have
seen before, such observer or registration device is unavoidably entangled with the object or
category observed and provides additional context in form of his own context. Complete
separability is therefore an idealized structure and exists only in conjunction with the
observer or other state reduction agent such as a registration device. It follows that causality
as a categorization of cause and effect is henceforth not making sense without the “complete”
context of the phenomenon observed, including the level of information of the observer. We
have seen this in our seemingly causality-defying gedankenexperiment with overtaking
waves as described above. So, without the full context or with concealed information about
the observed phenomenon causality is meaningless, and without interpretation even in the
most primitive sense like the particle hit the detector or not interpreted by a communicable
piece of information like a setting a bit to zero or one any information becomes meaningless.
This opens, as we have seen in the quantum erasure experiment, the possibility of erasing
such non-communicable or not communicated information violating the order of time. Only
the interpretation of an observation renders the information in a related context produced by
such observation true or false. Without such interpretation, or in a primitive form of it,
registration in communicable form, any observation remains ambiguous or completely
meaningless. Hence, it is not part of what is commonly defined as reality. May the reader be
reminded that such definitions are also made by the observer as part of his society
characterized by his particular education.
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Let us now look at the role of mathematical structures such as geometrical and other spaces
in the formation of realities, even physically massive realities. As we have seen above, both
in the kabbalistic and in the mathematical-physical creation process description, the
mathematical structure of spaces and their dimensions are not only vital but absolutely
necessary and sufficient for such creation processes of any thinkable realities or, expressed
with another word, worlds. In finite or limited environments such realities have to be looked
at as non-ideals. This makes categorization impossible as this requires idealized standards to
form a model of said reality. Individual non-ideal real objects need then to be approximated
to the idealized standard to be able to categorize them according to the model of reality,
which is the case with any categorization process whatsoever. Hence, in any mental model of
reality or in other words perception of reality, there is an uncertainty involved, namely the
deviations of the true objects from the idealized model object or generalized or abstracted
object. Such uncertainties are due to the general limitation of the precision of a description
process which needs categorization to enable choices for descriptors (words or mathematical
expressions) modeling any reality. This is identical to the uncertainties of quantum physics in
its classical limit of statistical physics. Such uncertainties obey the laws of general
thermodynamics as formulated by Boltzmann and Gibbs. In the non-classical case, such
information becomes quantum information underlying Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Special care has to be taken in the treatment of quantum information in comparison to
classical information, in particular regarding its transmission, if entanglement is involved.
In case of models that use unlimited or partially limited infinities or infinitesimally small
entities one has to realize that infinity is an open system in contrary to a limited or finite
system which may be closed. In information theory an infinity is a system where no decision
as to a stopping or limit has yet been chosen or spontaneously occurred. The common
concept of a completed infinity, however, is not empirically viable. For example a line to be
constructed by lining up mathematical points that are infinitely small from one starting point
onwards yields a point instead of a line, meaning it is impossible to finish the construction.
The line can only be constructed by connecting two points at a distance to each other or by
lining up finite elements or points of “finite uncertainty”. To introduce such uncertainties and
with that limiting distinctions is necessary, otherwise things constructed from infinities
become indefinable. An example for this is our now well known point in infinity, whose
coordinates are not definable for lack of space, and which is indistinguishable from a sphere
with infinitely large radius, as we have seen above. Such point, representing oneness
superseding absolute nothingness or absolute non-existence by logic argued above on
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grounds of the asymmetry of NOT79 ((לא, is a piece of information and with that a
mathematical structure which is physical in the sense that the point – infinite sphere is a
geometrical object spanning up a space containing it. Since this objects’ dimensionality is
also undefined, it represents the primordial geometrical space containing infinitely much (all
ever possible) and infinitely little (only the point), but not no information. As we have
outlined above, general relativity shows that the geometrical properties of such space define
its physical properties. The reason for this is: any information is physical, and in the case of
space-curvature, even gravitational. The gravitational self-energy of that space, which is
negative, then decays into inflation of space, light and massive particles by an objective state
reduction taking place according to the conditions of false vacuum decay as described above.
Without the intrinsic uncertainty (indefinability) of the information that is available at the
onset of creation, such creation would not come to reality. With the adiabatic expansion the
in the beginning very hot universe cooled down and symmetry reduction could take place by
decay of the primordial grand unification into the universe or system of worlds we know
today. Each symmetry reduction in the formation of the universe represents a demarcation or
objective observation process. In kabbalistic language those symmetry reductions represent
רקיעים. Remarkable is that there are seven such symmetry reductions in the history of our
universe according to physical observation, and there are seven demarcations or רקיעיםin
the “heavens” ( )שמיםas described and extensively discussed in the Babylonian Talmud,
Tractate Chagigah 12b and elsewhere. This is also referred to as the seven pillars of the world
as explained in Sefer Yetzirah 4. Those seven pillars refer according to the Ari z”l to the
seven lower sfirot or זו"ןand are represented by the seven double letters בג"ד כפר"תwhich
are either soft or hard, denoted by a point in the middle of the letter, the דגש.
Describe physical and kabbalistic רקיעיםin detail here and discuss. Take Otzrot Chaim and
Brit Menuchah into account and look for the angels and neshamot, ruach etc. Include Sefer
Yetzirah in this process (Chapter 4 and 2:6).
In Etz Chaim we see the worlds were created with light interacting with a reshimo of the
sfirot in the vacuum of space, creating vessels, which can be interpreted as letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. These letters make up a code creating each and every concept as well as
each and every possible massive or non-massive entity thinkable in the worlds created. Let us
analyze first generally with the help of information theory, what is behind this “creation by
words” as creatio ex nihilo.
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observed or measured, the entanglement is broken and the information can be retrieved,
classically. This now classical information travels at a speed lower or equal that of light to
the observing or measuring system.
Concerning the Creator (ONE) we need to remark that he has no properties, meaning that
ONE is not a property but a countability which in turn is positive80 and information which is
carried by (latent) space and henceforth (latently) physical until inflation of space and time
takes place, to become physical and observable by his creation 81. In Kabbalah this latency is
often expressed as the “essence” of an object created or a subject creating. As we will see
later, in the process of creation the Creator uses some of his creations, e.g. Adam Kadmon, as
vehicles for creatio ex nihilo, as described in Sefer Tanya, Igeret HaKodesh XX.
Information-theoretically such an entity is already a structure, emanating vessels or letters,
which are information in the same way as the structure itself. This means, the definitions of
“physicality” and “spirituality” need to be subjected to further very careful thought, so we
can explain, what may be the difference between the physical world and the higher worlds we
are talking about in Kabbalah.
Letters and words or a name ( )שםis a proposed section of reality, but not reality itself82.
Without interpretation by a sentient observer or Creator this reality becomes meaningless and
undefined. A letter, word or name cannot talk on itself. It can only be understood by an
observer who can decipher it and is member of a group of individuals who agreed on its
meaning. Alternatively the Creator himself delivers words and meanings at his whim. This
solution is not proposed by the Torah, however, but rather Adam HaRishon had a say in the
naming of things83. Any descriptor is constituted by symbols84, so is language, so is
mathematics, agreed upon explicitly or tacitly by a group of individuals. An individual may
choose to make up a word of his own as a label for an observation or a thing he lacks a short
descriptor for85. Either by power of authority or by repetition (marketing) he may or not be
successful in creating a novel descriptor (word) for the new item, phenomenon or idea. Such
authority is again an illusion that comes only into real effect by the individuals adhering to
such particular beliefs or authority. If such belief system becomes meaningless in relation to
what it is supposed to describe or that its logic becomes proven false in part of it, suitable
revision has to replace such meaningless parts. Such quest itself is doomed by the relativity
80
This is due to the asymmetry of NOT ( )לאas shown above. NOT or Ø or 0 are asymmetric. This raises
the question whether any negation is asymmetric by its very nature, because the negation cannot exist
without its positive counterpart, while the positive counterpart can exist alone with only an imaginary
negation for definition purposes. Whether that assertion is also valid for opposites depends on the definition
of the term “negative” in its particular context.
81
The Creator can be “seen” in his creations and in his actions. In case of prophesy he can be “heard” by
the mind as stated in the Torah.
82
This can lead to the worship of names instead of worshipping the Creator who is the full and one entire
existence and reality. Hence one worships a piece of information depicting one or more aspects of the
Creator, which easily constitutes ( עבודה זרהidol worship).
83
See also Sefer HaShemot which is attributed to Adam HaRishon constituting the first book written in
Lashon HaKodesh.
84
Symbols are signs that stand for which they stand by virtue of an habitual associate or a conventional
agreement rather than because of any relation of resemblance or any causal connection. More generally, a
symbol is something that stands for something for someone who uses it. The leading view in cognitive
science is that mental symbols get their meaning through naturalistic of some sort that are causal. Kabbalah
includes acausal cases. This will be discussed later in the information theoretical aspects of Kabbalah.
85
This was done so by Adam HaRishon on grounds of encouragement by the Creator (Bereshit 2:19-20).
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of the rules inherent to such belief systems. It has to be accepted that any description of the
“truth” is inherently dependent on the reference system and pre-information standard of the
observer of such “truth”. In short, a statement can be said to be true if:
• It refers clearly to areas of external reality that are accessible to the entities
communicating;
• The common meaning of the descriptors accord with that observed reality;
• There is sufficient agreement between the parties concerning what is perceived;
• The meanings of the terms being used can be established through an iterative
process;
• The meaning of sufficient is determined and expressed by each party individually.
Due to the above derived uncertainties and incompleteness of any information about an
object a “relaxation of rigor” needs to be introduced for statements to be regarded as
complete and true: Things become indefinable if no רקיעis introduced. For example “true”
and “provable” are not simply interchangeable. “Provable” is dependent on the perceptions of
observers to be “true”, under given circumstances, given context and given boundary
conditions, e.g. the “true” color of objects is dependent on illumination and the perception of
the detection system. An observation of a phenomenon is “true” according to a “picture” or
other data or algorithm stored in the brain or elsewhere. In the case of the observation of
previously unknown phenomena the establishment of “truth” is accomplished by “proof”
within “scientific methodology”. In physics a previously unknown phenomenon or effect
may be “proven” to be “true” by establishment of reproducibility of the phenomenon or
effect. Furthermore it should not contradict preconceived and established “truths” in form of
the Laws of Nature. If such contradiction to preconceived “truths” occurs as for example in
the case of Einsteinian relativity or quantum mechanics, only reproducible experiments
preferably using more than one experimental method or effect may convince of the “true”-
value of such new phenomenon.
In all these cases the introduction of initial or final conditions, boundary conditions or other
demarcations (at least one רקיעis necessary) and the discarding of a subset of information
are necessary to get stable solutions or bring a computing process to a “natural” stop or
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explain a phenomenon or expression or make same computable. Even the delayed choice
quantum eraser underlies these “laws of information accessibility”. There we change our
choice of what to measure even after the measurement event took place in the detector, but
we always lose half of the information. This means quantum information can be transferred
between entangled states at a distance because those states really appear as one and not two
particles. Only after this entanglement is broken, the chosen information can be retrieved, not
before that. Hence, quantum information is exchanged in the entangled state instantaneously
while classical information is exchanged after the breaking of the entanglement. Barrier
tunneling seems to be a mixture of classical and quantum information as it takes a finite time
for a particle, even a rest-mass free one like a photon, to cross the barrier. As a general rule
we can therefore state:
Let us now examine the conditions and processes involved in building a demarcation or רקיע
for the purpose of making a measurement, observation or objective observation or state
reduction. We can have internal actions such as evolving boundary conditions that dictate the
conditions of such making of a רקיעsuch as change in temperature of the system as
inductors of spontaneous state reduction or external actions like observations or
measurements taken at the time and place of such intended רקיע. This latter process requires
Decision Making.
“Movement” is what we call “time”. In the universe or the worlds inside the Total Existence
any dynamics, change or movement emerging from physical entities including information
and its carriers causes time or at least an order of time. In case of matter the movement of its
distribution in the universe according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics causes the “arrow of
time”, as we have seen above.
“Intelligence” and “consciousness” relate to information and its processing. “Machines can
never make mistakes” as stated by Alan Turing in 1950 in his treatises about sequential
computing machines and intelligence have to be refuted because of ubiquitously occurring
bit-flips which are due to the quantum mechanical behavior of the information carriers in
computer chips. Even in an electromechanical computing machine based on relays (in
Turing’s time) a spontaneously and randomly failing relay can cause such bit-flip. Today
software has to be designed robust enough to avoid failing of a program or mistakes in the
output created by such program due to such flips 86. Through this we see that due to the
physical and henceforth non-ideal nature of any information carrier “intelligence” cannot be a
measure of how little mistakes are made or how “right” decisions of such an intelligent
86
Learning software, neural networks and fuzzy logic are good examples for such robust systems, but they
show too clearly how fallible “artificial intelligence” can be.
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system are. Similarly we have to treat the term “consciousness” here with a lot more caution
and in a more rigorous manner than done in colloquial terms.
Historically, “intelligence” has been viewed as the capacity or ability to learn. When that
ability or capacity is evaluated in relation to one’s chronological age employing standardized
tests, the result is a numerical value known as IQ. The problem that has plagued IQ tests is
that IQ must be something more than merely a test score or else it would not be worth
measuring. There are those who suggest that the term “intelligence” carries with it an
evaluative connotation, where its meaning presupposes mentality in the sense of mental
ability and it indicates a high level of mentality. Alternatively, its use in the context of
“artificial intelligence” raises the possibility that, even if machines are incapable of
possessing “ordinary intelligence”, they might still be described as intelligent machines by
virtue of their capacity or ability to learn a task successfully and reliably and carry it out as
well. Where to draw the line qualitatively between intelligence of a human or animal being
and that of a machine and whether such line factually makes any sense or is only a product of
human arrogance or prejudice we cannot and do not want to answer here. May it suffice for
purposes of decision making to define intelligence as capacity and ability to learn and make
non-random decisions based on reasoning.
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conflicting defeasible conclusions, all of which are equally warranted, are discarded, and
only non-conflicted conclusions are drawn.
Besides purely random decisions87 without intelligent reasoning we should expect from any
intelligent Creator or other observer that such decisions are made according to such
intelligent reasoning. Such reasoning requires according to the above definition of
intelligence a learning process. For such learning structure and information is needed in form
of definitions and propositions, such as
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design”88 of the unlikeliness of such ad hoc decisions of the Creator or “prophetic actions”
within the normal evolution of the physical world. Such action is not necessary in the “master
plan of the universe”. He seems to prefer to use the laws of Nature and the evolving boundary
conditions of such states to let the system find its way into a reduced stabilized state, maybe
merely because of the following difficulty:
A decision making process is always hampered by the decision problem, which is known as
the Entscheidungsproblem. Formulated by Hilbert, the decision problem for a given formal
system is the problem of providing a formal algorithm 89 to determine whether a sentence
(decision) can be inferred from a given knowledge base in the system. More broadly, a
decision problem takes the form of a family of problem instances, for each of which a yes or
no answer is required. In the case of the decision problem for predicate logic, the instances
take the form of sentences of first-order logic (Aristotelian logic), for which we want to know
the answer, whether the sentence is satisfiable. The decision problem for classical first-order
logic was proven to be unsolvable by Church and Turing in 1936. A routine or procedure that
can be carried out in a finite sequence that in every case yields a definite answer yes or no to
a question within a specific domain of inquiry cannot be found due to Gödel’s
incompleteness theorem. Such a procedure can be found for a fixed class of problems in the
ideal case for almost all of them, within a certain amount of uncertainty. Once such a
procedure has been found, the problem is solvable and those questions are decidable.
We have to look at above mentioned effects like false vacuum inflation and what are the
conditions and criteria for a decision that such inflation will take place, as well as who is the
decision maker and what conditions and criteria identify such decision maker. Another
question arises as to the definition of a decision as conscious, sub-conscious or un-conscious.
We suppose the total system Creator and Creation together to be infinite in all respects,
including a mind, but this presents us with a problem. The infinitude only allows evolving
and entangled states that fluctuate. To stabilize, the system needs to become limited, and this
is also true for the mind or mind-like parts of such a system. For the mind to stabilize and
make a decision, infinity is rather an adverse property, for the following reason. If we allow
an infinity of symbols there would be symbols differing from others to an arbitrarily small
amount, meaning they would be hardly distinguishable. Such distinguishability is limited to a
finite minimum value determined by the resolution capacity of the observer or detecting
system and his or its capability to make a decision on such distinction, and finally on his or
its capability of establishing and deciding on the place of a demarcation between the objects,
88
In this case “intelligent design” has to be understood as a totally externally controlled system that is
designed at the whim of a Creator and may disregard the laws of Nature.
89
An algorithm is a well-defined sequence of steps (procedure or routine) that takes some value as input
and guarantees a value as output in some finite number of steps.
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phenomena or such entities to be distinguished from each other; whether they are physical in
the sense of objects or objects of information in the mind does not make a difference in this
respect. Similarly, if we break up any decision process into “simple operations” which are so
elementary that it is not easy to imagine them further divided, there must be a “most
elementary” type of decision process. One would imagine a yes/no decision is the most
elementary, but this is a mistake as this is an outcome of a decision process and not the
process itself. We are not looking for the most elementary result of a decision but for the
most elementary process to get such a result or the most elementary initialization of such a
process. Let us, for the purpose of determination of the decision process of highest simplicity,
first analyze the steps necessary to make an intelligent decision on a choice:
1. Collection of information about all (or most) possible choices. If there are infinitely
many choices possible, this information will be incomplete.
2. Processing that information:
• Determination of choices according to possible outcomes;
• Analysis of all time-sequences as they appear to the decision maker or will appear
to him, as far as this is possible;
• Analysis of causes and effects and their time-sequences including possible shifts
or changes of the reference systems involved.
3. Determination whether all processes anticipated in 2 are invariant under changes of
coordinates or other changes of the decision maker during the process, as far as
possible. If any infinities or elliptic elements occur inside such anticipated process,
boundary conditions need to be introduced by choice and so on. The latter decision
processes are incomplete.
4. Categorization of the results of 2 and 3 into:
• Possible and impossible choices;
• All cause/effect pairs or trees into time-sequences;
• Choices of convenience (e.g. timings etc.).
5. Determination of space-time coordinates of the decision to be made.
6. Execution of the choice by action.
This constitutes a generalized example for a decision that implies reasoning. Of course there
exist decisions that are completely without reason and totally random, which constitutes the
other extreme of a decision. The main question about how most of such decision processes
are executed revolves around three possible kinds of reasons to base such decisions or
decision chains on:
The nature of the intent of such decision plays always a role in such decision processes. Only
the intent together with the chosen deed constitutes a classifiable decision, but there exist also
un-classifiable decisions, e.g. the initiation of a deed without intent.
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desired communicable information is achieved by the decisive action in making a רקיע, and
in the classical limit, by shifting same into infinity towards the “undesired” (defining)
opposite of the then “measured”, “observed” or “willed” observable or action 90. In all cases,
the undesired information or action and with that the outcome of such action is discarded.
90
This decisive action can be referred to as“redemption” from the undesired.
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In the most primitive forms of societies or assemblies of subjects91, the subject that “loves”
another has come to recognize that other subject or object as a source of gain, whereas the
subject that “hates” another recognizes that other subject or object as a block to its own
objectives. These objectives can range from pure survival to any higher “motivation”. An
example in nature for this is the immune system of a human which is necessary to reject
sickness, while it is detrimental for organ transplantations. In atomic physics we see a proton
attracting an electron “to make a zivug” to form a hydrogen atom; in the nucleus an
additional neutron is regarded as no threat and it can merge with the nucleus, but if a proton
is approaching it gets repelled unless it forces its way in by having enough energy. Then the
nucleus is forced to change its identity. There are countless examples for such “love-hate”
decision making in nature from primitive ones like the relationship of elementary particles
over chemical or biological attractions or repulsions (rejections) up to human or societal
relationships, but the underlying principles of “potential gain or loss” are valid in all such
relationships. In Kabbalah zivugim underlie also attraction and repulsion rules and are mostly
denoted as front to front, front to back and back to back relationships.
For the preservation of identities or of well functioning systems Nature has provided such
systems with the ability to “decide” on defense mechanisms which are higher developed the
more complex such a system may be, such as an immune system or societal and intellectual
or philosophical defense mechanisms. For example in developed human society conservatism
or the delayed or slowed down dispensation of intellectual innovation is necessary to
preserve the stability of the leadership for the time being until that innovation is no threat for
that leadership and its education or knowledge level is on par with that of the innovators. In
case of a stagnating education or knowledge progression of the leadership relative to the rest
of the population either the survival of that leadership is threatened or the population splits
into at least two groups, if the total power levels of the respective groups are held equal. If
the power level is higher on a lower educated or less intelligent leadership, conflict arises in
the quest of the establishment and the innovators to win followers. Violent establishments or
innovators shift the conflict resolution into throughout irrational confrontations of physical or
legal powers. They may then end up with a growing and better educated population in case of
the more intelligent group “winning” the conflict, or with a stagnating or in the worst case
completely paralyzed uneducated population leading to a complete breakdown of the
system92. The introduction of “morality” or “ethics” based on certain philosophies as a
regulator ameliorating the harsh natural laws of societies tries to avoid pure predator-
leadership, as we will see later and claims to be called “civilization”. The system of the seven
Noachic and the 613 Jewish mitzvoth and the corresponding Halachic systems are very good
examples of legal foundations of such civilizations. For example the Jewish mitzvah of
“loving your fellow as you love yourself” is a classical case of an amelioration of the harsh
natural laws of society.
In regard to our example “society” which can consist of highly developed biological entities
like humans down to very primitive assemblies of particles assembling in atoms, molecules,
crystals or genetically coded entities, we have with growing complexity of such system the
growing need of more and more intelligent decision making processes. With such growing
complexity the number of incomplete subsets of the decision process grows, causality gets
91
Subject is here defined as an entity that can exert an action onto another entity that may change or affect
for example its survival or its identity.
92
A case where this happened not long ago is Cambodia under the menacing “rule” of the Khmer Rouge.
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relativated as soon as the decision maker’s reference system or viewpoint can change during
the process and statistical properties of the decision making process become dominant. This
is describable within the same concepts as they are valid and used in statistical physics or
quantum theory. Statistical physics in the classical limit describes large assemblies of
physical objects with all uncertainties involved, while quantum theory describes small
numbers or single objects, taking uncertainties related to complementary properties of such
objects into account. In all these cases, in the macroscopic and the microscopic limits of
physics, information is discarded or “lost” with making the irreversible decision to observe a
certain property or set of properties of the object(s) concerned. Similarly, information and its
objects, e.g. bits, decision operations and choices with their resulting actions within an
information processing or decision process underlie statistical and quantum laws like for
instance uncertainty relations, the 2nd law of thermodynamics93, orders of time and causalities.
Violations of orders of time and causality are possible under the same conditions as we have
seen in our examples in physics94.
To make a decision, we need to gather information about all possibilities how to reach the
desired outcome of that decision. The number of those possibilities is determined by the
inputs of information available to the decision maker. Again, the number of such inputs is
always finite, while their values can include infinities or singularities. In order to reduce the
necessary inputs to the decision making process to a minimum not to violate scientific
methodology95, we need to discuss first the situation of choice / no choice systems. Then we
need to define dimensions of valuing criteria of making choices and see whether and how
they depend on the will of the decision maker. This means in clear language, we need to see
whether those choices depend on any causes and are having the observed actions as effects.
We also have to check whether the alleged causes are statistical patterns of associations that
are characteristic of causal organizations, patterns that can be given meaningful
interpretation96 only in terms of causal directionality.
Graph theory provides a formidable method to distinguish between causal and purely chance
events or phenomena. In the deterministic extreme, where all variables are expressed in finest
detail and the Markov condition97 certainly holds, causality prevails with a probability of
almost 1, while acausal or non-deterministic phenomena appear incomplete and the Markov
93
For instance, in information theory one treats measures of uncertainties with information-entropy, joint
entropy and conditional entropy (equivocation).
94
We deem it necessary here to remind the reader of the physicality of any information as same needs a
carrier to exist, even if we call some information or entity “spiritual”, as we will explain later in detail.
95
This principle of scientific methodology of disposing of all redundant information that is not necessary to
describe a phenomenon is called Occam’s razor.
96
The problem of meaning, sometimes also referred to as the problem of representation or the problem of
content is among the central issues confronting cognitive science. Since different signs (symbols, words,
sentences or mathematical expressions) can have the same meaning, the meaning of a sign cannot be
properly identified with its linguistic or mathematical formulation. In the case of defined signs there exist
equivalence classes of signs that have the same meaning, but that two or more signs have the same meaning
does not explain what it means for any of them to have any meaning at all. Among the various theories of
meaning that have been proposed, the language-of-thought hypothesis maintains that every human being
has an innate mental language, where learning an ordinary language simply involves pairing up the words
in that ordinary language with innate concepts in the language of thought. We will discuss this issue in
relation to the kabbalistic view of the importance of letters and words in the creation process and what role
they play as carriers of information in our and the “higher” realms or worlds.
97
Each variable is independent of all its non-descendants, conditional on its “parents”.
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condition will be violated. With the added condition of stability 98, events or phenomena
(distributions) have unique minimal causal structure as long as there are no hidden variables.
When nature decides to “hide” some variables, the observed distribution (effect,
phenomenon) needs no longer be stable relative to the observable set, i.e. we are no longer
guaranteed that among the minimal latent structures compatible with the observed
distribution, there exists one with a directed acyclic graph structure. This does not mean that
through the acyclic structure there is necessarily defined an “arrow of time” in the
phenomenon that “defines” the hierarchy of causality. There exist causal structures which are
caused in a non-temporal way, arising the concept of “statistical time”. Its definition is as
follows:
Given an empirical distribution P, a statistical time of P is any ordering of the variables that
agrees with at least one minimal causal structure consistent with P.
It is further conjectured that in most natural phenomena the physical time coincides with at
least one statistical time.
This preference could represent survival pressure to “predict” future events to facilitate
evolution of phenomena. Under the assumption of model minimality (and/or stability) there
are patterns of statistical dependencies that can uncover causal relationships. These
relationships cannot be attributed to hidden causes unless we violate one of the basic
principles of scientific methodology, the semantical version of Occam’s razor.
In quantum systems like in our experiments above, where the information exchange is only
one or a few bits, such statistical analysis does only make sense if the same experiment is
carried out many times over to ascertain the graphs of interference and non-interference, and
98
A system is stable, if all independencies are remaining invariant to parameter changes.
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then this has to be done again over and over to ascertain the noise levels of the total
measurement. Only then a causality assessment like the one described above can be done, but
then we might already have reached the classical limit of that phenomenon, i.e. we pushed
the demarcation ( )רקיעbetween observable and observer infinitely near to the observer. In
such an analysis the cause (particle emission) and effect (detection) will show forward
causality always, because the erasure process takes place after detection. It erased same and
with that caused the restoration of the interference pattern, but that takes place definitely
after emission by the source. Hence, overall causality is not violated but just “camouflaged”
by the “undoing” of the first information exchange and replacing it with its complementary
one. This reminds us of reversible computation, the quantum eraser and our
gedankenexperiments on causality discussed above.
It is believed that inferred causation can be of help to uncover hidden causalities and reversed
arrows of statistical time in relation to conventional time. Physical time and its direction as
well as causal relationships are vital for decision-making. In complex decision procedures
including infinite procedures the minimalization procedure for the supply of sufficient inputs
into the process makes the problem a finite one. The concept of reversed causal relationships
can be of use in the making of choices, because in these cases “future” events are the causes
of “known” events. On the other hand, our discussion above shows, how complicated
decision processes are and how many uncertainties are dependent on complementary
observables and they themselves are again subject to errors. In statistical or quantum systems,
the “spontaneous” making of a decision to choose for instance to collapse the wavefunction
or break an entanglement by objective state reduction or self-observation of the system
depends on statistical and not deterministic rules. The probability distribution function for
our Uranium-238 nucleus mentioned above to decay can be determined deterministically, but
the time when it will do decay if alone is non-deterministic, with or without hidden variables
and with or without the external interference of a willed action99. Why such statistical
behavior of nature is vital for the survival of the universe may not seem obvious at first
glance. Similar to the camouflaged causality relationships that are uncovered by statistical
data-mining rather than deterministic continuous analytic “reasoning” a non-deterministic
behavior of nature allows for example Uranium-238 nuclei not to decay all at the same time.
They decay with a half-life of 109 years despite it is very unlikely that they took that long to
be produced during the creation process that took for the nucleosynthesis about 3 minutes. So
one can say, they all were created roughly at the same time, to decay statistically over 10 9
years. To shed light on this phenomenon and other similar ones concerning the behavior of
information in general, and in particular in the form of decisions or choices to
“spontaneously” break a symmetry or reduce a state or stabilize an undetermined
evolutionary state of a system, it is good to recall the ubiquitous 2 nd law of thermodynamics
that, in the classical limit that presented us with an asymmetry of time.
Up to now we have dwelt on the extreme of complex decision making processes. Let us now
explore the other end of complexity, simplicity. As it is written in Etz Chaim “in his simple
and smooth will, the desire arose to create …” a most simple will should be able to be
defined. “Smooth” in this case suggests to be isotropic and homogeneous for symmetry
99
This willed action is limited to the initialization of an objective state reduction which took place at the
time of the formation of the nucleus by fixing the probability distribution function for its decay. This decay
depends on the gravitational and other self-energies of the nucleus and is determined at the time of the
emergence of the interaction laws of its nucleons, i.e. at the time of the symmetry reduction to the period of
nucleo-synthesis during the creation process of the universe.
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reasons discussed above, “simple” refers to no properties, but desire seems to be out of place
for an entity without properties, names, locations or time of existence, simply being defined
as One. Desire here is a generalized will to make a decision about starting creation. The
desire may be an urge that can be “instinctive” or purely physical. We have to consider the
possibility that this desire can be a forced decision with practically no real choice.
Alternatively, we can consider again a dichotomy of infinitely many choices and one choice
only, similar to our point/sphere system. Taking into consideration the initial condition of
One superseding absolute nothing, we can postulate but not prove the point representing that
oneness. Alternatively we can assume one empty set as a starting point, which we associated
with the number zero. One is according to that view defined as an empty set nested into
another empty set which together represent a two-dimensional object. The one dimension of
this object is the space where the number one is located. In contrast to that a singular point
does not need any space to be located in, and hence, it is a zero-dimensional object, but it is
countable as one object. By this countability there is already a distinction made between one
and the point. The set of natural numbers at the beginning consists only of one element, but
we have already the 2nd distinction made, so there are three objects countable, and with that n
objects so that the whole set of \{0} is created. One point in infinity is also the only one
unique object that does not need any auxiliary structure to exist, and it is a geometrical entity.
As shown above, it is in the state of being unobserved identical (fluctuating) with an infinite
sphere with fluctuating dimensionality between zero and infinity. The dependence of its
dimensionality towards its volume has also been shown above. The meanings of its
dimensions are also still “grand unified” as a fluctuating undefined state of affairs. What is
now the desire to create? The decision to be made leads to the choice “to be or not to be”.
100
These dimensions are still not counted or numbered, but they latently represent the natural number
system in form of spheres of 0 to n dimensions nested into each other like empty sets nested into each
other, as we have seen above.
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The energy densities in the false vacuum state before inflation are very high for at least one
reason: the time-coordinate together with the space coordinates were squashed into a tiny
space and hence, the energy uncertainty reaches very high values. This energy density could
not be lowered as rapidly as it would be required. In the state of grand unification of the
Standard Model of particle physics a false vacuum arises naturally. Those theories contain
scalar fields like for example the Higgs field that is supposed to give mass to the matter
separating from radiation later. It is typical of Higgs fields that the energy density is minimal
not when the field vanishes, but instead at some non-zero value of the field. If the energy
density is zero we speak of a true vacuum. It depends on the slope of the potential energy
density versus the field magnitude of the scalar field, how long it takes for the energy density
to be lowered. The peculiar properties of the false vacuum come from its large negative
pressure. According to general relativity there is a gravitational effect that is very important:
pressures like this create gravitational fields, where positive pressures create attractive fields
and negative pressures repulsive fields. These are the driving forces behind inflation. A
fluctuation of tiny order of magnitude then starts the inflation as described above and
expands space-time by factors of the order of 1075 or more. There is no upper limit for that
factor, but as soon as the false vacuum decays, the energy locked into it is released. During
inflation, the energy density of space-time remains constant as does the gravitational self-
energy density that compensates for the energy increase. The total energy of the system can
be very small and by the action of gravitation the conservation laws of Physics are not
violated. Besides that, the flatness and the homogeneity of the universe can be explained by
this theory as well as the די, the stopping of the inflation process as we learn it in Kabbalah.
The slope of the energy decay to zero energy density determines the time of די, but that there
is such stopping at all is determined by the laws of Physics which, we need to remind
ourselves are not self-evident and their quantitative properties like for instance the value of
the fine structure constant (1/137) are not derivable by any theory. This seems to justify the
suggestion of the Torah that there is a saying of the Creator to stop the process. As we will
see in the following investigation, there is a surprisingly simple way to deduce the numerical
value of the fine structure constant and other fundamental constants of physics from a
geometry resembling the concentric assembly of sfirot, if we assume the validity of quantum
mechanics at the very onset of Creation. The mathematical model proposed strongly suggests
fractal properties and zitterbewegung (leading to Brownian motion) as well as dispersion
relations of Fourier and Laplace integrals (leading to mathematical uncertainty relations),
ingredients of the foundations of quantum mechanics and the measurement problem with the
EPR paradox.
Again, as in our example of the Uranium-238 nucleus, gravitation plays the role of the
initiator in stabilizing an evolutionary undefined state. Our explanations can quantify the
process very nicely, but the time when such interaction leads to the stabilization, can only be
determined statistically, and hence, the outcome of דיis statistical. The same is valid for the
conclusion of such processes. Gravitation is directly observed in conjunction with mass. Our
scalar field, in this case the Higgs field, plays a crucial role in manifesting a material universe
where in the end of the process light and matter are decoupled from each other. Gravitation,
in this case in conjunction with a Higgs field, enables the space-defining inflation of a matter-
filled universe that stabilizes by symmetry reductions due to cooling 101. The matter
distribution changes allow time to get defined in that universe as well. It may be noted that
during this phase of the universe same is completely filled with a hot soup of primordial
101
The cooling is due to expansion and “evaporation” of firstly very dense primordial matter or energy.
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matter from which by symmetry reduction all known matter, light and free space, or better
vacuum, emerge. This same gravitation makes again objective state reductions and breaks the
entangled undefined state of the universe. Be reminded that gravitational energy is negative.
Before the symmetry breaking all elementary particles except the Higgs bosons themselves
are massless. However, when the scalar field spontaneously slides from the maximum to the
minimum energy104, elementary particles acquire mass. The origin of the masses can be
interpreted as a result of the interactions of the particles with the “Higgs Ocean”.
How can we understand objective state reductions as the means of the Creator to make a
demarcation or רקיעusing gravitational energy that is negative? In the Zohar we find after
Parashat Trumah the Sifra Detzniuta, the book of that which is concealed. In Physics,
negative energies are normally concealed for us. We now want to look at both viewpoints.
Negative energy denotes a negative existence that can “swallow” positive energy or existence
to annihilate it to zero105. This does obviously not happen in nature except in the case of a
black hole. The negative energy rather manifests itself as an attractive field for positive
masses, while negative masses cannot be observed throughout the observable universe. In
Physics a black hole will only be represented by its gravitational field, its mass is not
observable since it is beyond its event horizon, and it can swallow any energy coming near it
and crosses this event horizon. It emits Hawking radiation and nothing else besides its
gravitational field. The consequences of the above mentioned swapping of space and time-
like coordinates in a black hole suggests a re-coupling of mass to the gravitational energy to
be not distinguishable from each other and being located in the singularity of the black hole.
In Sifra Detzniuta we read about five chapters [chambers] which are comprised in a Great
Hall and fill the whole Earth. Said Rabbi Yehuda: “If they are so comprehensive, they are
better than all!” – Said Rabbi Shimon: “Verily, it is so for him who enters and comes out; and
it is not ( )לאfor him who enters the Not ( )לאand comes out.” Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai
102
This massless mode can also be found in the early state of the universe, when it needs gravity to expand
our universe and create massive matter.
103
At the time of the writing of this treatise the ATLAS experimental setup at the LHC in Geneva nears its
completion. It will finally verify or falsify the existence of the Higgs bosons.
104
This is similar to the process where the universe’s space-time slides down from the state of a false
vacuum to a true vacuum, acquiring more volume.
105
Zero point energy is not zero due to the information lost in the process.
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explains now about a person who knows wheat grain but no wheat flower products. He tastes
for the first time such products and comes to the conclusion that since he knows the essence
of these products he ate he is the master of them. “And because of this disposition he knew as
Not ( )לאthe delicacies of the world, and they were lost to him. It is likewise for him who
seizes the general principle of wisdom, and knows as Not ( )לאall the pleasing delicacies that
derive from the general principle.”
We can understand this as a valid principle also in the laws of Physics. The negative energy
of gravitation is the essence of the geometry of space-time as we have seen above. In the
Zohar this is allude to by the “lamp of darkness” that the Creator “carved out of the supernal
luminescence”. It spurns inflation and the production of massive objects due to the geometry
of the created space-time, but it does not constitute the Creator or Creation itself. It is only a
derivative of the Creator or, if we want to say so, a tool of his. This is the reason that in
Parashat Beshalach an assignment of a negative existence to the Creator Himself is regarded
as a grave sin. The negative energy of the gravitational field only makes it possible to avoid
negative mass. For example anti-particles have positive mass so that when they annihilate
with corresponding particles, energy is released in form of radiation which manifests itself as
other particles or light. This constitutes positive energy at all times.
Sifra Detzniuta goes on to explain: “The book of that which is concealed is the book of the
balancing in weight. Until Not ( )לאexisted as weight, Not existed as seeing face to face, and
the primordial Kings died, as their crowns were not found, and the Earth was nullified, until
the Head ( )ראשdesired by all desires, formed and communicated the garments of splendor.
That weight arises from the place that is not Him. Those who exist as Not are weighed in
יה106. In His body exists the weight. Not unites and Not begins. In יהhave they ascended, and
in יהdo they ascend, who Not are, and are, and will be.” The term “weight” is an allusion to
the single combination of all the sfirot, while “weights” are individual sfirot. “Face to face” is
the condition whereby ז"אis turned towards א"א, so no creation is manifest. The Primordial
Kings are the un-manifest sfirot in the worlds at the state of א107, which are witnessing
states108 of א"א. The term “crowns” here alludes to the world of Atzilut as explained in Sefer
Yetzirah 3:7, 8 and 9. We can justify the term “crown” ( )כתרas denoting Atzilut as no other
states of Creation existed at the stage of the first Tzimtzum. ראשis here another name for
the supernal sfirah of כתר, while the “garments of splendor” denote the manifest sfirot as
they emanated (Atzilut) in the second Tzimtzum. יהindicates the action described in the
world of Beriah, where the יcorresponds to Atzilut (emanation) and the הto Beriah
(creation).
From this we can see that the Not, if we define it as gravitational energy which is negative,
existed before mass emanated which we can define as the weight mentioned here, until the
Head desired the garments of splendor as the manifest ten sfirot which are here said to be
weights. These weights can also be interpreted as the naturally occurring elementar particles,
if they are identified with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet which connect the sfirot in the
Etz Chaim. It is said that he formed and communicated them (see Sefer Yetzirah 1:1), and it
is mentioned that the weight (mass) arises from the place that is not Him. This we have to
106
Cf. דרוש מטי ולא מטי,ספר עץ חיים
107
This refers to the state of creation where the first רקיעwas coming into existence, but no manifestation
of a physical world existed, as explained above in our treatise about the first Tzimtzum.
108
We could also say observer states.
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understand as mass arising via some symmetry breaking from the realm of the physical
worlds Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah during their formation after the second Tzimtzum and
not as some property of the Creator. The Creator being not massive reminds us again of His
non-corporeality.
Now we know that neither the Not as gravitational energy nor the mass itself or the
combination of both have anything to do with any negative or positive existence of the
Creator Himself who is still simply One without any other description of His. Negative
gravitational energy emerges only during inflation, as we have seen above, and masses are
positive. The understanding of the Primordial Kings as un-manifest sfirot parallels the
elementary particles before the symmetry breaking while the manifest sfirot parallel the
massive existence of them. The un-manifest sfirot (witnessing states) then can be understood
as the observers that act on כתרthat “decays” to let the צינורwith the Infinite Light pass
through to manifest them. This can be interpreted as a self-observation of the then existing
Total Existence or as its emerging self-consciousness, represented as the ראשdesiring to
create. In Etz Chaim this is referred to as the “most simple will”, and the above question
about the “desire” of such a simple system is answered by our interpretation of the self-
observation process as self-consciousness that enables the system to have a desire. This self-
observation then also stabilizes the geometry of the Total Existence, at least in the part that
contains any worlds or universes.
Without an at least most simple form of self-consciousness of that Total Existence It is not
manifest in an observable manner, but only in an evolving state, as is the part of It we call
Creation. For reducing an entangled or evolutionary state an interacting field like gravitation
is enough to serve as an objective observer109. The state vector of an observer is taken to
reflect the properties of a memory register or an information carrier 110 capable of storing
information, and the values recorded by such storing device are somehow connected to its
“subjective” experience111. So far we have defined the function of the non-manifest sfirot and
in particular that of supernal כתרas a latent demarcation between the expelled Infinite Light
and the fluctuating vacuum, where the state reduction stabilizing the Total Existence is made
by the non-manifest sfirot.
As soon as they become manifest being filled with light which is also the onset of a time-like
coordinate, the real creation ( )בריאהfollowing this emanation begins with חכמהor wisdom.
On this level the differentiation between individuals or opposites does not exist 112. Hence,
from this level down to Malchut, we can regard this subsystem as one unit making said
objective state reduction, alluded to by “opening” the Crown for the צינורwith the light. We
can therefore say that on this level there is no רקיעdifferentiating the dimensions of all the
worlds, but there is the Crown כתרdifferentiating between the outer expelled Infinite Light
and the vacuum designated for the creation of the worlds. For example on the level of חכמה
there is no differentiation of past and future or good and evil. Information-theoretically this
109
Cf. Osnaghi, S. “The entangled roots of objective knowledge”, 2006 UFBa-report, Universidade Federal
da Bahia, Instituto de Física, Campus Universitario de Ondina, Salvador – BA, Brazil.
110
We will discuss this fact later as a way to explain the functionality of a “soul” as an information carrier
not contradicting the laws of Nature. For now the reader shall be reminded that vacuum can be such carrier,
as also shown in Etz Chaim and in the writings of the Ramchal in their discussion of the non-manifest sfirot
described there as a reshimo.
111
In this case it would be the first subjective self-experience of the Total Existence.
112
Cf. for example מטי ולא מטי,ספר עץ חיים.
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implies the perception of a multifurcated future and a multifurcated past, which means it
would constitute the perception of a network of events rather than one history. This can
mathematically be constructed as a configuration space, where whole histories can be
represented by a line or a point on the geodesics of that space. Experimentally this can be
demonstrated by the quantum erasure experiment we have discussed above. Following that,
only when a demarcation is made irreversibly in form of the production of communicable
information together with the discarding of information complementary to it, any stable and
manifest Creation can exist. We refer here again to the term חקקused in Sefer Yetzirah to
describe Creation. Also here it is vital for the created objects or phenomena to exist in
stability that information or “material” from the preceding evolving state of existence is
discarded.
Taking this into consideration, the demarcations or רקיעיםbetween the sfirot definitely
represent symmetry or dimensional reductions or both. On the level of בינה113 or
understanding we have the antithesis of חכמה. There ideas are separated and all
demarcations ( )רקיעיםare defined. Understanding is equivalent with the name אלהיםwhich
denotes a plurality of forces of creation while the Tetragrammaton denotes unity of these
forces. It can be understood in the way that הויהrepresents the creating forces of the Total
Existence in an evolving state, while אלהיםrepresents them in a reduced and manifest state.
A parallel in the laws of Physics is the separation of forces in the symmetry breakings during
the cooling of the universe. The paths of wisdom are only separated from the level of
understanding downwards, meaning that בינהseparates what evolved in חכמה. Above we
have spoken about the raising of the central point within the vacuum to בינהwhich
represents the creation of the first רקיעseparating all the distinct structures of the sfirot
system and all that is in them in the state of reshimo. Hence, we can say that understanding is
the great separator within the structure of Creation114. In Etz Chaim, the interacting partzufim
of Abba and Imma are examples for creation processes involving Wisdom and
Understanding. Such interaction is explained in Kabbalah by a zivug, similar to that of sexual
interaction of male and female culminating in the creation of offspring. Only if חכמהand
בינהare used together, a tangible information or physical object or phenomenon can be
produced; meaning only with state reductions and discarding of complementary information
any stable creation can be effected.
In Sefer Yetzirah we several times come across the term חקקor engrave in the context of the
creation process. Derived from this root are חוקand חוקה, rule and decree. Those rules and
laws serve to remove some freedom of action. Symmetry breakings and wavefunction
collapses do exactly that and a parallel in Information Theory suggests itself: Creation means
state reduction, where always part of the information available is discarded. מחקmeans to
erase, לקחto remove; this reminds of the “lamp of darkness” mentioned in the Zohar that
represents a negative existence or negative energy, so to speak gravitational self-energy of
the system under creation, but after inflation. It is used to remove from the vacuum rather
than to add. The creation of mass in the form of the Higgs process, for example, then
compensates for the negative energy and the energy balance of the total system remains zero
or at least very small as required for the onset of inflation. By the same token, gravity seems
113
It has the root בין, between. On the level of wisdom all neshamot are united while on the level of
understanding the neshamot become individuals.
114
בינה = אימא,חכמה = אבא.
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to act as the means of the Total Existence to observe Itself115, creating things and discarding
the “unwanted” like negative mass or anti-mass 116 into Rindler space where the evolution of
time means always a physical displacement of the discarded away from the chosen or
observed. This happens by forming a רקיעbetween the world-space and Rindler space in
form of the event horizon of the speed of light in vacuo separating between the discarded and
the created or between the anti-worlds and the worlds.
כתרis referred to as רצון, will: It is outside and above all other mental and physical
processes. The impulse of Creation went downward through the sfirot, then returning to the
infinite. Only then Creation could take place, which is a clear indication for inflation taking
place before the Big Bang.
The “three books” of Sefer Yetzirah 1:1 which are “creating” are the three divisions of
creation defined as universe, year and soul or space, time and spirit (information on a carrier
like the vacuum). Before Creation there is Emanation, according to Proverbs 4:7 “the
beginning is the Wisdom”. Above that we have the Crown representing the evolutionary
process until it became the demarcation between the Infinite Light and the created space-time
which at this stage only needs to be as tiny as the Planck scale. With the introduction of the
light into the vacated space with the reshimo of the sfirot system from Keter to Malchut
inflation followed by the Big Bang began, creating תהו ובהו. This defines חכמהas the
beginning of Creation and represents the grand unification or even the Planck epoch of the
Big Bang as we will discuss later in detail when we look at the Physics of the process of
Creation. Now we first want to discuss information-theoretical aspects. The supernal חכמה
serves as the first information carrier inside the vacuum containing all the sfirot created. The
supernal בינהthen orders what comes out of memory ( )חכמהwhich is a completely non-
verbal bit-map that has to be decoded and by that verbalized117.
The verbalized form of memory then gets processed by the brain ( בינה+ )מוחין = חכמהof
the still primordial worlds which are partially stabilized into דעתor knowledge which can be
accessed by the use of speech or writing (language including mathematics) to give qualifying,
quantifying and interaction-defining information118 about the Creation to take place, this
process itself being part of that Creation, but this happened only on the level of Yetzirah and
some of it in Beriah. In Atzilut nothing was patterned or regularized, only emanated.
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anticipate efficiently the outcomes of his manipulations rather than being constrained by the
purpose of providing a faithful representation of a pre-structured reality; and in particular this
fact gives the Creator the liberty not to pre-plan every detail of His Creation but let it evolve
in permanent interaction with Him119. As we have discussed earlier, objective state reduction
represents such permanent interaction with the Creator being the Total Existence. Therefore
quantum entanglement and with that any evolving state of the universe ought to be
understood as reflecting not the structure of a putative reality underlying the phenomena, but
rather the conditions of invariance which allow reproducibility and predictability of that
interaction. Such conditions of invariance can only be recognized, if the symmetries entailed
by them are broken or the evolving state is reduced (separation before recognition). This
separation is a necessary but not always sufficient condition for recognition 120, alluded to in
the Torah by the saying “and G-d saw that it was good”. This “seeing” figuratively shows a
separation of Creator and Creation. Such separation is of course not to be understood as total,
because the Creator being infinite and the for us observable aspect of the created object being
finite at least in dimensionality may in the non-observable aspect of such created object still
be entangled with the Creator, making this aspect unobservable unless the entanglement
would be broken. As an example for such unobservable part of a created object we can refer
to the life force or soul of such object which cannot be directly and physically observed,
except for the actions it may cause. To illustrate this, let us assume the mind is part of the
soul and the information content of that mind is in an evolving state wherever it may be
located. The mind is linked to the brain which is the physical carrier and processor of
information. Only the information that becomes state reduced and with that communicable is
observable in contrast to evolving information on that carrier. Information of that mind on
any other carrier121, e.g. the vacuum as we alleged as a possibility before, is not accessible at
all. The nature of such carrier may be “physical” only in the realm of dimensions different
from our observable world, as alleged in for example Otzrot Chaim. Inside the realm of those
dimensions the behavior of information and its carrier may well be equivalent to information
on a physical carrier in our observable realm.
After this attempt to link “spirituality” with “physical reality” or better to show their
equivalence, we want to come back to a still not sufficiently discussed matter: what governed
and governs the “decisions” and “stabilizations” in creatio ex nihilo? We want to resort again
to information theory. The entanglement or evolution of quantum states, their breaking and
the resulting paradoxes remind us of a much simpler example: reversible and irreversible
computation. Information is physical and not an abstract entity. It is inevitably tied to
physical degrees of freedom through the properties of the information carrier like charge,
spin, a mark on paper etc. That ties information to the laws of Physics and ties it to the parts
available in the physical universe122. Reversible computation allows symmetrical operation of
computation without the loss of information or energy, if the system is a closed system. As
soon as an “end-result” is desired, this information needs to be made communicable and
therefore state-reduced. Then the system cannot be considered closed anymore.
119
Cf. Sefer Tanya by R’ Shneur Zalman of Liadi and other literature supporting this viewpoint of Physics.
120
For example in מטי ולא מטיwe can see the entangled vessels by seeing a spectrum of light, but we do
not recognize the shape of the single vessels.
121
We refer here to the kabbalistic descriptions of the parts of the soul which are defined there as not
residing in any part of the body (e.g. Chayah and Yechidah).
122
With that we conjecture that all Creation comprised within the supernal Crown such as Adam Kadmon
and the four worlds obey the laws of Physics, and that includes our minds as well. We will discuss this in
detail later.
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Let us now look at a possible proof of the validity of the above assertion that all information
underlies the laws of Physics. In the case of non-reversible computation part or all of the
initial information before computing is lost and some of it is transformed into new
information. If we consider an erasure of information in a closed system like mapping a state
of information from 1-space into 0-space, the conservation laws dictate that in such a
conservative system phase space cannot be compressed, and hence, the reduction in
information must be compensated for by an expansion into other non-informational degrees
of freedom of the computing system, such as the development of heat.
Concluding this argument we can state that any information-theoretically concise action
requires the laws of Physics to be carried out or observed in any possible way. Hence, any
observation or observing entity including its mind or soul needs to obey physical law as it is
valid in the respective dimensional domain it may be located, and so any transformation,
storage or creation of information needs to be defined as a physical process and not a purely
abstract one. Furthermore, any physical process, being dynamic, needs the existence of at
least a statistical time or a time-like coordinate in configuration space. The same is true for
any process concerning information, without exception. This is to be understood as a
refutation of the common interpretation of " "סדר זמןas “no time” in Atzilut and Adam
Kadmon; it has to be understood as statistical time.
If we accept the above assertion that any information and its whatsoever way of processing is
a physical set of events, then we need to accept that mathematical structure and objects also
are manifest as such only as information and are with that physical. This, in turn, allows us to
say all mathematical concepts connected with the creation process are physical entities and
processes. They also underlie physical law and can be transformed into physically manifest
objects as we will see in the following discussion. For example space-time as a geometrical
structure may be curved and with that producing gravity, but it is itself considered a
mathematical structure.
123
Landauer, R. “Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process”, IBM J. Res. Develop. Vol.
44 No. ½ Jan./Mar. 2000.
124
Shannon, C.E. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol.
27, pp. 379-423, 623-656, July, October, 1948, and references therein.
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Time seems to be a mental rather than physical dimension, but also here we can
experimentally see its physicality: it is influenced by energy. Special and general relativity
show us very nicely how physical it is. Any information exchange and any information
extraction (measurement or observation) is an exchange of energy, as we have seen in the
case of the discarding of information, and the exchanged energy needs to either be in a
reference frame where an observer can distinguish between the states he observes or in case
of simultaneity of that exchange the observer must move. In any case we need a time-like
dimension to realize that.
5. Consequences of objective state reduction and information theory for the onset of
creatio ex nihilo:
At the onset of inflation we need at least a “seed” space-time with some energy that cannot
be released. A particularly interesting scenario definitely is the creation of space and time
itself from “One (absolute nothing)”. Alan Guth125 writes in the preprint of his talk: “If the
universe can be eternal into the future, is it possible that it is also eternal into the past? 126 Here
I will describe a recent theorem which shows, under plausible assumptions, that the answer is
no.”
He explains that the averaged Hubble constant will be incompleting the blue-shifted
expansion into the past if greater than zero. He concludes, the universe, even after (infinitely)
many cycles would need a boundary condition for the past. In plain language, it needs a
beginning, a small bubble where energy cannot be released immediately for the initialization
of inflation as a cause for the Big Bang. Our question now is: How can such a bubble be
created and what initial conditions are sufficient to create it and only it?
Let us look at our point in infinity at the beginning of Creation again. Which mechanism
allows that point to grow into a small bubble as required by inflation theory as an onset of
inflation? – We need:
• Space-time
• Energy
• Outside boundary (the question in Physics has to be asked: a boundary to what? – In
Kabbalah this issue has been elegantly resolved by placing the Infinite Light outside
that boundary)
• Gravitational drive of energy decay into space-time, meaning that gravitation needs
to be emerging from the Planck state127.
We have:
125
MIT-CTP #3811
126
… herewith implying that there is no beginning of time.
127
If Einstein’s proposal of gravitation being purely an effect of the geometry of space-time is right without
any constraints or additional requirements, the amount of gravitational energy should be calculable. The
quantum behavior of space-time volumes of the order of magnitude of the Planck state, however, prevents
us from thinking that simply. A viable theory of quantum gravity still has to be developed, so we can only
suggest directions of research at this point of time.
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We assume that the laws of Mathematics hold always, even in the absence of mathematical
structure, in a very constraint manner, so that objects like a point in infinity are allowed. The
initial condition is a point in infinity which represents an infinite sphere as described above.
Time for a fluctuation is not needed, because the two states of the point are a dichotomy, they
are equivalent and one cannot distinguish between them. We have seen that the erasure of
information produces heat in a closed system. The system in question is definitely closed,
because there is nothing besides it. If we erase the oneness of the point and lose the
dichotomy of the infinite sphere we lose information and gain energy. This would be in
accordance with the engraving process described in Sefer Yetzirah as חקקand its
derivatives. A hint to that is given in Etz Chaim through the “simple and smooth will” that
gave rise to the first Tzimtzum with the expulsion of light and its separation from the space
around the middle point. How do we do such a thing in Physics? We were speaking about the
fluctuations of the point/sphere system above, which includes the fluctuation of the
dimensionality of that system between zero and infinity. We also learned that at radius one
the surface and the volume of that sphere has a maximum at seven dimensions and tends to
zero above about 20 dimensions. Let us assume the system fluctuates in its dimensionality in
a way that allows noise in such fluctuation. Even at a minimal mismatch of one of the
dimensions relative to the others of 10-33 cm or 10-43 seconds which are the orders of
magnitude of the Planck scale minimally needed to start inflation, the inflation factor would
have been about 1059, which agrees with current inflationary models128, accounts for the 1090
particles in the universe and would not violate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. If we take
the fluctuations in the background radiation of about 10-5 into account as such noise, we
could imagine the following scenario:
All researchers agree that the nature of reality changes qualitatively in this domain, which
would suggest a noise level of 10-48 seconds or 10-38 cm. Time and space cease to be an
appropriate concept on this scale129. In a process often likened to radioactive decay, our
classical universe that emerges at the Big Bang at time 10-33 s is represented as somehow
springing out of timelessness or nothing. The latter we can discard as we have proved before;
we have at least our point in infinity. The state of the point as a point is timeless, because the
definition of time or its choice by fluctuating “asynchronously” or “noisy” to space is not
made yet as is a state reduction that would stabilize the system and by “forgetting” the un-
needed information or structure would supply energy to the system. The exact time that ends
the fluctuation is not known. In a general grand unification including gravity and everything
that ever can be created, thought of or even things we are totally unaware that they may exist,
no symmetry reduction is made, it is an evolving state without an arrow of time, because in
that state everything is reversible and entropy does not grow. The only physical explanation
for any symmetry reduction and with that an onset of a certain dynamics can be sought in
such a statistically behaving system only in its noise or some spontaneously arising
128
These models conservatively estimate the exponent of the inflation factor as about 60 to 70.
129
These orders of magnitude are not anymore accessible experimentally, and it is doubtful, they ever will
be.
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instability. An observable or even theoretically conjecturable cause for the system to reduce
there is none. The question how long such a state existed and on what time scale it decayed is
meaningless; there is no time that allows a “how long?” and there is with that no time scale
for decay either. At this point and due to the poor state of our scientific knowledge about
these criteria of the onset of Creation and the first state reduction we do not want to
speculate, but we suggest that a point defect in a superfluid may be a good start to simulate
our point in infinity, with two constraints: the system will not fluctuate dimensionally and the
superfluid mimics a vacuum.
Most physicists have a deeply rooted notion of causality: explanations for the present must be
sought in the past. This approach will be seriously flawed if the very concept of the past is
suspect. If quantum cosmology before inflation really is timeless, our notion of causality may
have to be changed radically. If the Wheeler-de Witt equation is like the stationary
Schrödinger equation, then the point where time is born, plays an important role, but is not
the locus at which some all-decisive die of our worlds is cast. We know that our universe is
not totally symmetric, we know the noise to signal ratio of the background radiation, and we
know with that about the asymmetry of the configuration space starting in a point and ending
in infinity. The Wheeler-de Witt equation130 now has to bed itself down onto the landscape of
that configuration space. What happens in quantum theory cannot be totally unrelated to the
corresponding classical theory. Sitting in the midst of things, we feel carried forward in time,
an arrow that points from nothing to something. A scientific theory of the universe and the
higher worlds in which structure is created as a first principle should be possible. Kabbalah
suggests this very strongly as does Vaughan’s famous poem “The World”131:
The question is: how does this structure emerge from the separation of the all-manifesting
light and the point in infinity, and how do they separate? – We shall now try to conjecture an
idea that might be a route of research to solve this question.
Let us look first at the possibility of a noisy point with a fluctuation of the dimensions of the
order of magnitude of 10-38 cm, at least for the spatial dimensions. Be reminded that the unit
of length here is only a simile, since the purposes of the dimensions are not yet defined, they
are completely interchangeable. Let us assume that at least one dimension’s synchrony with
the others fluctuates by this value, all others fluctuate less. According to Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle, the orthogonal dimension to length or position is momentum. This
dimension should then fluctuate accordingly with a phase shift of π/2. Since momentum
contains time in form of a pointing vector, we can assume a momentum fluctuation
propagating as a “space-wave” away from the central point or infinite sphere, outwards and
inwards, respectively. This would create in the finite number of dimensions a standing wave
between the center point and the infinite sphere, its wavelength depending on how many
130
This equation is similar to Schrödinger’s equation describing the evolving state of the universe.
131
Note the similarity to the Kabbalistic view of the world.
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dimensions are relevant for it. The system then locks in at the Planck scale and creates a
space-time of Planckian dimensions, and then the whole thing inflates, because the energy
equivalent to the Planck mass is too high to be contained in such a small space as the Planck
space-time. With that gravity is emerging and enables the system to inflate and then stop. A
detailed proposal for a mathematical model containing a global structure that makes it
possible to for example find in it the fundamental interaction constants is shown below.
The presence of momentum implies the presence of energy and with that temperature, which
explains the thermal state of the Big Bang. The energy density of this small space is very
high, so it also should be very hot. This high energy density should be enough to form a false
vacuum and initiate inflation. The separation of the point from the light could then be
understood as the process of separation of space-dimension and momentum-dimension
creating the wave between the limits of propagation, so that the imprint of that wave forms a
reshimo in form of false vacuum in its maxima and normal vacuum in its minima. Between
those space can inflate in the appropriate dimensions and contain in a similar way sub-waves
(harmonics) defining subsets of sfirot. Expanding this picture to infinite radius gives exactly
the kabbalistic point of view, while it would also explain the still open time-span of 10 -35
seconds after the beginning of structure to the onset of inflation 132. The Planck time of 10-43
seconds is here assumed to be the smallest possible increment of time realizable in a physical
universe. Its noise value of five orders of magnitude less is supposed to hold only during the
transition from mathematical structure to physical structure.
How do we then explain the second Tzimtzum? – The system needed to open the
demarcation between the expelled light as explained above, to become self-observant or self-
conscious133. This self-conscious structure in its totality with the inner (point) and outer
(supernal Crown) light and its demarcations defining the configuration space of the creation
of the worlds and the central point as a stable physical system in the sense defined above,
including all information on its proper carrier, and including all its history in past and future
we shall call the Total Existence – our Creator who is One. If He would not comprise all His
Creation and would not be one with it, the Oneness theorem of the Torah that is a positive
commandment, would be gravely violated.
The above reasons also explain why the Creator has no name, and all the names alluding to
Him are in truth only variables denoting certain aspects of His manifestations. These should
not be regarded as the objects of worship, G-d forbid, but as symbols reminding us of our
paths in the worship of a nameless, dimensionless, only incompletely describable infinite
being, the One Absolute Total Existence.
Now let us look at the energy density and entropy of the proposed system in its form of what
we want to call a Planckian bubble from the information theoretical point of view of the
kabbalistic version of Creation. If we erase only one bit, namely the sphere separating the
light of the כתרfrom the initial י, the energy density will be kT ln 2 . 1032 / cm3. The entropy,
on the contrary, would be extremely low, about k ln 2. From this we can deduce the minimum
size of the bubble. We have to take into account that with the mathematical equivalence of
132
The onset of the Big Bang was at 10-33 seconds.
133
Lee Smolin in his book “The Life of the Cosmos” describes a self-creating universe, likening its growth
to the largely unplanned development of cities. Quantum cosmology does give almost g-d-like power to
structures to bring themselves into being.
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the point and the sphere the stable system can be only extracted by an objective state
reduction, which is divided into the two primary Tzimtzumim, by simultaneous erasure of
half the ambiguous information which is minimally one single bit per dimension. The
gravitational energy for n dimensions will be minimum –kT n ln 2/volume. If we assume that
the fluctuating point is erased after forming the first רקיע, leaving the infinite but limited
structure of the imprinted vacuum with a center point in the middle, positive energy density
needs to balance the negative energy density in the process, so the inflation of space can
begin. In this conjecture we assume again the physicality of any information such as the
oneness of the “absolute nothing” we begin with, meaning the point/sphere system has to be
regarded as a mathematical structure representing primordial space-time in infinitely many
dimensions. The constraints of volume, as we have seen above, limit the possibility of
dimensionality to a finite number that can make physical sense and carry information. Then
the question arises: What is the carrier of information “One”, if there is no space, no time and
no other object? – The answer is inevitable: The only geometrical object fitting into no
environment is a point; it is “almost nothing”, but not quite as we have seen, and it is the
carrier of the information “One”, but that does not make it physical. Only its property to
represent a fluctuating or evolving mathematical structure that can comprise anything allows
under certain criteria to assign physicality to it. Let us try to do this. In general relativity we
learned that curvature of space-time defines gravity. If now our space-time in the still
evolving state is a small bubble, the curvature is very high. This would mean a center of
gravity in its middle. If it fluctuates without noise and concentrically, nothing will happen,
but if it fluctuates as we have explained above, this center of gravity will move inside space-
time and cause a distortion. Taking into account the conditions of gravitational state
reduction as outlined above, such uncertainty in the position of the center of gravity in the
system causes the Killing vector to be ill-defined and causes a decay of the system similar to
our Uranium nucleus. This creates a state reduction of at least two objects within the system
or one object and the system. If we argue along the lines of Chaim Vital and the Ari, this may
be the expulsion of the light and the onset of time. In the last chapter we shall propose
research in this direction and also specify directions for the formulation of some new theory.
The equivalence of the erased point at the effective state reduction should give the minimum
quantization of energy. This fraction should be fundamental, if Boltzmann’s constant is
correct. There is though a problem with the definition of temperature within an evolving
totally undefined system, and this might be the reason that we can have fractional
quantization, but a discussion of this would go beyond the scope of this book.
It remains the question whether we can freely assume the validity of the laws of Physics or
do we need to induce them from the phenomenology (like the 2nd law of thermodynamics
follows the inception of momentum and then matter distribution)? – This is a very difficult
question, because it is not clear how many elliptical argumentations lurk there underneath the
nice theoretical carpet, and where the experimental signposts stop being and leave us alone to
logical evaluation of a possible and plausible scenario. Yet, there is Planck’s quantum h that
we just checked whether it holds for the one point being erased. Hence, a minimum amount
of energy should prevail in the system and with that a minimum amount of time. The creation
of energy implies the creation of time and vice versa, due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty
principle. If, due to the geometry of the system, time is squashed together with space into a
point, the uncertainty of energy becomes very high. Hence, it does not matter which “caused”
the other, but they emerge together and with that space, time and energy imply momentum
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and with that the onset of dynamics. With that all uncertainty relations in all dimensions were
created, but how they were quantified still remains a mystery. We need to recall that all our
observational data are maximally only half of the originally available information in the
evolving system. This implies that all theoretical explanations of the most fundamental
constants of nature remain subject to human guesswork, if such complementary information
cannot be retrieved from observation. Following the history of the universe back in time
presents us with the formidable problem that at each symmetry reduction information was
lost, irretrievably. Hence, we have to use iterative methods in going forward and backward in
our theory, so to speak running and returning.
In case of the one point in infinity we have to do with a “one-particle” system which is
unique in the history of the universe, and because of that all complementary information that
may have lead to a quantification of the most fundamental constant(s) of the laws of Nature
was lost forever with the first state reduction in the history of the universe. An emergence of
a universe from a space-time in point-like form is unique and cannot be repeated or simulated
in any experiment, because the state of “absolute nothing” is not possible to produce for the
following reasons: Our universe exists and with that an absolute nothing is not producible in
any way, and since we can only perform experiments inside our universe, the minimum
structure possible where such an experiment could be performed is the physical vacuum.
Inside our universe there is no possibility of absolute zero energy or temperature for reasons
of quantization as we can see it manifested in e.g. the Casimir effect or the Aharonov-Bohm
effect. This means that we would have to go outside our universe to a place without any
structure which again is impossible, because such place would only exist relative to our
universe within the Total Existence and with that possess coordinates within it. This makes
the situation where we have a dichotomy of point and sphere unrepeatable and unique. The
only possibility we have is to simulate such a scenario in a condensed matter system
mimicking the behavior of our universe. How this is done, and how such a system can be
mimicked, we will see later in the above mentioned attempt to show a mathematical structure
that could resemble physical reality and deliver the interaction constants.
Interlude:
Can Mathematical Structure and Physical Reality be the Same Thing? – An attempt
to find the fine structure constant and other fundamental constants in such a
structure
Abstract
We try to demonstrate a simple mathematical structure’s properties as an observable physical reality or toy universe.
Commencing from properties of an n-dimensional Euclidean structure we develop the motion of a point within that
structure into a means to determine one or more interaction constants for this point in its geometrical environment. We
discuss the implications of dimensionality and try to find a reasonable minimum amount of interpretation to let the
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mathematical structure resemble an observable physical reality without “plugging in” constants. Instead, we only “plug
in” some elementary concepts of physics we try to keep to a minimum. We discuss in what way the mathematical
structure could be conceived as a physical reality and whether it could be a physical reality without any claim of
completeness. In this exercise we find the fine structure constant to be the most naturally emerging constant.
1. Introduction
In 2006/7, Frank Wilczek [1, 2] stated that fundamental constants in physics, like for
example interaction constants are purely numerical quantities whose values cannot be
derived from first principles, meaning, they are not derivable from equations describing
certain physical theories, let alone real phenomena that also are not derivable from such
equations without “plugging in” natural constants. He further stated that these natural
constants make up the link between equations and reality, and their values cannot be
determined conceptually.
Arthur Eddington [3] tried for the greater part of his later life to find a geometrical
principle to describe physics on the basis of the fine structure constant’s peculiar
numerical value, 1/137, to no avail. Koschmieder [4] uses lattice theory to explain the
masses of the particles of the Standard Model, concluding that “only” photons, neutrinos
and electric charge are needed to explain the masses of all the particles. He refers to
MacGregor [5, 6, 7] who shows in three papers the dependency of the masses of the
particles of the Standard Model solely on the electron mass and the fine structure
constant’s numerical value in natural units. Nottale et al. [8, 9] propose a model of “scale
relativity” that solves the problem of the divergence of charges or coupling constants and
self-energy with the fine structure constant, α = 1/137, on the electron scale. They attempt
to devise a geometrical framework in which motion laws are completed by scale laws.
From these scale laws they obtain standard quantum mechanics as mechanics in a non-
differentiable space-time134. In particular, in reference [8] Nottale demonstrates a
derivation of the fine structure constant by “running down” the formal QED inverse
coupling from the electron scale (Compton length) to the Planck scale by using its
renormalization group equation135. The numerical value achieved by this procedure is
pretty close to reality. A shortcoming of this approach is it yields different values for the
“bare charge” or “bare coupling”. Again, he needs to refer to experimental observation to
choose the “correct” or “physical” of the three possible solutions. Furthermore, specific
length scales like the Compton and the Planck length have to be “plugged in” to come up
with realistic values for the coupling constants he determines. Similarly, Garrett Lisi [10]
needs to choose the symmetry breaking and the action by hand to achieve an otherwise
compelling proposal for a “Theory of Everything” matching the Standard Model. Other
approaches to derive the numerical values of coupling constants, and in particular the fine
structure constant, border on numerology or other “esoteric” approaches bearing little
resemblance of physical reasoning that can be derived from observational experience
underlying the construct of the mathematical structures proposed.
134
They do not arrive at a discrete space-time, but rather postulate it.
135
Such equation needs physical insight to be “derived”. A merely mathematical reasoning without
reference to phenomena or physical concepts is impossible.
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In our approach we try to avoid any input of numerical values for interaction or coupling
constants, but resort only to some fundamental concepts of elementary physics where
necessary. By allowing generalized dimensionality we include the possibility of a fractal
picture of space-time that seems to be, at least tentatively, justified by phenomena such as
Brownian motion and zitterbewegung, the latter of the two showing true fractional
dimensionality, and by quantum theory itself that proposes the Planck length and Planck
time as a smallest scale. It shall, however, become clear in the course of our treatment of
the underlying mathematical structure we have assumed that such phenomena are the
result of the underlying mathematical structure.
We attempt to shed light onto these questions considering some properties of spaces seen
as mathematical structures containing, resembling or being such physical interactions
without claiming the identity of our structures with physical reality as such. We try to
keep the physical reality as simple as possible to see how much “physical law” in form of
properties of the underlying structure such simplistic example can produce, and how
much additional input in form of mathematical structure or its properties is needed to
make our structure be a realistic “toy” universe.
Max Tegmark [11] proposed in 2007 a mathematical universe hypothesis stating “Our
external physical reality is a mathematical structure”, based on the assumption that
“There exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans”. He
argues for the equivalence of a mathematical structure and the physical reality it
describes and we observe, not merely the mathematical structure describing the physical
reality. Despite his effort to encode numerically elements of language defining or
describing mathematical entities or (partial) structures, at least one information
theoretical problem remains: one need to agree on the encoding. We do have no proof of
a “natural” encoding mechanism that would be provably inevitable by emerging from the
structure itself as a “by nature preferred encoding mechanism”. We hold against the quest
for an absolutely mathematical nature of physical reality that human language and its
content may well be translated into mathematical symbolism or “language”, but cannot
be immune against a decidedly willed, random or even illogical treatment of that physical
reality by humans. Furthermore, any distinctions within the structure are arguably man-
made, except they would “automatically” emerge from the structure itself. Thereby the
choices made what to look for inside the structure may be also arguably man-made.
Besides this caution we find it enormously interesting to try to build a mathematical
structure “from scratch” that describes or resembles a physical reality. We are not
insisting on what is the “ultimate scratch”, but interested whether we will be able to argue
in favor of an identity of mathematical structure and physical reality.
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contained in a space-time that exists before anything else. The Machian idea takes the
power from space and time and gives it to the actual contents of that space and time
which is seen as a holistic interplay of space and its contents. This means the actual
structure of space and time is determined by the dynamics and spatial distribution of its
contents. We will see in this treatise how such space can emerge from a very simplistic
dynamics139. Depending on the nature of such dynamics, complementary spaces will play
an important role in demonstrating “physicality”140.
In regard to scale, we do not assume any scale but define the length of elementar
movement as one and the resulting time interval also as one. We want, for the moment,
not too strictly adhere to Mach’s principle but allow a spherical space in n dimensions
enclosing our object or its movement. To avoid more restrictive assumptions we allow
highest possible symmetry of our space which is spherical symmetry. We also choose to
allow arbitrarily many dimensions n (real number), and our space shall be Euclidean. We
reserve the right to further generalize as we progress building our structure. It shall be
understood that space with n = 0 can contain a point, n =1 a line, n = 2 a surface and n ≥ 3
a voluminous object. For the word “volume” we want to allow besides a conventional
voluminous geometrical object an area of a surface and the length of a line as a volume;
only a point without any motion shall have zero volume. We will see the reasons for our
choices during our construction process. We further generalize dimensionality to n
[12].
Before we embark into any reasoning about (inter-)actions, we discuss the behavior of the
volume of a sphere as a function of its radius and of dimensionality without suggesting or
assuming a special metric or gauge invariance we normally would use to describe
physics. A spherical volume element of radius one (unit radius) is described by Hamming
[13]:
(π ⋅ r 2 ) k
V ( r , n) = C n r n = , with n = 2k
k!
Since Γ(k + 1) = k!, n will be even for integer k. Generalizing n yields a function
V(r, n) that is continuous and differentiable in respect to radius and dimensionality
including fractional dimensions. With
k!= Γ ( k + 1) = Γ ( n2 + 1)
we get for our spherical volume element of radius r and dimensionality n
n
(π ⋅ r )
2 2
V ( r , n) =
Γ ( 1+ n2 )
139
We do not, however, adhere rigorously to Mach’s principle.
140
Cf. sections 4 to 6.
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as its volume. For unit radius this yields a dependency of the volume from dimensionality
as shown in Fig. 1a, and Fig.1b shows a plot of V(r, n).
V
n
5 10 15 20
Figure 1a
1
0.75
0.5 r
0.25
6
V
4
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Figure 1b n
In such a space we can describe the positions of points or objects relative to each other
and arrive at a description of dynamical behavior of a system of objects by looking at
their velocities and positions relative to each other. We agreed above that we want to
enclose such an object or system of objects by a suitable sphere representing a geometric
space spanned up by the “physical” action141. We will see later that for our considerations
it is sufficient to simply look at the volumes of such enclosing spheres. We remind the
141
One could argue the action of a moving point to be “mathematical” as well.
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reader about such spheres being chosen for the convenience of having highest possible
symmetry. Whether they can stand the test of being or resembling a physical reality, we
shall see later.
3. Motion
The time shall be denoted by t and higher time derivatives of a shall be considered for
non-uniform accelerations of our point. The concept of time has to be introduced as a
comparison of the motion of our point relative to a clock-mechanism which imposes a
formidable problem in so far as uncertainty is concerned. For convenience, we shall
regard the time as a continuum to allow differentiability and integrability, but for a
realistic picture of physical reality we would have to assume, strictly speaking, a clock
with infinitely high frequency142.
This said we can now investigate how we can describe the movement of our point that
constructs our sphere. Thereby we do not scale any lengths except that the observed
movement shall end at length of radius one and the two known positions shall be at r = 0
and r = 1 at t0 and t1 respectively.
The velocity of the moving point can only be determined, if one knows at least two
different positions at two separate instants of time143. John Wheeler remarked in his
article “Law without Law” [14]: What we call reality consists of a few iron posts of
observation between which we fill in by elaborate papier-mâché construction of
imagination and theory. Thus, we have to consider two separate points in space as well as
142
We do not want to indulge in fundamental discussions about the nature of time in this paper, but we
point out that any definition of time should be dependent on motion, if we accept the 2nd law of
thermodynamics as the origin of the arrow of time we observe classically.
143
We can, in the simplest case have a uniform velocity or a velocity reaching the value 1 after time and
space interval one, if it is considered to rest at the beginning of the movement.
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in time as the minimum information we can obtain to determine a velocity, and hence,
our assumption made above for r and t is justifiable.
If one regards a static position of a point as zero dimensional, it can be at any position
relative to another point at rest in any dimensionality. If we construct a velocity space in
n dimensions, both points will be resting at the origin of that space. This means according
to Mach’s principle that velocity space does not exist for those static points or is
represented by one point. When the one point changes position moving relative to the
other at some not necessarily constant velocity, the moving point will be able to construct
a “velocity-sphere” in n dimensions144. In position space such movement will be
represented by a line of minimum one dimension which is a co-dimension in position n-
space, because the line can be existent in many dimensions. In velocity n-space a point
with uniform velocity existent in many dimensions will be represented by a point in that
velocity space and have a minimum co-dimension of one in position space. This implies
that any movement represented by less than one co-dimension in position space is un-
physical or at least physically questionable for now. We want to restrict this implication
for the moment until we have discussed the meaning of fractional dimensions in the
context of movement. To effect any interaction145, a minimum volume in spatial and
velocity space is necessary, allowing for acceleration (change in position and velocity) at
all times. From this we can conjecture that any change in velocity or any interaction
needs to take place over at least one co-dimension within the respective n-spaces for
position and velocity, if there are no effects present such as zitterbewegung. Hence, any
motion connected to an interaction constructs a minimum volume of position and velocity
space as well.
The current view of Mach’s principle in the context of general relativity that one creates a
problem with handling a space-time metric, in particular concerning problems of masses
relating to space-time curvatures, can be weakened by our above assertion of a minimum
volume of both types of spaces being required for any interaction or being constructed by
that interaction. If one further accepts the equivalence of energy density and space-time
curvature and the resulting assertion that all matter can be expressed by the geometrical
structure of space-time, one has to accept also that dynamics should be expressible in
terms of changes of that very structure which in our case is a change in radius with time.
Those changes, however, are constraint naturally by the relationship between the space
“hosting” dynamics, momentum space146, and that “hosting” position, spatial space.
Changes of this structure are a critical issue, whether one can assume a mathematical
structure to be a physical reality. Only in Mach’s sense this would be correct.
144
Again, it is and remains the choice of the observer, how many dimensions he or she chooses to construct
a spherical volume element with a radius determined by the displacement of a point in position and time.
145
For any interaction (or physics) to take place, change in motion must be allowed to observe that
interaction.
146
This we simplified to velocity space as we have given no mass to our point.
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Let us take our point and move it from position x1 to position x2. This movement can be
described as Δx = x2 - x1. In Euclidean space we can connect the two positions with a
straight line, and in other types of space with a geodesic line. To define another
distinction, because we consider one point moving from one position to another, we need
to introduce another label or coordinate, time. In n dimensions, this can be regarded as
the construction of a quotient space of position change versus velocity change, fixing the
time scale by implication. If the point is considered moving continuously from one
position to the other, our time coordinate can be considered continuous as can its path.
Since we have not agreed on a particular scale or system of units, we want to define this
movement as having length one in position space and length one on the time coordinate.
We remind ourselves again of Wheeler’s remark cited above, which implies that if the
point moves through positions x1 and x2 at a constant velocity, this velocity can have any
value. If we, however, consider the point resting in its first position and then covering
unit length in unit time, the start velocity will be zero and the velocity in the second
position will be one, if the point is uniformly accelerated. The mean velocity over the
distance will be ½. According to our above assertion the spheres in our n-dimensional
spaces will be built by giving a radius to position and velocity spheres. If the acceleration
changes on the way but remains over the unit time interval at unit value, we do not know
the exact relationship between position and velocity. The velocity known between the
two positions is always between zero velocity and the end velocity in the accelerated
case, since the point rests in its first position and reaches the second position in unit time.
If we do not know whether and how the point is accelerated, the uncertainty of velocity
lies between the mean value and one, in this case it will be ½, if the position and time
differences are precisely known. For |Δx| = 1 we will induce an uncertainty of |Δv| = ½,
so that their product becomes ½. We will show later, how this relatively sloppy
estimation of uncertainty can be more rigorously derived from purely geometrical
considerations as we will see below.
Above we agreed that only mathematical structure in form of Euclidean space exists in
form of an n-dimensional sphere constructed by the displacement of a point representing
its radius. Whether we decide to move the point to a unit sphere surface with constant
velocity or accelerated from rest leaves us no choice regarding the introduction of
movement, meaning, if we have only a resting point that we want to move and define its
displacement as our radius, we have to start at velocity zero and produce with that an
acceleration. To measure the position of a point while moving, it is not necessary to bring
it to a halt. Hence, we do not worry about what happens to our spherical space in its
totality after the introduction of movement but decide only to look at a spherical volume
element with maximum radius one within the evolving space.
We can now further argue that besides acceleration introduces a velocity to a resting
point, acceleration also needs to be introduced by a “jerk” j = da/dt. This would produce
the following scenario: let us assume, |j| = 1, then a(t) = ∫01j dt = 1t =1, and v(t) = t2/2
with x(t) = t3/6. Vice versa, we need a mean jerk <j> of 6 to reach length one in unit time.
Now we can introduce infinitely many “introductions” of the motion in question and will
end up with x(t) = tn for reaching length one. Could this be a quantum jump? – We will
suggest an answer later when we know more about uncertainties, but one thing is sure:
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for higher order jerks we get nonlinear acceleration and with that chaotic behavior of the
equation of motion that applies, and even the uncertainty relations between position and
acceleration or jerk behave chaotic themselves. We will see this towards the end of the
paper.
Case 1: If the acceleration is known as one, the integral of dvdt equals ½. If Δx = 1 and
Δv = ½, then their product will be half, with x = v 2/2 from Fx = max = mv2/2 for starting
from zero velocity and static zero position. Hence, Δx Δv = ½.
A change in position of length one in a time interval of one means a velocity over that
distance of one. This is only valid, if the velocity is considered constant over the time
interval in question. For an accelerated motion of our point, the velocity reaches one at
the end point of the interval, so that for a = 1 = const. the mean velocity <v> = ½. Since
only two positions are known for position and velocity, there is no way in telling whether
the motion is accelerated or not. Hence, the velocity can lie between the two extremes of
½ and 1, and the uncertainty of v becomes ½.
Case 2: If the acceleration is introduced by a “jerk” of one in a time interval of one over
unit distance, then <x> = ½ and Δv = 1. Therefore, the uncertainty of position is ½ for
induced acceleration and with that Δx Δv = ½.
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∞
D0 ( f ) = ∫ x 2 | f ( x) | 2 dx , and
−∞
∧ 1
D0 ( f ) D0 ( f ) ≥ , according to [15].
16π 2
So we can write for space and velocity a minimum mathematical uncertainty of:
∞ ∞ ∧ 1
( ∫ ∆x 2 | f ( x) | 2 dx )( ∫ ∆v 2 | f (v) | 2 dv) ≥ , [16].
−∞ −∞ 16π 2
This value is the general mathematical uncertainty for complementary variables which
we call in physics “observables”. The numerical value for such uncertainty can be
determined for any structure and its transformation. One can therefore state for
complementary mathematical sub-structures that if one of them is precisely known, the
other is only known in a very imprecise way or not at all. Hence, it is questionable
whether the complementary structure has any reality at all [17]. Anyway, we can say if
both structures are known and have reality, both structures are showing a dispersion of
accuracy. For that reason we may allege a slightly blurred structure. If the precisions of
both position and velocity are equal, we have a noise or “blurring” of the structure of
7.957% for both of them.
The very impossibility to assign to each position of our moving point a velocity lies in the
fact that the distance the point covers to exhibit a velocity can be regarded as unit length
no matter how short this distance becomes. Even by introducing differentials we end up
with uncertainties being dependent on the dispersion of the function describing position.
Hence, no matter how tiny we choose our distance covered by the point in an equally tiny
amount of time, the product of the dispersion integrals will always be the same, meaning,
the uncertainty is self-similar regarding length and time scaling. It is well known that
random walk, noise, zitterbewegung and the like are exhibiting fractional dimensions. In
our further investigation of the behavior of a moving point in n-dimensional space we
shall analyze an n-dimensional generalized uncertainty relation.
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The spherical position space volume element dependent on radius and dimensionality is
determined by
(π ⋅ r 2 ) 2
n
V x ( r , n) = ,
Γ ( 1+ 2 )
n
as we have seen above. Its Fourier transform represents the velocity or momentum space
volume and is determined by
− 12 + n2 nπ
2π | p −1− n | Γ (1 + n) sin( )
V p ( p, n) = − 2 .
Γ (1 + n2 )
For Vp (p, n) we have integrated over the radius and arrive at a function of momentum and
dimensionality. If we imply an uncertainty principle, we can argue that before the point
moved there were neither position nor velocity or momentum space volumes available.
With movement we enable at least a position volume element Vx with its complementary
volume Vp. Before that both were zero, so that we can speak of Vx and Vp as ΔVx and ΔVp.
If we accept our above reasoning for our two cases of uncertainty for accelerated and un-
accelerated motion, we arrive at a generalized uncertainty relation 2 ΔVx ΔVp = 1. This
yield
1 −n
−n
2 2π 2
(r ) | p − 1− n | Γ (1 + n) s in n(2π )
2 2
− 1= 0,
Γ (1 + 2 )n
2 (1 + n )
3
p ( r , n) = 2 ± 2 2 .
Γ(1 + n)
147
Since we have no mass defined, there shall be equivalence of p and v as well as x and r.
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Plotting the momentum (velocity) versus α (in our units r = α if we consider the generalized
charges as one) and n renders for the first six dimensions a rather surprising result. In Fig. 2 one
can clearly see the minimum mathematical uncertainty’s square-root emerging as a minimum
α around the fifth dimension. This value is not far away from the numerical value of the
square-root of the fine structure constant in natural units, 1 1 3 7.0 3 5 9 9 9,1 which is the elementar
electric charge in the same units. Results are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1
Dimensions Co- n for pmax Min. α Fraction of
dimension α
0-2 1.4217 0.72 0.02685 1
1.0875 0.64 2/3
0.24 0.525 1/3
4-6 1.1061 4.96 0.07826 1
148
In the following all plots have to be understood that p ~ v and r ~ α .
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0.02
0.04
r
0.06
0.2
p
0.1
0 0.08
0
2
4
n
6
Figure 2
A search for the value of the fine structure constant’s square-root value renders a remarkable result.
For the area between four and six dimensions we have solutions for p = ½ as well as in the area
between zero and two dimensions. Around five dimensions the area with positive real momentum for
p ≥ ½ and the interaction resembling an electric charge, spans a little more than one co-dimension.
Between zero and two dimensions we obtain the same conditions of a little more than one co-
dimension around one dimension for ⅔ of an elementar electric charge, while ⅓ of a charge appears
around ½ dimension with a co-dimension of a little less than one quarter co-dimension, as can be seen
in Fig. 3.
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0.0265
0.03
0.027
0.04
0.0275
r r
0.02 0.028
p 0.05
0.01 p0.1
0 0.05
0
0.25
0.4 0.5
0.6 0.75
n 1
n 1.25
1.5
Figure 3
Puzzling is the emergence of a numerical value of an elementar electric charge from the
conditions given above and its nearness to the value of 1/4π around the fifth dimension,
while around one dimension the numerical values of fractional charges are emerging. The
co-dimensionality slightly bigger than one hints to a slightly chaotic behavior of the
movement of our point that we let span up our space. The question arises why no other
interaction constant emerges from our geometrical structure other than the fine structure
constant. A further investigation rendered the same behavior for all odd dimensions
greater than five (see Fig. 4).
0.04
r
0.06
p0.1
0.05
0 0.08
0
10
n 20
Figure 4
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Can the other known interaction constants be derived from the fine structure constant and
at what conditions we have to look at in our mathematical structure? Maybe if we look at
momentum density as a measure of interaction-spaces and their minimum conditions, we
can reach at least an estimate where to look for other interactions. This means also
gauging the time to the same scale in all dimensions including the fractional ones.
We found that the numerical value of the fine structure constant can be determined from
geometrical considerations only, if one makes the simple assumption of constant
acceleration, but its value still emerges in a very unexpected way, at least superficially.
The value does not appear as any local minimum of α (n), but at a co-dimensional range
between about 4.5 to 5.5 dimensions. The exact value of Δn being slightly larger than one
may suggest an overlaying minimal zitterbewegung for such (inter-) action which would
be very interesting to investigate further. Additionally we want to argue that the boundary
condition of pmin. = ½ over a constant acceleration within unit distance and time is a
legitimate one in the sense of Wilczek’s condition of “minimum phenomenon
contribution” to our structure. It is merely a logical consequence of our observability we
have constrained to two instants of time. We need to remark that the deviation for pmin. at
5 dimensions from ½ is +0.01020489005 for the exact value of the fine structure
constant, and the deviation of xmin. from one is -0.0728. This yields an overall error of the
uncertainty at 5 dimensions of 0.16975%. This error’s contribution to the deviation of the
co-dimensionality is negligible.
Surprising, however, is the fine structure constant’s emergence dressed as the elementar
electric charge an n-dimensional spherical space element, while all other constants do not
appear. This may suggest a dominance of the fine structure constant over all other known
interaction constants so that
In particular, the other 1/r2 –dependent constant, the gravitational constant, seems in this
context not to be affected by the application of an uncertainty relation to Euclidean space
at all. We therefore suggest exploring whether the induction of acceleration in form of
higher derivatives of spatial motion may be related to the emergence of different
interaction constants in different dimensions or whether momentum or velocity densities
in different dimensions could be related to a length of motion similar to an uncertainty
principle. If we assume for the latter case pmin. = ½ over unit length motion, we should be
able to find a minimum interaction dependent on momentum or velocity density in
different dimensionalities of our spherical space element. Since the volume changes with
dimensionality and the distance in form of the radius not, we should be able to find some
relationship like that.
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To test our hypothesis we shall construct a momentum (velocity) density space we will
relate to a length of motion. We determine the function for the volume of a momentum
density space based on a Euclidean spherical volume element in n dimensions. It is
1
π 2 −n (r 2 ) 2 csc( nπ )Γ(1 + n ) 2 −1−n
1 −n
±
3
p ( r , n) = 2
2 (1 + n ) 2 2 .
Γ(1 + n)
Assuming the same conditions as above, we can set the momentum ½. We assume further
the proportionality of interaction constants to powers of r such as the fine structure
constant and the gravitational constant being proportional to the square of the radius. We
further assume generalized charges to be one and let the point bearing that set of unit
charges move from its position at rest to the surface of our n-dimensional spherical
volume element. The momentum density will therefore vary between zero at the center
and one at the surface of the sphere. Here it is assumed that the velocity of the point
changes linearly from zero to one. Hence, p ∝ r (t ) , while r and p are complementary
observables underlying the same conditions as we have established above for the finding
of the fine structure constant.
To determine whether the other interaction constants somehow depend on the fine
structure constant we try to find the smallest volume required for an interaction that we
norm to one in all dimensions. This allows determining the radius of the smallest sphere
in n dimensions enabling an interaction resulting in a movement over unit length and
time.
n
R= ,
2( n +1)
which averages over the dimensions in question to about ½ (we only try here to get a
rough estimate).
With
p 2 2αq 2 / r
=
r2 r2
we can see for p = ½ that α = r5/8. This shows the dependence of the fine structure
constant on five dimensions and that we need to divide our momentum volume by the
real volume multiplied with its square root to norm five dimensions to the fine structure
constant. If the other interaction constants really depend on the fine structure constant, at
least dimensionally, we should find them by applying our generalized uncertainty
relation.
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Let us first look at unit momentum density. We obtain from p(r, n) = ½ and dividing by
the volume of a smallest sphere with radius ½ with the condition mentioned above
5
(π / 4) 2
n 2
Γ(1 + n2 )
α ( n) =
−1 / n
1+ 3 1+ n
2 (1+ n ) nπ .
2 π −0.5+n Γ(1 + n) sin
2
2 2
Γ(1 + n2 )
n
5 10 15 20 25
-5
-10
-15
-20
Figure 5
A numerical value of about 10 for the strong interaction is obtained between zero and two
dimensions, around n = 1. The electromagnetic interaction follows between four and six
dimensions around n = 5, followed by the numerical value for weak interaction between
eight and ten dimensions around n = 9. The numerical value for the square root of the
gravitational interaction related to the fine structure constant emerges around n = 21
which is the sixth dimension with purely real solutions for momentum. It appears from
these results that in this structure only odd dimensions and their surroundings yield
“ground state velocity” or momentum, because they have real solutions.
It seems that first of all the fine structure constant is the dominating constant that exists in
all dimensions as a result of the uncertainty of the complementarity of momentum and
position space. Only in regard to momentum densities (Poynting vector) on a constant
momentum density surface in n dimensions it seems to appear “dressed” in different
strengths of interaction dependent on n. Hence, it can be that we can observe dimensions
higher than 4 as “labels” like electric charge or mass on an elementar particle. The
dominance of the fine structure constant suggests Lorentz invariance, so that vmax. = 1 = c.
This implies for p > ½ the introduction of an additional term that could be mass and/or
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zitterbewegung. For now, we leave this and any relativistic implications to speculation to
be investigated in a later publication.
6b. Conditions for acceleration inducing velocity and acceleration induced by a jerk
In our results above we can clearly see that the interaction constants are never found in a
way that they occur at integer values for n with p = ½. We alleged a superposition of
zitterbewegung to explain this behavior. We find, by the same token, the numerical value
of e.g. the fine structure constant in a region where the co-dimension is slightly greater
than one. One could argue, why should a strictly one dimensional interaction not be
possible and our point have the velocity ½ with co-dimension one at the experimental
numerical value of the constant? – Zitterbewegung might be the answer, but how can we
show any supporting evidence for such a possibility in our mathematical structure that is
purely geometric? The geometries of velocity and position spaces give enough volume
for such an effect, but we could also allow a different type of motion added instead of the
zitterbewegung, e.g. some regular vibration or the like. As we will see below, this bears
the difficulty that a(r, n) is not a continuous function and with that a continuous vibration
is not provided with enough space. It will be a chaotic vibration. A more extensive
analysis of the chaoticity of such a vibrating moving point (or string) is beyond the scope
of this paper, but will be treated elsewhere.
We stated above that position and velocity are complementary observables, and we
therefore treat acceleration and jerk analogously as Fourier transforms of velocity and
acceleration respectively. Thus we can conjecture position, velocity, and acceleration and
jerk to be complementary to each other. Velocity is complementary to position,
acceleration is complementary to velocity and position, and jerk is complementary to
acceleration, velocity and position, so that uncertainty relations between all of their pair
wise combinations can be established. To obtain expressions for the volumes of
acceleration and jerk we Fourier transform Vp to Va and Va to Vj as follows:
1
Va = − ×
Γ (1 + n2 )
−1+ n2 n
π
| a | Γ ( − n ) Γ (1 + n ) sin
nπ
2
(
1 + (−1)
− 2n
) nπ
2
( ) nπ
cos + i − 1 + (−1) − 2 n sign(a) sin
2
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1
Vj = ×
2Γ (1 + n2 )
[
× π
− 3+ n
2 nπ
| j −1− n | Γ (− n)Γ (1 + n) 2 sin
2
(
1 + (−1)
−2n
cos )
nπ
2
(
+ i − 1 + (−1)
−2n
) nπ
sin
2
×
(
× i − 1 + (−1) 2 n cos
)
nπ
2
( nπ
sign( j ) + 1 + (−1) sin
2n
2
)
]
0.08
r0.082
0.084
21
1´10
a
20
5´10
0
0 0.5 1 1.5
n
Figure 6
For a qualitative discussion of the results we first present a plot of Vx Va = ½ (Figure 6),
where 1/2 denotes the uncertainty. We obtain at n ≤ ⅔ (upper dimension of ⅓ of the
electric charge) a large acceleration space of a ≈ 1021. For n ≥ ⅔ and a > 0 we obtain a
relatively random distribution of real solution “patches” for the acceleration. We can
clearly see that in the region occupied by ⅓ charge, below ½ dimensions there is no space
for acceleration, while at n > ½ there is a strongly chaotic behavior of the function a(r, n),
reaching acceleration values of over 1037 within unit distance.
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0.08
r
0.082
0.084
0.03
0.02 p
0.01
0
4.5 4.75 5 5.25 5.5
0.08
r
0.082
0.084
20000
15000
a
10000
5000
0
4.5 4.75 5 5.25 5.5
Figure 7
If we then look further at the conditions our acceleration minima (a = ½) show in the
same dimensionality, and if we notice the “patched” allowed paths of our point having an
acceleration, we see that our point needs slight dimensional changes to cover its path.
These changes look random like a “dimensional percolation” rather than a straight path,
and thus we can expect zitterbewegung that will for larger r cover two dimensions and
resemble Brownian motion. This type of motion is suggested by the properties of the
available space constructed by our moving point.
The acceleration plots show a constraint to constant acceleration only between n = even +
½, while around odd dimensions the acceleration space allows (or even suggests) strong
chaotic accelerations and with that zitterbewegung. In Figure 7 the overlap regions of the
constant acceleration regions in a(r, n) with the regions of p ≥ ½ in p(r, n) are very small
and occur very closely around the experimental numerical values of the interaction
constants (error ~1.8%). In the other regions where zitterbewegung dominates, an
additional velocity or momentum component needs to be added to our half momentum. It
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is remarkable that the interaction constant is determined by constant acceleration and not
by the minimum r ~ α of the momentum (velocity) p(r, n) ≥ ½, where the acceleration
a(r, n) shows chaotic behavior. Vj shows as well chaotic behavior and is dimensionally
discontinuous.
We will now discuss the scenario of a uniform jerk of strength 6 over unit time and what
it does to our point. Therefore we determine the product volume of position and
acceleration under those conditions and get
1
πn
a ( r , n) = −2
×
n n
Γ1 +
2
nπ nπ nπ
n n
× [ −2π n ( r 2 ) 2 cos Γ( −n)Γ(1 + n) sin − 2 ( −1) −2 n π n ( r 2 ) 2 cos Γ( −n)Γ(1 + n)
2 2 2
2 2 −1
nπ nπ nπ
n n
sin + 2iπ n (r 2 ) 2 Γ( −n)Γ(1 + n) sin − 2i ( −1) −2 n π n ( r 2 ) 2 Γ( −n) sin Γ(1 + n)]
n
2 2 2
For the real part of a (r, n) we can plot 100 dimensions where the dimensions 1, 5, 9, …
possess real solutions only. This is shown in Fig. 8. We subtracted 6 from the
acceleration so that only values equal or bigger than 6 are shown in our plot. We can
clearly see the region where a ≥ 6 which is necessary to transport our point over unit
length in unit time will limit the smallest length for each dimension below which the
acceleration will be higher than 6. Analyzing rmin.(n) we find a minimum at 40
dimensions of the order of magnitude of one. The lowest dimensions resembling unit
length with 10 to 20% zitterbewegung we found to be 20 to 24 which is the region where
we find the square root of the gravitational interaction constant as shown above. In our
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system of units this minimum length is very close to the Planck length. The same order of
magnitude acceleration that allows the transportation of the point to v = c = 1 we find in
the appropriate dimensions of electroweak interaction at the Compton length scale.
Below those lengths the acceleration would lead to superluminal speeds reversing the
charge-parity-time product or violating Lorentz invariance. It seems to follow that for
each interaction type there is a minimum length set by the limit of maximum velocity c.
1.2
1.4
r
1.6
1.8
0.75
0.5 a
0.25
0
20 40
60 0
80
100
n
Figure 8
Klinkhamer [21] argues for a fundamental length scale not necessarily equal to the
Planck scale that is related to a non-vanishing vacuum energy density or cosmological
constant. If there is no direct presence of matter or non-gravitational fields this
fundamental length can be different from the Planck length. He further alleges that a sub-
Planckian space-time structure determines certain effective parameters for the physics
over distances of the order of the Planck length or larger. Seiberg [22] states that
gravitational interactions cause a black hole at r < lPlanck. From the calculations of section
5 we saw that from five dimensions onwards the momentum becomes larger than ½ at a
length scale of the order of the electric charge’s numerical value. This lies within the
Planck length as well as all the other fundamental constants’ numerical values found in
section 6a. The exception is the strong interaction, but it lies well within the Compton
scale and well within the region where a ≥ 6.
We may speculate that we can regard the physics within the Planck length as a sort of
reservoir for interactions. According to Seiberg’s statement we may regard the domains
below the critical lengths found for different dimensions as a formation length for
different “charges” characteristic for the fundamental interactions. If we take the black
hole idea for gravitation seriously, we might as well generalize this for all other
interactions and propose a scenario where length-like dimensions swap into time-like
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dimensions. There then remains for all interactions only one spatial dimension the point
can move on. This region can be described as a mirror image of negative dimensions,
where we can regard the negative dimensions as time-like. Probing this, we found that in
negative dimensional space the acceleration reaches an average of 6 over a time interval
of about one in -21 to -25 dimensions which corresponds to 20 to 24 dimensions in
positive dimensional space. The point acquires zero acceleration at t = 1. This means after
such time interval we have force free movement along one spatial dimension. After this
time the acceleration within these dimensions reaches values below 6 so that it can be
transposed into positive space. With that happening sequentially through all relevant
dimensions, the point may acquire all its properties as a particle on its way to the
Compton scale. As we will see, this includes also spin.
0.25
0.5
r
0.75
1
0.75
0.5 j
0.25
0
5 10 15 20
Figure 9
We can interpret this further in the sense that the strong and electroweak forces
thermalize long before gravity comes into the play outside the Planck length. This means
the gravitational energy would remain within the Planck scale until the electromagnetic
part of our point reaches the Compton scale and acquires mass as its gravitational part
leaves the Planck scale. Speculating further, the not yet thermalized gravitational degrees
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of freedom remain inside a very small volume for a longer time than the degrees of
freedom of the standard model forces. They cannot leave this volume element inside the
Planck scale, but have to overcome a volume inflation of a factor of 4×1023 from r = 0.1
to r = 1. Since we talk about negative energy here, and this process takes about 10 20
Planck time units until the other forces reach the Compton length and gravity comes out
of the region where the energy (acceleration) space is larger than necessary to accelerate
our point’s gravitational degrees of freedom to c, but the jerk to do that is not strong
enough to achieve this, our spatial volume around the gravitational degrees of freedom
stays small (1.5) against the spatial volume around the standard model degrees of
freedom (2×10240) at the Compton scale. The geometry became with that: three real
dimensions with their surroundings spanning up a six dimensional spheroid wrapped into
another six dimensional spheroid with hardly any volume, but a high negative energy
density. This could be further interpreted as a possible cause for inflation. To test this
interpretation our “one point moving” scenario to make up an n-dimensional sphere needs
to be modified to an energy density model similar to existing inflationary models, but this
is beyond the scope of this paper.
To go further to a snap as the cause for our point to move and span up a space does not
fundamentally change the above scenario very much. We think, however, it may be
worthwhile to examine the issue of inflation further in a different paper.
From Fig. 5 we can list the numerical values of the fundamental interaction constants in
Table 2.
Besides the four fundamental forces we found around the dimensions 13 and 17 orders of
magnitude for interactions that could resemble the Lorentz invariance violating spin
dependent interaction constants predicted by Arkani-Hamed et al. [23]. Insofar as spin is
concerned, we have not yet made attempts to find conditions for the induction of spin in
this structure besides the numerical values as we became aware of Arkani-Hamed’s work
during the compilation of this paper. We included the numerical values of his predictions,
because we find it highly interesting that they appear seemingly “at the right spots”.
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It seems disturbing that charge and its fractions appear within the realm of six dimensions
at places that are anything else but straight forward integer dimensions. The fact that the
smallest fraction of ⅓ appears explicitly around half a dimension and has a co-dimension
of little less than about a quarter suggest that the existence of a “point charge” is
questionable in any dynamic system. Since any interaction constant needs motion or
dynamics to be able to be determined, by experiment or by mathematical technique, the
terms “complementarity” and “uncertainty” become a key feature of both mathematical
and physical reality. For the dimensionality of a moving point to be determined, we need
to consider that we need one dimension to enable movement of a point which has zero
dimensions as such, if at rest. The minimum value of the uncertainty between position
and momentum is ½. Hence, we can conjecture that a “point particle” in the conventional
picture needs to be replaced by a point-like geometrical object of a dimension between
0.4 and 0.66 dimensions. Remarkable here is the asymmetry around ½ dimensions. The
exact meaning of ½ dimensions is not very clear, but may be derived from the meaning of
1.5 dimensions, as we will see. If this point would move without uncertainty in position,
it would create at least a second point which creates a line between the point’s positions
before and after movement. If now some noise or zitterbewegung is added to its
movement due to uncertainty, the total co-dimension becomes greater than one. If the
point stays in its position with uncertainty and thus exhibits dimensionality of smaller
than one and greater than zero, a quarter co-dimension may be explained by its
uncertainties in velocity (momentum), position (radius) and dimensionality. We have
used a product of momentum difference and difference in position to determine the
dimensions where the interaction radius corresponds to the experimentally determined
charge. Hence, the uncertainty in position needs to correspond to an uncertainty in
dimension as well. In this picture, a point’s dimensionality between zero and one
dimension denotes its readiness to move at the minimum average speed of ½.149
A further interesting issue is that because of the fractional dimensions involved in our
determination of minimal interaction constants, we need to consider defects in the space
structure which automatically will lead to defects in the time structure. Rowlands [24]
points out some very interesting aspects on continuity and divisibility of space and time.
In the conventional perception time seems to be infinitely divisible. At least two
arguments may be considered against such an allegation. First, there arises the very well
known paradox of Zeno of Elea, and second, if we would try to infinitely divide time we
would need to construct a periodic motion of infinite frequency which means infinite
energy would be needed to drive such motion. Space, on the other hand, gives no rise to
the allegation that it is not infinitely divisible as such, but this becomes a fundamental
issue if such space contains dynamic systems or, in the Machian sense, is dynamically
evolving due to the dynamics of its contents. In the definitions of velocity, acceleration,
jerk or snap, time is the independent variable, and space is the dependent variable. As we
have seen above, interactions are taking place where irregularities like zitterbewegung are
involved and acceleration in regards to the radius of our toy universe becomes noisier the
smaller our structure is. According to Seiberg’s allegation mentioned above, we swapped
149
Our calculations above rely often on mean values, because of the imposed constraints in observability.
We remind the reader that we look at our length and time interval defined as one as the smallest discernable
distance which is not scaled.
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space-like coordinates into time-like ones and tacitly accepted this also happening to
fractional dimensions. If we accept this, we have to accept defects in time and allow
fractal time. In such case it is essential to discuss the effect of defects in time on the
physics that is happening around such defect. If we allow fractional dimensions for space,
our situation is somehow clear and the consequences for experimental predictions are
known, but if we allow a deviation from the one-dimensionality of time, those
consequences are not entirely clear. If we, however, define the arrow of time or the flux
of time as a consequence of the thermodynamic behavior of the distribution of matter in
space, a fractal time dimension becomes thinkable. This may result in a discontinuous
and heterogeneous flux of time.
In Kobelev’s papers [25] the fractality of time produces preferred coordinate systems, but
we think this can be remedied by leaving the overall dimension of time an integer,
meaning the fractality is localized. One possible solution to this dilemma is to consider an
initial jerk or snap for an input of energy, but then we consider our toy universe as open
to inputs from objects of negative dimensionality which could be regarded as reservoir
spaces or sinks making the observable universe a dissipative system. We have such
objects in the form of black and white holes or naked singularities available in our
universe. The contents of such objects may reside inside the singularities, and could be
interpreted as residing in negative dimensions, if one accepts the notion that negative
dimensional space is contained in a singularity. Both positive and negative dimensional
spaces together may then be regarded as a conservative system with an average integer
time. An interesting feature of fractal space-time is its time asymmetry that is restored to
symmetry if the fractal and non-differentiable features are taken out of this picture.
Another point that we want to put our attention to in future work is the influence of the
acceleration function a (r, n) and the jerk and snap function on the behavior of strings. In
particular the acceleration’s irregular surface may cause some interesting chaotic
behavior when applied to strings.
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minimum space for movement and movement densities in n dimensions. We have not
scaled our results to any physical size; nevertheless the results are somehow intriguing, if
we scale to natural units. We have done this implicitly by scaling to one. We want to
conclude with a discussion what the dimensional treatment of a moving point in n
dimensions reveals and what it does not.
The moving point’s velocity or momentum can only be determined by two positions in
space-time. If the movement is accelerated, one does not know what exactly happens
between these two positions, mathematically and experimentally. We determined an
emergence of the numerical value of the fine structure constant at co-dimension ≈1.1
around 5 dimensions in our representation. This reveals that the point needs at least one
dimension to move plus some dispersion of that movement. To cover around one co-
dimension between zero and two space dimensions we need at least ⅔ of that value of the
fine structure constant. Between the same dimensions momentum density considerations
revealed numerical values in the range of the strong interaction at mZ [2], where fractional
electrical charges occur as charges of quarks. This should be further investigated but lies
beyond the scope of this paper. Furthermore we have to ask the question whether time is
determinable with absolute exactness. The answer is no, because time is measured by
clocks, and clocks have the intrinsic property of periodic movement to which we compare
a position in space-time. Hence, space-time has to be “rough” and only differentiable in a
“blurred” picture. If this is taken into account, our spherical position space element needs
to have a rough surface as well which amplifies the effects observed on our allegedly
smooth model.
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should be quantized. The only plausibility is to look for standing waves in a resonator
(space?), or just take multiples of unit intervals in position space and relate them to a set
of dimensions as we have done with momentum density volumes. For that set of
dimensions we take the largest radius equivalent to an interaction constant minimum as a
measure for our volume element and extrapolate to the other dimensions.
Besides the unfinished items “beyond the scope of this paper” mentioned above we want
to suggest a few things worth looking at in the context of this little model that rendered α
= 1/137 so surprisingly:
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Last not least we ask whether the constraint of minimum two space-time points in the
primary structure of position space to determine any complementary spaces with all its
uncertainties is a must for observer participation or not.
Finally, we can answer the question in the title as follows: mathematical structure and
physical reality can well be the same thing, but will that structure ever be complete? –
We doubt it, without observer participation in form of at least interpretation, not to speak
of measurements, and encoding it into something we call “insight”, it may well be the
same thing and even complete, but we will not recognize it for lack of completeness in
our human way of using mathematics as a language. Some fill-ins between Wheeler’s
signposts will always remain papier-mâché as long as mathematics is incomplete, at least
for a TOE (this expression is also subject to a definition agreed upon by individuals by
consensus – a compromise). Last not least we need to remark that all distinctions like
Tegmark’s “reality independent of us humans” are man-made separations dependent
solely on the man-made decision where to draw the line. In a real GUT or TOE those
lines must be moveable at random, because all needs to be one, otherwise it cannot be a
GUT or TOE.
References:
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[18] H. Jung, Ueber die kleinste Kugel, die eine räumliche Figur einschliesst, Journal für die reine und
angewandte Mathematik 123, 241 – 257, 1901
[19] D. Hestenes, The Zitterbewegung Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Found. Phys. 20, No. 10,
1990, 1213 – 1232
[20] J. Barbour, The End of Time, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1999.
[21] F.R. Klinkhamer, Fundamental length scale of quantum space time foam, JETP Lett. 86, 73
(2007), ArXiv [gr-qc] 0703009v5.
[22] N. Seiberg, 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics, Dec. 2005, ArXiv [hep-th] 0601234v1, 31 Jan
2006.
[23] N. Arkani-Hamed et al., Universal dynamics of spontaneous Lorentz violation and a new spin-
dependent inverse square law of force, ArXiv 0407034v3, 2004.
[24] P. Rowlands, A foundational approach to physics, ArXiv [physics] 0106054, 19 Jun 2001.
[25] L.Ya. Kobelev, Physical consequences of moving faster than light in empty space, ArXiv [gr-qc]
0001043v1, 15 Jan 2000.
L.Ya. Kobelev, Can a particle’s velocity exceed the speed of light in empty space?, ArXiv [gr-qc]
0001042v1, 15 Jan 2000.
After this interlude we need to remind ourselves, John Wheeler asked the question in a bit
different way: “Are billions upon billions of acts of observer-participancy the foundation of
everything?” He also remarks: “What we call reality consists of an elaborate papier-mâché
construction of imagination and theory fitted in between a few iron posts of observation.”
Einstein, Tolman and Podolski proved150 there is a problem in knowing the exact past in the
same way as knowing the exact future due to constraints imposed by quantum mechanics that
arise from a limitation of the knowledge that can be obtained by measurement of momentum.
They conclude that “the principles of quantum mechanics must involve an uncertainty in the
description of past events which is analogous to the uncertainty in the prediction of future
events. It is also to be noted that although it is possible to measure the momentum of a
particle and follow this with a measurement of position, this will not give sufficient
information for a complete reconstruction of its past path, since it has been shown that there
can be no method for measuring the momentum of a particle without changing its value.
Finally, it is of special interest to emphasize the remarkable conclusion that the principles of
quantum mechanics would actually impose limitations on the localization in time of a
macroscopic phenomenon such as the opening and closing of a shutter.”
150
Einstein, A., Tolman, R.C., Podolski, B., “Knowledge of past and future in quantum mechanics”, Phys.
Rev., 37, 780-81 (1931).
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definition of measurement or state reduction which allows one to express objectivity. This
first of all needs a definition of objectivity as such.
Objectivity is the opposite of subjectivity which is the way any individual sees an event
happening. Subjectivity is the default state of any observation because of the principle of
relativity, as we have seen above. Any observer will have his own reference system and with
that his own world line within the event horizon he is in, and that precludes any observation
of any event from being strictly objective in the sense of the definition given for objectivity.
For one-particle experiments such objectivity is fundamentally unattainable for the reason of
each and any observation in the sense of the quantum mechanical definition that such
observation is only complete if communicable information is produced. Any of the quantum
erasure experiments show that if and only if such communicable information is erased,
complementary information can be recovered with the constraint that such recovery is never
simultaneous with the registration of the original event. Hence, both observations have
always different space-time coordinates.
On grounds of this argumentation we can conjecture that objectivity is in all cases constraint
by an uncertainty dictated by the necessity for at least two non-interfering and un-entangled
bits to be produced for a measurement to be objective. These two bits can never have the
same space-time coordinates as two points can never have completely identical coordinates in
any space whatsoever without being one point all together. The distance of these two bits in
space-time determines the uncertainty of the objectivity achieved. In plain language this
means, since we constructed the definition of objectivity by the necessity of two independent
subjective observations of the “same” event, objectivity always is incomplete and never
absolute. We can understand this in the same way as a measurement always has an error and
with that is subjective in regard to its private world coordinates, any objectivity can only be
understood as a reduction of the uncertainty of such world coordinates by a second
measurement by which at least a second communicable registration of the same event takes
place. This is, however, not realizable for one-particle experiments such as quantum erasure
and the similar. One and the same event can only be measured twice if once erased, and
hence, it is not the same event anymore. At least one space-time coordinate-value of the
second registration needs to differ by at least an infinitesimally small amount from the first.
In any physical system the recognition of such a difference is dependent on the resolution of
the measurement device. Likewise in a mathematical model of the system this one
coordinate-value needs to differ by at least an infinitesimally small amount δ which inter alia
determines the uncertainty of the objectivity.
151
Simonius, M., “Measurement in Quantum Mechanics: From Probabilities to Objective Events”,
Helvetica Physica Acta 66 (1993) 721, and references therein.
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Let us now look a bit more carefully at our infinite sphere which in two dimensions is
represented by a circle with infinite radius. Consider two antipodal points on a circle with
finite radius. Two lines extending outward from any point on such circle meet in its
respective antipodal point. If we extend the radius of the circle to infinity, the lines extending
from such a point approach a straight line as the curvature of the circle approaches zero. In
the limit of infinity of the radius the lines through the antipodal points become parallel, but
still they meet in the respective other antipodal point in infinity. Hence, we can conjecture
that the point in infinity is equivalent to an infinite circle or sphere and to two parallel lines or
planes infinitely far apart from each other. Now consider a radius-line of a finite circle
extending from its center point to one of the antipodal points and a second line extending
from its center point at an angle φ to the radius and let us construct a tangent of the circle
through that antipodal point. The radius intersects the circle and the tangent in the same point
while the line at an angle φ to that radius intersects the circle and the tangent in two different
points, and the latter at an angle θ. The distance between these two points tends to zero in the
limit of infinity of the radius, while the angles θ and φ remain constant. It is obvious that a
reconstruction of the center point from two neighboring points of the circular curve by
intersecting two lines intersecting the curve rectangularly will yield that center point in case
of a finite and in case of an infinite radius. If we, however, try to reconstruct the center point
of the infinite circle by using the tangent and the angle θ, we will, despite of the distance of
the two intersecting points tending to zero, arrive at a contradiction. This represents the
indeterminacy of the locus of the neighboring point, pushing it infinitely far from the
tangential point of the curve rendering the distance of the circular curve from the tangent as
infinitely large. We can conclude that in the limit of infinity it is uncertain whether objects
are curved or straight and, despite the knowledge of a certain large surface area, it is
uncertain where the center point can be found. We can say, in this limit the center point
becomes disjoint into infinity from the surface of the object and from the point in infinity.
The very nature of information, being physical, and mathematics being a language expressing
such information and its processing and even its creation, transmission and reading, demands
also for mathematical structure and objects uncertainty. This uncertainty arises, as we have
seen, from limit operations and as soon as infinities are involved in any argumentation.
Hence, indeterminism and paradoxical situations in any theories or descriptions are
ubiquitous, as is incompleteness.
The locus of the center point in our universe is indeterminable in space and in time. As we
have discussed above, our space-time is a four dimensional space lying on a spherical
surface, which is represented by the de Sitter space-time. It is a Lorentzian four-sphere of
imaginary radius, giving intrinsic metric signature (+, -, -, -) in Minkowski five-space. If we
suppress two spatial dimensions, we arrive at a hyperboloid with an of course disjoint
singular center point which was the origin of all.
עשר ספירות בלי מה נעוץ סופן בתחלתן בסופן כשלהבת קשורה בגחלת שאדון יחיד ואין
לו שני ולפני אחד מה אתה סופר:
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Ten sfirot of nothingness, their end is embedded in their beginning and their beginning in
their end, like a flame in a burning coal, for the master is singular, he has no second, and
before One, what do you count?
The singular ( )יחידmaster is after stabilization of His Creation disjoint from all the spaces
populated by the worlds and the sfirot. Since G-d is absolutely One, he can also not be called
the Cause, as this would imply an effect as a “second”. Hence, we have to regard also the
Cause as a creation of the Holy One Blessed be He ((קדוש ברוך הוא, and this creation needs
to be acausal, simply because before the concept of cause is created as a byproduct of time,
there is no cause for the cause, it just emerges as time emerges at the onset of dynamics. In
His unlimited sense, infinite dimensionally and with the highest possible symmetry as
expressed in the language of Mathematics, He needs neither space nor time; in His projected
sense onto the Worlds and with the Infinite Light He encompasses all152.
The construction of the צינורis also clear now. It is according to the above analysis of our
mathematical structure resembled by the reciprocal space of the space spanned up by our
concentric spheres, namely momentum space. If we represent such reciprocal space
geometrically correct, it will have in three dimensions the form of a Mexican hat open at its
top. Principally, Etz Chaim and other kabbalistic literature describe the space where
movement and dynamics are described as the צינור, while the sfirot are the spaces of static
locations. The center point which becomes disjoint from the sphere system describes by its
movement during the fluctuation of the outermost sphere a straight line into the reshimo
system of the spheres as described by the Ari z”l. The uncertainty and the properties of the
reciprocal space or momentum space described above give it a thickness.
According to the Zohar, Etz Chaim and Sefer HaBahir the Infinite Light does not exist
between the innermost sfirah and the center point as well as the רקיעיםbetween the sfirot do
not contain it. The allusion of the light being set aside, as we have discussed at the beginning
of this treatise, suggests the separation from the Creator rather than a creation of light. The
same is true for the רקיעor “firmament/demarcation”. This can also be construed by the fact
that the Torah, 'בראשית א, does only mention ויהיfor “let there be” and ויבדלor מבדילfor
“separate” or “distinguish/demarcate” and not ויעשfor “made” like for all that was put into
action actually after the creation process. This shows that the (upper and lower) waters as
well as light and darkness or land and sea did not have to be put into action, just
distinguished. They existed before days could be measured by any spiritual or physical being
other than the Creator Himself.
The treatment of space and time as well as of any information inside other dimensions than
physical space and time and their categorization through observational and registrational
activity, and their processing through the mind or other means always obey the laws of
Nature which were created and set into place by the Creator, no matter whether they are
known or unbeknown to us. We learned before that all dimensions, with a few exceptions,
defined by opposites are infinite and their limit has no end. An exception to this is time
which has a beginning and another one is mass which can only be positive, they have no
opposites. Both constitute half-dimensions according to the definition of dimension that
152
Please note the two aspects of the Creator which always will remain a dichotomy of His existence in an
ever evolving state, because the Total Existence is and will always be a closed system without anything
besides it.
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Sifra Detzniuta 1:5 states: “The will of all wills that is revealed with the prayers of those
below.” This will of all wills corresponds to the forehead of Adam Kadmon downwards
through that of Arich and Zeir Anpin to the actual partzufim of all Jews descending from
Jacob, Rachel and Leah, depending on the level of decision making and on the world(s)
involved. In such a way the will revealed by prayers of those below becomes physically
understandable as making demarcations on dimensions involved in those prayers.
Conceptually this is also true for decisions made on halachot made by those below on the
given 613 mitzvoth and their dimensions, which is the reason why the Creator gave the
power to make those decisions to the Earthly Court. This we will discuss in detail later when
we analyze such decision making by an example from the Gemara.
One of the most important consequences of the above discussion about creatio ex nihilo is
that such creation is effected and only becoming possible by the removal of idealizations of
pure geometry or of parts of freedom of action by symmetry and state reductions rather than
by adding something to the structure at the onset of Creation. As we have seen above, such
uncertainties are given together with the fractal dimensional behavior of dynamic processes
in position space and its complementary spaces. Energy production is achieved by taking
away information or structure, precisely according to the specification of such taking away
by Sefer Yetzirah: The action of חקקconstitutes a top-down construction from the infinite.
To illustrate this proposal of Kabbalah we can conjecture the following: In the always
evolving state of the Infinite Total Existence there exists latently all ever possible
information, structures, and thoughts and, in short, absolutely everything. Through state
reductions of parts of this everything and the discarding of information that results in its
transformation into energy or “light” these parts of the formerly evolving “everything”
become manifest and stabilized observable entities. This approach supports the attribute of
the Creator as “Almig-ty” and is supported by Etz Chaim as we have discussed above. The
obvious question should arise now after we advocated the principle of taking away or
reduction rather than using the magic hat-trick of creatio ex nihilo, where does anything
come from, if we have nothing at the beginning? – Answer: It is coming from the dichotomy
of absolutely nothing and One, with One being All. We can argue like this, because in the
same way as we conjectured the fluctuation of the point into an n-dimensional sphere system,
we can conjecture that these fluctuations may contain anything that might ever be created in
an evolving state waiting for state reductions and symmetry breakings as the tool for
manifestations of Creation.
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Up to now we have seen in our analysis of Creation, at least in the scientific argumentation
that uncertainty and incompleteness are unavoidable in such a creation process. We want to
further argue that such an uncertain, statistical and relativistic system is to be preferred to a
rigid deterministic system of infinite precision. The best example to explain this is the
processing and storage of information in computer science. There we use statistics for the
recovery of data and to stabilize computer systems and, of course, quantum computer
systems. The statistical nature of data systems such as computers and the human brain justify
to approach the functionality of a thinking process in such brain or if we want to talk about
consciousness the functionality of same with quantum theory. It is widely accepted that
consciousness or mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material
brain. Since Quantum Theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently
available, it is legitimate to ask whether Quantum Theory and with that also Information
Theory could help us to understand consciousness. May the reader be reminded that
information being physical needs a carrier and that such carrier can be space. To be
communicable, such information needs to be imprinted on a carrier that is readable by the
entity it is destined for. Evolving information is not accessible or observable.
The original motivation in the early 20th century for relating quantum theory to consciousness
was essentially philosophical. It is fairly plausible that conscious free decisions or Free Will
are problematic in a perfectly deterministic world, so quantum randomness might indeed
open up novel possibilities to explain free will. On the other hand, however, randomness is
problematic for volition. Quantum theory introduced an element of randomness standing out
against the previous deterministic worldview, in which randomness, if it occurred at all,
simply indicated our ignorance of a more detailed description as for example in statistical
physics. In sharp contrast to such epistemic randomness, quantum randomness in processes
such as spontaneous emission of light, radioactive decay, or other examples of state reduction
is considered a fundamental feature of nature, independent of our ignorance or knowledge.
To be precise, this feature refers to individual quantum events, whereas the behavior of
ensembles of such events is statistically determined, so that the indeterminism of individual
quantum events is constrained by statistical laws. As we have seen above, this is connected
with the placement of the רקיעbetween the states expected to measure. Individual events
have a chance to happen or not while large numbers of events underlie the rules of classical
statistics, and hence the רקיעshifts into infinity away from the events desired to measure.
Other features of quantum theory which were found attractive in discussing issues of
consciousness were the concepts of complementarity and entanglement. Pioneers of quantum
physics such as Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, Pauli and others emphasized the various possible
roles of quantum theory in reconsidering the old conflict between physical determinism and
conscious free will.
Variants of the dichotomy between mind and matter range from their fundamental distinction
at a primordial level of description to the emergence of conscious mind from the brain as an
extremely sophisticated and highly developed material system. One important aspect of all
discussions about the relation between mind and matter is the distinction between descriptive
and explanatory approaches. Correlation is a descriptive term with empirical relevance, while
causation is an explanatory term associated with theoretical attempts to understand
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correlations. This we have seen extensively in our discussion of causality and statistical
causality. For example in statistical causality the correlations of two systems can result from
a common cause in their history rather than from a direct causal interaction. An example for
this is quantum entanglement, where the entanglement stems from let us say a common
source of the particles. In physical systems causal relations typically represent interactions.
For the mind-matter problem, the situation seems to be more difficult, because space-time
itself or the vacuum can be carriers of information153 so that it seems to us as if there is a
difference between mental and physical processes. In our opinion, the physicality of
information only concerns its existence, processing and rendering as such, and not the
information content at all154. That is rather to be described by mathematical means, bearing in
mind that mathematics itself is a language and information is normally processed by
mathematical operations. This has to take place on a physical carrier, but the main question is
how the information processing is organized in a brain as a processing physical carrier. As an
analog for that the principle of a computer with all its limitations and despite its different
architecture might be a good start to understand the difference between information content
and its carrier or processing system. A computer can contain information as its carrier but has
next to no influence on the content of such information, content denoting what the
information in question may mean for the computer user. Such information content is
independent of the carrier while its processing is dependent on it. The content is fed into the
system from outside or, in some very limited cases may be programmed into the architecture
of the carrier. In case of e.g. a human being most of the information content in the brain is
acquired from outside through the sensory system, while all information content governing
the body and its organs is genetically encoded. How far acquired information becomes
genetically encoded including all mechanisms necessary therefore is only sparsely known at
the time of the writing of this book. Adaptation of organisms to the environment for example
and the possibility of encoding such mechanisms leading to such adaptations into the genetic
make-up of biological entities are today very sparsely researched. In the genetic code of an
animal or a plant many sequences are “white spots on the map” or called garbage code. This
does not mean they have no function. Their function is simply not known to us for the
moment, but surely further research will reveal the purpose of such code. For that reason
research into this direction should not be subject to ideologically colored dismissals and
political arguments. Evolution and adaptive behavior of organisms are far too little
researched for either advocacy or dismissal in our quest to theoretize about the development
of life. Its Physics and the Physics of consciousness is far too little known to embark into
such battles.
153
The physical vacuum contains structure as can be seen from the Casimir effect which will be discussed
later. The information carried by the vacuum is of quantum nature.
154
The question is, who imprints such information content on a brain and how is it done?
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definition ranges from “mentally unstable” to “mentally stable”, meaning the mental activity
of the former is distorted while the latter is not. This refers to social behavior patterns rather
than states of the brain related to a certain activity. Compared to a physical state of a particle
or an informational state of a bit which is described by either some quantum numbers or
simply by zero or one, a mental state rather refers to a mostly complicated bit-map of
information. In our previous discussion we tried to define a most primitive state of self-
consciousness by inferring a will or “intentional consciousness”. To understand will or
intentional consciousness we need to define and explain “will” and “intention”.
An intention is a thought pre-mediating an action, for example making a choice and carrying
it out. This pre-mediating thought, be it rational or irrational, underlies an at least partially
algorithmic process initiating a decision as explained above, when we spoke about decision
making. In a reductionist approach a neural network can be regarded as having an intention to
for example find an event or a pattern of events after it was taught to recognize such an event
or pattern. This can be achieved by a pure software application using a computer as a carrier
of information. It can be said, the neural network, if activated, intends to find the learned
pattern, but can it be deemed conscious of that pattern? – We think within the limitations yes,
if it is switched on it is conscious of the pattern and may recognize it, if it is switched off it is
unconscious in the sense of our definition here. A living organism may be conscious of food,
but if unconscious, it will not recognize the food. In our search for a most primitive sort of
consciousness we have to accept such a definition which is supported by the fact that a
particle detector system that produces communicable information to effect a state reduction
permanently is rudimentarily conscious but not self-conscious.
The second definition needed is that of “will”. Will is connected with desire, and hence, our
neural network could be deemed willing to find the pattern it is programmed to find. One
could now argue that will and intention do not apply to pre-programmed machines, however
intelligent155 they are. On the other hand, we tried to explain the mechanism of the onset of
creation with its first state reduction involving the discarding of information and transforming
it into energy by the “simple and smooth will” of the Creator as described in Etz Chaim.
According to Kabbalah and Physics, there exists an extreme reductionist definition of will:
the forgetting of at least one bit of information to create energy and time. It is remarkable that
in Kabbalah this will ( )רצוןis not described as an intention ()כוונה, which is fully in
accordance with modern science.
To shed a little bit more light onto the conundrum of consciousness or, if one likes to call it
the physics of consciousness, let us go back to information, causality and time, having
quantum theory and relativity in mind.
Quantum information is deemed to be able to travel forward and backward in time, which is
surprisingly helpful for us to see what the implications of a particular quantum entanglement
are that are otherwise not so obvious. The reverse time channel of a quantum information link
presents the quantum amplitudes as complex conjugates of the forward in time channel’s
amplitudes. In decision making we have seen that the cause of a choice may be an event in
the future, an anticipated event, the probability of which to occur in reality is sought to be
influenced by the maker of the choice. In our mind, the signal from the anticipated event
travels back to the present and lets us make a decision for a choice of action. In Physics, we
155
Intelligence here is regarded as defined above as a measure for the ability to learn.
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can suppose that an EPR pair of spin ½ particles is created from a spin 0 source. In the
production of the particle pair we allow the rotation of the spin of one of the particles by a
magnetic field with the result that the other particle will have opposite spin without having
been in a magnetic field, if the particles are entangled. Any process that produces an EPR
entangled pair has the past-propagating quantum information in one channel reflected back
into the future to become the future-propagating quantum information in the other channel.
There is no difference whether one regards the one or the other channel as past-propagating
or future-propagating; they are fully interchangeable. Such time reversal requires the
complex conjugation of the amplitudes and hence, there is an orientation reversal between the
Riemann spheres of the respective entangled particles. For photons produced in parametric
down-conversion it is also not possible to extract two entangled photons with the same
polarization, but only opposite polarization. Another feature of entanglement is that
according to the standard quantum mechanical procedures of unitary evolution,
entanglements will have a tendency to spread throughout the universe so that one can hardly
find any un-entangled states. This is practically not the case, as we can see in various
experiments where we can regard the quantum states as un-entangled. State reduction is the
only mechanism capable of cutting through an entanglement, either by observation or by
another “objective state reduction” as proposed above for our Uranium nucleus, where we
considered the gravitational self-energy of the evolutionary system doing the cutting. The
space-time curvature at the locus of an entangled or evolutionary state is unstable and a
superposition of the resulting states after the cutting. This instability ill-defines the Killing
vector ∂/∂t which leads to the collapse of the wavefunction in a time-frame dictated by the
curvatures in question. The Schrödinger operator ∂/∂t in such a situation corresponds to the
action of the Killing vector representing the time displacement of stationarity of the space-
times associated with the respective states making up the superposed or entangled state. The
Killing vectors for these respective states are always different from each other as they
represent time symmetries of different space-times, because of the principle of general
covariance of the principle of relativity. The deviation of the Killing vectors of the respective
states making up the superposed, evolutionary or entangled state means an uncertainty in the
identification of the respective Schrödinger operators which corresponds to the gravitational
self-energy of the difference between the mass distributions of the states making up the
superposed state. This self-energy determines the statistical mean of the decay time of the
superposition or entanglement. If, for a single point-particle, one would define the states as
position states, the gravitational self-energy uncertainty would reach infinity. This is valid
only if the point particle is idealized as a mathematical point that is infinitely small. As soon
as we allow some small size due to noise, this uncertainty acquires a large but finite value.
In view of objective state reduction and entanglement as well as proposed extra dimensions
of the Kalutza-Klein type the question arises whether such reduction can be interpreted as a
production of communicable information which would mean the discarding of some of the
information available in non-communicable form in the superposed or fluctuating state. The
non-communicability of pure quantum information related to superposed or entangled states
would explain its non-constrainedness by the usual spatio-temporal causality of relativity. It
cannot be used to transmit information directly, but it can be used together with a classical
signal to achieve effects beyond the capabilities of classical signaling. The basic concept of
quantum information or its processing, quantum computation, is that classical information in
form of bit states of 0 or 1 could be quantum superpositions of both 0 and 1, known as qubits.
Such qubits interact in the computing process by non-local entanglement (instantaneously),
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eventually being observed and reducing into definite states as the solution. The advantage of
quantum information is, it can be teleported and its computation can be done highly parallel
and densely coded because of the vastness of the Hilbert space of quantum states which is
exponentially larger than the classical space. By disentangling the states and with that
reducing them into classical states, the information becomes communicable and half of the
evolutionary information is discarded. In spontaneous objective state reduction terms this
means, half of singly carried out computations are yielding an incorrect or no useful output.
Only if the process is repeatedly done or in a parallel mode, the outcome of the computation
can be statistically tuned to an almost surely correct output. Some research suggests that the
brain requires quantum computing for perception. While a perception algorithm working
bottom up from the identification of contours could achieve a result in polynomial time, it
would not achieve a unique solution. This means that the brain has to work top down through
familiar perception samples on memory as a search engine trawling through all the possible
things it might be perceiving156. Classical computers cannot solve such problems in
polynomial time while quantum computing allows exactly this. In a quantum computing
system the readout process would be initiated by outside influence in form of an operator and
hence, such computing system cannot be called conscious. A conscious system should make
such readout at its own will, in other words spontaneously. Such spontaneous action can be
induced by an objective state reduction as proposed in the form of a gravitational state
reduction which is effectively dependent on the curvatures of the space-times of the quantum
state carriers involved in the process. How this could be interpreted as a very simple form of
will we shall try to conjecture now.
Let us return to the definition of will ( )רצוןin Kabbalah. It is associated with the Crown (
)כתרwhich is outside and above all other mental processes, removed from every imaginable
mental concept, because it is a very simple impulse, so to say spontaneous, in opposition to
intent ( )כוונהwhich requires the formulation of a procedure leading to an action. This can for
example be the result of a decision making process as outlined above. If we accept that will is
a spontaneous action with minimal or no differentiation, we can identify it with an objective
action which belongs to the level of the hardware of an information system. Being
spontaneous in the physical sense it underlies the statistics of quantum state reduction, if a
quantum information system is concerned. Then this objective action or will can be induced
by gravitational effects and other means like e.g. observation. Since the gravitational
proposal is dependent on the superposed state itself introducing this gravitational state
reduction, it can be conjectured that the superposed state is self-willing. If we accept will as
the most primitive form of intent, we can say it is self-conscious in the most reductionist way,
because its own properties in form of the space-time curvatures of its constituent entangled
states determine its disentanglement. A proposal for such a view of consciousness has been
brought forward by Penrose and Hameroff157, but experimental verification is still subject of
ongoing research. Gravitationally induced collapse of the wavefunction, however, has very
strong theoretical evidence based on experimental data. We will for this purpose propose an
156
This reminds strongly on the top-down approach of the principle of חקקduring Creation and
Formation.
157
Penrose, R., “On Gravity’s Role in Quantum State Reduction”, General Relativity and Gravitation, 28,
No. 5, 1996; “Quantum Computation, Entanglement and State Reduction”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A
(1998) 356, 1927-1939.
Hagan, S., Hameroff, S., Tuszyński, J., (2002) “Quantum Computation in Brain Microtubules?
Decoherence and Biological Feasibility”, Phys. Rev. E, 65, 061901.
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experiment for the verification of gravitationally induced state reduction in our outlook on
ongoing and future research.
The forward and backward travel of quantum information in time has a parallel in decision
making. Information theoretically we can see that the flow and causality of information can
be happening in both directions, where classical information flow backwards in time is
constrained to statistical and not physical time. This is the orthogonal case to quantum
information that can travel backwards in physical time. Let us see whether we can use this
orthogonality to formulate a sensible connection between quantum and classical information
via uncertainty relations similar to those in quantum theory.
Will seems to be closely related to spontaneous actions or emanations that then, again
spontaneously, lead to creations and formations as described above. Concerning the mind and
the soul with its different levels, quantum information may play the main role in shaping and
exercising will (at least in its most simple form) and maybe also in the shaping of intentions
and thoughts that are not explicable physically. Objective state reductions are very good
candidates for being the cause158 of what we perceive or explain as will. If we consider the
principle of engraving ( )חקקwe learned about in Sefer Yetzirah and all that we learned
about the evolutionary state of the unobserved and with that non-reduced worlds
(Schrödinger or Wheeler-de Witt equation describing this state), we can conjecture that all
information processing choices (choices of algorithms or reductions) may in the primordial
stage be made by such spontaneous objective state reductions in the following manner: All
possible information processing algorithms or non-algorithms are latently available in the
evolving state of the Total Existence. By state reductions due to a simplest possible will,
spontaneously and statistically first symmetry breakings occur, losing complementary
information and gaining energy. By the same token, information is destroyed at dimensional
reduction processes. In case of infinitely many dimensions it is possible to reduce only a
finite number of them and leave the rest untouched in the evolving state until the next part of
that still infinite content is reduced. In drawing a line ( )רקיעbetween the reduced and
henceforth stable and the still evolving unstable or fluctuating states we construct a
distinction within the Total Existence without touching its requirement to be and remain One.
This needs to be understood as the demarcation between reduced and unreduced states in the
assembly of all worlds. Within the system “Total Existence” itself such reductions are
reversible at will, so to say, unless reduced forever by self-observation in form of production
of communicable information. In case of non-communicable information such reduction
would be reversible as seen in the delayed choice quantum erasure experiment. This רקיע
between the reduced and evolving phases of the Total Existence will then appear as if the
evolving part exerts “will” and “intentions” onto the reduced part by enriching it by new
reduced material or information159.
The “line drawn” between the evolving and the reduced part of the Total Existence can for
example be the רקיעbetween the Infinite Light and כתרof Adam Kadmon. Atzilut could be
a transfer station for unreduced “packets” emanating that get state reduced informationally in
158
Cause here has to be understood in its extended sense, namely including statistical causality which is
sometimes regarded as acausal.
159
This is not to be understood as matter, but as a rather general term denoting anything mental, spiritual or
matter-related.
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Beriah, still leaving a material תהו ובהוin Yetzirah which gets ordered and formed into what
we perceive in Assiyah physically and informationally.
Now that we have a primitive notion of will we can proceed to see whether we can produce
an insight what may be the most primitive notion of intent. This intent is needed to define a
most simple form of (self-)consciousness for the purpose of creation and the further
conscious interaction with that at least partially conscious creation. We can here only try to
come up with a proposal as there is no clear professional definition of consciousness
available at the time of the writing of this treatise. Above we said, will can be the most
primitive form of intent. This explains that intent in a more elaborate form is sufficient but
not necessary to explain all above mentioned state reductions leading to creation. The form of
consciousness in the primordial state of Creation must have been that of a will in its most
simple form rather than intending self-consciousness of the Total Existence. A more
elaborate form of intention can then be seen in the course of the ever continuing creation
process, for example in the emergence and development of organic and biological entities up
to the development of humans.
This thickness as well as the roughness of the vessels as described in the first gate of Etz
Chaim as scattering the backflow of light shows also that a demarcation in general is not an
infinitely thin idealized object but a physically extended subspace of the higher worlds. It
provides space in the appropriate dimensions and suggests with that a thickness of any
demarcation in the sense we used that word in our discussions above. Certainly, such an
“oversized” thickness is to be understood as a parable for the intrinsic nature of Creation, its
160
Chagigah 13a: “… and the thickness of a רקיעis a five hundred year journey…”
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uncertainties and statistical and relativistic behavior, which make it robust and stable. By the
same token we can conjecture that the only and only one absolute truth is the existence of the
one Creator, because He incorporates all existence, whether positive or negative. Hence, a
relativistic or uncertain view of His Existence is not possible. In the following we will try to
explain truth and its implications within Creation in the framework of Information Theory
and Physics.
Here we will try to find out the logical view of the Torah in comparison to Aristotelian,
Descartian and Kantian logic showing the implications of what we learned so far. It is rather
interesting, how idealizations inherent to Aristotelian logic have influenced the thinking of
Torah scholars despite of their often vehement opposition against Aristo’s philosophy.
The problems caused by Aristotelian logic include the misuse of “properties” as well as
failure to match idealized theories to empirically determined facts. Such logic is using
categories and the rule of the excluded middle to the extent to classify empirical data into
idealized extremes like “good” or “evil” instead of weighing observations and accepting error
margins like we learn it in the Talmud. We need to remind ourselves that separations of
categories are made by ourselves on grounds of personal decisions for particular purposes, at
all times. As an example we might treat Aristo’s “sitting man” and “standing man” as
different objects of observation or as a set of different states of the same object, entirely at
our will or sometimes also with our intention. It is important to note here that we make the
decision where to place the demarcation or רקיעbetween the two objects or between the two
states of the one object. We may iterate to obtain as much accuracy as we need, but we may
never obtain completion or certainty in an idealized form. In reality, such absolutist
objectives are an illusion for humans. As an opposite view to Aristotelian or Kantian
philosophy we will refer to the works of the Rambam who advocates the “golden middle”.
Aristo formalized the categorical thinking that has evolved into a dogma in western society
and with that in Jewish society as well. As a dogma it has been useful for the analysis of the
world we live in, but it also, by its very nature of making categories rigid once defined, has
tended to inhibit creative and realistic thinking. By supposing the definitions of words as
absolutely precise without error or uncertainty margins, Aristotelian logic became a thought
in words where the words rule the thinking. This is the cardinal error in this philosophy,
namely setting Binah before Chochmah. In Kabbalah we learn that Chochmah supersedes
Binah as unclassifying and pure thought or perception. Classifications are only introduced in
Binah which is the third step in Jewish thinking and not the first. Furthermore the Aristotelian
world picture separates the definitions of things or concepts from the thinking individual
before that individual can let such things or concepts evolve in his mind in, if we want to say
so, an entangled state. This would allow thoughts and perceptions to ripen until stabilized by
categorization and verbalization. Since in verbalized thinking (level of Binah) one makes a
choice each time one uses a word forming a category to which only the individual who
performs that particular thought has access and by effecting a choice loses at least half of the
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Words or “properties” are, by their usage and near natural or physical reality, categories
chosen by individuals. The words are not identical with the reality at which individuals point
when they use these words. Reality does not split when we choose our words or use of
categories; categories only help the describer or observer to communicate his relationships
with reality. It is a false assumption to ascribe the power of a demarcation ( )רקיעto the
choice of words which are communicable, but have nothing to do with communicable
information produced by a state reduction. They are only the translation of the communicable
signal produced by such state reduction and with that a secondary effect of that
communicable signal. Hence, language is only a tool for communication and categories are a
sectioning of reality to make it easier for a human to understand reality better. This does,
however, not mean that reality itself is sectioned off by the mere use of language or
categories, unless an interaction with or observation of that reality is effected before the use
of words describing same reality. Reality remains interconnected universally, meaning in an
evolutionary state, despite the usage of words, and we who use these words are universally
connected to that reality; we are part of it and so are the words we create, but they do not
change reality per se. Words or language based descriptions of reality are mere models of
reality with all uncertainties and error margins, if such descriptions are empirically derived or
deduced from observed phenomena. On the other hand, theoretical approaches to describe
reality induce from descriptions normally deduced from observational data theories
predicting new phenomena. In the natural sciences this approach works rather well and in
many cases such predictions are confirmed by experiment, so to say measured reality, later
on.
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has progressed, iterative corrections of theories by observation or empirical data is the more
appropriate way of gaining success in the description of our universe. That is, all ideas of our
view of nature are subject to constant revision as new data are gathered, and previously
axiomatic assumptions are subject to constant adaptation to empirical observational data,
meaning effective axioms are subject to such adaptation to reality by iterative processes of
thinking. Dogmatic and rigid adherence to “immutable laws” has made space for empirical
advances. Kant’s categorical imperative was brought onto very shaky grounds by this
obviously successful method of statistical and iterative modeling of the “truth”. Systematic
progress only develops when descriptions that reasonably reflect reality are established.
Hence, Aristotelian axiomatic systems of thinking introduce errors that are fundamental
deviations of an uncertain and statistical reality from an idealized rigid theory, and because of
that a “theory of everything” based on Aristotle is doomed to failure as is any axiomatic
system of thinking that does not allow any iterative adaptation of its axiomatic.
We have to remind ourselves that language is a mere tool for communication, and so is
mathematics. Mathematical structure, however, has more to it as we have already seen above.
The properties of physical space for instance can be understood as such as a mathematical
structure which is manifested physically, while the mathematical description of it is only
describing that physical manifestation. It is not manipulating it in any way that could change
its properties. This can only be achieved by the interaction of the structures proper
themselves. The use of language, therefore, has to be seen as a way of communicating
observed “reality” allowing the processing of such information by the mind which is not
constrained by the structure of such language in carrying out a thinking process, unless, G-d
forbid, it has lost the ability of non-verbal thinking162. For example, prophetic visions or other
mental perceptions concerning “unknown intellectual territory” and their primary processing
are non-verbal and mostly without any pictorial mental imagination or perception. The verbal
simile is constructed only on communication to another individual or group. This is one of
the reasons that prophetic writings or kabbalistic texts always use the language and
knowledge base of their contemporaries, while sometimes the real information in such texts
can only be recognized and understood much later.
Verbal thinking alone constrains the process of observation and classification of new
phenomena, if the non-verbal thinking ability has degenerated so that such new phenomena
are “pressed” into the existing scheme of categorization of an immutable dogma. Systematic
progress only develops when descriptions that “reasonably” reflect reality are established
bearing in mind the relativity of the perceptions of different observers and bearing in mind
that every observer perceives any event in a different reference system. The maximum
agreement achievable in a group of observers is the set of identical perceptions of properties
of an event or phenomenon or sets of those inside a given context agreed upon by said
observers. The formulation of that set of identical perceptions in any form of language is then
again agreed upon by an iterative process and called “truth”. Identities are mostly agreed
upon and not absolute because of their incompleteness.
162
This would mean to place Binah consciousness over Chochmah consciousness and with that a limiting of
Chochmah to the dimensions of Binah which are less than those of Chochmah.
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question is produced. This formulation can be seen in the same way as a product of a state
reduction of an evolving iterative process which is finalized by an agreement which
information has to be discarded. Said agreement constitutes the establishment of a
demarcation ( )רקיעbetween discarded and retained information producing the “truth” as a
reduced state of the formerly evolving or evolutionary state of the full content of information
before the agreement was reached.
Bearing that in mind, we need to accept the inevitable inaccuracy of all language use or
description of so called truths which constitute the elements of sets of information forming
theories, laws and philosophies or religions. The objects and their interactions described in
such theories, laws and philosophies or religions are just what groups of individuals decide
upon to be “objects”. Objects in this sense do not exist in their own right in the world. In
reality all is One. It just happens to be convenient and useful for humans to separate out and
focus upon parts of that unified reality. May the reader please note that nature itself has
demonstrated such focusing upon parts by what we call in Physics “spontaneous symmetry
breaking”. When a human being decides to refer to some section of reality in order to
examine it or to communicate about it with another human being, it is not possible for either
human being to ever understand exactly what the other human being is focusing upon. It is
not even possible to delineate or define anything completely in the sense of any absolute
frame of reference, because such frame of reference does not exist in the perceivable reality
of any human being. The best that may be hoped for as truth is a good approximation of it163.
It seems now that the most ancient quest of humanity to find the “ultimate truth” is thwarted
and a dream destroyed, but this will only be the case if we insist on absolute and rigid
standards in an ever evolving dynamic world of constant flux. We may proceed, however, by
not worrying too much about the inevitable inaccuracy of all language including mathematics
and information theory, and hence, physics, thus accepting a relaxation of rigor. That is, by
accepting sufficient similarity as a replacement for any ambition to some unattainable total
accuracy or equality. By the same token, we have to accept the incompleteness of
information due to the loss of complementary information, and we have to accept that this
loss of information is substantial.
For example even the idea of a good or evil person or other object of observation in an
absolute and rigid framework of thinking is not fully definable. What it really means is that
the “evil” or “good” person is acting in a way that conflicts with, or alternatively, serves the
interests of the defining subject, its ego or sense of aesthetics. There are no absolute
standards written neither in the laws of nature nor in any G-d given set of rules. As an
example, in Halacha the definition of cooking on Shabbat uses as a standard to define
cooking the temperature of 40 degrees Celsius as sufficient to process food into the cooked
state. The question arises, why not 39 or 41 degrees? – The answer is 40 degrees was agreed
upon by Jewish legal authorities by legal decision making processes. Before the Celsius scale
was invented or even before that the thermometer, it was surely much more difficult to decide
on a threshold value for cooking. Does this mean that people before the ruling of 40 degrees
Celsius sinned if they kept food warm at let’s say 43 degrees on Shabbat? – Surely not, but if
people do so today knowing the “exact” temperature according to a thermometer in their
possession, they surely are liable of a sin. What if the thermometer scale is moved relative to
its pointer so it displays a systematic error and the user is not aware of it? – He will only sin
163
We remind the reader again on the incompleteness theorem of Gödel.
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after he becomes aware of it and continues to use the thermometer. For further discussions
about Jewish law we refer the reader to the Talmud and leave it to his decision whether he
thinks he can find any objectively absolute measures for what is “right” or “wrong”.
According to Jewish law the observance of mitzvoth is to be judged by a court with human
judges who according to the G-d given guidelines of written and oral law, and in the context
of local circumstances, make a decision if so requested by someone.
Hence, we make our own cultural rules according to our power, our comfort and our tastes,
and, last not least, according to our own power of understanding, also in case of our
acceptance of G-d given laws. We refer the reader to our discussion of objectivity and
relativity above, and we refer again to our discussions of observation and its influence on the
perceived “truths”, erasure of same and replacement through another in quantum erasure
experiments. So, extreme caution is at place to presume the existence of “absolute truth”. The
only absolute truth that exists or should exist in our model of the worlds we “know” is that
there is One Absolute Total Existence or if we want to say so, Creator and origin, no other.
Anything else we think of is part of that Creator and if separated out by ourselves, subject to
the laws of nature as discussed so far and with that subject to uncertainties, in particular and
best known to us, our physical and mental worlds, whatever those may be. We may always
increase our precision in knowing them, but we can never be infinitely (or absolutely)
precise.
There is great fear among people that analysis will lead to a removal of “concepts of
perfection”, because those fearful of such removal have difficulties to accept the reality that
insecurity is inherent in uncertainties. As we have seen, uncertainty and statistical or
stochastic behavior of our world makes it robust and allows repair and improvement, תיקון.
In Kabbalah we learn that such תיקוןis the purpose of man in the context of Creation,
through the performance of mitzvoth, inter alia that of constant learning to enhance our
understanding and knowledge about our surroundings or worlds we live in. One of the
aspects of such understanding is to accept experimentally verified facts so long until proven
otherwise by another experiment or reasoning subsequently agreed upon, where the
acceptance of such verification is and always will be subject to iterative thinking and
discussion processes. Such processes are by nature incomplete and should be, not without
reason, subjected to Occam’s razor, at least if scientific method is applied.
Conclusively, any truth besides the Total Existence we are part of has to be treated within its
context and relative to it and other contexts. So far, the view of science with a few allusions
to what we learn in Torah.
Now, what has the Torah to say about truth, and in particular the truth about the Creator, is
there any significant difference? – To attempt an answer, let us quote the Rambam (Moreh
Nevuchim 1:26):
You, no doubt, know the Talmudic saying which includes in itself all the various kinds of interpretation connected with
our subject. It runs thus: “The Torah speaks according to the language of man”, that is to say, expressions which can
easily be comprehended and understood by all, are applied to the Creator. Hence, the description of G-d by attributes
implying corporeality, in order to express His existence, because the multitude of people do not easily conceive
existence unless in connection with a body, and that which is not a body or connected with a body has for them no
existence. Whatever we regard as a state of perfection, is likewise attributed to G-d, as expressing that He is perfect in
every respect, and that no imperfection or deficiency whatever is found in Him. But there is not attributed to G-d
anything which the multitude consider a defect or want; thus He is never represented as eating, drinking, sleeping,
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being ill, using violence, and the like. Whatever, on the other hand, is commonly regarded as a state of perfection is
attributed to Him, although it is only a state of perfection in relation to ourselves; for in relation to G-d, what we
consider to be a state of perfection is in truth the highest degree of imperfection. If, however, men were to think that
those human perfections were absent in G-d, they would consider Him as imperfect.
He clearly states that any description regarding perfection is only in relation to ourselves
which is a clear indication of the relativity of what we perceive as the truth. A further limiting
factor alluded to by the Rambam is the capability of the majority of people to imagine the
“real truth”, whatever that is. Since whoever adheres to Jewish values accepts the truth value
of the Torah as the highest possible, needs to understand this truth to the utmost of his
capabilities, the Torah uses a language maximizing the number of people able to understand
it. To achieve this, the Torah avoids attributes of want of the Creator not to arouse doubts in
the common population that He is perfect, inter alia in the sense of comprising any existence
whatsoever. This becomes clear from the last sentence of our citation.
However, the written Torah never states explicitly the use of metaphors or parables inside its
text. It needs the interpretation of a competent sage if it wants to be understood in depth. Its
laws are interwoven with historical narratives which have to be distinguished from the
content of the mitzvoth conveyed by it, but we call the entire Torah the law of G-d. Does
history conveyed in the Torah in not always chronological sequence become law or has the
sequence of history as conveyed by the text to be regarded as law and absolute truth? –
Certainly not, as we are taught by all our sages. Even at the literal level it allows leeway for
interpretation as we can see when we read different commentaries. This definitely has to do
with an intrinsic property of all Creation as we can perceive it: uncertainty. Such uncertainty
is not a blanket allowance for random sloppiness, however, but obeys at least one rule we
know from Physics and Information Theory: the uncertainties are concerning complementary
sets of information which implies automatically the incompleteness of information we are
able to gather from study. We need to accept this like the fact that we never will be able to
understand and let alone to describe the Creator completely. Does this constitute a lack of
truth and a disappointment? – Definitely not, if we understand that the only absolute
reference frame is that of the Creator, and with that unknowable and not observable by us.
We can only fathom relative truths, with good reason: we can iterate the relative truths by
learning and discussion. We can asymptotically approach the one truth but will never reach it.
Infinitely many steps will be required to reach to it, at least on our own power. Only a
revelation from the side of the Creator can do that by explaining the entire truth from His
frame of reference. How this is possible and how He will do that and when, that remains
speculation as long as it comes from a source that speaks the language of man. The treatment
of such revelation is not subject of this treatise and needs to be discussed elsewhere.
Let us come back to our example of corporeal attributes such as the face of the Creator. If we
accept the text of the Torah as absolute truth, Exodus 23 speaking about the face and the back
of the Creator, we are tempted to assign a face and a back in the literal sense to the Creator.
So does the text of the Torah not convey such truth, G-d forbid? – The Rambam explains in
Moreh Nevuchim 1:21 as follows:
Moses sought to attain to a certain perception which is called “the perception of the Divine Face”, a term occurring in
the phrase “My face cannot be seen”, but G-d vouchsafed to him a perception of a lower degree, the one called “the
seeing of the Back” in the words “and you shall see My Back” (Exodus 23:23). We have mentioned this subject in our
work Mishneh Torah. Accordingly, it is stated in the above mentioned passage that the Lord withheld from Moses that
perception which is termed “the seeing of the Divine Face”, and substituted for it another gift, the knowledge of the
acts attributed to G-d which, as I shall explain, are considered to be different and separate attributes of the Supreme. In
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asserting that G-d withheld from Moses the higher knowledge I mean to say that this knowledge was unattainable, that
by its nature it was inaccessible to Moses: for man, whilst able to gain perfection by applying his reasoning faculties to
the attainment of what is within the reach of his intellect, either weakens his reason or loses it altogether as soon as he
ventures to seek a higher degree of knowledge as I shall elucidate in one of the chapters of this work unless he is
granted a special aid from heaven…
The Rambam here clearly warns not to try to attempt to reach insights which are unattainable
to man. We set that limit of ability to the limits of what is possible to attain by the laws of
nature, namely the uncertainties and relativity of information attainable by experiment and
reasoning taking carefully into consideration the inevitable losses of information inherent to
the decisions and choices constituting such reasoning and observation. We argue that if G-d
withheld information from Moses for the reasons the Rambam denotes in the above citation,
we have to accept such limitation of truth. This definitely concurs with the scientific point of
view we reached above. Hence, again, scientific fact and the Torah agree.
Whether the limit we set here theoretically can ever be reached by mankind depends on the
future development of human reasoning and scientific or philosophical method in both the
study of Nature and of Torah and the development of the human attitude towards that goal.
Dogmatism is of very little help in this endeavor, if not totally detrimental for the attempt of
mankind to attain the highest possible truth value of its knowledge and understanding.
Observations, the learning and understanding of divinely conveyed laws and other
information are constraint by the inevitable decision making process and choices made in the
course of trying to understand any such revelations. If the recipient of a revelation does not
understand it, his interpretations he can convey to others may be false. Even if he fully
understands it, which is purely hypothetical, he will render always an incomplete and
uncertain interpretation, alone due to the uncertainties of language. The not understood
information or the part of information that is discarded by decisions made during the
interpretation process becomes meaningless.
A challenge to attain this highest possible truth value or objectivity is imposed by the fact
that individuals apply their internal understanding of various observations, linguistic
expressions and other impressions on their mind in accord with their individual differing
experiences. The widely held assumption the words one uses to convey the “communicable
information” to another individual or group of individuals have some accepted definition in
the sense of absolute meaning is false. These internal meanings are not understood with
absolute certainty by the recipients of the conveyed information. Said understanding is at best
approximate and depends also on the intrinsic precision of the language used to convey
information. Mathematics has been a great help to achieve this clarity wished for, but is not
accessible universally and maybe less but not totally immune to fallacies. Reason for those
fallacies is the inherent uncertainty of the information gathered by the truth finding process
we call observation. Even a dictionary or collection of mathematical definitions, proofs and
their corollaries and lemmas cannot give authoritative answers in the sense a dogma would
require them to be. This is an unattainable expectation as these can only be guides to an
averaged common use of definitions. Such guides cannot and should not be expected to
render absolute truths; they merely provide approximate relationships between objects of any
kind and their definitions, not some static certainty of same. Definitions themselves have no
static meanings; they are dynamically assigned meanings by locally varying individual
inclinations.
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Dogmatism, for all the above reasons, is therefore very difficult to use as a basis for
understanding the laws of Nature or the Torah. In Kabbalah, the language used and the
subjects tackled are mostly based on revelations given to the prophets or mekubalim. The
language of the prophets is mostly figurative and allows, as intended by the Giver of that
prophetic information, room for interpretation and checks against observable reality. The
Rambam writes in his introduction to Moreh Nevuchim:
My primary object in this work is to explain certain words occurring in the prophetic books. Of these some are
homonyms, and of their several meanings the ignorant choose the wrong ones; other terms which are employed in a
figurative sense are erroneously taken by such persons in their primary signification. There are also hybrid terms,
denoting things which are the same class from one point of view and of a different class from another. It is not here
intended to explain all these expressions to the unlettered or to mere tyros (beginners), a previous knowledge of logic
and natural philosophy being indispensable, or to those who confine their attention to the study of our holy Law, I mean
the study of canonical law alone; for the true knowledge of the Torah is the special aim of this and similar works.
The object of this treatise is to enlighten a religious man who has been trained to believe in the truth of our holy Law,
who conscientiously fulfills his moral and religious duties, and at the same time has been successful in his
philosophical studies. Human reason has attracted him to abide within its sphere, and he finds it difficult to accept as
correct the teaching based on the literal interpretation of the Law, and especially that which he himself or others
derived from those homonymous, metaphorical or hybrid expressions. Hence, he is lost in perplexity and anxiety. If he
be guided solely by reason, and renounce his previous views which are based on those expressions, he would consider
that he had rejected the fundamental principles of the Law; and even if he retains the opinions which were derived from
those expressions, and if, instead of following his reason, he abandon its guidance altogether, it would still appear that
his religious convictions had suffered loss and injury. For he would then be left with those errors which give rise to fear
and anxiety, constant grief and great perplexity…
I do not presume to think that this treatise settles every doubt in the minds of those who understand it, but I maintain
that it settles the greater part of their difficulties. No intelligent man will require and expect that on introducing any
subject I shall completely exhaust it or on commencing the exposition of a figure I shall fully explain all its parts. Such
a course could not be followed by a teacher in viva voce exposition, much less by an author in writing a book, without
becoming a target for every foolish conceited person to discharge the arrows of folly at him… We also stated (Mishneh
Torah I, ii, 12, iv 10) that the expression Ma’aseh Bereshit signified Natural Science and Ma’aseh Merkavah
Metaphysics…
This shows us again the Torah as well as scientific theories need leeway for interpretation
due to empirically gathered new data which might augment such theories like for example
Einstein’s theory of relativity augmented Newtonian physics. This does not mean Newtonian
physics is entirely wrong; it only means that the underlying concept of immutable rigid space
and time was not an appropriate approximation of the truth in the limit of high velocities of
objects and in relation to electrodynamics, to name two examples. Newtonian mechanics or
classical mechanics is still a good approximation in the classical limit where the effects of
Lorentz invariance can be approximated by Galilean invariance. In appropriate limits, both
theories describe the truth, but this example shows that with the empirical gathering of new
data or novel thinking the approximations towards the truth can be improved. The same is
valid for quantum theory and classical statistical physics as we have seen above. The
Rambam’s plea for understanding incompleteness of explanations underlines the principles of
understanding truth in the sense we advocate in this treatise and see it as the appropriate way
of thinking along the lines of our father Avraham (Sefer Yetzirah 4:16):
ארבע אבנים בונות מאה, שלש אבנים בונות ששה בתים,שתי אבנים בונות שני בתים
שבע אבנים בונות חמשת, שש אבנים בונות שבע מאות ועשרים בתים,ועשרים בתים
מכאן ואילך צא וחשוב מה שאין הפה יכול לדבר ואין האוזן יכלה,אלפים וארבעים בתים
לשמוע:
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Two stones build 2 houses, three stones build 6 houses, four stones build 24 houses, five
stones build 120 houses, six stones build 620 houses, seven stones build 5040 houses; from
there go out and calculate that which the mouth cannot speak and the ear cannot hear.
It is obvious that one cannot build two houses from two stones never mind 5040 houses from
seven stones. Avraham Avinu is definitely telling the truth and not only the Jewish people
presuppose that in their philosophy, but can we understand this on a literal level? – Let us try:
The monoliths needed to provide material to build two houses could be found, but the seven
monoliths to build 5040 houses would definitely constitute a problem, because they have to
be bigger than the two for the two houses. The first obvious question arising is, why would
Avraham teach us to look for giant monoliths of growing size for growing numbers of
houses? Definitely, for any sane individual, such a request borders on the ridiculous. A closer
look at the arithmetic of Avraham reveals that he is talking about factorials. The number of
houses is the factorial of the number of stones. – He is clearly using figurative language to
tell us a secret of the Torah, and he does this even in the sense of the second Mishnah of
Tractate Chagigah: he conveys a topic the learned can understand without revealing too
much, according to the standards of arithmetic of his time. Today we see immediately what
he meant and understand his encouragement to explore large numbers, but for what purpose?
– We propose he could have meant the exploration of the universe we live in. The reason to
believe this is the following: the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters as they are revealed in the
Sefer Yetzirah. The םןץףךare only alluded to in this work, but not directly revealed as
letters. As proof for this we propose the formation of the 231 gates of wisdom achieved by
combining the 22 letters into pairs as stated in Sefer Yetzirah 2:4. The 22 letters’
permutations are 22! which amounts to about 1021 permutations or “names”. This is, as we
know today, very close to the number of stars in the observable universe. A very similar
figure is also found in the Talmud, Tractate Brachot 32b as well as in Sefer Raziel 18a. One
truth and a great encouragement to learn Physics and Mathematics, for us at least this is a
reason to understand his advice to try to understand the macroscopic universe. Thinking
further we can also justify exploring the microscopic realm: divide one by the number of
stars and you reach scales of length that are experimentally not yet attainable, but still away
from the Planck scale. Surely, the meter was not invented yet, but 10-21 handbreadths are in
the order of magnitude of modern theoretical Physics’ lower end of reliable description of
experimentally verifiable effects or objects, while 10 25 handbreadths are spanning up the size
of our universe describable by non-speculative theories of our time.
We think Avraham Avinu’s encouragement should be followed not only regarding numbers
but in general in applying the best available scientific methods and means such as observable
data and experiments to iterate ourselves towards the truth, instead of adhering to principles
of dogma with immutable incomplete interpretations that hinder the progress of
understanding of both Science and Torah. Paradoxes or seeming contradictions between the
two fields of understanding should be attempted to reveal and possibly resolve by research
and constructive thinking towards unification, transforming secrets into understood
knowledge. During such a process we have to bear in mind that such unification will always
be incomplete, but we will be able to push the limits of our understanding further with time
and newly acquired empirics, for the above mentioned reasons. Dogmatic rigidity is a
characteristic of Aristotelian or Kantian logic, not of original and flexible inventive logic
within the framework of Judaism as we can see on two examples in Jewish law: it is possible
to use electricity for the security of the access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Shabbat
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The principle of interpretability and uncertainty is, as we see now, superior to rigid
absolutism; it makes Creation robust and able to survive even if grave mistakes or accidents
happen, G-d forbid. Said principle is inherent to all Creation we can observe or will be able
to observe, for all the reasons we have learned about up to now.
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3
Attempt to Answer the Initial Questions of this Treatise
And
Research that Could Lead to a Better Understanding of our Journey through Science
and Kabbalah
In this part we want to attempt to use the knowledge acquired to shed some light on the
questions we posed at the beginning of this book and try to propose some, of course
incomplete, answers. What we learned is that the principles of Relativity and Quantum
Theory both apply as valid theories to describe Creation within a Total Existence we called
the Creator, because this is the only way not to violate the law of the absolute oneness of the
Creator which is the only absolute condition for creatio ex nihilo as we have made
sufficiently clear above. We also need to bear in mind that without Mathematics and in
particular without its subfield Information Theory many a problem in understanding the
common meanings of both the scientific and the kabbalistic reporting of the processes of
Creation would have been very hard to solve. On the other hand, the Rambam writes in his
introductory letter to Moreh Nevuchim a seemingly discouraging passage concerning such
attempts of unification:
Know that also in Natural Science there are topics which are not to be fully explained. Our Sages laid down the rule
“the Ma’aseh Bereshit must not be expounded in the presence of two”. If an author were to explain these principles in
writing, it would be equal to expounding them to thousands of men. For this reason the prophets treat these subjects in
figures, and our Sages, imitating the method of scripture, speak of them in metaphors and allegories, because there is a
close affinity between these subjects and Metaphysics (Ma’aseh Merkavah), and indeed they form part of its mysteries.
Do not imagine that these most difficult problems can be thoroughly understood by anyone of us. This is not the case.
At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day. Our nature and habit then draw a veil over our
perception, and we return to darkness almost as dense as before.
It appears, as if this would today disadvantage any observant Jewish scientist as he would be
obliged to stop teaching or discussing Physics. This is definitely not the case and we can be
rest assured not to violate any commandment by discussing the Physics of Creation, because
we use models and theories to do this, which the Rambam calls the use of metaphors and
allegories. As we have seen above, the human mind needs the use of models to understand
observations of phenomena for the simple reason that such models help to compare new
experiences with memorized experiences drawing analogies, arrive at generalizations and
with that at an understanding of the new phenomenon. The use of language was at the
Rambam’s time the only way to explain Natural Science, there was no explicit way to
mathematically model scientific phenomena and devise viable theories as we can do it today.
Furthermore, a lot of models describing the universe at that time were based on guesses
rather than observational fact, as we can see for example on the theory of the “celestial
spheres” which, when moving against each other, make noises or “music”. This does not
mean such theory was un-intellectual; it was beautiful as an explanation why the celestial
bodies do not fall onto the earth, a theory preceding a proper gravitational theory and a theory
of an extended ballistics. People even thought about friction between the spheres and
deduced grinding noises. Maybe the Sages knew that theories like that are not really the best
model of the truth as presented in Ma’aseh Bereshit but did not have a real good model to
describe what they knew. Another example is the thinking and presentation of Kabbalah by
the Ari and Rabbi Chaim Vital about evolving and reducing states as described in מטי ולא
מטי, which in our opinion is a very good resemblance of effects we see and observe today in
quantum mechanical phenomena. Maybe the Sages encouraged waiting with revelations until
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Rambam then describes the sequences of flashes of lightning as a figure to describe the
different degrees of prophecy, meaning that certain parts of an unknown reality get
illuminated. By interpretation one can fill the empty spaces and construct a theory which is
an approximation of that reality. This method constitutes no difference to the methods of the
sciences. Certainly at his time the sciences and in particular Mathematics and Physics were
not aware of Relativity and Quantum Theory that form the basis of our interpretation of
kabbalistic literature in this treatise. The main part of the New Kabbalah like that of the Ari
z”l for example was also not known to him, nor were the principles of information theory as
we know them today. Therefore he regarded as mysteries facts we can today prove
experimentally, and the kabbalistic literature is available in published form. Hence, we think
a fear to reveal secrets that should not be made accessible and belong to prophesy cannot
apply to our field of investigation we attempt here, and it is fully acceptable to look for
parallels in the sciences and in the kabbalistic literature. He writes further:
The degrees in the perfection of men vary according to these distinctions. Concerning those who never beheld the light
even for one day, but walk in continual darkness, it is written, “they know not, neither will they understand; they walk
on in darkness” (Tehillim 82:5). Truth, in spite of all its powerful manifestations, is completely withheld from them,
and the following words of scripture may be applied to them: “And now men see not the light which is bright in the
skies” (Iyov 37:21). They are the multitude of ordinary men: there is no need to notice them in this treatise.
As we can see, the Rambam concedes that the majority of the population will not and will not
want to understand a treatise on the level of what he calls Natural Science and Metaphysics.
We agree with that even today, and the more so in the case of understanding both Kabbalah
and the Sciences. For that reason we have not attempted to go beyond our professional
understanding, but we allow for the person learned in one of the fields which we try to unify
or at least link together, to be encouraged to learn about the other field he is not proficient in,
perusing our treatise and the references therein. As a matter of fact, bear in mind that for this
chapter the Rambam’s admitted limitations of the attempt to teach a new field apply:
You must know that if a person who has attained a certain degree of perfection wishes to impart to others, either orally
or in writing, any portion of the knowledge which he has acquired of these subjects, he is utterly unable to be as
systematic and explicit as he could be in a science of which the method is well known… at one time the explanation
will appear lucid, at another time, obscure: this property of the subject [of research] appears to remain the same both to
the advanced scholar and to the beginner. For this reason great theological scholars gave instruction in all such matters
only by means of metaphors and allegories… sometimes the whole metaphor may refer to two cognate subjects in the
same branch of knowledge.
We see that the Rambam was well aware of the method of generalization of principles by
what he calls metaphor or simile and we call theory. We also need to refer to the Kabbalistic
writings as such similes164. For example Etz Chaim can be interpreted as a simile to the
164
No sage would expound on literal details of the secrets of the Torah to thousands by publication of
books.
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Physics of the universe as well as to the structure of the human psyche or anatomy. It is
important to see that general principles are conveyed by Kabbalistic literature rather than
detailed descriptions of special phenomena or objects. For example, partzufim are structures
of general principles with many applications. Here we shall attempt to generalize the concept
of רקיעand by trying to answer the questions posed at the beginning of this treatise
emphasizing its importance for the understanding of both the secrets of the Torah and
Science, in particular Physics and Mathematics.
Before the creation of space and time, what did exist, or what represents such Existence? –
Both Physics and Kabbalah set the scenario of Creation into a spaceless and timeless absolute
nothing as its beginning and first boundary condition, and then letting it evolve through
different phases of separations into the scenario we can observe today. In Physics, the
beginning is set into a point, a singularity that inflated and exploded into the Big Bang as we
have discussed above. This was done by modeling General Relativity into the past, supported
by observations of the background radiation and other astronomical phenomena. By arriving
at a singularity in this model, one then tried to model forward in time and space from that
singularity the emergence of a universe as we can observe it today, more or less successfully
over the years, in an iterative process including empirical data at each time they became
available. What is still missing is the process that lead from the singularity to inflation and
the Big Bang. The nature of quantum gravity is still under discussion and very active ongoing
research. With the help of Kabbalah we will try a proposal to a solution of this conundrum.
Whether this will lead to a successful approximation of the truth only time will tell.
In Kabbalah, the singularity is described in a much more subtle way than in Physics. It is part
of the one Creator who is completely unknowable and with that indescribable. What,
however, is known, is that the light of the Creator filled the entire existence and with this
Himself, too165. This existence is described as spaceless and timeless, with neither beginning
nor end. As we have discussed extensively, the beginning of Creation is seen as such light
being smooth and evenly balanced, hinting to highest possible symmetry. In physical terms
we could speak about the ultimate grand unification. What intrigues, however, is the
expression of the Ari z”l “then He contracted Himself in the middle point which is in Him,
precisely in the middle, He contracted the Light”. This contraction is seen as a result of the
simplest will imaginable. This will, as the Light, is characterized by “simple” and “smooth”
by the Ari z”l. From the ambiguosity of the description who or what was contracted, we can
only propose the following explanation: If there is no distinction made between the Light and
the Creator we can accept this as the fact of a grand unification of the Total Existence. Only
with the expulsion of the Light to outside the structure of the primordial but yet undefined
space around the “middle point” a distinction between the Creator/Light and Creation is
brought into existence, the first רקיע. The withdrawal of the light, as is emphasized by the
Ari z”l, took place in the highest possible symmetry creating no singularities, edges or
vertices. This would by the same token disallow an absolutely sharp רקיע.
A possible explanation for the avoidance of such non-differentiable objects at that stage of
Creation is: if there would be a second singularity besides the one point/sphere system, those
at least two singularities would have coordinates relative to each other. This would thwart the
location of the point in infinity and hinder the system to be a point and sphere system. Hence,
Creation as a creatio ex nihilo, as discussed here, could never have taken place. The middle
165
If we would say otherwise, His absolute oneness would be jeopardized.
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point coordinates relative to the original point in infinity of the evolving infinite dimensional
sphere system are not defined. As soon as the “contraction” is done, that middle point is
defined, not before. In the infinite but low-dimensional case of the sphere those coordinates
lie also in infinity, but are defined as different from the original point in infinity. If the
system is fluctuating in size the point moves on the radius away from the middle point of the
largest possible sphere towards the original point in infinity. The same is valid for
fluctuations in dimensionality if the radius is held infinite.
A further, quite remarkable definition given by the Ari z”l is the emptiness of the middle
point. We conjecture from that an at least infinitesimally small volume of this point after the
contraction and expulsion process which enables the formerly discussed process of inflation
to take place. This volume of the point is required for it to be empty, for a real mathematical
point cannot contain anything but itself. In case of an n-dimensional sphere emptiness is
possible as its volume is not identical to zero. How big this volume might have been for the
physically relevant dimensions is an interesting question, but not easy to answer, because we
have up to now no really clear idea how mathematical structure can become physical, except
by the argumentation via the argument that mathematical structure is information and with
that physical. A second argument is, at least for the finite dimensional space-time we live in,
the space-time curvature and gravitational energy equivalent to that, as we have proposed
before.
Bearing this in mind, let us now look at the emergence of time and energy at the onset of
Creation. Both of them are concepts not primarily measurable but only to be derived from
measurable observables such as position, movement and other dynamics of a system.
Likewise, space is also a concept of relative positions of observable objects inside such
space. This includes the spaces of רוחניותand גשמיותequally, whose contents create those
spaces for the following reason: The Austrian physicist Ernst Mach insisted that science must
deal with genuinely observable things166, and this made him deeply suspicious of the concepts
of invisible absolute space and time. In 1883 he suggested that it is not space but all the
matter in the universe, exerting a genuine physical effect. He proposed that each body in the
universe must be exerting an effect that depends on its mass and distance. Hence, the law of
inertia will turn out to be a motion relative to some average of all the masses of the universe.
Einstein coined this as Mach’s principle. The Machian idea takes the power from space and
time and gives it to the actual contents of the universe which all move relative to each other
without a rigid deterministic framework of space and time as Einstein later worked it out as
general relativity which relativates the causality of space-time causing gravity or vice versa.
Indeed, we even go a step further and propose the indistinguishability of matter and space
geometry. We justify this by the fact that the equivalence of space-time curvature and
gravitation and with that according to current physics mass does not allow us to decide which
of them the cause of the other is. The gravitational interactions were not decoupled yet in the
Planck state or grand unification, but gravity behaved strangely in relation to the other still
unified interactions. This is the reason why the Standard Model does not include gravitational
interaction. Only time will tell how gravitation can be included into the Planck state, but we
will attempt to make some propositions for research based on our knowledge we extract from
the secrets of the Torah, as far as this is possible.
166
We emphasize that the mind can observe abstract things as they represent content of information only.
This information is physical on its carrier brain. In contrast to that, the content of the information creates a
space on its own in the mathematical sense.
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One can transpose the Machian view of the universe into the spiritual worlds. In our opinion,
this would make a lot of sense and allows relativity of such “information spaces”. Any
information content, whatever it is, is not invisible to the mind. Therefore, according to
Mach’s principle the spaces made up by sfirot, partzufim and other abstract objects acquire a
“volume” defined by the dimensions applicable to such content and the amount of such
content.
Similarly, right at the onset of Creation coordinates and their properties were in the
framework of the Planck grand unification not distinguishable. Hence, before any distinction
or demarcation was effected, no dynamics as we know it today was manifest and with that no
energy or time could be derived. In this state we have only acausal and atemporal
fluctuations, in other words, total chaos. Only with the onset of dynamics a time can be
postulated and with that same onset we can say this was the origin of time in the sense of
before, now and after. This may be the reason why in quantum physics there is time
symmetry in the evolving, non-reduced state. Classical time or time as such only make sense
after state reduction, as we have seen in the quantum erasure and delayed choice experiments.
Creatio ex nihilo in its strict sense demands the emergence of all, including time, from one
origin, as we have discussed at length above. Any question what there was before the
emergence of time is answered by only a boundary condition of one absolute nothing which
can be said existing as One if the rigor on the word “exist” is relaxed and we allow non-
dynamical existence. Any further question or suggestion of eternal static existence makes no
sense. Hence, the Talmud is right to state in Tractate Chagigah, 2nd Mishnah, that anyone who
persists to ask further should not have been born. We conclude such question does not make
any sense; there is also no observational or theoretical evidence for the necessity of such a
question167.
The next question we asked was why is the existence of One as the beginning of all worlds
inevitable? – As we have seen above, the emergence of our universe goes back to one
singularity, according to physical evidence. The same statement we find in Kabbalah, but
after all our discourses in Physics and Kabbalah we think the question of inevitability should
be posed on the Creation, not on the Origin or, if we want to say so, the Creator. So, is
Creation as such inevitable? – Any question along those lines is difficult to answer, but let us
try to reason for an answer in the affirmative. We have seen that a singularity in infinity is a
fluctuating system, according to a quantum theoretical approach to the mathematical
identities of infinite circles, spheres and points. The main issue we think is that only and only
from one point in infinity a world can be created without any further input. Only if one
singularity exists, one can say it lies in infinity and the mathematical condition of the point
being an infinite sphere holds. Only with such a system and a certain measure of uncertainty
as we have described it above, both mathematically and physically, creatio ex nihilo is
possible. What makes it inevitable? – Any dynamics, any change, constitutes time and with
that a dimension of space-time and also energy. A fluctuation between point and sphere and a
fluctuation in dimensions in a random manner, not in a completely regular and deterministic
167
Even if we allow string and M theory and live in a brane world, we have still the beginning with One
despite of our particular world would have emerged from a collision of branes. Ultimately, there is a
beginning out of absolutely nothing; there is no way around that. Furthermore we believe that it is
premature to favor string and M theory for the simple reason that in the foreseeable future there is no way
to experimentally verify such theory.
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manner, makes it possible to form an irregularity in that system. Is this irregularity the reason
for the separation of the צינורfrom the middle point of the system of spheres and is this the
reason for the inevitability of this separation? As we can see in the illustration it is indeed
inevitable, because if the radius of the inner boundary of the Infinite Light is אn, and the
radius of כתר עליוןis אn-1 < אn with the system of spheres fluctuating from the original point
in infinity, both spheres have that point in infinity in common and the radii of the two spheres
will produce the respective middle points in different locations. Since the צינורstarts at the
sphere of כתר עליון, it will end slightly short of reaching the middle point of the Infinite
light. This can be done accordingly with all the inner sfirot that are still in a fluctuating state.
The separation of the middle point from the end point of the צינורconstitutes a demarcation
or רקיעand the system stops fluctuation, but is not entirely stabilized in a state of reshimo.
The moment the light will use the צינורto form the thread of light and slowly penetrate all
the reshimos of all the available spheres, these will stabilize and become manifest in the
realm of their respective dimensions. This all takes place in a tiny volume despite the radii of
the spheres are infinite, and hence, we are allowed to make the above assumptions of how
those radii behave during the fluctuation. This process is only possible, if there is an
uncertainty between the sizes of the infinite radii of at least δ, rendering the gap between the
end of the צינורand the middle point of the sphere of the infinite light going towards infinity.
Physical space-time within this system is a cut of an at least 5-dimensional sphere
representing in three visible dimensions a hyperboloid with its middle point disjoint from that
space-time. Its surface will grow only through the evolution of time which depends on the
dynamics of the contents of said space-time, as we have discussed above.
As we have seen, this leads to the processes involved in inflation and the Big Bang as soon as
time emerges by the emergence of dynamics. So we see that the system to be able to emerge
needs noise and uncertainty. We can measure such noise of the space-time fabric as we have
explained when we talked about inflation. Such noise is characteristic of any system with
some uncertainty, even if such uncertainty approximates infinitesimality. Regarding time it
has to be remarked that in the state of the noisy fluctuating system only a statistical time can
prevail and the onset of any arrow of time needs an asymmetry or irregularity within that
statistics.
From such viewpoint that anything in a physical or geometrical system possesses an amount
of noise even if it is infinitesimally tiny, the emergence of a material universe becomes
inevitable. The status of a timeless static existence shows no dynamics except fluctuations
and is limited to the amount of noise of the uncertainty of the time dimension 168, and that
means in numbers an order of magnitude of 10-48 seconds. We will in foreseeable time not be
able to measure such a short time, and the further we approach zero time in our theories the
more uncertain they become. We think, this is meant by the Ari’s assurance of the
inconceivability of the Origin or Creator, and this is one of the reasons why He has no place,
no boundary and no name or description, meaning His middle point lies in infinity despite the
voluminosity of Creation. Since He is in this sense not dynamic in the sense of reduced
objects but in an evolving state, He underlies no arrow of continuous time. By the same
token, the Total Existence’s “center of geometry” is not related to any other similar or
identical system, and henceforth it has no coordinates; it lies in infinity.
168
… and of course all other dimensions also will have some noise.
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The will of the Creator, or of the primordial system of the point in infinity, how ever one
wants to see the situation, is not structured in any way either. Hence, whether one regards the
onset of Creation as a pure physical-mathematical process or involves Divinity, the onset of
Creation or emergence of a universe was triggered by a “will” or “spontaneous event” and
resumed to evolve within a very tiny amount of time. Information theoretically, this
represents a go or no go decision that gets triggered by noise. What the exact value of the
threshold noise for the “go” is, remains open for now. Noise is the only dynamics in the
system before the spontaneous action, and since it is stochastic, no arrow of time exists. A
length in time for such a state to exist before the action is therefore indeterminable and
becomes meaningless169. No matter how one wants to interpret observations and theoretical
explanations of such a state, if ever possible, the result is the same: a universe as we observe
it and worlds of mind that we perceive, on an individual basis. The “will” in this case results
in a spontaneous symmetry breaking or, in the language of our sages, in a “desire to create”;
they are the same thing. Creation, for the sake of the existence of time, however, can only be
inevitable, for two reasons: in Physics, because the unpredictable noise or uncertainty of
Nature dictated it; in the viewpoint of Divinity, because the unpredictable “will of the
Creator”170 initiated the Creation. The physics we observe tells us about the Planck state and
grand unification, the Torah and Kabbalah tell us about the ineffable One; we leave it to the
reader to decide, which one to choose, but remind him that the secrets of the Torah describe
qualitatively the structure of all known worlds, physical and spiritual, while Physics describes
the physical world qualitatively and quantitatively, slowly beginning to explore the “Physics
of the Mind” which was triggered by the philosophical difficulties presented by the quantum
nature of our universe and what it contains.
We come now to answer the questions whether actions beyond the observable laws of Nature
are possible or whether miracles or actions as a result of the will of the Creator are possible.
First of all, we want to neutralize the difference between the Divinely induced and the
Inevitably induced processes of creatio ex nihilo. However, whether actions beyond the
observable laws of Nature are possible is a question that requires further elaboration about
laws of Nature and what we call Divine Intervention 171. We remember that all space-time and
any higher “worlds” can be constructed as “sitting” on a configuration space. Such
configuration space contains all physical and mental creations as we have discussed above; it
unifies the behavior and dynamics of all Creation in the evolutionary state. Let us now see
how this works. First of all, let us see how configuration space can be interpreted as the basis
of any physical or mental “world” as perceived from a human point of view. We allege that
the Creator’s point of view is not fully accessible to our interpretation since we are finite and
he is supposed to be infinite and encompassing all, but we will try later an approximate
interpretation without the claim to be right, we just propose a clarification of such a
viewpoint using a condensed matter system mimicking the situation.
Configuration space is something very special in physics and mathematics, allowing anything
of any theory to be placed in or as we will say from now, on it. This configuration space is
the basis which all Creation rests on and at the same time the demarcation or רקיעwithin the
Total Existence that we call the Creator. This demarcation divides between the observable
169
Cf. first Mishnah in Chapter 2 of Tractate Chagigah.
170
Since the will is unfathomable by definition as we have discussed above, we perceive its result as a
spontaneous event.
171
If we remember what we have learned above, the distinction between the two “extremes” is made by us,
we determine where the demarcation is placed.
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and explicable, and the unobservable and inexplicable. To understand and accept this, we
want to interject a citation from Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim:
You are no doubt aware that the Almig-ty, desiring to lead us to perfection and improve the state of society, has
revealed us laws which are to regulate our actions. These laws, however, presuppose an advanced state of intellectual
culture. We must first form a conception of the Existence of the Creator according to our capabilities; that is, we must
have a knowledge of metaphysics. But this discipline can only be approached after the study of physics, for the science
of physics borders on metaphysics, and must even precede it in the course of our studies, as is clear to all who are
familiar with these questions. Therefore the Almig-ty commenced Holy Writ with the description of the Creation, that
is, with Physical Science, the subject being on the one hand most weighty and important, and on the other hand our
means of fully comprehending those great problems being limited… It has been treated in metaphors in order that the
uneducated may comprehend it according to their faculties and the feebleness of their apprehension, while educated
persons may take it in a different sense… I observed that by expounding these passages [he refers to Prophesy and
some Midrashim] by means of allegorical and mystical terms, we do not explain anything, but merely substitute one
thing for another of the same nature, whilst in explaining those fully our efforts would displease most people…
Consider well the statement that the deeper sense of the words of the holy Law is pearls [hidden in the shell], and the
literal acceptation of a figure is of no value in itself.
Any configuration space therefore is subject to change with the changing understanding and
knowledge of the set of observers and their ability to formulate the shape of such
configuration space in any dimensions relevant for their observational interest. We state here
that the total configuration space and the totality of its geometry and other properties can
never be known to any created finite being, while the notion of configuration space opens up
a very comprehensive and clear way to picture everything that can possibly be created, all at
once. State reductions on that space causes complementary creations to be lost, which
resembles again the process of חקקdescribed in Sefer Yetzirah. It also gives notions of time
and history, stripping away and revealing as redundant the Newtonian superstructure. We
shall now try to explain, how configuration space works in mathematics and physics, and we
shall propose a possible way how to transpose this onto the kabbalistic worlds and their
structures.
Let us suppose there is a universe consisting of two or three points. These two or three points
are forming a line or a triangle. Any change of the position of those points relative to each
other forms a different line or triangle, where the dynamic change of those positions
constitutes a history of that universe. The observable history of a two or three point-particle
universe, when the invisible Newtonian space-time is abstracted away, is just a continuous
sequence of triangles or lines. Given such a history we can let one point represent one
particular configuration of triangles or lines, i.e. one point represents one line or one triangle.
We then obtain a curve on the space containing all the points corresponding to all possible
configurations of lines or triangles. This principle can be extended to as many parameters of
any object or sets of objects in any universe or world. Hence, each world has a configuration
space containing all possible configurations of the contents of that world, and any particular
history of that world is a curve in that configuration space. Anything not on that curve is not
state reduced and of the rest at least half is discarded. The geometry of the configuration
space is given by all mathematical and physical laws corresponding to the world or universe
in question. All laws depend on that geometry and vice versa, because on this level there is
no causality.
Let us now ask the question on what such geometry depends, and we will have to resort to
“forces” that are beyond the realm of our observation, because otherwise we would exclude
some properties of our observable world from its configuration space which is not allowed
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according to our definition of that configuration space: It comprises all possibilities that can
happen in that world or universe and it is the giver of all physical laws of that world or
universe. If now such configuration space is dynamically changed from a system outside the
world or universe that sits on that configuration space, events in that world can be changed
by such a change of the geometry of that configuration space. If we further take into
consideration that we learned in Kabbalah that כתרof Adam Kadmon is the רקיע, the
demarcation between the created worlds and the Infinite with its Light, and כתרis רצון, will
of the Creator, we can imagine that this demarcation constitutes the configuration space of all
Creation. We can also imagine that as the curve of the history of that Creation progresses on
that configuration space, a change of its geometry could alter the laws of Nature in the
appropriate dimensions and at the right space-time coordinates of such line of history. The
miracle is made – by Divine intervention. Since we are part of Creation we live also on that
configuration space, and to change its geometry is very unlikely if not impossible to be done
by us or any other part of Creation, unless there exist again the same conditions as in physical
space-time that it is dependent on the dynamics of the matter and energy it contains. But this
does not really matter for answering our questions. Since Creation and Creator cannot ever be
completely separated, not by a demarcation or anything else, we can rest assured talk about
the unity of the Total Existence we and everything else are part of. Hence, also if we would
change the geometry of configuration space at will and “perform miracles”, this would still
constitute an act of the Total Existence or Creator. We can therefore conclude that any action
performed by any part, subset or entity of Creation is an act of the Total Existence and
because of that originally enacted by the קדוש ברוך הוא, but blatant violations of the laws
of Nature as defined by the configuration space of the Creation could possibly damage the
entire Creation lastingly as it happened by the breaking of the vessels during the creation of
the upper worlds, bringing forth the World of Points ()עולם הנקודים, and by the sin of
Adam HaRishon as explained elsewhere. This is the reason, so called miracles are not to be
performed irresponsibly, in particular not by the performance of practical Kabbalah. Such
irresponsibility can shatter worlds as we have seen in the case of Adam HaRishon.
Bearing in mind that miracles and other anomalies or temporary anomalies in the realm of the
created worlds are within the possibility of the laws of Nature apparent in these worlds, we
need to know their often far reaching consequences for the structure of these worlds. To
understand these consequences we need to know the structures and mechanisms of the
physical world and should make an explicitly careful attempt to understand the mechanisms
of the Higher Worlds. As we have pointed out earlier, all the worlds of Creation are working
together harmoniously and on very strict principles that can mathematically be formulated as
consistent theories. Any mathematical inconsistency has to be treated by observation and
study of the available relevant literature and hence to be eliminated by research, if at all
possible. This research has to be carried out with the same rigor with that we carry out
professional scientific work. King Solomon says in Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is
like apples of gold in vessels of silver.” The Rambam comments on this very lucidly:
Solomon meant to say, “just as apples of gold in silver filigree with small apertures, so is a word fitly spoken.” See how
beautifully the conditions of a good simile are described in this figure. It shows that in every word which has a double
sense, a literal one and a figurative one, the plain meaning must be as valuable as silver and the hidden meaning still
more precious, so that the figurative meaning bears the same relation to the literal one as gold to silver. It is further
necessary that the plain sense of the phrase shall give to those who consider it some notion of that which the figure
represents just as a golden apple overlaid with a network of silver, when seen at a distance, or looked at superficially, is
mistaken for a silver apple, but when a keen-sighted person looks at the object well, he will find what is within and see
that the apple is gold. The same is the case with the figures employed by the prophets. Taken literally, such expressions
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contain wisdom useful for many purposes, among others, for the amelioration of the condition of society… Their
hidden meaning, however, is profound wisdom, conducive to the recognition of real truth. – Know that the figures
employed by the prophets are of two kinds: first, where every word which occurs in the simile represents a certain idea;
and secondly, where the simile as a whole represents a general idea. They are simply required to give to the simile its
proper form and order, or better to conceal the idea. The simile is therefore continued as far as necessary, according to
its literal sense. Consider this well.
To give the reader a feeling about the structure of the system of worlds proposed by
Kabbalah we want to give now an overview of these worlds.
This structure of Creation gives us not only an understanding of the workings of the four
worlds of emanation, creation, formation and making/action in the context of the creation
process, but also gives us some understanding of the workings of the mind and the soul. This
structure is a generalized pattern of attributes or functions of parts of Creation and its Mind.
The descriptions in the Kabbalistic literature only give us examples of its workings and
interactions, of the ways and paths the Divine Light illuminates, enclothes and creates, how
partzufim interact and procreate and so forth. It does not describe every detail and its
functionality, not physically and not spiritually or mentally. Research has to be done into two
directions:
• Determination of the general principles of Adam Kadmon and the four worlds,
comparing them with the principles of the Natural Sciences. It should be possible to
determine experimental methods of at least a partial observation of these worlds in
form of effects that are common with the physical or mental worlds of man.
• Analysis of the methods of practical Kabbalah and its underlying principles,
attempting to recognize the mathematical structure of those principles. Interactions
of kabbalistic structures should be mathematically modeled and analyzed. Simple
experiments should be devised to verify or falsify influences of the higher mental
worlds onto the physical world and vice versa.
Proposing such a treatment of the principles underlying Jewish philosophy or even the Jewish
faith may seem a frightening if not irreverent undertaking. We think not, because the Jewish
people have always been involved in the forefront of the development of the sciences and its
derivative technologies. Jewish scientists and thinkers have shaped scientific thinking since
ancient times as we can see in the ideas of the one and only Creator advocated by Avraham
Avinu, and in today’s modern society Jews are still the leaders in all fields of science. One
only has to count the Nobel laureates who are Jewish (about 32%) to verify that. On the other
hand modern man became pragmatic, realized that ideals of antiquity do not hold stand to
reality checks, in short, he became more of an empiricist thinking in finite terms. An infinite
Total Existence that is the platform and source of existence of our finite 172 and indeterministic
world became more and more remote in modern thinking. The achievements of man have
become the object of honor and, yes, worship, but as we may say in the words of Rabbi
Joseph Soloveitchik, if we give total trust to a finite being, no matter how noble, we engage
in idol worship, any absolutization of a finite idea borders on idolatry. Idol worship applies
not only to graven images, chiseled statues or sculpted idols, but foremost to ideas, social
structures and systems of values. Modern man is an example of a deified object. Science is
172
Finite has to be understood as finite dimensional.
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worshipped as an idol which has actually overpowered man with its majesty. We stand in
awe before the ingenuity of the human mind. Yet, science may conquer the immediate
environment of man, but the universe as a whole comprising not only the five worlds of
Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiyah, but also the Infinite beyond them, is
unconquerable in its totality. More so the Total Existence is unconquerable, since there is a
measure of infinity to it, finite man can never gain173. Scientific method therefore may
explain the function of the universe and maybe the higher worlds, but only from within, only
from the viewpoint of a participant observer in its functioning, never from outside. That,
however, does not exist; the Total Existence is One, as we have seen above. We will never
explain to the full why the mathematical formulations and its quantification in Physics have
the values we measure. The information can be processed, but the ultimate content of that
information and the reason why it is that particular content and no other, we will very
probably never be able to fully explain. Hence, we have to bear in mind that with the
advancement of scientific method and knowledge our understanding of Creation and the five
realms or worlds can become better, and G-d willing be used for human advancement in form
of participating in the ever ongoing creation process, in attempting and understanding
Tikunim and so forth, but the understanding of the Infinite will always be approximate and
never complete, also in the times of Moshiach174. We need to see the quest of man for
knowledge as not only an addition to theoretical knowledge but as an assumption of duty, a
realization of responsibility to a Torah of truth 175 and moral action, otherwise the acquisition
of knowledge can deteriorate and ultimately destroy man, in particular if he starts
worshipping his abilities. The separation of so called secular knowledge from Torah study
which today created a rift between secular and observant Jews, both in their education and in
their outlook on Creation and the worlds we live in, needs to be removed. The Creator has
given us all the information in Torah and Kabbalah, we only must unlock the seals of
mysticism we have ourselves obscured that knowledge and understanding with. Only through
scientific method and the application of the highest standards of objectivity as far as that is
possible within the constraints and limitations we have learned about, can such a goal be
achieved and the moral framework of the 613 mitzvoth and the halachot derived from them
be willingly accepted by every Jew as well as the seven mitzvoth by every non-Jew.
This said, let us now embark onto the last part of our journey, the outlook on things to be
researched and hopefully to be understood: the quest to reduce the mystical by replacing it
through knowledge. Let us start with the mind and its role in the system of physically
observable realms. We have seen the significance of the role of the observer in quantum
mechanical experiments and have realized the importance of demarcations between the
observer and the observed. Only when communicable information is produced, an
observation is completed. Physicists discuss to this very day the role of the mind of the
observer in this process, whether it completes the communicability of the information
gathered or whether it is sufficient to have an irreversibility of a registration of information in
173
We conjecture that there is a very high probability of other physical universes in other dimensions, if the
Total Existence is really infinitely dimensional. They are beyond our observability and with that for us
meaningless.
174
There is a very simple reason for that: we will never be able to process infinite amounts of information,
because we cannot distinguish between infinitely many parts of information. We refer to our argument
above that infinitely many symbols will contain many indistinguishable symbols. This implies that the
differences of these sets of indistinguishable symbols would become meaningless.
175
Truth in the sense that we accept our inability to attain the totally absolute truth, but treat observed and
understood truths as uncertain and malleable.
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a detecting system. The questions quantum erasure experiments have opened are far reaching,
not only philosophically but also physically. The questions posed in the past about causality,
the reversibility of a measurement process after the observable has already interacted with the
detector, and the reversal of the order of time in those experiments as well as in optical phase
conjugation, barrier tunneling and quantum entanglement experiments, and the questions
about the loss of information in any completed observation process are experimentally
answered to a large extent. Proposals such as objective state reduction by gravitational self-
energy of entangled systems brought us to grasp the idea of spontaneous breakdown of such
entanglement. Such breakdown of otherwise constantly spreading entanglement by such
objective state reductions appears to us as an at least partial verification of the action of the
Creator sustaining and “re-creating” at every instant of time.
Spontaneous actions we have defined as the most primitive and simple form of will of the
Creator who sustains Creation permanently by e.g. such spontaneous entanglement breaking,
but we are still far from understanding what will really is. The same is valid for
consciousness and intention. We have tried to approach definitions with the reductionist
approach of a scientist, and to our surprise, in Kabbalah such reductionist approach seems
also to be a promising way to understand where are the limitations of human ability to
observe the exact processes behind such will176. We can only “observe” the result. In cases
where spontaneous effects take over from the classical, continuous, causal and deterministic
picture the macroscopic world is showing us in our daily life, we start to have doubts about
the correctness of our observation. Statistical physics was introduced to explain the many
body problems. There is no way to assign an equation of motion to each and every single
particle moving for example in the air surrounding us; we had to accept statistical methods to
describe what is happening there177. In the microscopic realm we are confronted with the
principles of quantum physics, in information theory we have to deal with the statistical and
thermodynamic behavior of information, and in mathematics we realize that asymptotic
behavior and approximations are necessary to understand the infinitely small and the
infinitely large. Differential calculus and geometry are the best examples for that. We see that
the physics of the microscopic realm is intimately connected with the physics of the
astronomically large, our universe. Time and space or what we perceive as such are
malleable, dependent on the movement of matter and its distribution, and with that causality
or what we perceive as such becomes questionable in its very essence. Research has shown
us a way how to better understand the mysteries of nature, but we had to change the way how
we perceive the nature around us and how we perceive ourselves.
In Kabbalah we are confronted with the mysteries of our surroundings as well. The age old
question what makes man think, perceive and explore, how his spirit or soul interacts with his
body and last not least what is the purpose of man in this world and in spiritual worlds is also
here the center of interest. We learn about the structure and interactions of the worlds, we are
taught about the breaking of vessels and a grave mistake made by Adam HaRishon. In מטי
ולא מטיof Etz Chaim we learn about the indistinguishability of ten vessels in an “evolving”
or “spreading” state; they only can be distinguished after they are in a “reduced” state. In the
beginning of Etz Chaim we have seen the unmistakable similarity of the description of the
emergence of the worlds from a singularity in infinity with the findings of modern Physics.
We learned about the nature of such a singularity of being evolving into space and time by
176
For example, the exact actions and processes inside of Adam Kadmon are not knowable.
177
Classical examples for this are Brownian motion and the zitterbewegung of atoms and molecules.
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stabilization originating from a line of light drawn from the outside of the spherical shape of
empty space towards its middle point, but not touching that middle point, otherwise the
creation would collapse. This, however, reminds again of quantum entanglement. Nowhere in
the text is said how big such space is or was. We are dealing with infinities, we have to
approximate and live with the uncertainties.
This state of affairs in both Kabbalah and Science should be reassuring, but man’s perception
is influenced by ideals of perfection and idealized forms. His quest for total determinism,
wherever that comes from, lets him search for the absolutely causal, deterministic, ultimately
precise and absolutistic dogma. We have seen the pitfalls of such thinking in Newtonian
Physics, we have learned about Aristotle’s errors in his logic, and we have performed
numerous experiments showing us the true nature of our surroundings and its dependence on
us as the observers, but still we are uncomfortable with the indeterminism so fundamental to
our world’s working, its stable and robust working.
Absolute objectivity, as we have seen, is not attainable, because we would need at least two
identical observations of the same event. This is not possible. Every independent individual
observer has his own space-time coordinates, whether he is a human being or an atom that
gets excited. Hence, the value of truth is also connected with uncertainty. The absolute
infinitely thin line as a demarcation on a dimension defined by two opposites also cannot
exist in practice or nature; neither can its location be determined with infinite precision. A
רקיעis a demarcation, but we learn also about what such a demarcation can contain in the
spiritual worlds178. If it can contain something, we have to suppose that in some dimension
this demarcation is not a fine line but a space. How can we understand this?
Let us look at the example of tahor and tamei in the case of the Red Heifer ()פרה אדומה.
The Law says in Parshas Chukkas that after the burning of the heifer the priest performing
the mitzvah must immerse in a mikveh and remain ritually impure until evening. Then a
ritually pure person should gather the ashes and distribute them into three ritually pure
places, the Beis HaMikdash, the Mount of Olives and outside the wall of the Beis
HaMikdash. At the time of the encampment in the desert he had to place the ashes in a
ritually pure place outside the camp. The gatherer had also to immerse in a mikveh and
remain impure until evening. The ashes were added to the sprinkling water which is used for
ritual purification.
The production and gathering of the ashes render the person handling them impure, while
they have to be placed in a pure place and later serve as a means of purification. The cow
itself has to be extremely pure in regard to any blemish. This is not understandable at all by
any means of common sense or logic; it is a חוק, a supernatural law. It is also remarkable
that the cow has to be slaughtered and burned outside the camp and outside the Beis
HaMikdash which is in all other cases of sacrifices considered murder. The question is:
Where is in this law the רקיעbetween pure and impure, and where do we place the two
extremes relative to it? – Let us examine where the extremes are. First, the animal is clean.
When it is slaughtered and burned it contaminates the priest and the gatherer. This could be
explained by the conjecture that the person got contaminated by the impurity of death 179. So
178
Tractate Chagigah 12
179
We do not want to prove or argue in favor of this explanation; we are purely interested to determine the
geometry of the demarcation between the states of pure and impure in this case.
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far, nothing can be seen as an anomaly or even a paradox. The fact that the animal is burnt
(sacrificed) outside the temple area which normally would constitute murder, moves the
distinction between murder and sacrifice to a clean place outside the sanctuary. A similar
movement is constituted by the process of bringing the scape-goat to Azazel. The viewpoint
changes to outside the sanctuary leaving the laws of sacrifice intact, beholding the boundary
condition of Red Heifer or Scape-Goat. This constitutes a widening of the space of the
sanctuary to another clean place to be included in it, and produces an uncertainty of position
space herewith. By the rendering impure the person slaughtering and burning or pushing the
animal concerned, the distinction between the sanctuary and an outside space is compensated
for.
The Rambam comments on this law as follows: The idea taught by this law is this: Those who have
defiled themselves would never be allowed to enter the Sanctuary, or to partake of holy things, were it not for the red
heifer by which this sin is removed; in the same manner as the plate which the high priest wears on his forehead atones
for uncleanness, and as a similar object is attained by the goats that are burnt. For this reason those were unclean who
were engaged in the sacrifice of the heifer or the goats which were burnt, and even their garments were unclean. The
same was the law in the case of the goat that was sent away for it was believed that it made unclean those who touched
it, because it carried off so many sins.
As we can see from this comment, it seems that an uncertainty in position space is
compensated by an uncertainty in “cleanness space” which should, by all considerations
discussed above, be complementary to each other. Hence, the determination of the
complementarity of such spaces is essential to resolve apparent paradoxes as that of the law
of the Red Heifer. If we now invert these conditions for the ashes of the red heifer into a
complementary space, they become clean inside the sanctuary, if dissolved in water. The
water of a mikveh never can be contaminated, so it cleans the ashes and in addition the ashes
enable purification from contamination from the dead. The symmetry of the uncertainty in
cleanness space to position space becomes herewith obvious and shows that the distinction
separated by the relevant uncertainty or uncertainty product is not necessarily sharp as a line
or point, but has to be generalized into a space representing a hyper-point or hyper-line
constituting a space which may be identified as the red heifer itself. Nevertheless, there is a
restriction we can find in the Gemara (Tractate Chagigah ch. 3) concerning the laws of tahor
and tameh: There are different levels of them depending for what purpose the tahara is
needed. Hence, one can construct a space of several dimensions of tahor-tameh coordinates.
Obviously there is a difference between something genuinely unclean which transfers the
uncleanness to a person and remains itself unclean and something that is only a carrier of the
uncleanness and loses same after contaminating someone. Uncertainties are only possible, if
there is a possibility of a dichotomy or at least a double or multiple solution of the problem
posed. Only if an object or person is considered unclean or clean in its essence, the
distinction is an ideal sharp distinction. If the object or person is rather a carrier of such
uncleanness, there is room for uncertainty, because the person might be clean as such, but
only contaminated and with that a carrier. Obviously the question arises, when one is
genuinely unclean and when only a carrier of such uncleanness. From both the Azazel and
the Red Heifer examples one can conjecture, if the contamination is transferred by an action
of a certain classification that is reversible in itself, we have the uncertain case, while in the
case of definitive contamination like in the case of a pig, there are no uncertainty and no
symmetry operations applicable.
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Hence, it follows that if there is an uncertain case, we have to increase the dimensionality of
the space related to the dynamics applicable. We can construct a space or spaces that are
complementary to each other similar to our physical model above which describes position
and momentum. We can conceive that for the example Red Heifer position and tahor and
tameh are complementary. Both can have multiple dimensions and different grading. The
heifer becomes the uncertainty space produced by the product of position and tahara spaces.
All these laws that categorize between opposites, i.e. all negative mitzvoth, are subject to the
interpretation by the human mind in form of categorization. We have seen above that such
categorization is dependent on the system of thinking of the individual or group of
individuals. One of the main myths in practicing such categorization is that there exists an
absolute ideal framework for such categorization, meaning the imagination that there is an
absolute scale on which one can place distinctions with absolute certainty and precision. This
is certainly thwarted by the individuality of any person or mind having its individual space-
time-mind coordinates relative to others. The emphasis lies here on relative to others, because
as we have seen in the Machian and Einsteinian approaches to such coordinates, same are
dependent on the distribution of the objects in a space-time and vice versa. We learn in
general relativity that space-time curves or wraps around massive matter, but we also learn
that if the space-time is curved or rippled, particles are produced. For us as observers of such
a phenomenon180 there is no telling whether the mass causes the curvature or the curvature
causes the mass. Let us explain this with an experiment.
We imagine now that the reference frame of the accelerator is taken away from the
perception of the observers and there is no other “landmark” for them to orientate themselves
on. They are also not aware of each other and cannot communicate during the experiment.
After the experiment the observers meet and report their findings. We will get three different
reports about the geometry of space-time around the particle, about the spectrum of light
observed and so on. The three observers will, if they are not aware of the laws of physics
relevant to reconcile their observations or if they are simply not aware of each other’s
reference systems, completely disagree about what they have observed.
180
Experimental evidence for such a phenomenon is for example the effect of gravitational lensing in
astronomical observations.
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Imagine now a panel of judges trying to reconcile the three observations. Suppose they are
only aware of the acceleration process of the second observer. Hence, they will either dismiss
the other two reports as untrue or conclude the other two observers’ minds are working
differently from the one’s whose testimony they could “prove”, relative to their own
knowledge of the experimental conditions. If the panel of judges knows the same as observer
one or three, they will act in a similar manner, just that what they think is the truth is
interchanged. We have in this case surely to deal with three different space-times as
perceived by the three observers, and that is why they perceive completely different things.
For that reason the outcome of the “reconciliation” has rather to do with the information that
is available to the judges at the time of the hearing. This is, as we know very well, due to the
principle of relativity. Space and time appear to different observers different, where in the
non-relativistic frame of our daily life such differences indeed are negligible, in most cases.
The judges are only able to come to an explanation of the differences of the reports of all
three observers, if they have knowledge of the principle of relativity and are able to
reconstruct the complete system or they have to have the knowledge an observer outside the
accelerator system who can observe all three observers and the particle. Approximations of
observations of different observers of the same phenomenon in the non-relativistic limit are,
due to our rigid reference frame Earth, seemingly identical observations, but only seemingly.
This seems to us the main reason for the human quest to find absolute and deterministic
ideals in nature, spiritual realms and within his social surroundings.
What is fact in such a situation? The fact is that despite we learn otherwise in Kabbalah and
by empirical experience, the Newtonian principle of absolute space and time is ingrained in
our minds181. The Newtonian principles are based on his refutation of a mistake made by
Descartes in his Principles of Philosophy. Descartes argued that a body could play the role of
reference to another body in motion relative to it. Since any other body could play the role of
reference, any one body could be regarded as having many different motions. He allowed,
however, a body to have one true “philosophical motion” which was its motion relative to the
matter immediately adjacent to it. Descartes believed there was matter everywhere, so any
body did always have matter adjacent to it. This idea rescued him from sure death by the
hand of the Roman catholic court of inquisition, since he claimed that the Earth was carried
around the Sun in a huge vortex. Since the Earth did not move relative to the adjacent matter
of the vortex, he claimed it does not move. The fact is that Newton’s absolute space arose out
of the proposition of Descartes’ law of inertia. Newton saw immediately the flaw in
Descartes’ claim that a body could move on a straight line which presupposes absolute space
and time of reference, what Descartes denied. Seeing the great potential of the law of inertia,
Newton wanted to exploit it and came up with the idea of an absolute space and time 182 that
was immovable and completely rigid. He admitted that space and time were invisible and one
could directly see only relative motions and not the absolute motions in invisible space. He
claimed that the absolute motions could be derived from the relative motions, but he never
gave a full proof or even demonstration of this. Newton’s most famous critic during his
lifetime was the German mathematician and philosopher Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz who
held against Newton the absolute notion of space and time that had to be without beginning,
according to Newton, because the Creator would then never have been able to create the
181
By the same token, Aristotle’s, Plato’s, Descartes’, Laplace’s and Kant’s quests for the absolute ideal
and absolute perfection are also ingrained in most minds, despite they might be Jewish.
182
May it be noted that we on purpose do not say space-time here. In Newton’s picture the time coordinate
could not be interchanged with space coordinates.
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world, according to Leibniz. Fact is that Newton’s absolute space and time play a decidedly
odd role. The first problem is their invisibility; the more serious problem is the little part they
play in the story of Galilean relativity, and how irrationally they participate in the action of
the universe. Mach, Einstein and Poincaré demonstrated this irrationality more than
sufficiently: an absolute framework of the universe is not needed. We also learned that
configuration space for that reason is also malleable.
Our way of thinking evolved on the stable surface of the Earth which suggests a rigid frame
of reference at least if phenomena are observed or experimentally demonstrated in a
laboratory on Earth’s surface. We need to come to terms with the necessity of a more abstract
way of thinking if we want to understand the workings of the universe around us. We need to
find our bearings when the solid reassuring framework of the Earth is not there. This is the
kind of mental preparation one needs to understand the ideas of Henri Poincaré who in this
respect was even smarter than Einstein. Poincaré was the first ever to ask the question most
precisely what information is needed to predict the future. If only relative quantities count,
then Newton assumed too much structure, and Occam’s razor has to do its duty. Poincaré was
the one who suggested finally after Hendrik Anton Lorentz’s assumption of a homogeneous
rigid aether instead of a vacuum that some general principle should rule out all possibility of
detecting motion relative to the aether. Reason for this was the incompatibility of the results
of the Michelson-Morley experiment that was performed with great accuracy in 1887. The
constancy of the speed of light in vacuo independent of the movement of the carrying
reference frame Earth did not fit into a rigid framework, neither Newton’s nor Laplace’s or
Lorentz’s desperate trial to fit electromagnetism into a rigid aether. Poincaré was the first to
propose that a relativity principle might hold universally and not only in mechanics. While he
was working with Lorentz on a solution, Einstein presented his stunning solution
independently: the Theory of Relativity was born. Newtonian space and time were proven to
be as malleable as they can be. Simultaneity and with that causality in a certain sense became
questionable, experiments verified and are still verifying the principle of general relativity
Einstein finally devised in 1929, the same year Heisenberg presented his uncertainty
principle of Quantum Mechanics. This was an earthquake for the Aristotelian-Cartesian-
Kantian philosophy in favor of an old assumption we learned in Sefer Etz Chaim: there is no
aether, there is a vacuum, and that vacuum has structure, mathematical structure that has
influence primarily on electromagnetism and the other fields of interaction, this fact being
verified experimentally by the Casimir effect. Another example for mathematical structure
having a two-tier creating relationship183 with physical phenomena is: General Relativity
allows geometrical shape of space-time to produce gravity and with that mass, but mass
creates curvature of space-time, so it cannot be distinguished here what is cause and what
effect. We also learned that gravitational self-energy of an entangled system is a very good
candidate to explain spontaneous disentanglement as an objective state reduction process
keeping Creation alive and physical objects in the universe distinguishable. We heard about
the proposal that this gravitational effect dependent on space-time geometry and with that
mathematical structure may be the key to unlock the mystery of consciousness and self-
consciousness, but all these effects only concern the physical part of information and how it
is processed, they do not say anything about the content of such information. Even a
spontaneous state reduction by gravitational self energy inside the brain does not explain any
content of information, and definitely at this stage does not say anything about will or intent
in regard to our definition of consciousness that it has to be intentional. Similarly, the
183
We learned above about the curvature of space-time and mass-gravity relationship.
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derivation of the coupling constants in the interlude above, in particular that of 1/137, says
nothing about will or intention. Those descriptors of natural law only set a framework or
structure for the creation of a universe or universes. Only experimental observation brings in
the question of free will and intention as shown by Simon Kochen (ArXiv 0807.3286v1
[quant-ph] 21 Jul 2008). This experimental observation must be extended to elementar
particles interacting with their environment including the universe itself. An interesting
feature of his free will theorem is, free will is half-deterministic; hasgacha pratit can only
exist when free will exists and vice versa. Furthermore, certain interdependencies of
interactions make a complete randomness of even the most primitive free will impossible.
There is a problem with intentional consciousness and will or free will that is so fundamental,
it seems insurmountable by scientific method. Will or free will in its most primitive form is
only observable or measurable as a spontaneous effect. Intended will to make choices, at least
in a living creature, can only be measured by the action following that will and is henceforth
to be classified as a spontaneous action. The reason for this is that the true intention of a
living creature cannot be monitored, at least not at the time of writing this treatise. Even if
such will and/or its intentions are communicated before the choice is made, we have to take
into consideration that all categories are fuzzy and uncertain in space and time and as an
amplifying factor we have to take into account instabilities of the language in which such
communication is attempted. Furthermore, the exact timing of such a willed action is
impossible to determine, even if clocks are used, the minimum uncertainty will be
determined by the precision of the time measuring device, and that has a finite error. Again,
only the outcome of the will in form of an action and its results is observable and measurable,
and any interpretation of actions by reconstructing intentions is guesswork, even if numerous
boundary conditions are taken into consideration. To speak of “proof” regarding intentions is
in the strictly mathematical sense meaningless, to accept as “proof” a plausibility argument
“beyond reasonable doubt” is a necessary relaxation of rigor in this respect.
If we take these limitations into consideration, we can only conclude that what is valid for
natural law is also valid for man-made law and spiritual or divine law 184 interpreted and
carried out by man. The relativity principle does not exclude inversion of causality or
uncertainties in available knowledge to make a judgment about a certain phenomenon, its
observation or interpretation, be it in the scientific or more so in the legal or moral realm.
Common interpretation of law often assumes some unattainable absolute knowledge that we
cannot have, because we do not have the resources of the Total Existence or the Creator. We
have to remind ourselves all the time that we are and remain human and that our quest for
absolute and dogmatic infinitely precise interpretations of phenomena in any thinkable realm
is not attainable because of the very nature of our worlds we live in and the רקיעיםinside
these worlds. Those רקיעיםare most of the time made by ourselves, and that means
individually or by negotiated consensus of individuals who sometimes may call themselves
authorities.
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where exactly it is located or what its own shape may be. The interaction of the mind of the
observer with the observed phenomenon only comes into being when communicable
information is produced in the detecting system. As we have extensively discussed in our
treatment of the quantum mechanical experiments, the information becomes communicable
with the discarding of complementary information; otherwise the process is reversible even if
the detecting system has already interacted with the phenomenon and the complementary
information can be reconstructed. It is completely sufficient in all cases that communicable
information has been produced irreversibly. This can be done by a simple recording device
that can be read at any time at the convenience of the observer. In contrast, objective state
reduction does not need an observation process, but shows another way of producing
communicable information irreversibly. It causes an irreversible decay of one entangled
object into at least two disentangled objects. We described above the gravitational
mechanism of such disentanglement and conjecture now that the geometry of space-time can
cause disentanglement and can be seen in the same way as an observation or measurement.
On the other hand the term “communicable” depends on the mind of the observer and
determines what can be seen as communicable and what not. Another rather strange
phenomenon is that two entangled systems can be arbitrarily far distant from each other to
interact as if they would be one system. An example for this is Anton Zeilinger’s experiment
of two entangled electrons of opposite spin. It suggests, however, the question whether the
flipping of the spin of the electron which is not interacting with a magnetic field is really
communicable information. If it is, we suggest checking whether the particles’ entanglement
may be temporarily interrupted. The entangled wavefunctions as well as the space-time
curvatures of the objectively disentangling particles are mathematical structure of that same
space-time construct made by the particles in question and their surroundings. This suggests
that there should be a link between mathematical structure of space-time and the criterion that
makes information communicable. One trivial link is that if information is to be
communicable, it must be imprinted on a physical and massive185 carrier.
Is there, for these reasons a possibility that we have overseen the interactions between a mind
of Creation in form of mathematical structure and physical effects? Is this mind or “soul”
physically real, maybe only in higher dimensions, and is it measurable? – To attack this
question we need first to make sure what constitutes a physical carrier and ask the question
whether the vacuum that constitutes “empty” space-time in our physical universe can be such
information carrier. It seems we can answer such question at least partly in the affirmative if
we examine effects like the Casimir effect and the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
Both effects act via electromagnetism. The Casimir effect is manifested by a physical force
exerted between separate objects due to all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening space
between the objects. The effect can be understood by the idea that the presence of conducting
metals and dielectrics alter the expectation value of the vacuum energy of the
electromagnetic field in second quantization. Since the value of this energy depends on the
shapes and positions of the conductors or dielectrics, the Casimir effect manifests itself as a
force between such objects. This force can be, depending on the shape of the material objects
involved, attractive and repulsive. The Casimir effect is only fully explicable by quantum
field theory where fields like the electromagnetic field need to be quantized at each and every
point in space. Canonically, the field at each point in space is a simple harmonic oscillator,
and second quantization places a quantum harmonic oscillator at each point in space.
185
We here remind the reader that also a photon has a relativistic mass. It only has no rest mass.
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Excitations of the field in second quantization correspond to the particles we can observe.
Even the vacuum has a vastly complex structure and all calculations of quantum field theory
must be made in relation to this model of the vacuum. According to this model the vacuum
has all the properties that a particle may have (spin, polarization, energy etc.). On average, all
of these properties cancel out; the vacuum is after all empty, except for the vacuum energy or
better, its expectation value. This expectation value cannot be zero; the lowest or zero-point
energy is E0 = ½ ħω. Summation over all possible points of space yields an infinite value
which means trouble in cosmology.
There is currently no compelling explanation for how this infinity should be treated as
essentially zero. A non-zero value is the cosmological constant and should be a very small
number. We propose to look at the negative nature of gravitational energy and propose to
sum up over the positive and negative field energies to arrive at that small number. This also
shows us how urgently a unified field theory is needed that includes the gravitational field. At
the time of the writing of this treatise such a theory had not been devised yet.
The Aharonov-Bohm effect displays the action of a magnetic field that is shielded off on
electromagnetic waves. To illustrate the workings of the effect we recall Young’s experiment
and place an infinitely long solenoid between the two slits. In switching on the magnetic field
we can observe a phase shift in the interferogram of Young’s experiment. Since the magnetic
field is definitely only to be found inside the solenoid, it cannot interact with the light. The
vector potential A(r) which is related to the magnetic field by ×A(r) = B(r) and to an
arbitrary scalar function like the wavefunction by A(r) = (1/c) ∫ d3r’ ([J (r’)/|r – r’|] +
ψ(r))
acts on said phase shift of the interfering light. The vector potential is seen in classical
physics as an abstract field with no direct physical effect as it is to be understood as an
integral of the magnetic field. Since the magnetic field is shielded off from the light, there is
no classical effect on it, but only a quantum effect. Mathematically this can be formulated
using complex calculus where the phase of the light is the complex part of the vacuum
dispersion relation.
Both effects show that in quantized fields the vacuum carries energy and with that
information, if only phase information which can occur instantly. The consequences are the
possibility of the transmission of instant quantum information186. If such instant action at a
distance which Einstein coined as “spooky action” can be explained only by quantum
phenomena using complex functions, this could be the opening of the possibility to do
measurements beyond our (classically perceived) physical space. We remind the reader here
again of the fact that quantum information or phase information can only be transmitted in
conjunction with classical information and needs at least two carrying particles that need be
entangled. The retrieval of such information as communicable information needs state
reduction and the loss of complementary information. Again the communicability is
governed by the imprint of that information on a physical carrier that can be read or its
properties measured.
Up to now it seems there is no other evidence of any interaction of a mind with an observed
object than the fact that the information produced by the observation or measurement needs
to be in a communicable form. This presses to ask the question, what is communicable
information and to what minimal entity has it to be communicated to? – We are trying to find
186
This might, in a further development, lead to an explanation of instant action at a distance.
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a criterion for a “minimum mind” that can make the observation irreversible, for example by
making an irreversible decision. For this purpose we propose a solution of this up to now
unresolved problem in form of an experiment.
We propose a modification of the quantum erasure experiment in double delayed mode in the
following manner: The experiment shall have a detector system that can make a decision on
its own free will. This should be achieved by the use of a material that can make simple
decisions whether it wants to register the measurement or not. If it does decide not to register,
the other device should show the complementary information and if it decides to register, the
other device should lose the complementary information. The detector should be equipped
with a material that can make decisions as described by Abraham Shanzer and his
colleagues187. To make sure, no human mind or computer is involved in the process of
making the measurement irreversible, we propose the following measures: The process
should take place fully automated and no human observer shall be used. Two quantum
erasure experiments shall be combined in a way that the decision making detector creates an
asymmetry in the output statistics in a way that if the detector is removed or shut down, this
symmetry will be restored.
It remains open where the threshold is to define a device as having a “most primitive mind”,
and whether such threshold (mind / no mind) which constitutes a demarcation or רקיעis
definable, and under loss of which type of information that should be complementary to the
gained one. If Penrose’s proposal of gravitational objective state reduction is correct, and it
seems as if it has a good chance to be correct, the most primitive mind is to be found in any
unstable particle or composition of particles188. Hence, chemistry and biology should be full
of such minds. Up to now, decisions of composition of particles or molecules are in general
limited to decay or not decay and react or not react, decision to go or not. A three or more
way decision influenced by processes like learning or other indirect environmental influences
may lead us to understand at least assemblies of such “minds”, while the single molecule will
remain rather renegade and make a whimsy decision, if the statistical behavior of particles
and nuclei holds also for such “intelligent” molecular entities. However, the statistical
behavior of assemblies of such entities such as intelligent molecules may be a nice model
mimicking the function of a precursor of a brain.
With this we arrive at the question how to define the term brain or מוח. In Kabbalah we are
confronted with the brain of worlds. All the worlds are seen as an image of man, the head is
seen as the combination of ( חכמהwisdom) and ( בינהunderstanding), crowned by כתר,
where כתרis not part of the head or ראשof the world or Partzuf. We have learned above
that wisdom is consciousness in unstructured, totally abstract form, while understanding
brings distinctions and classifications into the consciousness. This requires that conscious
decision making or mind depends on an evolving indiscriminate state of information
processing which becomes irreversible by categorization and analysis, placing demarcations
and making decisions which information to process further or which to store and make to
knowledge or דעת. The parallel to our quantum theoretical process of observation is as
obvious as stunning. Will which is represented by כתר, however, can consult the mind or
not. Not consulting meaning making a go or no-go decision at whim is the classical case of a
spontaneous action and the minimal use of the mind, where the statistical time for such action
187
Cite Shanzer’s paper and the others.
188
Any (rest-) massive particle that occurs in Nature decays: the proton has a half-life of about 1032 years.
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is given in case of for example the onset of Creation or the decay of a nucleus by the
parameters of the relevant space (-time).
Not without reason it is written in the Preface of the Zohar about the letter א: “Aleph, Aleph,
although I will begin the Creation of the world with the ב, you will remain the first of the
letters. My unity shall not be expressed except through you, on you shall be based all
calculations and operations of the World, and Unity shall not be expressed save by the letter
א.” The אsymbolizes also the upper and the lower י, to both sides of the וwhich symbolizes
the רקיעand with that emphasizes the אas a symbol for the complete mind, the רקיע
incorporating the facility of the demarcation between evolving and reduced thought of the
mind, the brain being the carrier. Such carrier, as we have seen above in several cases and
examples does not necessarily need to be a biological brain. Even the vacuum of our universe
has enough structure189 to facilitate as such carrier.
From this we feel to have the right to conjecture that a mind can be carried by the physical
vacuum if we strictly follow our definitions justified above. At least this is a strong
possibility, as obviously the mind of the Total Existence uses gravitation, i.e. deformation of
space-time, to ensure the continuous breaking of entanglement so that the universe is in
reduced rather than evolving states. An interesting example how such evolving and reduced
states behave is described in Etz Chaim, דרוש מטי ולא מטי.
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reduce a state. Perhaps there will be types of experiments exploring the nature of quantum
gravity such as those designed to test the possibility of higher dimensions.
The more deeply we probe the fundamentals of physical behavior, the more we find
ourselves in mathematical rather than physical structures. Concerning the mind-matter
interactions such things as mathematical structure seem to us most promising to investigate.
A very promising beginning for such structure investigation is the physical vacuum and
systems mimicking its structure and behavior such as superfluids like liquid Helium190. This
is also very important to understand the concept of a reshimo and its interaction with light
forming sfirot and vessels. An analogy for that are topological defects in superfluids. These
topological defects may also be a key to understand the interplay between physical and
spiritual realms using mathematical structure – matter interactions as an example for such
interplay. Collective state reductions inducing phase transitions due to purely geometrical
change over large distances and the like are good candidates for such investigations as their
structure is very rich191.
In particular, low dimensional systems seem to excellently mimic such effects as “hidden”
dimensions.
The conceptual similarity between condensed matter and the quantum vacuum gives some
hint on the origin of symmetries and also allows the simulation of many phenomena in high-
energy physics and cosmology related to the quantum vacuum using quantum liquids, Bose-
Einstein condensates and superconductors. All particles of the Standard Model have energies
which are extremely small compared to the Planck energy scale. That is why one may
propose that all of them originate from the fermionic or bosonic zero modes (collective
modes) of the quantum vacuum. If this is the case, we need to describe and to classify the
possible zero modes of quantum vacua which represent either the true or a false vacuum.
These zero modes are represented by the bosonic collective modes of the quantum vacuum,
the dilute gas of the particle-like excitations or quasiparticles which play the part of
elementary particles, and topological defects which have their own bosonic and fermionic
zero modes. Quantum liquids provide examples of how the metric field gμν of the Einstein
equations naturally emerges as the low energy collective mode of the quantum vacuum.
Using Andrej Sakharov’s theory of 1967 one can derive the action of this mode, and even the
curvature term of space-time can be reproduced in some condensed matter systems. From this
point of view gravity is not the fundamental force, but is determined by the properties of the
quantum vacuum. Gravity is one of the collective modes of the quantum vacuum. A possible
direct experimental demonstration of this fact is the Casimir effect.
If we now recall gravity’s role in objective state reduction, where we postulated similarity of
that type of interaction with an act of observation, we see that both types of state reducing
agents, gravity and the production of communicable information, are derivatives of the
respective more fundamental entities really initiating the state reduction. In case of
gravitational state reduction the properties of the vacuum itself generate the gravitation which
means that for example if geometrical constraints are imposed on the vacuum, the low energy
collective modes or gravitation will change at the location where such constraints are
190
We refer here to the extensive investigations by G. Volovik.
191
We refer here to an invited conference paper of one of the authors (P. BA) on the Kosterlitz-Thouless
transition in two dimensional Helium films.
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imposed. This means that topological defects in the quantum vacuum could give rise to
anomalies in the space-time geometry itself. It appears to us that there is a similarity of these
topological defect structures and the structures of the reshimo in Kabbalah. We therefore
propose that the experimental investigation of condensed matter systems could give a lot of
insight into the production of mass as well as quantum state reductions initiated by
gravitational anomalies192 as well as they may enable us to mimic the conditions of structure
interactions described in Kabbalah. A further very interesting point arising within the
treatment of the Standard Model and the trans-Planckian physics by mimicking it with a
quantum liquid is that some analyses like the velocity of light in an anisotropic vacuum or a
stability analysis of its ground state energy cannot be obtained by an observer living inside
the vacuum or the quantum liquid. He will always see the velocity of light as constant and
independent of its propagation direction, while an outside observer can see differences. From
this we can conclude that it is absolutely in the framework of possibility that we do not see
such anomalies or anisotropies either, and some of the physics we try to understand is closed
to us, unless we find a way how to access a system that contains our observable universe and
observe “from there”. Mimicking experiments with analogous systems can thereby help us to
find criteria we have to look for to achieve such a goal.
It turns out that the only fundamental constant not emerging from condensed matter systems
mimicking the Planck state followed by inflation and the Big Bang with its decoupling of the
electromagnetic interaction is Planck’s constant h. With this all uncertainty relations are
fundamental to the Physics we can observe and even mimic by analogous systems. Where it
comes from and what determined its value is still a mystery. Planck in 1906 published a
paper where he used the electric charge which is definitely quantized as a basic unit to
describe physics in “natural” units. He defined the charge of the electron as e = –1 and
obtained according to his scheme a value for his own constant ħ = 137.036. It was John
Wheeler who emphasized the importance of these ideas of absolute units in many of his
writings using ħ rather than Planck’s choice of the electric charge. The importance of the
only fundamental constant of the Planck state of the pre-inflationary universe speaks for
itself. Planck’s constant and its relationship to charge and mass of elementar particles as well
as the fine structure constant α = e2/ħc that defines the strength of electromagnetic
interactions and has a numerical value of 1/137.036 suggested already in 1946 that there must
be a fundamental connection between quantization and the fundamental interactional forces
in Physics. α itself is still unexplained in the literature up to today, and Sir Arthur Eddington
for example tried to produce a fundamental theory of Physics with the value of 137 as a
fundamental constant. This quest for a purely mathematical reason for such specific values is
today more and more abandoned and replaced by so called “running coupling constants”
making such constants of Nature to low energy limits of these running values, but without
energy dependence such constants would not at all appear fundamental.
The question in Science still remains open, why 137 is fundamental in such a way that it does
not emerge out of theory or measurement of any system that mimics our physical universe. It
is one of the parameters that determine the shape of the configuration space of our physical
world. We still have no answer in Physics where exactly its numerical value comes from, but
we can offer an interesting observation in Kabbalah. If we take into consideration an error to
137 rendering it as 137.036 or similar deviating measured values and accept that such values
192
Such anomalies have to be understood as anomalies in the space-time curvature as discussed in our
radioactive nucleus problem.
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cannot be determined exactly to the last digit after the point, we should look at the following
facts:
• The sum of the gematriot of the two names ע"בand ס"גis 135+2 = 137.
• The gematria of תהו ובהוis 430 which, divided by π, yields roughly 137.
• The gematria of תהוis 411 as is the gematria of יש מאיןor something from nothing,
and divided by three this yields exactly 137.
• A word with the gematria two times 137 is רעד, to shiver, to tremble.
• A word with the gematria 137 is – קבלה
Is this all coincidence? Is the Holy Language giving us hints to the origin of the world using
the most fundamental constant in Physics that is not even possible to deduce from a system
mimicking our universe or has this language been developed to show this knowledge given to
us in ancient times even if we should have forgotten what those words really mean?
Do we now have to re-discover painstakingly by scientific research what the Creator had
given us anyway? It seems to be necessary that mankind discovers these things by its own
efforts. As we have discussed above, it is very difficult to describe phenomena to people
whose experience lacks any connection to such phenomena. The necessity to use similes
from their realm of expertise to describe a phenomenon totally not graspable for them brings
so much uncertainty with itself that the phenomenon itself becomes camouflaged completely
and gives henceforth way to falsification of the facts by misinterpretation193. It seems to be
necessary for any civilization to gain experience and expertise by their own efforts and then
re-discover what they were taught at a time they were not ready for such revelation. Only
after such effort such revelation becomes useful for any civilization. This is very much in the
sense of what we have to understand as repairs or rectifications ( )תיקוניםof the world, be it
through the performance of mitzvoth or through the learning about how this world works.
Let us refer again to Sefer Yetzirah 2:6 as cited above where substance was formed out of
chaos or תהוthat before was engraved and carved from water (1:11). Chaos here is referring
to the most primitive and first stage of matter, as commented by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. This
necessarily needs to refer to the Planck state in Physics, if it is the first manifestation of
matter. Now we can argue that space and time as geometry depends on the distribution of
matter and vice versa, and use this argument to conjecture that the emergence of space-time
and matter were one process. תהוitself comes according to the Kabbalists from the verb
תההmeaning to be confused or astounded, another hint to uncertainty. The Zohar 3:27a and
193
We remind the reader of the Rambam’s remarks in this respect.
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the Bahir 135 teach that תהוis associated with the Klipot, the forces that prevent one from
visualizing the spiritual worlds.
Despite this seems to be a nice conjecture, we have here to do with a process that takes place
in the higher world of Yetzirah. The completion of such creation then is finalized in the
world of making, the world of Assiyah. The present conjecture, however, proposes that this
very process took place all at once. All at once, because before any dynamics existed, no time
could be defined. An interesting fact is also the word we found with double the gematria 137.
Trembling means uncertainty and this very uncertainty is described by the physical constant
that does not “emerge” out of any theories, it can only be experimentally determined and not
further “explained” – coincidence? We leave this to the reader to decide as well as the
interpretation of the gematria for the word Kabbalah. If one accepts the Divine origin of the
Hebrew language, we can understand this as a hint to use the knowledge of that part of Torah
to further explore our universe and its origin with scientific method. Important is that we will
only accept scientifically proven results to verify or falsify such hybrid research, but we have
good confidence that Kabbalah will not mislead us.
We definitely are of the opinion, it is very well worthwhile to examine the writings of
Kabbalah for further clues that could help to find a theory that bridges the still open very tiny
gap between the singularity of the very beginning and the definition and inflation of physical
space-time. There are several avenues open to eventually reach this goal, but one very
important constraint will be in the way to verify such a theory, if we ever arrive at it: we sit in
the lowest dimensional realm. The possibility to test such theory from higher dimensions than
we physically exist in will always be limited to effects that are actually measurable and
observable in these finite dimensions of our space-time. Any higher dimensions will be only
accessible either via the human mind or we learn to extend our physical senses in
dimensionality by accessing these dimensions one day physically by the use of new
technology. Both are possibilities that cannot and should not be ruled out but pose today
some serious problems that would lead any discussion or proposition totally into the field of
speculation, because the level of study of the human mind or if we want to say so, minds as
we have discussed them above, is still very much on a beginner’s level. The only proposition
we can make is to try to analyze the information about the mind of humans and the mind of
the worlds as presented in the works of Kabbalah.
An interesting subject is the subdivision of the human soul in Kabbalah, namely Nefesh,
Ruach, Neshamah, Chaya and Yechidah. These subsets of the soul have different functions as
they are related to different sfirot. Otzrot Chaim describes in detail how these subsets are
acting and interacting for different partzufim, how they descend from and ascend to the
mouth of Adam Kadmon.
Generally Nefesh is understood to give the life force to everything; it is the spiritual
information of physical existence and remains with the body after death. It is said to be
divided in humans into Nefesh behemit which is the animalistic part of the soul ruling
instinctual behavior, and into Nefesh elokit which is the g-dly part of the soul ruling human
behavior. Ruach enables intellect, while Chaya is to be understood like an umbilical cord to
the Infinite, where Yechidah is part of the Infinite Total Existence. On this level individuality
is lost. Ruach signifies that which remains of man after his death and is not subject to
destruction, but it is supposed to return to its source, the Creator. The Rambam explains that
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divine inspiration, intention and will are in the realm of Ruach, while will in the realm of
Nefesh is the Creator’s will. Chaya signifies according to the Rambam a living sentient
organism, growing and having sensation, but it is also seen as the faculty of acquiring
wisdom or חכמה. Yechidah refers to a state of the soul which is part of all souls connected to
the Infinite. In this state there are no distinctions, it is the evolving state of souls where
individuality is only latent and not state reduced. This leads us to the question of the
necessity of an observer in form of a sentient being to enable the universe to exist in reduced
states as we know it. Inevitably we have to ask here about the validity of the anthropic
principle. In the inflationary picture of Creation the anthropic principle is often invoked. Its
argument postulates that the universe we perceive must be of such nature producing and
accommodating beings who can perceive it. Science does not give much of a clear
understanding about how to prove the validity of the anthropic principle, because we have
not much of an idea what conditions are actually necessary for the production of sentient life.
Furthermore, as a scientist one gets the impression that the anthropic principle can be too
easily used as a “bail-out”, when theoretical considerations have seemed to reach their limit.
Arguments that we could not exist, for example, without a certain energy level in carbon
nuclei allowing the production of heavier nuclei and with that our periodic system of
chemical elements in stars, finally being spewed out in supernovae, are too often used to
advocate a belief in an intelligent Creator who made sure about specific values of natural
constants by pre-ordination. There is a difficulty with such a point of view not only in
Physics but also in Kabbalah. In both views, as we have seen above, the beginning was
simple and smooth; there was only a very simple structure from that everything emerged. We
have seen also the difficulty to track back the history of our universe to the Planck state, a
state where dynamics as we know it and with that space-time as we know it, does not make
any sense. The physics of such a grand unified state cannot be measured; only the results of
the first symmetry breaking can be measured or observed which is exactly what makes the
Total Existence in the grand unified state ineffable. Again, the Torah is right, but we have the
right to search for exactly that first symmetry breaking, and we have the duty to make sure it
is the first one. A pre-mediated “fixing” of the natural constants makes no sense, because of
exactly that argument about simplicity and smoothness. The uniformity of the Big Bang and
the flatness of our universe make it very difficult to accept a principle that requires the
presence of sentient life as a reason for numerical values of physical constants. We feel this
argument is elliptic: without sentient life no universe, without the universe with its peculiar
properties no sentient life. We should rather concentrate on a much more interesting question:
How do we define conscious observation as a first cause for a first state reduction? – Gravity
and objective state reduction seems a much more appropriate candidate for an explanation
how geometrical structure in infinity actually transformed into energy, time and dynamics of
a material world and mental worlds. This type of consciousness is precisely what plays the
ultimate role of the observer. Conscious mentality needs to be supported by the universe in
Physics or the system of worlds in Kabbalah right from the onset of any dynamics leading to
a first symmetry breaking. Our proposal of the definition of a most primitive form of will
may be sufficient enough to meet that requirement, while the anthropic principle is unusable
in a flat and uniform universe with a smooth beginning, because in such a universe any
configuration of matter will occur somewhere in it by pure chance, making even statistically
unfavorable conditions for sentient life allowing that life. But to start our universe from a
singularity we need a first state reduction without such complicated life as we normally
define it, if we take the secrets of the Torah for serious and are optimistic that the
fundamental constants of Physics are mathematically determinable numbers. So far, we are
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relatively near the phenomenological completion of the history of our universe, about 10 -35
seconds, on the other hand we are far from a mathematical theory of everything in Science.
We think the consideration of the first evolutionary state leading to the first and second
Tzimtzum in Kabbalah may be the key to such a theory, but only qualitatively. Time will tell
whether we will be able to quantify it and describe it in the language of Mathematics.
We asked for a reason of Creation. A simple, but uncertain and maybe unpleasant answer is
that it is inevitable, at least according to the laws of Nature. We have seen that absolutely
nothing as such and by itself is non-existent. We need to start from one, if we want any
creation to happen, and the uncertainty of that One represented by the geometrical construct
discussed at length in this treatise seems to be inherent to any positive existence. Our
proposal of this very dichotomy of everything and nothing in an evolving state of a grand
unification of a Total Existence needs only a little noise, a little irregularity or uncertainty to
make the first state reduction and with that explain the onset of Creation as such in a
qualitative way. A quantitative description, however, is far from attainable at the moment,
not to speak about experimental verification, so to speak about a reason of Creation at this
stage of knowledge is too early – or is our quest for knowing a reason for Creation
meaningless, because there is no reason? This question can only be answered by the Creator,
הקדוש ברוך הוא, because He willed the Creation and Himself to evolve and reduce to what
we can observe or know by tradition, and of that will only the results can be observed and
known.
Can we ask הקדוש ברוך הואwhat was His reason to create? Can we communicate with
Him? – Scientifically the answer to this question will be very poor. We know far too little
about the physics of consciousness and the mind, the mind not only of human beings. We do
not know in the scientific sense, how the soul and its parts interact within the context of the
Total Existence, we only have clues from tradition, from Kabbalah. Tradition tells us about
the structure of souls, about reincarnations or גלגולים, and about the formation of zivugim
for the purpose of creation and formation in the higher worlds. For example the marriages of
Ya’akov with Leah and Rachel have significance in the higher worlds, as we learn in Etz
Chaim and other kabbalistic literature. A detailed treatment of questions arising, how the
mechanisms of such phenomena work must be subject of another treatise, but one thing is
sure: a detailed treatment of the soul would be a very interesting subject of research regarding
fundamental mathematics as an expression of the ability of the human mind, brain research
and physics and chemistry of the brain as well as biology and psychology. All this is beyond
the scope of this volume, but we want to encourage in particular Jewish scientists and
talmidei chachamim with an interest in the sciences to engage in active research into these
directions. A communication with the Creator at this stage is limited to prayer and Kabbalah
Ma’asit, which is not yet the subject of discussion in scientific terms, but we believe there
definitely is reason to pray and communicate with the Creator this way following our
traditions until we will have the means of observation and can develop scientific methods to
systematically understand such communication. We believe, it is worthwhile to think into this
direction, because we learned that the descriptions of Creation in the kabbalistic literature are
“spookily” precise pictures of what we learn scientifically about our universe. Hence, we do
not dismiss the term “angel” as a “messenger of the Creator” either, but support the view of
the Rambam. He writes in Moreh Nevuchim 2:6:
As for the existence of angels, there is no necessity to cite any proof from Scripture, where the fact is frequently
mentioned… We have already stated above that angels are incorporeal. This agrees with the opinion of Aristotle: there
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is only this difference in the names employed – he uses the term “intelligences”, and we say instead “angels”. His
theory is that the Intelligences are intermediate beings between the Prime Cause and existing things, and that they
effect the motion of the spheres, on which motion the existence of things depends. This is also the view we meet with
all parts of Scripture: every act of G-d is described as being performed by angels. But “angel” means “messenger”:
hence, every one that is entrusted with a certain mission is an angel. Even the movements of the brute creation are
sometimes due to the action of an angel, when such movements serve the purpose of the Creator who endowed it with
the power of performing that movement; e.g. “and an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal … (Judges 2:1)… It is
also used of ideals perceived by the prophets in prophetic visions, and of man’s animal powers, as will be explained in
another place.
When we assert that Scripture teaches that G-d rules this world through angels, we mean such angels as are identical
with the Intelligences. In some passages the plural is used for G-d, e.g. “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26)
… Our Sages explain this in the following manner: G-d, as it were, does nothing without contemplating the host above.
I wonder about the expression “contemplating”, which is the very expression used by Plato. G-d, as it were,
“contemplates the world of ideals, and thus produces the existing beings”… These passages do not convey the idea that
G-d spoke, thought, reflected, or that He consulted and employed the opinion of other beings as ignorant persons have
believed. How could the Creator be assisted by those whom He created! They only show that all parts of the universe,
even the limbs of animals in their actual form are produced through angels: for natural forces and angels are identical.
He explains further: “One angel does not perform two things, and two angels do not perform
one thing” (Bereshit Rabah 1). “This is exactly the property of all forces.” He clearly is of the
opinion that angels are natural forces, representatives of the laws of Nature, including
psychological forces. Those psychological forces depend, however, on the laws of
information theory and with that mathematics. Information depends on a carrier to enable its
processing and communication and with that on the laws of Physics. State reductions are
possible by gravitational effects. These facts may finally open up a gateway to understand
communications and interactions with higher worlds. Quantum entanglement and the
possibility of processing quantum information may even open up a physical gateway to the
Ein Sof that is measurable. Of course, we are here not talking about ministering angels, but
angels that are produced by thought and perish after that thought is processed. If the Rambam
is correct, we should one day have the possibility to communicate with higher worlds and the
Ein Sof on a physical basis. Until this is possible and “science fiction” becomes hard science,
we need to do it the old way: pray according to the traditional siddurim and what we learn in
Kabbalah. We think we have made it clear up to now that all the information given to us from
the time of Adam HaRishon through the generations of Noach, Avraham Avinu, Moshe
Rabenu, the two Temples and our Prophets, Mekubalim and Sages is authentic and in
accordance with the laws of Nature; we only have to open our eyes to see, and use our ever
growing knowledge in the sciences and in scientific method to understand.
The most dicey question needs still to be answered. Are the laws of Nature divine will or
created inevitably or by chance? – We suggested in our treatise earlier on that there was no
choice for Creator and Creation than to spring into an evolving existence. The reductions into
stable creations and distinguished worlds, however, are subject to debate: are they caused by
divine will or are they spontaneous symmetry breakings? As we have discussed above, an
evolving state cannot be measured classically, but only via quantum information in a very
limited way. Hence, “deliberations” preceding will are not accessible with the state of the art
in a way that would reveal pre-will processes in a satisfactory manner, meaning that such will
is proven to have a deterministic cause. This might not at all be the case. As long as we
cannot determine the “fixing” of constants like the fine structure constant, we cannot answer
this question in a scientifically acceptable way. On the other hand we cannot “bail out” by the
mere assumption of a pre-determination of such fundamental constants and with that the laws
of Nature by an ineffable Creator and leave it like that.
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For that and many other reasons, we want to present some unresolved issues in the sciences
tackled in this treatise, and suggest studying Torah and Kabbalah to find חב"דto solve, with
G-d’s help, some of these open problems.
A very interesting problem arising out of this treatise is how the term hashgachah pratit has
to be understood in the context of uncertainties, quantum behavior and relativistic causality
of our universe, information we receive, process and communicate; how can statistical and
stochastic processes be reconciled with the seemingly deterministic and absolutistic
phenomenon of hashgachah pratit? – We want to propose the structure of voluminosity of a
large sphere in relation to dimensionality.
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Concluding Remarks
In our treatise we have discussed some very fundamental ideas and facts about the principles
that govern Creation and our physical universe. We have made attempts to understand some
of these principles from the viewpoint of Science and from the viewpoint of Kabbalah,
reaching the conclusion that Kabbalah seems to show a very good resemblance of some
principles we learned in Physics and Mathematics. We have found no significant
contradictions that would be self-exclusive, but we might have shattered an age old dream
forever – the dream of the Ideal as such. Even in Mathematics we must concede to
uncertainties, to loss of information and to ambiguosity; when we deal with infinity we can
only approximate. Noise and uncertainty are always part of physical observation. Causality
and ideal absolutism are never found in their “pure” representation, but exactly this seems to
make our world stable in the sense that it is not hopelessly entangled but clearly observable.
Maybe we ought to listen to these noises, to these uncertainties, to the “small voice” who
spoke to us in the Beis HaMikdash. Maybe we have to accept effects like objective state
reduction as evidence for ongoing and permanent Creation and Sustenance of our world
carried out by the Creator at every instant of what we perceive of time.
Maybe in letting go of the unreachable, super-ideal, absolutist world view, in letting go of the
rigid classifications we are trying to maintain at all costs for the sake of an ideal that is
unattainable, and in looking closer at the empirically realistic, experimentally verifiable with
all its uncertainties, relativities, and despite lost information we will attain the goal to
understand our world how it is, not like we want it to be. Knowing how it is and how it
works, not why, not what it is in the sense of an absolute classification or categorization,
shall bring us to the goal the Almig-ty has asked us to reach: the תיקון העולמות, the repair of
the worlds that shattered and gave us reason to exist. Only when we know how our worlds we
populate work, when we understand all the mechanisms including their uncertainties and
inherent noises, all indeterminisms and statistical behaviors, we will know how to work on
such repair.
Only if we know that there is only One absolute truth, the existence of an all-encompassing
Creator who is at the same time, from our point of view, completely detached from His
Creation, we know that all the other truths and names are only aspects of His, and henceforth
subject to uncertainty, relativity and paradoxes. The world exists, not as Plato’s, Aristotle’s
or Kant’s ideal world, but as a world that is made stable and robust by its uncertainties and its
statistical behavior, a world that is running and returning, evolving and reducing, with always
moving רקיעים, according to our individual points of view. Let us explore it, without
prejudice. The deeper we explore, the deeper we have to ask new questions, ad infinitum.
In communication with the Creator we should, if we have learned the principles of the Torah
and its secrets, make use of special means provided by practical Kabbalah only sparsely and
only in cases we know that we do not bring harm to any part of the worlds, G-d forbid. We
should only use what we have learned and understood properly. We should use a critical and
self-critical mind to decide what is understood by proof and what only by repetition of
traditionally handed down facts and methods. Unless we explore the literature and learn from
our sages applying scientific method at all times, we cannot ask the right questions. If we do,
we can ask deeper and deeper, ad infinitum.
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A last remark we want to make about the use of divine names, names of angels and the use of
so called kabbalistic amulets and astrological interpretations as treated in the literature. First
of all, the use of any such items should not be leading to worshipping them, because this
constitutes idol worship.
Prayer or blessing is a communication of an individual with the Creator, not one or more of
His aspects. We have learned what different “names” mean, what the Creator did and does
with them in the process of an ever renewing Creation. We are so used by our daily life to
address others with their name, a name is significant, and it is polite to use a name of a
person one talks to, writes to or otherwise communicates with him or her. The Creator is not
a person, He does not need a name, and that is why He does not have one. Since He is all that
exists, He is One. That we learn twice a day when we say
An angel, tzaddik or other person should only be asked to pray together with oneself or to
pray on someone’s behalf who is not able to do so. This should not be understood or seem
like in any manner like someone would pray to such an entity. One should also be careful
always to have in mind that one prays to effectively only one, הקדוש ברוך הוא.
Mazalot or the astrological meaning of constellations of stars and planets can be subject of
very interesting study, but should be not taken as predicting an immutable fate, nor should
the name of a person be used to praise or condemn his or her character because of the related
mazal. It should be born in mind that any person can through study of Torah, its laws and
secrets in all their aspects in a manner using logic and strictly scientific reasoning, and in the
study of mathematics, the sciences, arts and humanities on the basis of Torah refine his or her
character beyond such rather prejudicial mazalot. He need not fear the dark forces, an evil
eye or any other object from the “other side”, because he or she is connected and knows to be
part of הקדוש ברוך הואby קידוש שמים.
May all readers of this treatise be encouraged to learn the Torah and its secrets so that we
may merit
הגאולה שלמה
speedily in our lifetime in this beautiful and wondrous physical and spiritual world.
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