“Why We Cannot See Beyond the Universe” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why We Cannot See Beyond the Universe

Our universe, cosmologists say, began with a big bang and has never stopped expanding since. They explain that we cannot see, or otherwise research beyond the universe that inhabits Planet Earth. It is not for inadequate optics that we cannot study outside our universe, but because the laws of physics make it impossible to discover what exists beyond our universe, if anything exists at all. The reason that scientists maintain this is not because this is the absolute truth, but because they do not have the proper tools to explore beyond our universe. However, such tools exist, and if they obtain them, they will know what is out there and see it as clearly as we see each other.

When mobile phone manufacturers want to improve their cameras, there are mainly two ways they can do it. The first, and obvious way, is to improve the hardware of the camera—the lenses, the shutter, etc. The other way is to improve the “mind” that deciphers what the lenses capture. This is done by employing more sophisticated software, better algorithms, and better processing units to run the improved computational skills that “understand” what the lenses see more accurately, and in this way produce a more detailed picture using the same optics.

In studying the universe, we need to do the same. No matter how good our optics become, there is a boundary that they will never cross. To reach beyond that boundary, we must improve the “mind” that understands the images, which in this case, is us.

We perceive our entire world through a very goal-oriented mind, and the goal is to serve its own interest. If something does not serve this self-interest, the mind does not perceive it. Therefore, in order to grasp what lies beyond our immediate interest, we must embrace other “interests” and make them our own. In simple words, we must learn to care about others as much as we currently care about ourselves.

Think of our vision. Each of our eyes sees the world in two dimensions. However, when the picture that both our eyes see reaches the brain, it processes them and builds a three-dimensional image. If we were “stuck” with only the picture from one eye, we would not be able to see depth, and we would never perceive the world as three dimensional.

The same is true of our perception of the world. It is as if our personal perception is one eye, and another person’s perception is another eye. As long as we are confined to our own perception, we are bound by the limits that our perception allows, a sort of “two dimensional” perception. However, if we “see” the other person’s view and merge the two, our perception of the world will acquire an entirely new dimension and give us a much fuller and richer understanding of the world.

However, to achieve this, we must relinquish our self-centered attitude. The warped picture it presents to us is the cause behind every mistake we make in this world—as individuals, as societies, and as nations. Because we perceive others as opposition, we are trying to cancel them. If we realized that other people do not oppose us, but complement us, we would be able to embrace their perception, merge our perception with theirs, and create a whole new, and accurate(!) perception of the world.

Now, imagine that we could do this not only with one more person (a second eye, so to speak), but with every person on the planet. The revelations we would discover are limitless. In such a state, there will truly be no end to what we will be able to perceive through our multi-dimensional “vision,” acquired by changing our attitude toward others from self-centered to inclusive. The more we think about it, the more we will realize that the solution to our problems lies not in better machinery, but in better us.
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