The Genesis of Ethics

"I used to roll the dice,
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes."

Sometimes, the only way you can play high-stakes poker is to pretend that you're not playing high-stakes poker. Ditto with living in 5 dimensions. What do you do when something bad happens? Who do you blame? What do you do when something good happens? How do you avoid a God-complex?

So by now you've figured out that I live somewhere between the 4-dimensional worldmap that I grew up in, and the 5-dimensional worldmap that I've created. The idea of 5 dimensions and its implications still freak me out every once in awhile. And when I think of what other people might do from thinking this way... [Brief pause for stress-induced eating.]

Frankly, I don't consider the 5-dimensional landscape to be complete yet, because it doesn't deal definitively with the very important question of the nature of multiple-observer interactions. More specifically, I have not resolved to my satisfaction the question of whether I am isolated from all other observers or whether I am anchored to and by other observers. I strongly suspect and believe in the latter, but let's discuss...

When something horrible happens, I can often see how I came to that universe/outcome in the same way as I can identify the forces that move me among much smaller and less significant sets of outcomes. I may not have wished for/intended others to suffer, but once sufficiently removed from the event, I sometimes believe that I can understand why I witnessed it. Even personal suffering can be viewed this way, once one is sufficiently removed from the suffering. (Not a popular idea. Don't discuss it with suffering friends.)

In the same way, say something horrible is about to happen, and the horrible outcome seems so inevitable that statements are being made to the effect that "only divine intervention can save us now." If I am able to find the universe where said outcome does not happen, I can believe neither that I am 'divine', nor that I have 'intervened'. I can believe that I (in the aspect of myself that is unanchored to/by others) was able to change my trajectory through the multiverse/smear to avoid witnessing said horrible outcome. But I can also believe the following...

Such an event would undoubtedly command the attention of many observers, all of whom would do various forms of praying/wishing/thinking about the outcome. Assuming that all of these mental actions contribute to a cumulative bias-towards-outcome to which we are all anchored to the extent that we observe the outcome, then the thoughts of each individual are significant. Determining the most significant observer will always be close-to-impossible, as the influence of observers/observations from the future will not be known until later. (This involves the idea of retrocausality, for which I think there is much evidence and with which I believe I have had some personal experience. Hell, I can believe that certain elements of this [gesturing to my blogs] experience may only be explainable in terms of the significance that they had/will have at some point in the future. Ordinary 'signals' just aren't that strong - ever. But don't let that go to your head or freak you out. This isn't high-stakes poker. ;)

There has never been an event that I have experienced for which I seek to 'blame' any other observers. Frankly, I think that if you aren't willing to accept sole responsibility for everything that you experience, you will never truly live in 5 dimensions. In many ways, I can see my thoughts and experiences as a closed set wherein all the events explain each other without resorting to data from other observers.

However, there are experiences that have been both powerful and humbling, which convince me that other observers do exist. And yes, I'm referring to ESP-type experiences. I'm not sure that I would want (or should have) the capacity to select outcomes without the vulnerability of feeling the effect that that change has upon others. The nature of those experiences was quite important in determining how I currently think and behave, ethically speaking. I've done things in the past that, given my current ethical perspective, make me cringe. And I know enough about human nature to realize that everyone who comes into this way of thinking will have to test these things for themselves, which makes me reluctant to be too specific about what to do to achieve a specific outcome.

So here I sit - caught somewhere between 'it's all me' and 'it's all of us together'. I hope that I am currently using the best of both perspectives to guide my actions. If there is an ethical code for living in 5 dimensions, I would say that I am only beginning to see what it might be. Mostly though, what I've discovered is that the old wisdom about what is right and wrong is wisdom for a reason.

And now I'm going to go pretend that I didn't just say all that.