Dennis Goldwater - The Origin And Evolution Of Religion And Science

Copyright 2014 Dennis Goldwater

Smashwords Edition

Introduction

This book introduces a new way to organize humanunderstanding of nature. It reconsiders the commonly accepted yetquite arbitrary and unproven assumption about nature that space isinfinite, and instead assumes that space is finite. Following theimplications of this change in the most fundamental presuppositionabout space throughout the history of science has led to anextremely simple model of nature that is so highly organized thatits single, unified pattern of change in nature appears to apply toeverything in nature.

Our species was originally much like theother animals. Our ancestors changed each generation, over tens ofmillennia, before achieving our modern degree of awareness ofnature and of relationships that exist in nature.

This change has not been completely random,but has followed a pattern. This pattern is known as evolution.Everything in nature evolves, and all evolution follows the samepattern.

Evolution is a cyclic pattern. Modern humanshave evolved to the awareness of the first 5 stages in the cycle ofevolution.

These stages are best understood asdimensions. According to modern science, nature is composed of 2components, space and time. Science currently recognizes 3dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time. However, it can now bedemonstrated that our species, with its 5 senses and its 5 fingersper hand, has evolved to the awareness of 5 dimensions of space andtime. Furthermore, the existence of each of these dimensions ofspace and time is understood by the mind as a dimension not ofspace alone or of time alone, but of space-time: We live in a worldof awareness of 5 dimensions of space-time.

Basic geometry is all that is needed tounderstand this new model, which reconsiders the notion of whatconstitutes a dimension.

During human evolution, our ancestors usedlanguage to develop models of nature. Speakers of Indo-Europeanlanguages (a group that includes English and Greek) have developed2 main types of models of nature, known as religion and science.Religion and science are not only very different, they aresymmetrically opposite in every respect, such that they areseemingly completely incompatible. Now, however, they can be shownto be interrelated sides of the same coin. Religion and sciencehave evolved following the same pattern as everything else innature. The Greeks are used as example to discuss the evolution ofreligion and science.

All of the primary stages in the evolution ofreligion and science are discussed. Discussion of religion coversthe symbolism of each of the primary Greek gods, from the beginningthrough the Titans, the Olympians, and monotheism, explaining howand why each was superseded by the next in importance. Discussionof science begins with the ancient Greek model of the 4 elements,and describes subsequent evolution to Euclidean geometry, Newtonianphysics, and relativity. This book concludes with an introductionto the next stage in the evolution of science, which represents anentire dimension of evolution beyond what is understood by scienceat present.

Part I

Chapter 1

Life on earth has been evolving over billions ofyears. Compared with the origin of life on earth, Homo sapiens, thespecies of human beings, evolved in the fairly recent past.Throughout most of the evolution of life that eventually led to theappearance of our species, the forms of life that would eventuallygive birth to our species and to people who are alive today werenot much different from the other animals. They were completelyunaware of and had no ability to manipulate in their minds complexrelationships that occurred in the world around them. They hadlittle ability to be consciously aware of their environment, otherthan observing and interacting with what was right in front of themat any given moment.

Since the dawn of our species, our ancestorshave grown significantly in their mental capability, in theirability to be aware of nature, and in their awareness of how natureis organized. It is language that enabled our species to developconscious awareness of relationships that exist in nature.

Language is what has enabled our species tobecome aware of the structure of nature. As the human mind evolved,human languages evolved along with our species to reflect andenable the ongoing level of understanding of nature of our species.The primary capability of language, and the primary purpose oflanguage, is to enable human beings to understand nature. And whatis nature? Historically, according to science, nature has come tobe considered in terms of 2 notions, space and time. According tomodern physics, however, space and time are not considered to bedistinct from each other at all, but to exist only in the unifiedform known as space-time.

Language enables members of our species torepresent, internalize, manipulate, and communicate awareness ofrelationships that exist in nature, relationships that exist inspace-time. Language is all about, and only about, representationof awareness of relationships that exist in space-time. The grammarof each language constitutes a model of nature that represents andreflects the organization of the understanding of nature of theculture that gave rise to the language.

Once our species began to develop language,our ancestors did not grow to our current level of awareness ofnature all at once. The progressive changes to the human level ofmental awareness and understanding of nature and the environmentoccurred in discrete, incremental stages, which are best understoodby the notion of dimensions of space and time. Modern languagesreflect mankinds evolution to the awareness of each of 5dimensions, such that mankind currently lives in a world oflinguistic awareness of 5 dimensions of space. The existence ofeach of these dimensions of space can be comprehended by the mindonly in relation to a simultaneous awareness of the existence of acorresponding dimension of time. In other words, space and time areunderstood by the mind in terms of 5 dimensions, each of which is adimension not of space alone or of time alone; modern human beingsare aware of 5 dimensions of space-time. Our species, with its 5senses and with its 5 fingers per hand, etc., has a body with aphysical structure that has naturally enabled us to evolve to theawareness of 5 dimensions of nature, 5 dimensions ofspace-time.

Our passing through these 5 stages in themental development of our species, and our successive growth to theawareness of each of these 5 dimensions of space-time, were not anisolated experience in nature, but constitute the stages of acommonly occurring pattern. This pattern is a cyclic pattern. This5 stage pattern describes not only the history of change in thehuman mind, but of all change that occurs in nature. This patternis known as evolution. Everything in nature evolves, and allevolution follows the same pattern.

As our ancestors evolved, they came torecognize and to be aware of progressively more complexrelationships within their bodies that accompanied, correlated to,and enabled their awareness of progressively more evolvedrelationships in the world as a whole. The source of awareness ofthese more evolved relationships in nature was the progressiveawareness of increasingly complex cyclic changes that occur innature, cyclic changes that occur in space-time. These changes arecommonly recognized as units of time, such as the units of time ofthe day, the month, and the year. And yet, awareness of thesecycles of time, awareness of all motion through time, is onlypossible when there is an equivalent awareness of space, andawareness of motion through space. For example, awareness of theunit of time of the year requires awareness of the motion throughspace of the earth around the sun. Awareness of time requires andis dependent upon awareness of space. For there to be awareness,there must always be equivalent awareness of space and time; allawareness is awareness of space-time.