Page 224 - Darwin's Dilemma: The Soul

Darwin’s Dilemma: The Soul

Fred Alan Wolf makes the following comment:

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, matter cannot
exist independent of space and time. If any one of the three—matter,
space, or time—is absent, they all are. Space is necessary in order for
matter to exist; matter is necessary in order for time to exist; and time
is necessary in order for space to exist. They are codependent.

So, if time is just some form of a dream, an illusion, as many philos-
ophers have speculated, then so are space and matter. Yet from the
standard or Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, we un-
derstand that matter cannot exist without an observer of matter. 141
The fact that matter can be perceived only through our senses
and in other words, is a shadow entity, again does away with the
concept of space as a material concept. We perceive space as out-
side us, but it is totally inside the brain when we remember any
place. In fact, when looking at and considering somewhere we im-
agine to lie outside us, the concept of space again arises solely in-
side the brain. The room we imagine to be standing in is an illusion
forming inside our brain, a waking dream.
Peter Russell summarizes this mode of perception:
Einstein’s work also revealed that space and time are not absolutes.
They vary according to the motion of the observer. If you are mov-
ing rapidly past me, and we both measure the distance and time be-
tween two events—a car traveling from one end of a street to anoth-
er, say—then you will observe the car to have traveled less distance
in less time than I observe. Conversely, from your point of view, I am
moving rapidly past you, and in your frame of reference, I will ob-
serve less space and time than you do. Weird? Yes. And almost im-
possible for us to conceive of. Yet numerous experiments have
shown it to be true. It is our common-sense notions of space and
time that are wrong. Once again, they are constructs in the mind,
and do not perfectly model what is out there. 142
Einstein went even further, showing that matter

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