Below are quotes from fourth book of Manifold series. Phase Space. It mainly deals with events from Manifold multiverse created by the Old Ones/Downstreamers.
Here its about a cosmology described in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It has higher dimensions, Primum Mobile and etc.
The journey explaining such thing is done by reading memory inside the DNA. Think of Animus from Assassin's Creed. Translating genetic memory into virtual 3D Render images.
Because apparently, DNA never forgets anything.
A Unified Theory with 24 Dimensions[]
| “ | Eva Himmelfarb was a fine scholar, if undisciplined. She was pursuing her research—and, incidentally, working on a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy—and suddenly she produced a book, that book, which has been making such an impact in theoretical physics… And then, just as suddenly, she killed herself. Eva’s text begins as a translation of the last canto of the Paradiso—’
‘In which Dante sees God.’ ‘…Loosely speaking. And then the physical theory, expressed in such language and mathematics as Eva could evidently deploy, simply erupts.’ Himmelfarb’s bizarre, complex text had superseded string theory by modelling fundamental particles and forces as membranes moving in twenty-four-dimensional space. Something like that, anyhow. It was, according to the experts who were trying to figure it out, the foundation for a true unified theory of physics. And it seemed to have come out of nowhere. Boyle was saying, ‘It is as if, tracking Dante’s footsteps, Eva had been granted a vision.’ |
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It sounds like Eva just found the true Unified Theory overnight. And This 'Dante's Universe' seems to have 24 dimensions.
Eden[]
| “ | Himmelfarb smiled at Philmus. ‘Do you know where you are? You could walk through that wall of fire, and not harm a hair of your head.’ She reached up to a tree branch and plucked a leaf. It grew back instantly. ‘Our natural laws are suspended here, officer; like a piece of art, everything gives expression to God’s intention.’
Boyle said bluntly, ‘You are in Eden, officer Philmus, at the summit of Mount Purgatory. The last earthly place Dante visited before ascending into Heaven.’ |
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Eden has different laws of physics. You can say its suspended for your comfort. Leaf grew back instantly after plucked (infinite food!) and wall of fire that doesn't really harm you.
| “ | ‘What happened to the gravity?’
Himmelfarb said, ‘Gravity diminishes as you ascend Purgatory. We are far from Satan here… |
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Eden has lighter gravity.
Dante's Universe has Two Poles[]
| “ | It may seem paradoxical to you that there is not necessarily a conflict between the scientific world-view and the Christian. In Dante’s Aristotelian universe, the Earth is the physical centre of all things, but God is the spiritual centre. Just as human nature has twin poles, of rationality and dreams. Dante’s universe, the product of a thousand years of contemplation, was a model of how these poles could be united; in our time this seems impossible, but perhaps after another millennium of meditation on the meaning of our own new physics, we might come a little closer. What do you think?’ | „ |
Earth is physical center of all things, while God is spiritual centre.
| “ | ‘We’re accelerating,’ Himmelfarb said. ‘If you want the Aristotelian physics of it, we’re being attracted to the second pole of the universe.’
‘The second pole?’ ‘God.’ |
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Explanation how God is the second pole, and its attracting Himmelfarb and others.
Nine Heavens[]
| “ | Looking back Philmus could see the Earth, heavy and massive and unmoving, at the centre of everything, a ball of water folded over on itself. They were already so high she couldn’t make out Purgatory.
Rising ever faster, they passed through a layer of glassy light, like an airliner climbing through cloud. As they climbed higher she saw how the layer of light folded over the planet, shimmering like an immense soap bubble. Embedded in the membrane she could see a rocky ball, like a lumpy cloud, below them and receding. It was the Moon. She said, ‘If I remember my Ptolemy—’ ‘The Earth is surrounded by spheres. Nine of them, nine heavens. They are transparent, and they carry the sun, Moon, and planets, beneath the fixed stars.’ The Monsignor murmured, ‘We are already beyond the sphere of decay and death.’ Himmelfarb laughed. ‘And you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ Still they accelerated. |
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Pretty straightforward. Earth is surrounded by Nine Heavens.
The Primum Mobile[]
| “ | Boyle said, ‘I think we’re slowing.’ Himmelfarb said, ‘We’re approaching the ninth sphere.’
‘The Primum Mobile,’ said the Monsignor. ‘Yes. The “first moving part”, the root of time and space. Turned by angels, expressing their love for God… Look up,’ Himmelfarb said to Philmus. ‘What do you see?’ At first, only structureless light. But then, a texture… Suddenly Philmus was looking, up beyond the Primum Mobile, into another glass onion, a nesting of transparent spheres that surrounded—not a dull lump of clay like Earth—but a brilliant point of light. The nearest spheres were huge, like curving wings, as large as the spheres of the outer planets. Himmelfarb said, ‘They are the spheres of the angels, which surround the universe’s other pole, which is God. Like a mirror image of Hell. Counting out from here we have the angels, archangels, principalities, powers—’ |
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Primum Mobile, the "first moving part" is root of time and space. Root that's turned by the angels in the angels' spheres.
| “ | ‘But we are on the surface of a 3-sphere—the three-dimensional surface of a four-dimensional hypersphere. Do you see? The concentric spheres you see are exactly analogous to the lines of latitude on the two-dimensional surface of a globe. And just as, if you stand on the equator of Earth, you can look back to the south pole or forward to the north pole, so here, at the universe’s equator, we can look towards the poles of Earth or God. The Primum Mobile, the equator of the universe, curves around the Earth, below us, and at the same time it curves around God, above us.’ | „ |
Eva and the others are on the Universe's Equator, the Primum Mobile. On 4-Dimensional Hypersphere.
| “ | Philmus looked back and forth, from God to Earth, and she saw, incredibly, that Himmelfarb was right.
The Primum Mobile curved two ways at once. The Monsignor’s jaw seemed to be hanging open. ‘And Dante saw this? A four-dimensional artefact? He described it?’ ‘As remarkable as it seems—yes,’ said Himmelfarb. ‘Read the poem again if you don’t believe it: around the year 1320 Dante Alighieri wrote down a precise description of the experience of travelling through a 3-sphere. When I figured this out, I couldn’t believe it myself. It was like finding a revolver in a layer of dinosaur fossils.’ |
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Everyone can't believe that mere medieval man like Dante can describe 4-Dimensional artefact. But Dante's description was surprisingly accurate.
The Empyrean, Beyond The Primum Mobile[]
| “ | And the three of them, like birds hovering beneath the domed roof of a cathedral, ascended into the Empyrean.
They passed into a layer of darkness, like a storm cloud. The hemispheres of the 3-sphere—the Earth and its nested spheres, the globes of the angels—faded like stars at dawn. But Himmelfarb’s eyes glowed brightly. And then, space folded away. Philmus could still see Boyle, Himmelfarb, the priest’s shining eyes. But she couldn’t tell how near or far the others were. And when she tried to look away from them, her eyes slid over an elusive darkness, deeper than the darkness inside her own skull. There was no structure beyond the three of them, their relative positions. She felt as small as an electron, as huge as a galaxy. She felt lost. She clung to Himmelfarb’s hand. ‘Where are we? How far—’ |
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Start of the journey to Empyrean. A place with no structures. Even size of dimensional beings are relative here. Or maybe dimensional size is simply Irrelevant inside Empyrean.
| “ | ‘We are outside the Primum Mobile: beyond duration, beyond the structure of space. Dante understood this place. “There near and far neither add nor subtract…” | „ |
There are no concepts of 'far' or 'near'. Probably meant that distance is irrelevant. You cannot measure anything in here.
There are no concepts of 'add' and 'substract'. You cannot... take away or adding something in here? Cannot do any mathematical operations in Empyrean?
Well, the bottom line is any attempt of describing/measuring this 'Empyrean' (abode of God) using physics is meaningless. Because it screws with any concept of measurement.
| “ | You know, we underestimate Dante. The physicists are the worst. They see us all running around as Virtuals in the memory of some giant computer of the future. Not to mention the science fiction writers. Garbage. Dante understood that a soul is not a Virtual, and in the Paradiso, he was trying to express the transhuman experience of true eternity—’ | „ |
It seems sci-fi writers didn't get it right with explaining what 'true eternity' is. Dante's explanation regarding 'true eternity' in Paradiso would be much more accurate.
| “ | …Philmus saw light, like the image of God at the centre of the angels’ spheres. It was a point, and yet it filled space and time. And then it unfolded, like a flower blooming, with particles and lines (world lines? quantum functions?) billowing out and rushing past her face, in an insubstantial breeze. Some of the lines tangled, and consciousness sparked—trapped in time, briefly shouting its joy at its moment of awareness—before dissipating once more. But still the unfolding continued, in a fourth, fifth, sixth direction, in ways she could somehow, if briefly, conceive. She felt a surge of joy. And there was something more, something just beyond her grasp— | „ |
From what I can understand/grasp : the light/point/God/whatever, is source of all things, it filled time and space with particles and lines, it created quantum functions (thus probably can create multiple timelines and multiple probabilities).
The quantum functions/timelines have brief moment of awareness. Which is interesting, because it implies that timelines are 'alive'.
| “ | It was gone. She was suspended in the structureless void again. | „ |
The unfolding of God/line ended. Almost as soon as it starts. And now there's only void with no structure in the realm beyond time and space.
| “ | Himmelfarb grasped her hand. Boyle was curled over on himself, his eyes clamped closed.
Philmus said, ‘I saw—’ Himmelfarb said, ‘It doesn’t matter. We all see something different. And besides, it was only a Virtual shadow… What did you feel?’ Philmus hesitated. ‘As I do when I solve a case. When the pieces come together.’ Himmelfarb nodded. ‘Cognition. Scientists understand that. The ultimate cognition, knowing reality.’ ‘But now it’s gone.’ She felt desolate. ‘I know.’ Himmelfarb’s grip tightened. ‘I’m sorry.’ |
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For some reason, after gaining Ultimate Cognition of reality, Philmus despaired.
| “ | The Monsignor, his voice weak, murmured, ‘“I saw gathered… / Bound up by love in a single volume / All the leaves scattered through the universe; / Substance and accidents and their relations, / But yet fused together in such a manner / That what I am talking about is a simple light…”’ | „ |
Monsignor was quoting what's probably the original Divine Comedy.
| “ | ‘Dante was very precise about how he interpreted what he saw,’ said Himmelfarb.
‘This is Aristotelian physics. “Substances” and “accidents” describe phenomena and their relationships. I believe that Dante was trying to describe a glimpse of the unification of nature.’ |
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It might not be obvious at this point but this short-story really like to emphasize that Dante's Universe is Aristotelian Universe, and uses Aristotelian physics.
| “ | ‘Yes,’ Philmus whispered. ‘And then he saw a paradox that he expresses by an image. Three circles, superimposed, of the same size—and yet of different colours.’
‘Separated by a higher dimension,’ Philmus guessed. ‘Yes. In the high-dimensional artefact Dante saw a metaphor for the Trinity. God’s three personalities in one being.’ ‘Ah,’ said the Monsignor, cautiously uncurling. ‘But you saw—’ ‘Rather more. I knew enough physics—’ ‘This is the basis of the new unified theory,’ Philmus said. ‘A unification of phenomena through the structure of a higher-dimensional space.’ Himmelfarb’s face was turning to pixels again. ‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ she said. ‘The whole notion of dimensionality is an approximate one that only emerges in a semi-classical context—well. I don’t suppose it matters now. |
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The basis for new Unified Theory. Unification of phenomena through the structure of higher-dimension.
| “ | ‘Eva didn’t quite finish showing us the last canto. Did you?’
The priest closed her eyes. ‘After the vision of the multidimensional circle, Dante says: “That circle… / When my eyes examined it rather more / Within itself, and in its own colour, / Seemed to be painted with our effigy…”’ |
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More Dante-speak. The explanation is below :
| “ | Philmus said, ‘Dante saw a human face projected on his multidimensional artefact. He interpreted whatever he saw as the Incarnation: the embodiment of God—beyond time and space—in our time-bound mortal form. The final paradox of your Christian theology.’ | „ |
From our point of view as being bound by time, God must be beyond time and space. Make sense, since Empyrean, the abode of God, is a structureless void beyond space-time in which even space-time is absent and size is relative/meaningless/irrelevant.
So we have 4 to 24 higher dimensions and the repeated uses of 'structureless void', and 'beyond structure of spacetime' words. So beyond any dimensional structures.
And in the Empyrean/Abode of God itself any process of 'measuring' or 'describing' would be met with failure. Same with mathematical operations of add and substract. Physics is utterly incapable of asserting/describing what Empyrean really is.
So I'd say Empyrean is not really higher dimension, but its backdrop/canvas to dimensional structures. Its repeatedly said to be beyond any kind of structures, and any attempt to describe it with laws of Physics would always fail.
So, the Tier would be 2-A (4-D). 1-B (24-D) , and High 1-B (Empyrean = Utterly Immeasurable) or maybe 1-A since Empyrean is not a 'dimension' and size and other scientific notations are inapplicable to Empyrean.
Those tiers can't be scaled to Pre-FVC Downstreamers btw. Only to Old Ones, since only in Old Ones form that Old Ones created infinite ensemble of universes including universes in Phase Space novel.
Hmm, I wonder if I can make a profile for Dante's God.