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Introduction

February 26, 2007 - Altruism Across Parallel Universes (ponderings in progress)
By Hardy Jones
Imagine a dolphin swimming with its podmates off the coast of Japan. Suddenly there is an unpredicted and unknown but deafening clanging sound from which the dolphins flee. The dolphins, under attack by forces of which they can have no knowledge, are driven into a bay. Some are ripped from the pod by machines which are utterly alien to them, placed in other machines and moved to yet another universe bounded by walls – something they have never known and will never understand.

The other dolphins remain in the water until one by one they are killed. The living taste the blood of the slain. They can have only the vaguest idea of the forces that have set upon them.

What is even more remote to the dolphins’ understanding is that more than five thousand miles away other mammals are embarking on a quest to assist them. To reach them they will fly through the skies thousands of feet above the earth to reach the bay. The trapped dolphins cannot even remotely understand who or what these entities are nor the machines they use, nor the elaborate technological processes involved in moving their benefactors.

What is the altruism that brings the bi-pedal mammals thousands of miles to help the aquatic mammals they have never met, of whom they have only a concept? In some cases the benefactor bipeds will succeed in thwarting the intentions of the captor bipeds and the captive dolphins will go free and return to their known universe.

What might these dolphins think happened? Imagine the level of ignorance of the dolphins regarding their benefactors.

The dolphins have been rescued by bipedal mammalian benefactors who have come thousands of miles to seek their freedom and wellbeing. But they can have no knowledge of who or what these benefactor creatures are. The benefactors are from what could be called a parallel universe, one which is cotemporaneous to that of the dolphins but in most cases does not intersect. These universes exist within the same physical plane – the earth. But the dolphins probably do not have a concept of an earth which is only one example of a planet in a vast universe of other planets and stars.

Now think of ourselves. Are there benefactors (or malefactors) who, through means we are utterly unable to perceive or even imagine, who influence our lives? Could that entity be God or related to God?

Now try the same exercise with a cockroach. It is running around on a kitchen floor snapping up crumbs. Suddenly a brilliant light comes on and the cockroach races for the nearest hole. It is far beyond its ability to conceive of what the entity is who switched on the light, constructed the house, drives a car, brought in the food and thinks thoughts at a level inconceivable to the cockroach. Think of the distance between the cockroach and the human and now imagine a similar distance between a human and an entity that is as advanced over us as we are over the cockroach.

What is to say there is not such an entity? In my hypothesis this entity would be beyond our conception or perception. Is this God or do these analogies go on forever? If God is infinite then God would be unconfined by any of the relationships I’ve described.

Let’s hope there’s someone looking out for us as we look out for the dolphins.

I welcome any feedback from readers at hardyjones@bluevoice.org

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