North Pacific, 1995. 374 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-913138-12-6
Review by Professors Frank H. Meyer and Otto H. Schmitt
Dewey B. Larson reports in Beyond Space and Time that humankind is hurt both in science and religion much more by what we know that isn't so than by what we don't know.
The author's inquiry discloses that arbitrary assumptions of the profession of ancient and modern physicists have led them to misrepresent the physical realm as the continuous or infinitely divisible whole of all natural existence, including the sole origin and being of the realm of humankind. In this model of Nature the whole of humankind becomes merely a small, entirely finite, incidental, even accidental, unessential, and purposeless part of a realm of matter and energy, enveloped by a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Unquantized motion unrelated to space-time, continuous or infinitely divisible, has been the principal error of knowing what is not so, shared by Aristotle, Newton and Einstein.
Beyond Space and Time is Larson's masterful revaluation of metaphysics, based on his successful revaluation and unification of the science of physics. Larson extrapolated his fundamental reciprocal postulate relating space and time to motion as the two multiplicatively inverse aspects of all motion from the well established fact that the measure of motion is speed, the scalar magnitude of this relation between space and time. The physical realm is evidently a universe of motion, rather than of matter, existing in three dimensions and in discrete units. By reason of the reciprocal relation between space and time, each individual unit of motion is a relation between one unit of space and one unit of time, a motion at unit speed (the speed of light).
In the context of the reciprocal system of theory, the relation of the human realm to the physical realm changes appreciatively. The realm inhabited by humankind is infinitely greater than the entirely finite and quantized physical realm. The physical realm is an essential, but relatively small part of the human realm. Beside the two physical sectors, the material and the cosmic ('anti-matter') sectors, the human realm includes an infinitely divisible or continuous third non-physical sector.
With his discovery of the existence of this non-physical sector of the human realm, Dewey Larson's metaphysics vindicates the great moral and religious objective with which the United States of America began in 1776: democracy, predicated on the voluntary acknowledgement of the human equality of worth of the proper parts of humankind, all women and all men. "Equitable treatment of all is undoubtedly part of the Sector 3 code." This religion was first voiced in "A Declaration by the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled", probably authored by Thomas Paine.
The existence of humankind's too often overlooked Sector 3, according to Larson, also upholds the religion of persons like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin as well as Paul Dirac, while not ruling in the resurrection of the body, does not rule out the continuation beyond space and time in Sector 3 of human life after death which intuits death to be so natural, necessary, and universal that it cannot be designed as an evil to humankind. According to Larson, evil exists only in the physical sectors of the human realm; not at all in the Third Sector, which exists for the good purpose and end of all ethical humankind.
It is the non-physical Sector 3 that constitutes the ethical human realm an infinite continuous whole of natural existence in distinction from the quantized or finitely divisible physical realms, from which infinity is excluded. The human Sector 3 is not simply or readily visible or audible, or tangible. It includes the meanings of all words and numbers, but not words themselves nor numerals. Humankind as a whole can and does learn about the being of our non-physical Sector 3 by virtue of our native ability to create and reproduce adequate physical entities to represent non-physical entities as well as physical entities: meanings by words, numbers by numerals, rights by ethics and religion.
Ultimate human worth is not finite, and therefore cannot be estimated with money, the conventional measure of commodity, and other finite material values; when this is done, it is a throwback to the days of chattel slavery in the USA and elsewhere & when. Humankind as a whole and in its proper parts, the private man and private woman, can and do participate in the infinitude of ultimate human worth only by way of our inhabiting the Third Sector of the human realm.
The proper parts of the infinite whole of humankind are ourselves, all women and all men. When counting an infinite whole, Thomas Paine and Georg Cantor have taught us to identify the proper part to establish that the whole is infinite and not finite. If such a whole is infinite and countable, then the whole is counted by setting it equal to the proper part. Human equality means each private ethical person is inherently equal in human worth to the whole of humankind and since entities equal to the same entity are equal to each other, all women, as well as all men, are in non-physical human worth created infinite independent and equal, as perhaps discovered by Jesus Josephson, and reaffirmed by Thomas Paine in the Declaration of Independence. Persons are the most precious of all human wealth on earth. The total human worth of the humankind, the dead, the presently living, and the yet to be born, is infinitely greater than the total value of all the commodities presently in the global market. The proper parts of the infinite whole of humankind are our spaceless and ageless non-physical selves--our human spirits, if you like.
From our equal creation, we derive rights nowadays called human rights, inherent and unalienable, among which are the Preservation of Life and Liberty.
The future of human rights on Earth relates to how humankind practices the human rights we profess. A primary attitude change among all humankind is now required for the future of human rights to be brighter. The change has to be composed of a rational rejection of the materialist bromide that all men are by nature only finite physical dust and unequal in all respects, while women are less equal, together with the voluntary informed acknowledgement and positive affirmation that the human equality proposition, after all, is accurately true.
Readers wishing further information about Dewey Larson's work should write to The International Society of Unified Science, c/o Prof. Frank Meyer, 1103 15th Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414, USA. [Note: Prof. Meyer is now deceased; ISUS, Inc can be contacted at 1680 East Atkin Avenue, Salt Lake City, UT 84106 USA]