i.3.3 Oneness of Being and the Origin of Symmetry

The concept of the Oneness of Being will be discussed further in Chapter IV, but we want to briefly describe here how perfect symmetry is possible only with absolute and changeless oneness. There can be no complete symmetry with the presence of any kind of physical or even abstract multiplicity, or any flow of time. In other words, because they necessarily imply change, absolute symmetry cannot be conceived within real space or in the flow of time, at all! One may argue that a sphere, for example, is absolutely symmetrical around its center. However, this is correct only with relation to some outside space-time reference frame, in which we ignore any physical roughness and the fact that the surface forms the edges beyond which the sphere is not symmetrical. Therefore, the previous symmetry is local, but when we speak about the whole Universe we need a global symmetry that contains space-time itself, and not contained within it. Therefore, in order to achieve ultimate symmetry, we need to need to explain the emergence of geometry, or we need to describe the Universe without any external background geometry. Therefore, such absolute symmetry is only possible with the Oneness of Being, on which the Single Monad Model is constructed, and it cannot be achieved mathematically without the genuinely-complex numbers, which are provided by the Duality of Time Theory.

As a first approximation, any homogeneous and isotropic space is identical to a single point in it, depending on the hypothetical observer s point of view. If we imagine looking from outside a perfectly isotropic space, it will be identical to one single abstract geometrical point, but this idealized view is not really possible because it must incorporate some reference to preferable directions, such as left and right, that violate absolute symmetry. In fact, it is impossible to imagine any absolute symmetry because this will be an action in time that then inevitably breaks this symmetry. Since anything that exists must be finite, we can, at best, and only monetarily, imagine being inside an empty spherical space that has no distinguishing features nor any boundaries. However, once this abstract conceptualizing continues for two consecutive moments, symmetry will be broken because we need to compare the two images and fetch any possible differences between them, even in our own abstract thoughts that must at least reflect the flow of time. If in these two moments of time everything is absolutely the same, then they would be also the same and there will be no time flowing. The passage of time is a counter for change, and with this change the absolute symmetry is always broken.

This problem is one of the most fundamental issues in cosmology, that took a good deal of the theoretical work of Stephen Hawking and some other scientists. In his no boundary theory he predicted that at the beginning of time the Universe shrinks and closes off like a sphere that is contained in itself without boundaries. This however can only be achieved by incorporating imaginary time into certain models of the Universe which are solutions to the equations of General Relativity, otherwise we will be faced with ill-defined geometry, or gravitational singularities, where all known physical laws break down. Beside being a mere mathematical trick, Hawking considers the imaginary time as something that is perpendicular to normal time that exists together with space, and that is how it is usually treated in physics and cosmology. In contrary, according to the Duality of Time Theory, since space is now dynamically re-created in the real time, the normal time itself becomes genuinely imaginary, or latent to it. Therefore, the Single Monad Model, which is based on the Oneness of Being, is the only way to imagine a self-contained Universe without any background or boundaries.

As we showed in Chapter II of Volume II, Parmenides was one of the first Greek philosophers who advocated the principle of the oneness of nature, though we also showed in Chapter VII of that volume that this was actually the original divine wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus, who is the same Quranic prophet Idris, whom Allah elevated to a high place [Quran, 19:56-57], and he is also identical with the prophet Enoch mentioned in various Biblical literature. Ibn al-Arabi then explains in the Meccan Revelations that the first divine secret that was revealed to prophet Idris, whom he often refers to as the Pole of Spirits, was the secret of the First Age, from which all other ages, or levels of time, are emerging. As we shall see in section II.3.4, Ibn al-Arabi then explains further that when Allah created the human beings, He composed their bodies with the four fundamental properties of: hotness, coldness, moistness and dryness, outwardly manifested in the four humors: black pile, phlegm, blood and yellow pile, that are also manifestations of the four classical elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. So when these four humors or elements are well balanced, one achieves perfection in physical and psychical health, as well as the perfect metallic form of Gold [I.152-153]. These fundamental conceptions form the main subjects in Alchemy that we showed to be the original quantum theory, because it deals with the fundamental quantities in Nature [12, Ch. VII].

However, one of the mystifying problems of Alchemy, as we introduced in that concluding chapter, is squaring the circle in order to attain wholeness, which means to unite the dimensions, or to react indifferently and become equally conscious in all directions. This problem is therefore concerned with restoring the absolute symmetry, of the geometrical infinite sphere, because physical objects include sharp angles, unlike the circle which smoothly curves to make a whole entity whose parts are indistinguishable. Squaring the circle is also a mathematical problem for constructing a square with the same area as a given circle, by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. The task was proven to be impossible because  is a transcendental number, which means that it is non-algebraic and therefore non-constructible. For this reason, the expression squaring the circle is often used as a metaphor for trying to do the impossible. Squaring the circle, therefore, means to make the infinite fits within the finite, exactly; without extra spaces or any approximation. In the Emerald Tablet, Hermes states: that which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing. By no coincidence, in chapter360of the Meccan Revelations, Ibn al-Arabi quotes the same Pole of Spirits as saying: the world exists between the circumference and the point [I.154.22], which is also depicted in Figure IV.2.2 in the final chapter.

In the language of modern physics, squaring the circle is converting fermions into bosons, or matter into energy, since the latter occupies no space, which is also equivalent to the whole space, as we have seen above. In the Duality of Time Theory this also means converting time into space, and in terms of the subject of the current book, it means restoring the broken symmetry, from super to hyper, because, since it is fractal, time is having a negative signature that is lowering the spatial dimensions. Therefore, this problem is unsolvable within the physical world alone, but it is the normal state that results from repairing it with its super-symmetrical partner that is the psychical world, as we shall discuss further in Chapter II.