A few posts have been circulating on social media lately that speak of how 4D beings might perceive humans as one long, continuous strand of moments existing together within a single physical framework. Rather than moving through time linearly, these beings are theorized to perceive every moment simultaneously.
In sharing this with my partner this morning, he asked the clarifying question, “So, that would mean that fate is fixed?”
And my answer was, “No, I don’t believe so.”
Looking into the subject, 4D beings are theorized to perceive our final chosen path, the one we actually live as our lifetime, as already completed in its entirety. A completed path is not necessarily the same thing as a predetermined one. From that higher-dimensional perspective, the path is simply visible because all of our choices have already been made from their point of view outside linear time, not because those choices were ever forced upon us or fated. In this way, we still have free will to move through our lives as we choose, but a 4D being would not live as we do or understand the feeling of waking up every morning not knowing what the day would bring.
To make it even more complicated, or maybe even simpler, depending on your viewpoint, 5D beings are also theorized. They would see the same completed path and all the possibilities we could have chosen to take, with the actual completed path highlighted among the sea of possibilities.
In that sense, a greater or broader perspective does not necessarily mean a richer experience. To see every path simultaneously would also mean never suffering the uncertainty of choosing one. Being able to see the choices made in contrast to all the choices that were possible might bring more anguish than relief, since the alternative realities are literally infinite. The possibilities, I believe, are also best left unknown because we are meant to be experiential beings, not knowing beings, and we literally cannot fathom the breadth of possibility that exists.
Please note, these are just theories about how these beings would view us, without even getting into how they might perceive their own existence. That being said, living within linear time is unique to 3D beings, and what a thing it is to live!
We get to choose what our paths will be and how we will move through timespace. We get to choose what enters our lives and how we respond to it. We get to choose what we want to do in the moment and be blissfully unaware of the actual consequences of our actions. Our inability to know what comes next is not simply a limitation. It is part of the mechanism through which anticipation, surprise, hope, fear, courage, regret, and discovery can exist at all.
Feeling these emotions is what makes us human, and they are among the very reasons we use to differentiate ourselves from emerging AI. Humanity and what it means to be human are questions that have been thrust upon the masses during the latest technological boom in generative AI, and these questions have been heavy on our minds as a collective. Therefore, I’d like to reiterate my proposition that being able to feel and move through the world in the way that we do is the very thing that makes us undeniably and unreplicatably human.
It is our ignorance of the final shape of our life paths that births ideas such as the butterfly effect. We make decisions without being able to see the complete web of consequences that will follow them. That uncertainty gives our choices both weight and freedom. We do not get to inspect the finished map before deciding which road to take, which forces us to truly live each moment.
This brings me to another point I’ve been musing on for the last two years or so: you cannot be early or late to your own story. Your path is truly and solely yours. You cannot skip lessons that you need to learn, and you cannot be late to your own life. Everything you learn, realize, and do is exactly and precisely on time because you are the main character of your own story.
While it might be helpful to zoom out every once in a while and look at our lives from a larger viewpoint in order to notice our patterns and perhaps choose new ones, what a blessing it is to be able to live through our choices as they unfold in linear time.
We tend to imagine a being that can see all of time as possessing something we lack. The saying, after all, is that hindsight is 20/20 specifically because we can only understand the true outcomes and weight of our choices long after the fact, once we see how they unfold. But perhaps we possess something that 4D and 5D beings lack as well: the experience of becoming.
Another famous metaphor is that of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Scientists have shown that some memories formed before the cocoon can persist after emergence, which could mean there is a kind of continuity from one form to another. What a scary thing it might be to turn into literal goop and reform without knowing the outcome. While a caterpillar grows its future wings inside its body and needs to dissolve inside the cocoon before reshaping itself with those wings on the outside, a human needs to allow themselves to fully dissolve into the present, with very little thought given to the past or future, in order to truly live.
While we may pop our heads above the current of life every once in a while and see the patterns we’ve indulged in and how they played out, it is very easy to slip back into living day to day within linear time.
Considering the theories of how higher-dimensional beings may view us, there may be kinds of knowledge that expand understanding while diminishing the richness of living. Knowing the end of every story would give us enormous perspective, but it would also mean never wondering what happens next.
The very act of living within linear time is a specific blessing, as well as a curse, that other beings simply don’t and can’t fathom, just as we cannot fathom the infinite sea of possibilities available to us in our lifetimes.
The 3D experience, and what it is to be human, is our ability to truly live and feel the weight of linear time.
Leave a comment