A contemporary take on the Planes of Existence

In the civilizational quest for a better metaphysics than the doomed clockwork inherited from Newton's contemporaries, I suspect one of the best places to look is the traditional concept of the planes of existence. I believe that this classification system can not only account for many of the phenomena our default worldview has trouble with, but is also easy to understand for anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of twenty-first century data science [1].

Admittedly, when I first encountered the idea of planes of existence, I was quite resistant. As someone whose default metaphysics were inherited from Tibetan Buddhism, the idea of all things being in fact one thing is central to my model of the universe. The idea of different 'planes' of existence that were both unlike each other and somehow vaguely hierarchical seemed like a needless complication of the nature of existence. But as so often happens, in seeking to understand the idea well enough to refute it, it became rich ground for meaning and exploration. The key metaphor came to me by way of an analogy around data analysis.

If one has a dataset of N entries, it is possible to analyze the entire dataset as a single (1)X(N) vector. One can also analyze it as a two dimensional matrix of (√N)X(√N) entries or a three dimensional matrix of (∛N)X(∛N)X(∛N) entries, all the way up to an N-dimensional matrix with one entry. As anyone who's worked on analyzing data sets like this knows, a dataset can look utterly random when analyzed along only one dimension but resolve into something organized and logical when analyzed along multiple dimensions at once.

In this metaphor, the universe is the dataset, while the number of dimensions we are considering for each data point is the 'plane of existence'. By taking this approach, we get to keep all the advancements made by the scientific method's exclusive focus on matter, while bringing back in much of the phenomena this heuristic was forced to ignore. This essay will look at the first four integer planes[2] and relate them to our understanding of the universe.

The first plane is traditionally called the material plane, and we are all familiar with it. The material plane has been the primary focus of human exploration for the past two hundred years or so, and our culture has developed a very sophisticated understanding of it. Matter is existence without context - it is solipsistic, and behaves the same no matter how it is being observed: the equivalent of our 1XN matrix, where everything stands alone is simple to understand. Because matter is the only plane that is identical regardless of context, it is also the only plane where an experiment can be repeated. It is therefore the only plane that can be reliably analyzed by the scientific method, though of course higher-dimensional phenomena can have effects in the material plane, which can still be analyzed and conclusions drawn about these higher planes. However, it is likely inevitable that attempts to turn the scientific method to higher planes of existence, such as in psychology, would reliably lead to some version of the replication crisis - outside of the material plane, it simply becomes too hard to repeat an experiment.

It may be worth mentioning that string theory, a preoccupation of modern physics, posits that the most fundamental particle is a one-dimensional 'loop' or 'string' of space. In this sense, it is highly reminiscent of Dione Fortune's description of the fundamental nature of reality, though she wrote quite a bit before string theory was first proposed[3].

The second plane is traditionally called the ethereal plane, and it the equivalent of what we today would call 'energy'. Energy was proven to be identical to matter by Einstein, but unlike matter, which is a thing in itself, the term energy refers to a relationship. To say a moving object has kinetic energy only makes sense relative to an observer with a different momentum, to say it has electric energy only makes sense relative to an observer with a different electric charge, and so on. Energy is therefore very clearly real, but not devoid of context - to know anything about energy, we must know two data points rather than one.

Incidentally, the (in)famous Michaelson-Morley experiment which generally led to an end of study into 'Ether Physics' in my opinion proved the above formulation. While proponents of Ether studies tend to dismiss the Michaelson-Morley experiment, I think it is actually a very clear demonstration of why Ether is different from Matter and should be studied with different assumptions. What the experiment demonstrated is that there is no doppler shift in the Ether, and that is precisely what we would expect if the ethereal plane is not simply another piece of hard-to-measure matter. Rather, to study the ethereal plane is to study relationships, and those happen at their own reference frames, not in relation to some background 'thing' as early proponents of ether believed. Viewed in this light, the Michaelson-Morley experiment did not refute ether physics but materialism - and given the difficulty that presents to our understanding, I believe it is just as well that the invisible college 'took ether back' from public science until Einstein was ready to share his thoughts on matter, energy, and relativity.

The third plane is traditionally called the 'astral' plane. This is the plane I found most difficult to integrate into the dimensional formulation of the planes. I am fairly happy with the current formulation, which links the astral plane to what we would call semiotics, the study of representation. Semiotics require a representer, a represented, and the representation itself, and allowing for this to include mental representation, this aligns with much of what is traditionally said about the sstral plane. For example, the astral plane is said to be the realm where dreams occur. Readers who have studied visual arts like painting will know that much of our everyday experience takes place in the same kind of vivid hallucination that our dreams take place in, albeit with enough sensory input from the matter and energy around us that these experiences are limited in scope compared to the unbounded realm of dreams. Nonetheless, it is likely that the astral (or semiotic) realm is where much of human and animal cognition takes place.

This brings us to the fourth plane to be discussed, which I find a bit of a mindbender. The fourth plane is traditionally called the 'mental' plane, which shares a root with the word 'meaning' - the mental plane is also considered to be where meaning exists. Meaning is itself a confusing concept, but a working definition I like is, 'the human intuition for wellbeing or optimal action extended through time'. This definition would of course be very in line with the mental plane being a four-dimensional representation of reality, as time is widely considered to be the 'fourth dimension' of human experience.

In the traditional view of the planes, humans have a body on each of the first three planes, but only a rudimentary 'sheath' on the mental plane - though these ideas predate Darwin, I would venture to say that humans are in the process of evolving a mental body. This is very consistent with the observation that delayed gratification - the ability to trade off an immediate reward for a greater reward later - is a core challenge of the human experience. Given the significance of the fourth dimension to meaning and possibly the nature of humanity, it has been the focus of some research on my part[4].

According to traditional formulations as well as the dimensional analogy presented here, more planes than these would exist - as many as there are viewpoints in the universe. However, as humans do not have direct access to them the way we do to the first four, it would be much more difficult to relate these higher planes to our everyday experience. Even with our experience limited to less than four planes however, I believe this means of categorization allows an expansion of the standard Western Metaphysics into realms that the scientific revolution found necessary to ignore. A narrowing of focus that, I hope, proves unnecessary in the generations to come.

[1] When I refer to 'data', I mean things being one way when they could be another. This state is in contrast to entropy, where the state in question is indistinguishable from other states in some meaningful way.

[2] As some more mathematically minded readers may have already deduced, datasets need not be analyzed only among integer-number of dimensions, and it is unlikely the universe has this requirement either. In fact, I believe that the digital realm, being composed not of analogue distances but increments of 0 or 1, would exist on a sub-plane of more than zero but less than one dimension. This would align with the term 'subnatural' realm which has been used in relation to the world of computers and AI.

[3] For further reading on the nature of the planes, I would recommend Fortune's book, 'The Cosmic Doctrine'. Most of the ideas presented in this essay were inspired by grappling with that text.

[4] For further reading on a scientifically grounded take on the mental plane's relation to flow state, choice, and prayer I encourage you to check out my github on the subject. I may recreate some of these essays here in the future for ease of access.