by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright May 2008
Part Two is a discussion of the same issue that I covered in Part One. It's the same story, but told in a different way. This issue is complex enough that telling it in a couple of different ways may make what I'm trying to say clearer.
-- Roger
Hi. I'm Roger White, the writer of this story and the creator of Mickey Ratsass. I'm a 3D, 1T being: I live in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. Mickey Ratsass, my creation, is a 2D, 1T being: He lives in two dimensions of space and one dimension of time.
Mickey is a cartoon character, an animation, and I'm his loving and caring creator.
I love and care for Mickey, and I have created his entire universe.
What I'm exploring in this essay is: How do Mickey and I get along? How do we relate to each other?
I will talk about my relation with Mickey to illustrate how relations between beings of different dimensionality are conducted. The way I relate to Mickey is going to be similar to how a 4D, 2T being who creates 3D, 1T beings is going to relate to them.
What loving and caring 4D, 2T being has created tens of billions of 3D, 1T beings? I will let you figure that out.
First Axiom: First off, Mickey doesn't do a thing unless I put pencil to paper. This means he has no free will. He, in fact, does not think as I understand the meaning of thinking.
But he can act like he is thinking. He does this when I draw him in a way that makes him look like he's thinking.
This is Rule Number One of Mickey's universe: Nothing happens in it until I put pencil to paper.
First question: Am I a loving and caring creator?
Oh yes! I thought long and hard to create Mickey, and each time I create a new episode, I think more about him, and I care about how each episode comes out.
Second question: Can Mickey surprise me?
Well ... yes, and no. Mickey's actions can't surprise me. I draw him. I know exactly what he does.
What can surprise me is how I feel about what he does. I can be happy about how his animation turns out, or I can be disappointed. I can be surprised at how other 3D, 1T beings feel about Mickey when they watch him.
Will Mickey sense that surprise? Only if I draw him doing so. Well ... not really. He can be drawn to show surprise, but he can't really think surprise in any 3D sense.
Third question: How do I talk to Mickey?
Well ... I talk to him in many ways. The most common way is that I mutter while I draw him ... but that way doesn't show up in any of Mickey's actions.
If I want Mickey to act like he is talking to me, I draw a picture of myself next to Mickey. Then I draw Mickey talking to that picture and the picture of me talking to Mickey.
Is the picture of me, me? No. Does Mickey think that the picture of me is me? He does if I draw him that way. And I can draw him as if he understands what I'm saying.
Fourth question: How does Mickey talk to me?
Well ... he doesn't, he's just a drawing.
But when I think about him, I think about him talking to me. I think about his motivations, and then I draw them in him. This is where Mickey gets surprising: Sometimes I can draw his motivations clearly, and sometimes they just don't seem to come out right.
Fifth question: Do I care if Mickey worships me?
I smile at this question. The only way Mickey is going to worship me is if I draw him doing so. To actually draw him going into a church and getting down on his knees to pray that he serves me well ... and have him do this a lot ... hmm ... sounds pretty narcissistic for my taste, but maybe some animators would enjoy it.
Sixth question: Can Mickey sin?
He can if I draw him doing so! Watch this!
... Well, not really, he's not doing it -- I'm doing it.
Can he become habitually or irredeemably sinful? Only if I draw him that way. His audience may demand it of him, but his actions are really my habit, my will, not his. Note that he will change when I change, not when he changes.
Seventh question: Can my children learn from Mickey?
Oh yes! My children can watch and learn. Is Mickey the same as a child of mine? No way! He's a creation of mine, not a child of mine. There's a big difference.
Eighth question: Can Mickey live in 3D?
Yes! I can make a Mickey Ratsass costume and have an actor get inside and perform.
Is 2D Mickey aware of what I've done when I make a 3D Mickey costume? Not really, because he's not really aware in the 3D sense at all ... but I can sure draw him admiring the 2D image of the 3D costume! So, he can be quite aware of it in his world. And, ironically, the actor doing a 3D performance of Mickey is just as real as the 2D animation!
Ninth question: Is it necessary for me to draw a picture of my only begotten son living in Mickey's world so Mickey can be redeemed for his sins and the sins of his fathers? Is it necessary that this drawing of my son suffer a humiliating and painful death so that he can take on the sins of Mickey, and then Mickey can join me?
... Eh? ... What a strange question! I drew Mickey. The sins, if there are any, are mine!
What difference is the painful death of a drawing going to make to me? This is all so strange. ... Where did this question come from?
Tenth question: Is Mickey created in my image?
He is ... but it's a pale, pale image. He can't think like I do. He can't act like I do. He doesn't face the same world I do. Calling him an image of me is fun, but he sure can't act in my place in any meaningful way.
And making a 3D, 1T version of Mickey, a Mickey costume, doesn't really bring him any closer to being like me, or being part of me.
But... but... What about free will?
Free will is something we 3D, 1T creatures possess. That doesn't guarantee that our creator has it. It may be an endearing trait that our creator admires, but there is no creator/creation relation logic that axiomatically supports the creator having it.
Using the analogy once again, the two Mickeys can both morph dramatically, they can fly, and they can recover quickly from both severe blows and immersion in various fluids such as mud and water. These are traits Mr. Disney and myself both admire and find endearing, but neither of us can match them.
So, yes, we can have free will, and it may be a trait that our 4D creator admires, but, strange as this may seem, it's not a given that he has it.
Look at the relation of Roger and Mickey Ratsass.
The world of the creator and the creation are different. It is really hard to "map" processes, such as thinking and sin, from beings of one set of dimensions to beings of another set.
What insight does the Mickey-Roger relation offer into the man-god relation?
o Those people who claim to know what the creator of our universe is thinking have to explain how they are bridging a thinking difference that is similar to the difference between Roger White thinking and Mickey Ratsass thinking. If they don't have a good explanation of how they are doing that, they are just guessing.
o Those people who claim there is an afterlife with the creator have to explain what the equivalent of a 2D creation is going to bring to the equivalent of a 3D existence. If they don't, then the afterlife is going to be the equivalent of a 3D Mickey costume being made from the inspiration of looking at a 2D Mickey cartoon.
Explaining issues such as these is something I've never seen done well by anyone who tells me he or she believes in a loving and caring creator.
A story of mine that has a loving and caring 4D/2T angel entering our universe is “Searching for Angels” in Tips for Tailoring Spacetime Fabric Volume 2. A story with humans and their new cyberlife creation thinking about things in entirely different ways is “The Failure”, also in Tips Volume 2.