IN A MOMENT, IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE, AT THE LAST TRUMPET

Finding Eternity Within a Planck Time Event-Singularity

Rev. Stephen A. Herring

October 21, 2010

You will need to spend a certain amount of time reading this document.  Reading it carefully will require more time, and reading it less carefully will require less time.  Either way, you can measure the amount of time invested here should you choose to do so.  You might even choose to spend your time doing something else entirely.  What are you doing though when you “spend time?” 

While we measure time constantly, and evaluate the results of our measurements, we lack a satisfactory definition of what exactly time is.  We understand time by experience, but we do not understand its nature or why it behaves the way it does.  For our purposes here, time can be defined as follows. 

·        Time is the experiential analysis of the medium separating events from each other. 

Time is experiential, that is, it is something we experience.  Time requires analysis.  We evaluate, measure, and compare it.  Time is a medium.  It is rather like a sea in which all events float.  Time enfolds events and separates them from each other. 

Language offers us various tools to describe and quantify time.  We use words like “before,” “during,” and “after” to describe events relative to each other.  We use words like “hour,” “minute,” and “second” to describe duration.   All of these are merely semantic representations of something we perceive as we live within the mysterious medium called time. 

This investigation of the mystery called time was inspired by a close reading of an ancient mystical text where the author attempts to express an alternative, transformational experience beyond time.  The author is Saint Paul and the text is I Corinthians 15:50ff.[1] 

“This I say, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood are not able to inherit the kingdom of God, nor is the corruptible able to inherit the incorruptible.  Behold, I tell you a mystery.  All will not sleep, but all will be changed in an indivisible moment, in the flash of an eye, in the final trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For it is necessary for the corruptible to put on incorruptibility, and for the mortal to put on immortality.” 

Three key words describe the process of transformation.

• In a moment               Greek en atomw
• In the flash of an eye  Greek en riph ojqalmou
• In the last trumpet      Greek en th escath salpigi. 

An indivisible moment (Greek atomos) is a unit of time which is irreducible.  This is the smallest possible segment of time.  For the sake of argument, just for the fun of it, let us employ a segment of time known as Planck Time.  Planck time is the amount of time required to move one Planck Length traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.  A Planck length is a distance of 1.616252(81) X 10^-35 meters.  This is a distance so small it is nearly impossible for us to imagine.  Planck time is therefore a duration of 5.39124(27) X 10^-44 seconds.  Again, this duration is unimaginably short.  This length of time will prove to be important in dimensional analysis because, within this span of time, absolutely nothing can happen. The smallest unit of time we have measured as of this date is “on the order of 20 attoseconds (10⁻¹⁸ s), or about 3.7 × 10²⁶ Planck Times.”[2]  To demonstrate just how short a period of time we are talking about, “an attosecond is a unit of time equal to 10⁻¹⁸ of a second, or one quintillionth of a second.  In ratio, one attosecond is to one second what one second is to twice the age of the universe.”[3]  That is a really short period of time. 

Planck time represents a quantum level span of time, an “instant”, a “moment” which is brief to the point that no normally observable atomic or molecular activity may occur within it.  It is the time equivalent of absolute zero, the temperature below at which all atomic activity ceases.  There is no wavelength short enough to occur within this framework, no spin resonant or vibrational energy may manifest within such an instant.  In other words, there is literally nothing that happens within such a time frame. 

At this point we run into a paradox.  On the one hand, the existence of such an interval can be proven by the simple division of known segments of time.  Take a second and keep on dividing it into smaller and smaller units, and eventually you will come to Planck Time.  Planck Time must exist.  On the other hand, an ontological/physical problem emerges in that there is no known process which can occur within such a small instant of time.  Nothing can BE within that time because everything, every element, every energetic process in the known universe requires more time than that to become manifest.  The paradox is that nothing can exist in that time, but such an interval must exist.  Thus, there must be a time period, an interval within which nothing exists.  Such a concept of Zero Time – Zero Space is highly problematic.  If you were able to squeeze your perception into such a brief moment of time, you would see nothing at all because light can’t travel that fast.  The Planck Time event-singularity is a moment with absolutely nothing happening in it.  Yet, there must be such a moment, thus everything must simultaneously be there and also not be there. 

To return to our mystical theological text, Paul claims that it is exactly within such an indivisible moment, such an instant that corruptible things become incorruptible.  This is where ordinary time meets eternity, and where the mortal meets immortality.  Decay is what happens to all common objects over time.  We know that some objects decay fairly rapidly, and others decay much more slowly, but everything changes, and everything eventually breaks down into some other set of elements. Freedom from decay can only be possible where time as we know it does not exist.  Paul’s suggestion is that eternity exists within an indivisible moment of time.  This observation may be the portal which allows us to move between worlds. 

Here we need to examine our perceptual framework around the concept of eternity.  Is eternity a place where time runs on and on?  Is it a place where hour follows hour and day follows day in an endless sequence?  If so, existence in such a place might become a little tedious after a few millennia have gone by.  What if eternity consists of a singularity taking the form of one timeless instant?  What if both eternity and Planck Time are the same thing?  This would make a quantum instant of timelessness into the transcendental background from which all information originates.  Everything that we know happens in durations outside of Planck Time, but there has to be a quantum moment of absolute stillness at the core of outward physical experience.  Rather than being some sort of ontological void, this instant might contain totality.  As paradoxical as it seems, everything might be there because nothing within that interval takes up any time or space.  Everything might be there because nothing takes up any space within the quantum world of Planck Time.  Everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen might fit within that void. 

To be clear here, the proceeding statement is more of an intuitive leap than it is a logical deduction.  The facts are as follows:

• All known events transpire outside the confines of Planck Time. 
• Planck Time must exist.
• Nothing we know of happens fast enough to fit within the confines of Planck Time
• Therefore Planck Time represents a segment of time in which nothing happens. 

The intuitive leap takes the form of the assumption that it is possible for dimensional transformation or dimensional transfer to occur within any time or space where the normal rules of dimensional boundaries and physical mechanics do not apply.  This is why we use the word "singularity" to describe the connection between the Planck Time phenomenon and the concept of eternity. 

Let us reflect for a moment on what happens when a person dies.  For this reflection we must draw upon the rather confusing and controversial data set known as either Near Death Experiences (NDE), or Out of Body Experiences (OBE).  The reader may consult the Internet for a vast body of literature on both subjects.  A common element within both sets of experiences is something called “the sound.”  The sound is usually described as a buzzing, blaring, or sometimes harmonious musical note which people hear as they enter a Near Death Experience.    

Working from Saint Paul’s descriptions of his own mystical experiences and from the basic sequence of events related in Acts 9:1-9, we may suppose that Saint Paul formed his eschatological mystical visions on the basis of some sort of NDE/OBE.[4]  If this is the case, Paul might interpret “the noise” within the NDE/OBE experience as the “last trumpet.”  (See II Corinthians 12:1-4)  After all, if we follow the NDE scenario, this is the last sound a person hears when they are alive. 

Another common element of the NDE/OBE is a subjective perception of mystical spirituality.  When people experience these things they are changed, transformed spiritually.  The Hindu faith describes this experience as an opening of the third eye, gyananakashu, or eye of knowledge.  Paul describes such transformative experience as “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of humanity conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”  (I Corinthians 2:9)  I see a connection between the Hindu concept of a third eye, “what no eye has seen” the eye which is the lamp of the body (Luke 11:34), and the “Flash of an eye” mentioned in I Corinthians 15.  An eye sees our mystical experiences and everything changes as a result.  We change when our eye sees ultimate reality. 

Under this interpretation we have a final trumpet, the mystical flash of an eye, and an indivisible moment of time.   The implication of this text is that eternity may be found in just such a transformative instant.  This text also suggests that this is something that we will all experience, either being asleep, or not being asleep, IE either with or without conscious awareness.  In the context of either death or life “we will be changed.”  We are all headed to this place regardless of how we may feel about it. 

To return to Planck Time and its mystical signification, what if the experience of the Planck Time event-singularity is the last thing our brains perceive in the final moment our brain cells are functioning?  Skeptics and critics of the NDE/OBE literature have suggested that this whole business is simply the death spiral of the human brain.  This is what our brains do when they loose the life energy within them.  This is our common experience of the final spark which is our perception of death.  Some have seen and felt these things, but managed to return to the waking, functioning world.  It stands to reason that we would build religious and doctrinal systems about the afterlife described by these people.    

Placing the religious and doctrinal considerations aside for a moment, if the brain approaches, then experiences a Plank Time event-singularity, a literal arresting of the flow of time, this would fit completely within the biology of a simple physical death scenario.  At death our brains simply wind down.  They stop.  As they wind down though, the conscious mind enters the event-singularity of Planck Time. Within this time all consciousness is found, and all information originates.  This is the space between the dots from which all physical activity proceeds.  This is where we have come from and where we will all return.  This is the emptiness in which and from which all things are fulfilled.  This is eternity.  It can be Nirvana, it can be heaven, or it can be hell, but it all happens within an indivisible, incredibly small instant.  The Planck Time event-singularity is the nexus of the afterlife. 

In conclusion, the amazing truth might be that the universe is so merciful, so good, and so loving that we enter this space, this Planck Time event-singularity regardless of the doctrinal/religious system or lack thereof which we may have held during our lives.  The determining factor as to the quality of our experience could well be the quality of our thought forms at or near the time of our death.  We all go to the same place, the same Planck Time event-singularity.  What is different is the way we embrace this experience in the seconds or fractions of a second before we arrive.  Religious faith systems are essential for helping us to gather the right thought forms to enter such a quantum space without negativity, regret, guilt, attachments, fears, or other baggage which could impede our union with the transcendental cosmic background from which we originated.  This means we can and should approach our religious tasks with commitment and urgency as long as our faith teaches people a symbolic vocabulary with which to enter the Planck Time event-singularity.  It is essential that people not die in anger, in sorrow, in regret, in guilt, or in any other such negativity.  Good religion is about teaching people to die in the right frame of mind.  The NDE literature indicates that a Savior awaits in the form of a Being of Light who loves us unconditionally, knows us absolutely, and welcomes us personally.  Specific religious doctrines may wish to limit this all knowing love to some group of “worthy” or otherwise “qualified” souls, but in the end they all strive for the same thing. 

The implications of this way of thinking are that, as long as we are personally ready, God welcomes us into eternity.  Heaven itself is nothing more than an eternal NOW.  Heaven is open according to the quality of our thinking in life and in death. 

To speak personally, I find that the Christian story provides me with exactly the symbolic vocabulary necessary to keep my thought forms moving in the right direction through all of the ups and downs of living.  For me, the Christian message puts the whole thing in the right order better than any other set of teachings I have found.  I also know that this world is diverse enough to allow for other religious systems which use different symbolic vocabularies.  When I die, I expect to enter a place which is completely different from this level of space and time.  I expect completely different data sets to be experienced and evaluated in completely different ways.  I know that no vestiges of my physical body will make this transition.  I therefore expect the whole experience to be contained within just such a moment.  God waits for us in an instant, but this instant lasts forever.    

[1] Translations presented here are my own. 

[2] Delayed Time Zero in Photoemission: New Record in Time Measurement Accuracy. Science Daily. July 27, 2010. (Reference located in Wikipedia)  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624144109.htm. ) 

[3] This is a quote from the Wikipedia article on “attosecond.”

[4] Paul himself describes his experience as being “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.”  (II Corinthians 12:3) 

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