God Doesn't Play Dice

Why Einstein Was Right About Quantum Physics

And What He Missed

All our understanding of the universe rests on a set of assumptions about the nature of reality and on theories that interpret reality in light of those assumptions. These theories describe the universal laws that govern the universe. Physicalism is perhaps the classic assumption that even gives rise to the name of the discipline that studies the universe, namely physics. Metaphysics, on the other hand, goes further. It takes the empirical study of the universe and applies it to shape our understanding of reality.

Our understanding of the universe and its reality evolves over time. As we seek a better understanding, our current understanding is challenged and replaced by a new one. This constant change in our understanding is an integral part of science. Physics and metaphysics, therefore, need to work together to improve our understanding of the universe. The greatest physicists tend to know and practice both.

Einstein is certainly one of the most famous scientists, and his name has become synonymous with scientific genius. But what many people don’t know is that the source of his scientific genius is ironically not science but metaphysics and spirituality. His greatest accomplishment was reframing time as a dimension. That is not a scientific thought but a metaphysical one. This reframing of time has scientific implications, but it is a metaphysical understanding rather than a physical one. It is a change in the description of time, rather than merely a change in how it is measured.

Equally important was Einstein’s spirituality. His “cosmic religion” was a primary motivation for his work in physics. He believed the universe was inherently rational and that science could uncover its laws, set by a cosmic “lawgiver”. It is crucial to note that there are many conceptions of “God”. The predominant one is the God of the Abrahamic religions, but others exist. Einstein didn’t believe in a personal God who cares about humans, such as the Christian god. Instead, he believed in a Spinozian God.

In Spinoza’s conception of God, God is not a human-like being separate from the universe but rather the universe itself. The universe is an emergent manifestation of God. In this view, God is the only “substance” in the universe, and everything within it is a manifestation of that substance. A “substance”, in metaphysics, is a foundational, independent entity that exists on its own and contains its properties. Thus, for Spinoza, God is the only independent entity in the universe, and everything else is a representation of God’s different properties. The universe is also governed by immutable natural laws, which one can think of as the “thoughts of God”. Importantly, Spinoza believed that nothing in the universe is random. God’s actions are not arbitrary or based on chance. Instead, God is perfect, and thus everything in the universe happens according to the absolute necessity of God’s perfect nature.

From this perspective on the nature of God and the universe, one arrives at a deterministic view in which the laws of nature are set by God, creating a rational order not left to chance. In this context, Einstein’s famous quote, “God does not play dice with the universe,” can be understood. There is no room for chance in this view of the universe. When confronted with the ideas of quantum physics, Einstein thought we must be missing something. After working on relativity, Einstein focused on developing a new deterministic quantum paradigm and on unifying all of physics through a Unified Field Theory. He did not succeed. Many people think his views on quantum physics were wrong, but I am now going to argue that he was looking in the right direction but missed the solution, which was, in a way, staring him in the face the whole time.

The Dimension of Possibilities

Dimension, as a mathematical concept, describes a location in geometric terms. From a practical point of view, dimensions can describe physical locations. In this context, ideas such as a three-dimensional space and a time dimension emerge. Underlying these physical concepts, however, lies the mathematical idea of dimension. A dimension is a direction you can move in. It is a way you can move. Within a two-dimensional plane, you can move in two independent directions: forward and backward, and left and right. When you add a third dimension, you can also move up and down. From a two-dimensional perspective, the third dimension can be understood as a transcendence of the two-dimensional plane. It exists beyond the confines of the two-dimensional paradigm and can’t be described in terms of that paradigm.

Imagine a two-dimensional being. Such a being would be unable to conceive of up and down. A sphere passing through their two-dimensional plane world would appear as a small circle, grow in size, shrink back, and then disappear. To them, it would look like magic. Crucially, that three-dimensional direction exists but is beyond the two-dimensional being's awareness. The two-dimensional being could interpret the sphere's passage through their plane as a mystical manifestation of God or as evidence of a higher dimension.

Imagine an object placed inside a locked room. From our perspective, there is only one way in and out of the room – through the locked door. But a four-dimensional being could enter and exit a locked room with ease, through the fourth dimension. They could easily take the object from the room without using the door. It would be like a three-dimensional being, like us, taking something from the confines of a square. From the perspective of a two-dimensional being, we would do something impossible. The object within the square would disappear. But from our perspective, we would simply reach into the square. The square is completely sealed from a two-dimensional being's perspective, but not from ours. We would also be able to see what is inside the square, while a two-dimensional being would be unable to do that. In the same way, a four-dimensional being would be able to “see” our internal organs.

In a similar sense, from a physics perspective, we can understand the idea of a temporal dimension and a dimension of possibilities, the modal dimension. These dimensions are spatial dimensions that describe time and possibility. We cannot directly perceive these dimensions because our brains have evolved to perceive only 3 dimensions, but we can infer their existence from our observations. Einstein inferred the existence of time as the fourth dimension, while I infer the existence of possibilities as the fifth dimension.

Let’s start with the fourth dimension. We don’t move only in three spatial dimensions; we also move through time. The easiest way to understand time as a fourth dimension is to compare it with a movie. A movie is composed of a collection of frames. Each frame represents a slice of time. In the same way, we can imagine a moment in our lives as a three-dimensional slice. If you press the “pause” button in your life, everything around you is at a specific location in three-dimensional space. If you press play, you can move around and move different things. Every movement is like a frame of the movie. You are not just a three-dimensional being existing within three dimensions, but rather a four-dimensional being that can only perceive one three-dimensional slice at a time. If you were to visualize yourself in four dimensions, you would probably look like some kind of worm that is moving around and becoming “bigger” as you move around from that perspective. Like a game of snake. The totality of your existence, on the other hand, would look like a static collection of all your locations in three-dimensional space through the four-dimensional space-time. We can define that totality as the actualized four-dimensional spacetime.

Your actualized four-dimensional spacetime can be visualized as a single timeline, from the moment you are born to the moment you die. It is a single whole, yet it is still not all of your existence. In the same way, the entire universe is not merely a single instance of actualized spacetime. Instead, actualized spacetime is merely a slice of a larger five-dimensional structure. You and the universe are much, much bigger than that.

In the game Stanley’s Parable, Stanley comes across two doors: the one on the right and the one on the left. The whole game revolves around the choices you make, and those choices begin with the decision between the right and the left door. The doors lead to two completely different realities that make up the entire game. Ultimately, the Stanley that goes through the right door is not the same as the Stanley that goes through the left. Both exist simultaneously, though in parallel realities defined by the fifth dimension, the dimension of possibilities. In the same way we can imagine something moving through four dimensions as a “worm” in a three-dimensional context, we can imagine something moving through five dimensions as multiple worms, like “spaghetti” in a four-dimensional context. Sorry, I am hungry. I think I will go eat lunch now.

Comparing the Fifth Dimension with The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics

To understand the fifth dimension, it helps to approach it from a more universal perspective. One explanation for the multiplicity of quantum states is the existence of other universes in which those possible states are realized. This is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. This interpretation is very similar to the fifth dimension, except that the many-worlds interpretation postulates that reality branches into an infinite number of other universes, creating a multiverse, whereas the fifth dimension doesn’t require the creation of entirely different universes, just an additional geometric direction.

There are many problems with the many-worlds interpretation that the fifth dimension doesn’t share. Critics argue that it violates Occam’s Razor because every interaction creates unobservable universes to explain even a simple laboratory measurement. The fifth dimension doesn’t create an infinite number of other universes and doesn’t violate Occam’s Razor. Interactions don’t create the fifth dimension; it already exists. In fact, the fifth dimension is the simplest explanation for quantum physics. It is also simpler and more realistic than the Copenhagen interpretation, in which physical systems don’t have properties until they are measured.

Critics also argue that, in the many-worlds interpretation, every possible branch of reality exists equally. It doesn’t explain why we experience certain outcomes as highly likely while others are extremely rare. Many-worlds proponents argue that universal branches have different weights, with some branches having greater mathematical weight than others. I would argue that the universe, as a whole, contains all the possibilities across the different coordinates of the fifth dimension. The probability weight determines the distribution of possibilities. For instance, if there is a 99% probability of an electron turning right and a 1% probability of it turning left, in many worlds we can think of the right branch as having a higher weight, whereas in the fifth dimension, for every possibility that the electron turns left, there are 99 possibilities that it turns right. Every possibility is a coordinate in the fifth dimension. Each coordinate creates its own branching version of the universe, but they are all still part of the same universe, in a dimension we can’t directly detect. In this manner, being within the confines of our perceptual capacity limits our experience of the universe, creating the illusion of possibilities and probabilities.

In reality, the universe is what I call “hyperdeterministic”. A hyperdeterministic universe is not only deterministic in the sense that there is one predetermined future, but, in a much deeper and more meaningful sense, every possibility is realized. Not just one. Everything that can happen does happen, somewhere in the fifth dimension. It is important to note that this doesn’t mean that contradictions can be realized, because contradictions are not possible. Only what is possible is ever realized. That means there are no universes where the laws of physics don’t work. There are no universes where the universal constants are different, so everything falls apart. There is only this universe, and the constants are the way they are because they are logically required for the universe to exist in the first place.

Finally, since decoherence isolates the universes that branch off from an interaction between the quantum system in question and the rest of the universe, critics argue that the many-worlds interpretation can’t be tested and is, thus, unfalsifiable. I would argue that because every universe of the multiverse is isolated from the others, it is indeed difficult to devise a test for the multiverse. While I haven’t come up with a test for the fifth dimension, since it still exists within our universe and there are signs of its existence, it follows that it is more likely to be falsifiable than the many-worlds interpretation. We have successfully tested the existence of the fourth dimension, even though we can’t directly perceive it, so we should also be able to test the existence of the fifth dimension. There is also a clear connection between the fifth dimension and the fourth dimension, whereas there is no clear connection between the multiverse and our universe.

One last point. The “many worlds” interpretation has always bugged me a bit because it argues for the existence of a “multiverse”. By definition, the universe is everything that exists. It follows, then, that it doesn’t make sense to postulate a “multiverse”. If there is something beyond the “universe”, as we currently understand it, it must not be another universe but rather a part of our universe that we don’t have access to. Therefore, at best, there is a “local” part of the universe and a “nonlocal” part. This is the semantic argument against the many-worlds interpretation, and it complements the substantial arguments I just discussed.

How the Fifth Dimension Solves the Mysteries of Quantum Physics

Let’s go back to Stanley. Stanley had the choice between the left and right doors. Think of those two realities as parallel to each other. One reality is inaccessible to the other, yet both exist and intersect in the moment when Stanley stands before the two doors and is about to make a choice. The reality of Stanley going through the left door exists simultaneously with the reality of Stanley going through the right door. Those two realities exist in what, in quantum physics, we call a state of superposition. In superposition, a particle’s state is a combination of multiple possible states at once. All possible states of the particle exist at the same time within a specific moment of its existence. All possible timelines exist in a state of superposition with one another and are connected through the present moment. In other words, all possibilities intersect in a certain way. The point of intersection is what we perceive as the point of choice. If the fifth dimension is the dimension of possibilities, it follows that all possibilities intersect within that moment of “choice”. Each possibility is a different possible state in the 5th dimension. Only one state is accessible to us at a time.

What is a choice? If all possible realities exist and are actualized within the 5th dimension, the notion of choice doesn’t exist within the 5th dimension; it only exists within the 4th dimension. Choice is a 4th-dimensional construct. It only makes sense from within a limited 4th-dimensional perspective. More precisely, it is a limited human perception of the 4th dimension. A choice is undetermined because we don’t have access to the future or to the multiplicity of possibilities. We can imagine what will happen if we make a choice, and we can imagine different possible futures, but we can only access one of those futures by making a choice. Notice as well that the “future” only exists from a human perspective. It exists because we can’t access it right now, at this moment we are currently living. But all of our lives exist as a 4th-dimensional construct, already defined, with the different possible futures themselves realized as distinct 4th-dimensional constructs in different timelines in the 5th dimension.

Let’s go back to Stanley. For the purposes of this exercise, you are not playing the game; you are watching someone else play it and observing Stanley. You don’t determine the state in which Stanley finds himself. Stanley exists in every possible state. All possible states are encoded in the game, but we can access only one at a time. When the player chooses a state for Stanley, the state of his existence doesn’t “collapse” into an actuality; when we observe it, we can only observe one state at a time within the limits of our human perceptual capacity. It is a limit that comes from us, not the universe. There is nothing new about this. If you use a telescope to look at Jupiter, you will be able to see a lot more of Jupiter. Those details don’t disappear when we are not looking; they are there. Our eyes simply don’t have the resolution to detect them. In the same way, we don’t have the capacity to observe Stanley in more than one position at the same time, or a particle in more than one position at the same time, but they essentially are, because time is not limited by human perception. It goes beyond and exists as a complete “block” rather than a momentary “flow”. The problems we encounter in quantum physics and cosmology tend to concern interactions between time and possibility at scales beyond our perceptual capacity.

At one point in the game, a third door appears as an option. In most timelines, you only have two doors to choose from. In some, there is a third. In timelines with only two doors, an impenetrable wall stands where the third door would be. From an outside observer’s perspective, the observer is far more likely to see a wall where the door would be. However, all possibilities are available to Stanley. Stanley, then, can go through the third door while appearing to go through a wall. That is quantum tunnelling. Remember our discussion on dimensions. A dimension is a direction you can go through. We can only perceive three dimensions, but there are more. The fourth dimension we perceive as time, while the fifth we perceive as possibilities. We don’t have access to all possibilities, but a particle does. In one or more of those possibilities, a wall that is there in most possibilities doesn’t exist. To us, the particle appears to go through a barrier because it goes through the fifth dimension, a path that is not visible to us, thus magically appearing on the other side of the wall. This doesn’t happen very often because the barrier we perceive is there in many possibilities. However, it always happens because the possibility exists. The probability only determines how often it happens. This includes the probability of our own existence, which is far lower than the probability required for quantum tunnelling.

Finally, we come to quantum entanglement, or “spooky action at a distance”, as Einstein called it. It looked like magic to him, just as the passage of a sphere through a two-dimensional plane looks like magic to a two-dimensional being. In quantum entanglement, particles don’t have a definite state until they are measured. When two particles are entangled, measuring one instantly determines the other’s state, even when they are light-years apart. That completely undermines the notion of “locality,” the idea that objects are influenced only by their immediate surroundings. For that reason, Einstein believed there must be hidden instructions, present from the moment the particles were together and carried by them. He has since been proven wrong. There are no hidden variables. However, I am arguing that there is a hidden dimension. What looks like a large distance to us is no distance at all to two particles connected by that dimension. The two particles are, in fact, in each other’s “immediate surroundings”. They are always connected, with their states co-determined. The idea of locality emerges from entanglement. As we will see when we discuss the sixth dimension, everything in the universe exists in a state of entangled superposition with what we today call the “big bang”.

This was an introduction to my metaphysics. There is a lot more to be said, and one unresolved matter remains to be discussed. The reason why we “see” all the possibilities in a double slit experiment when there is no observer is that we are looking at it from a bird's eye view of the fifth dimension. To fully account for that experience, we will need to introduce the sixth dimension. That is a discussion for another day.