Simultaneous Inspiration

We've talked many times about how we're each navigating through a fifth-dimensional probability space. We've also talked on a regular basis about the surprisingly enlightened Richard Dawkins concept of "memes": information patterns that connect together outside of the linear limits of space-time, an idea very easily relatable to ways of thinking about the additional degrees of freedom afforded by extra dimensions.

I don't want to make too big a deal out of this because coincidences happen, and designers have new ideas, new styles, new colors, that go in and out of fashion on a regular basis. But still, I couldn't let the interesting synchronicity that happened to me this morning pass by without making note of it : the September issues of these two magazines, both of which I subscribe to, arrived in my mailbox this morning, looking surprisingly alike, not just in design and color choice, but in the chosen message. Knowing the lead time that goes into getting magazines like these to the presses, the chances of one being a ripoff of the other's idea has to be virtually nil. Which leaves us with a concept I've talked about many times with this project: simultaneous inspiration. Is this an example of how there are patterns outside of spacetime which we are navigating within, which cause similar ideas to arise with no apparent connection across geography or shared communication? It's an interesting idea to consider.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from chapter five of my book ("Memes, Music, and Memory"), which relate to this discussion.

Dawkins also advanced the idea of the “meme” (rhymes with “team”), which would be an idea that desires itself to continue in the same way that a gene does. Ideas, belief systems, and unique points of view transfer themselves through word of mouth, the media, and so on. But the idea of the meme can also be stretched a bit to include more mysterious modes of transmission, where ideas seem to pop up simultaneously at geographically unrelated points. Sometimes it seems that an idea is just “ready to be born”, and that it may actually be somehow traveling across the dimensions without any visible mode of transmission, another demonstration of our non-local universe. For instance, could this be a way to explain the coincidences of inspiration in scientific research, where unconnected people on opposite sides of the planet sometimes come up with the same groundbreaking theory or invention?

What do you think? Are these two magazine covers pure coincidence, or an example of how ideas and inspiration are connected together for us outside of the limits of spacetime?

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

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