Notes & Queries, 19th November 2013: How big am I in the universal scheme of things?

 

image generated by Grok

This is a complicated enquiry and the response will vary significantly from person to person.

To answer it properly we need to ask ourselves: “What am I made of?” and “At what point does my body stop and the rest of the Universe begin?”

In my opinion, the model that provides the best answers to these questions is Signature Field Theory, which is tied in with scientific thought regarding the ontological nature of human of consciousness and personal identity.

Placing this theory into a relatable context requires that we travel back in time to a phone call that was made to Nottingham emergency services at 3:03am, on the 15th March, 2005.

A man who identified himself as Frans Lloyd-Daley informed the operator that part of him had become trapped inside the Beeston multi-storey car park and had been there for several days. When asked if he required an ambulance the caller became irate and retorted that an ambulance was the last thing he needed. Further questioning by the operator revealed that Lloyd-Daley was in fact at his home and not at the multi-storey car park, as he had claimed. Since he appeared to be in genuine distress the police were dispatched to his address to confirm that he was well.

Lloyd-Daley had previously been part of a group of Nottingham-based scientists who had established the core tenets of Signature Field Theory at the Kippen Particle Archive. He had either been sacked or had resigned from the institute a few months prior to making the 999 call.

According to the Nottingham Group, our personal identities are based upon an arrangement of thirty-three different subatomic particles which is unique to every individual. The bulk of these particles are 'columned' in an area of space which corresponds with the physical body as we perceive it. A smaller proportion of this matter is found outside the body where it is held in orbit by a process of quantum gravity. These particles have a tendency to clump together in clouds that superficially resemble weather systems.

The range of a given signature field (the number that ultimately determines our physical size) varies depending on the medial age of the particle matter of which we are composed. A compact field is one consisting predominately of young matter, that radiates no more than 10 metres from the physical body. This accounts for 93% of all signature fields, with the average range being 7.3 metres. The smallest signature field on record belonged to test subject PQ23 and projected only a fraction of a millimetre beyond their body. The largest expanded field was judged to be roughly the size of Wales, although such things become difficult to measure accurately at this scale.

Occasionally parts of a signature field can become temporarily separated from their host. This is often the case during long flights and accounts for phenomena such as jet-lag, where it sometimes feels as if you have left a part of yourself behind in your country of origin. In this case the disembodied particle matter will, by process of entanglement, slowly make its way back to its host.

There are rare instances where part of a person's signature field can become trapped and is unable to reunite with the physical body. It is likely that this is what happened to poor Mr Lloyd-Daley, whose war of words with his local council (who he claimed were knowingly operating a gulag for the human soul) saw him become increasingly unhinged, and culminated in him being sectioned under the Mental Health Act for a short period time.

In 2012, the Beeston multi-storey car park was demolished. Lloyd Daley used specialist equipment to make a number of recordings that he claims show “upwards of one-thousand” trapped signature fields rising from the rubble and moving away from the site to rejoin their host bodies. He noted ruefully that a large number were heading west, in the direction of a nearby cemetery.