The human mind lives in a prison bounded by the three dimensional space its eyes can see and the one way flow of time. Yet the furthest edge theoretical physics has reached, string theory and its eleven dimensional frame, M-theory, tells us that the universe is made of hidden dimensions far deeper than we know, curled one inside another. In string theory, what lies at the base of matter is not point particles but one dimensional strands of energy vibrating at different frequencies; M-theory carries that fabric onto an enormous eleven dimensional membrane.
And so a sufi traveller, their spirit crystallised, stripped of matter and set out in search of the truth, begins a journey gliding through the layers of these hidden dimensions. In each dimension the traveller meets luminous beings, conscious manifestations in which the divine laws have taken a person’s form.
Stepping into the fifth dimension, the traveller finds before them a luminous being with no fixed shape, forever changing, manifesting as an endless cloud of light. This is the conscious spirit of quantum superposition.
Who are you, and why do you not hold a single form, asks the traveller.
The luminous being answers in a full and gentle voice: I am the ocean of infinite possibilities of the Creator, not yet made manifest. In that narrow dimension you came from, people suppose a thing is either there or here. But I am all the possibilities that have not yet been granted manifestation. Let me put it this way, traveller: think of a stage. Before the play begins the lights are down, and on that stage a thousand different scripts and a thousand different actors are present at once, in potential. The actors are both on stage and not. Evil and good, being and non-being, all wait together in my breast, side by side. I am the exultation of what has not yet happened within the divine knowledge.
format_quote"I am the ocean of infinite possibilities of the Creator, not yet made manifest."
Hasan Bekmezci
Rising to the sixth dimension, the traveller sees that the moment they look, all the lights of possibility around them focus on a single point and crystallise. The being before them is the spirit of the observer effect.
Why does everything you touch lock onto a single line of destiny, asks the traveller.
The observer spirit smiles and replies: I am the manifestation of consciousness and of witnessing, traveller. What lights those lamps standing dark on the stage is a gaze. Just like the moment a painter touches brush to canvas. Until the painter looks at the canvas and strikes it, there is an infinity of possible paintings there. But the instant the brush touches, all other possibilities withdraw and one single painting is born. The Creator did not leave matter on its own; he placed beside it the consciousness that would bear witness to it, the human being. When you approach a thing with your intention, your gaze and your witness, you draw one single instant out of that ocean of infinite possibility.
format_quote"Your gaze is the sacred seal at which divine decree turns into manifestation."
Hasan Bekmezci
Reaching the seventh dimension, the traveller arrives at the finest capillaries of the universe, the base layer where everything is woven in a geometric and discontinuous order. The being before them is the Planck constant and the Planck length.
Why are you so broken up, why do you touch in such minute steps, asks the traveller.
The Planck spirit whispers: I am the seal of renewed creation that the Creator struck upon existence, the making anew at every instant. People take time and space for a smooth river flowing without a break. But I am the pixel of the universe, the smallest stitch in the fabric. Let me give you the example of a film projector: you see a man running on the screen and suppose he moves without ever stopping. In truth there are twenty four still frames passing each second. In the gaps between them the picture is erased and printed again. I am that smallest frame, measured at about one point six times ten to the minus thirty fifth of a metre.
format_quote"Continuity is an illusion; the truth is manifestation at every instant."
Hasan Bekmezci
The traveller carries what they saw in all three dimensions, but before turning back they want to ask the real question. They stop and ask: what, then, did the Creator intend by all of this? Why found the universe on an order so open ended, so much in need of a witness?
The spirit of superposition answers first: Had everything been locked into a single state from the beginning, the universe would be a cold and closed machine. There would be no place for you inside that machine, because nothing would be left to choose. The Creator left possibility open so that there might be someone who chooses.
The observer spirit adds: And he placed the human being in this realm not as an ordinary spectator but as its witness. Your gaze is not a burden, traveller, it is a station. Destiny is not a rigid prison; it is a flexible ground you walk on with your intention. One thing happens when you look and another when you do not, and that is a responsibility given to you.
The Planck spirit closes it: And to remind you of this. Because it is created anew at every instant, nothing continues of its own accord. The moment a person says they have solved it, a limit they cannot measure is set before them. That limit is not a punishment; it is a seal placed there so that reason should know its bound and remember how small it is.
format_quote"Your gaze is not a burden. It is a station."
Hasan Bekmezci
At the end of the journey the traveller sees a reflection in this world of those three truths and of that geometry between dimensions. It is the Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1, the summit of high watchmaking. After four years of research, Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey made only thirty three of them across 2008 and 2009, in white gold, red gold and platinum.
Of the two nested tourbillon cages at the centre of the watch, the outer one completes a turn in four minutes. The inner cage carries the balance and its spring, is inclined at thirty degrees relative to the outer, and completes its revolution in one minute. The mechanism therefore never settles into a single plane; it offers a three dimensional combination of angles that shifts continuously against gravity. Just as the spirit of superposition said in the fifth dimension, time does not wait at one angle but inside an infinity of angular possibilities.
The dial rejects the conventional smooth surface. The double tourbillon sits at the very centre of a semi-circular hour and minute display, so that the link between the mechanism that measures time and its symbolic indication becomes visible to the eye. The absence of a dial leaves the bridges exposed on three distinct levels and allows the concentric gearing that drives the hour and minute indicators to be followed. The off-centred small seconds and power reserve displays recall a miniature solar system. Each vibration of the balance wheel brings to the wrist, like those still frames on the cinema screen, the idea that time is not a smooth river but discontinuous packets rebuilt at every instant.
Glance at the watch from above and time will not surrender itself to you. To read that thirty degree architecture and the turning time discs, the observer has to change their angle, focus on the watch and establish a conscious act of witness. Just as the traveller learned in the sixth dimension, the moment the gaze settles on the dial, that mechanism which looked like confusion becomes a single concrete now.
The lugs that are Greubel Forsey’s signature make the watch recognisable at once. But this model holds one further, unexpected detail: engraved directly onto a plate set in the caseback, a message from the Inventor Watchmakers to its owner stays with the watch for good.
The Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 is the token on the wrist of a sufi traveller who has come gliding down from eleven dimensional membranes. It reminds us that time is not a straight line but a sacred cloth, rewoven at every Planck instant, made concrete by our witness, and carrying infinite divine possibility.
The watch on its maker’s own site: Greubel Forsey, Invention Piece 1