What Do These Impossibly Large Numbers Mean? How big are they?
Part 1 presented the fact that many physicists have grudgingly adopted-after often lifetimes of struggling against the obvious-the startling fact that can no longer be denied that our universe and in particular our environment that enables life as we know it, has come about in a manner that is the furthest thing from a random chance possible.
I listed myriad references that explain why that is in terms of the near Rubic’s Cube juxtaposition of elements that make it so. A logic trace that leads to only one conclusion: a divine hand behind events that proves the existence of a master choreographer or God.
Part 2 introduced two prominent names involved in documenting through rigorous scientific means, as well as test and experimentation, the experiences they pursued that have come to be known as Out of Body Experiences (OOBE.)
Both men-Robert A. Monroe and physicist Thomas Campbell-acknowledge that the name is somewhat of an awkward misnomer perhaps best explained by Campbell’s theory described in his trilogy called My Big TOE (Theory of Everything.)
The major difference between these two men from the standpoint of their documentation represented by their books is that Monroe’s books present a largely self-described explanation and his conclusions-and theories-based on what he documented in his somewhat personal diary of his experiences over some nearly fifty years that he leverages to describe his understanding of what’s what, how it works and what it portends for humans both now and in the after-life.
Whereas Campbell-ever the physicist-leveraged his near fifty years of OOBE experiences to tackle the long-pursued unifying mystery of life in physics explanation terminology known as the Theory of Everything that unites relativity and quantum aspects of science that heretofore served only to debunk and confuse adherents.
Why do I and more importantly-why should you care? I mean-lets be serious for a minute-these gentleman are not the first somewhat “wingnuts” to postulate explanations for the ever present and ubiquitous boogey-man under the bed, conspiracy theory wielding, Area-51, Roswell touting, con-men seeking to make a buck out of mystical assertions that are all too familiar from the checkout-line sensational periodical experience of seeing blaring headlines at the local Piggly Wiggly or Winn-Dixie: I was abducted and had an alien baby…
Monroe, Campbell and thousands of others who undertook this effort to document their experiences are very serious and accomplished people: the farthest thing from medicine men imaginable. Their documentation from thousands of volunteers discloses a very high proportion of professional, highly educated participants.
Monroe-in particular-chronicles his early-on struggles and concerns in the 1950s with his “talent” or capability to perform OOBE, seeking medical examinations from doctors-medical health and psychiatric professionals-to rule out some malady that could be causing his “adventures.”
Monroe found himself presented with two choices after doctors confirmed he had no physical or mental issues that were causing his OOBE experiences: go to India or some other more spiritual and mystical sensitized culture to spend a decade or more pursuing his experiences to some conclusion. Or to go with his own flow, immerse himself in it, and undertake a somewhat more rigorous pursuit of making sense of his experiences by himself: which is what he chose to do.
What makes Monroe’s story fascinating is how he came to found the Monroe institute and how that institute served as an energetic beacon from a consciousness rally point standpoint of sorts for people like Tom Campbell, who was not seeking an outlet or forum for his OOBE experiences per se, but mystics and spiritual advisors alike often observe that when a student is ready to learn, a teacher will wander into their path.
I don’t want to insinuate that Campbell is the “Grasshopper” to Monroe the “Sensei” or master instructor. Truth be known, Monroe was a master audio and video engineer and sound production show producer and businessman in his own right who intuitively knew that if he was to make sense of his OOBE talents, he would need to document his experiences through corroboration trials, repeatability and scientific means and that is what he set out to do-in broad, general terms-with the establishment of the Monroe Institute.
Very inauspicious beginnings based on somewhat of my favorite construct, a “loosely coupled engineering theory activity.” That resulted in he and Campbell finding each other, a mating of an audio and sound engineer subject matter expert with a physicist/scientist-school educated in the discipline-a man working in the profession at places like NASA, with a natural bent for evidentiary-based, fact derived conclusions as the basis for his belief system. And also Dennis Mennerich, an electrician who teamed up with Bob, Tom and others to help engineer the evidentiary environment that was the nucleus of the Institute’s mission and brought these adventures into being as a bona fide science experiment. An amazing story in and of itself.
And why should you care? What Monroe and Campbell documented, as well as others associated with the Monroe Institute like William Buhlman, cannot be unseen. These three men alone represent the experiences of some near 150 years’ worth of OOBE documented evidence using repeatable tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP.)
And they weren’t and aren’t afraid to go public with the detes (details.) The compilation of which is perhaps-based on your viewpoint-best expressed in Campbell’s My Big TOE. Which can be considered as somewhat of the capstone explanation that unifies the evidence of these experiences with a definitive explanation-the who, what, where, when, why and how (5Ws and H-) of what it portends-means- for “us.”
When you sit back and think about what Campbell-in particular-has accomplished here-it has to be given serious consideration when one thinks through thousands of years of the best minds in history from a science and physics standpoint-the thinkers, philosophers, religious doctrine, etc., etc., who attempted to unify the science and the physics through theories that never quite measured up.
I mean, what serious professional-particularly in the highbrow, somewhat elitist profession that has become modern day science and physics, ventures forth with a ballsy “My Big TOE” that purports to explain everything in a unifying manner-something that has eluded and defied the best efforts-and minds-for thousands of years?
A Big Toe that is based on the achievement of elevated consciousness and intuition to lower entropy through techniques and experiences gleaned from OOBE?
Campbell does not dwell on the latter part of the above, e.g., the gleaning from OOBE factoid. I would describe the relationship of his OOBE experiences-and that of others-as the undeniable real proof and evidence that fills the holes in classical physics that sought to achieve an end state description that perhaps Einstein most dogmatically pursued and described in terms of a “theory of everything.”
Such a theory has always been Maxwell Smart close “missed it by this much” to satisfactorily answering the mail throughout time immemorial-particularly over the last 100 plus years.
The explanation of Tom’s Big Toe would take myriad articles and likely do a disservice in some or many areas that he somewhat dogmatically builds through his 3-volume trilogy.
He is a factual man, which is perhaps best demonstrated by the discussion of numbers in terms of the possibilities and probabilities that bear on the case described in his theory-which I want to touch on here, briefly.
Before delving into that fascinating topic, I want to offer a caution for those who decide to jump right into Tom’s My Big TOE like some Polar Bear Club taking the ocean plunge on New Year’s Day.
Tom is a physicist (no doogie) who-not unlike many of us who were in and around the government for much of our professional lives-relies somewhat heavily on acronyms to explain his Big Toe. It is understandable from the standpoint of saving space and not insulting the reader’s intelligence: physicists mostly converse in terms of theorems, principles and laws. Or as I previously described, like jokes in prison.
As someone who is unabashedly a fan (of acronymize) from having been sheep dipped in military, military intelligence and national intelligence voodoo/acronym laden morse-code like speech, I confess that reading My Big Toe was a challenge from the standpoint of the use of some of the acronyms that are to common use vernacular as unicorns are to livestock experience.
Bob Monroe’s books similarly take on or exhibit an increasing reliance on the use of what I would describe as other worldly acronyms with no equivalent usage-verbiage-or experience in common day usage.
The difference being Monroe’s more common man approach as opposed to Campbell’s scientific leanings. Judge for yourself if you decide to take on the readings. I found myself reading through some of Campbell’s work, but deferring it once I realized his emphasis was on cementing the aspects of his Big Toe, opting to read through Monroe’s books, while also somewhat sidetracking to William Buhlman’s well documented works which are very much written in the style of Monroe but also expertly describes the links to science throughout time, and also a dozen or so other works, before returning to complete Campbell’s trilogy.
Another difference in approach is Campbell’s dry wit and sense of humor-that somehow bridges the cut and dry subject of physics and his description of our Virtual Reality with humor that is in context with his theory: often somewhat irreverent but always relevant to his point…
Now what about those numbers? Toward the end of My Big Toe “Awakening” or book 1, Campbell walks through his concept of how different aspects of his theory of a virtual reality interacts with terms he introduces to discuss how it is possible that such a thing exists.
In the interest of not going too long here, I want to leave it at that for now while briefly mentioning the big numbers I referenced in the title.
The short version is to discuss the seemingly vast processing numbers-that aren’t so vast when discussed in context-that it would require to sustain-to feed-information in the form of data streams to just the human consciousness numbers on earth.
Given that I have gone long-as usual-I think it best to defer that specific discussion at this point and simply introduce a few ideas or concepts to tease where we are headed with a discussion of large numbers.
There are two examples that are my personal favorites from a “gotcha” standpoint. One is the question of whether you would prefer to have $100,000 in cash right now, or a penny that is doubled every day for 30 days. Below is the tale of the power of doubling.
| A Penny Doubled | Day | Pennies |
| $0.01 | 1 | 1 |
| $0.02 | 2 | 2 |
| $0.04 | 3 | 4 |
| $0.08 | 4 | 8 |
| $0.16 | 5 | 16 |
| $0.32 | 6 | 32 |
| $0.64 | 7 | 64 |
| $1.28 | 8 | 128 |
| $2.56 | 9 | 256 |
| $5.12 | 10 | 512 |
| $10.24 | 11 | 1,024 |
| $20.48 | 12 | 2,048 |
| $40.96 | 13 | 4,096 |
| $81.92 | 14 | 8,192 |
| $163.84 | 15 | 16,384 |
| $327.68 | 16 | 32,768 |
| $655.36 | 17 | 65,536 |
| $1,310.72 | 18 | 131,072 |
| $2,621.44 | 19 | 262,144 |
| $5,242.88 | 20 | 524,288 |
| $10,485.76 | 21 | 1,048,576 |
| $20,971.52 | 22 | 2,097,152 |
| $41,943.04 | 23 | 4,194,304 |
| $83,886.08 | 24 | 8,388,608 |
| $167,772.16 | 25 | 16,777,216 |
| $335,544.32 | 26 | 33,554,432 |
| $671,088.64 | 27 | 67,108,864 |
| $1,342,177.28 | 28 | 134,217,728 |
| $2,684,354.56 | 29 | 268,435,456 |
| $5,368,709.12 | 30 | 536,870,912 |
The second example is the difference between a million seconds and a billion seconds. A million seconds is about twelve (~12) days. Whereas a billion seconds is 31.7 years. A trillion seconds is ~31,720 years.
From My Big Toe: Campbell describes the “difference between the smallest thing we think we know exists (sub-atomic particles) to the largest thing we think we know exists (the universe,) as about 100 orders of magnitude (10 to the 100th power) are spanned.
The point being that the numbers 10 and 100 are not particularly big numbers if you consider that in a potential world where there are somewhat nested universes of varying sizes like Russian Matryoshka Dolls (nesting dolls) with the same relative relationship to our own, the final potential universe could be unimaginably large.
The further point being that what we have come to describe as “infinity,” which is often blithely used to refer to an impossibly large number, could be finite.
In terms of space distances, this article employs an approach that mates up the communications distance in terms of the time of release of music corresponding with the delay induced through distance, thereby allowing the space-or time-traveler to time their arrival with the prevailing mood of the desired music era on earth. From the piece:
THE UNIVERSE’S PLAYLIST
Planets within our solar system will be listening to modern music including Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Maroon 5’s Sugar.
At around five light-years from Earth, near red dwarf Proxima Centauri, hits from 2011 are playing including Lady Gaga’s Born This Way.
Nearing 10 light-years away, around the star Ross 154 or V1216 Sagittarii, music from the likes of Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back and Fergie’s London Bridge are playing.
Mariah Carey’s 1990 hit Vision of Love is playing as the animation reaches 25 light-years from Earth, near the star Steph 538.
At 31 light-years from Earth, when songs from the mid-1980s including Wham’s Wake Me UP Before You Go-Go would only just be arriving, the animation reaches Ursa Major.
As the animation reaches 75 light-years away in the Comae Berenices constellation, the sounds of Glenn Miller Orchestra and jazz tracks from Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra ring out from the 1930s and 1940s.
And when it reaches 105 and 110 light-years away, By The Light Of The Silvery Moon by Billy Murray and the Haydn Quartets is playing.
Part 4 will touch upon some of the takeaways from the authors mentioned thus far-including Monroe, Campbell and Buhlman-and what top level takeaways mean to the average reader interested in their work.
Max Dribbler
12 June 2025
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