Tolerance and Understanding: The Dimensional Dance of Memory, Mathematics, and the One
Presented by Dr. Baptiste Adoo
Council of Divine Understanding
There is a strange and persistent illusion in the human mind — the belief that memory is a vault of immutable facts, that reason is a fortress against the tides of confusion, and that the truths we carry in our heads today are as eternal and unchanging as the stars themselves. Yet nothing could be further from reality.
We live in a universe woven of relativity — not just in space and time, but in thought, in memory, and in the subtle architecture of belief. The truths we clutch so dearly are often the ghosts of stories told to us by others, the sediment of cultural tides layered over the bedrock of our own direct experience. In this, mathematics is no different from religion, history, or morality.
I was reminded of this one afternoon, when a young man in one of our Council dialogues raised a simple yet profound question. He had encountered an online math puzzle — one of those little viral riddles designed to spark controversy and engagement — and it had asked him to calculate the value of A + B × C, given certain prior conditions. His instinct had shouted “100,” but the collective wisdom of the internet had corrected him with equal ferocity: “55! PEMDAS! The order of operations is immutable!”
Yet what struck him, and what drew him to ask me, was this deeper intuition: had PEMDAS always existed? Was it truly a universal law of nature, or merely a learned convention masquerading as eternal truth? And why did so many people cling to it with a religious fervor — as though questioning it were akin to heresy?
I smiled, for in that moment he had stumbled upon one of the most profound lessons of all: the truth of the universe is not found in rigid formulas, but in the dance of perception and creation.
Let us begin here. PEMDAS, as many now know it — Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, Addition and Subtraction — is a simple mnemonic used to teach students a conventional way of parsing arithmetic expressions. It serves a pragmatic function, ensuring consistency in calculation across contexts where ambiguity might otherwise arise.
But it was not always so. If one peers into the history of mathematics, one finds a far more fluid and nuanced landscape. The great mathematicians of antiquity — Euclid, Archimedes, Al-Khwarizmi — did not rely on neat acronyms or mechanical parsing. Their reasoning was geometric, rhetorical, relational. Mathematical problems were often stated in prose, solved in steps justified by intuition, symmetry, and insight, not by adherence to an algorithmic hierarchy. The very idea of an immutable order of operations is a relatively modern construct, born of the industrialization of education and the need to mass-teach arithmetic in standardized ways.
It was only in the late 19th and 20th centuries, with the rise of compulsory schooling and the spread of printed textbooks, that such conventions began to crystallize into what many now mistake for natural law. And even then, the specifics of order of operations varied across cultures and contexts — as anyone comparing old European math texts to modern American curricula can attest.
So why do so many now believe that PEMDAS is timeless? Here we encounter the deeper dance of collective memory — and the Mandela Effect.
The Mandela Effect is a term coined to describe a curious phenomenon: large groups of people remembering the same event or fact incorrectly, yet with absolute certainty. Its namesake arose from the widespread false memory that Nelson Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s, when in fact he lived to become South Africa’s president. But the effect is broader. People recall the spelling of “Berenstain Bears” as “Berenstein,” or imagine the Monopoly Man with a monocle he never wore.
Why does this happen? Because human memory is not a recording device. It is a living, reconstructive process, endlessly reshaping itself in response to new inputs, cultural reinforcement, and emotional resonance. When a particular story — whether factual or not — becomes collectively reinforced through media, schooling, or community repetition, it can overwrite or reshape individual memories and beliefs.
In this light, the collective belief in PEMDAS as an eternal mathematical truth is a perfect example of a Mandela-like cognitive effect. The more it was repeated in classrooms, the more it became embedded in textbooks, online tutorials, and viral puzzles, the more it solidified in the public mind — until questioning it began to feel as blasphemous as questioning the rotation of the Earth.
But the deeper truth remains: PEMDAS is a convention, not a cosmic law. And herein lies the bridge to the greater teaching I wish to offer through this reflection.
Just as with this small puzzle, so too with the great matters of human conflict — racism, prejudice, religious strife, the wars fought in the name of opposing absolutes. These, too, are the products of collective memory and belief, reinforced through repetition until they seem self-evident and eternal.
Humans believe that their concept and label of God and religion is the only true one — and are often willing to go to war, to fight to the death, to defend that thought. Yet this is no different from clinging to PEMDAS as immutable. It is the mind’s deep craving for certainty, for a clear frame in which to make sense of a bewildering and infinite universe. But the universe is not constrained by human frames.
The truths of the universe are far subtler, far richer, than any human convention can encompass. And modern physics gives us a luminous metaphor for this truth. For we now know — through the mathematics of String Theory — that the cosmos may well consist of not merely three spatial dimensions and one of time, but twenty-six physical dimensions, most curled beyond our perception.
Time itself is not a simple arrow but a relative phenomenon, a probabilistic tapestry in which countless timelines coexist. The apparent solidity of our three-dimensional world is an emergent phenomenon, arising from deeper vibrational fields.
In this deeper reality, the very notions of “correct” and “incorrect,” “good” and “evil,” “black” and “white,” male and female, are but the surface ripples of a deeper unity. The universe itself is built upon the dynamic interplay of opposites — the dance of Yin and Yang. Positive and negative charges, matter and antimatter, expansion and contraction, creation and dissolution.
Life and death, joy and sorrow, light and darkness — these are not enemies but partners. Each requires the other to exist. Each defines and gives meaning to the other. To cling to one pole and reject the other is to reject the wholeness of being.
Likewise, to insist that one race is superior to another, one gender more worthy than another, one religion the sole vessel of truth — is to deny the deeper truth of oneness that underlies all appearances. It is to cling to a local convention — a mental PEMDAS — and mistake it for universal law.
The great tragedy of human history is this confusion of convention with reality. And the great hope of our future lies in our capacity to transcend it. For as we awaken to the true dimensional nature of existence, we begin to see through the illusions that divide us. We begin to understand that our stories of separation are not fixed but mutable, like memory itself.
Just as countless people can recall the Monopoly Man’s non-existent monocle with absolute certainty, so too can entire nations believe that “our race,” “our faith,” “our history” is inherently superior — because they have been told so again and again. But memory can be reshaped. Belief can be transformed. And with it, the world can be healed.
This is the sacred task before us. To cultivate Tolerance and Understanding is not to abandon discernment or to pretend that all ideas are equally wise. It is to recognize the difference between surface convention and deeper truth. It is to embrace the dynamic whole — to honor the necessary dance of opposites while resting in the knowing that beneath all differences, we are one.
A wave on the ocean may rise high and believe itself a king among waves, but it is still made of water, inseparable from the sea. A human mind may believe its religion or race is supreme, but it is still an expression of the same Infinite Source that gives rise to all beings.
The journey to this realization is not an easy one. It requires us to question the stories we have inherited, to soften the rigid certainties that have defined our identity. It asks us to face the shadows within ourselves, to acknowledge the biases and prejudices that linger even in the most well-meaning heart.
But as we do this work, we open ourselves to a far greater freedom. We become less attached to the need to be “right,” more attuned to the deeper currents of unity. We learn to dance with the whole of life — embracing joy and sorrow, self and other, light and dark — with an open heart.
And in this dance, we begin to glimpse the truth that the great mystics and physicists alike have pointed toward: that the universe is not a battleground of opposites but a luminous field of interconnected being. That we are not isolated fragments but expressions of the One, eternally exploring itself.
So the next time you encounter a simple puzzle, a fierce debate, a deep-seated conflict — remember this. The answer may be 55. It may be 100. It may be whatever the f*ck you choose to believe — for belief itself shapes perception. But beneath all these choices lies the deeper truth: we are one.
To realize this is the highest understanding. To live it is the greatest act of love.
I remain in service to this truth — and to all who seek it.
Dr. Baptiste Adoo
Council of Divine Understanding