Few kinds of self-knowledge could matter more than knowing one's own emotional responses. One could say that emotions are both the cause and the subject of many of our successes, and failures. But, what if there’s no cause-and-effect, and emotions are the internal experience of an event happening elsewhere, maybe in a different dimension?

Different dimension… what do we mean?

Drawing on the work of a number of string theorists (including Ashoke Sen, Chris Hull, Paul Townsend, Michael Duff and John Schwarz), Edward Witten (of the Institute for Advanced Study) validated its existence at a conference at USC in 1995, and used his "M-theory" to explain a number of previously observed dualities, sparking a flurry of new research in string theory called the second superstring revolution. Originally the "M" was taken from Membrane, but since Witten was more skeptical about membranes than his colleagues, he just kept the "M".

M-theory is not yet complete; however it can be applied in many situations (usually by exploiting string theoretic dualities). The theory of electromagnetism was also in such a state in the mid-19th century; there were separate theories for electricity and magnetism and, although they were known to be related, the exact relationship was not clear until James Clerk Maxwell published his equations, in his 1864 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field. Witten has suggested that a general formulation of M-theory will probably require the development of new mathematical language. However, some scientists have questioned the tangible successes of M-theory given its current incompleteness, and limited predictive power, even after so many years of intense research.

One conceivable scenario for the creation goes something like this: In the beginning, an 11-dimensional space-time erupted spontaneously out of literally nothing, an event that is only explicable within the context of quantum physics, which permits the uncaused creation of physical structures. The shape of space need not initially have been specially ordered; it could have been chaotic and turbulent. In some regions, inevitably, the configuration would have been such that the competition of forces produced a huge repulsion. As a result, three space dimensions began to expand at an accelerating rate, while the remaining dimensions spontaneously rolled themselves into a seven sphere. If the outward driving force could sustain itself for long enough, the explosive violence characteristic of the big bang would be achieved

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