menofstjoseph,
Your friend might be helped by the book:
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott. Writing pseudonymously as “a square”,[1] Abbott used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to offer pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the novella’s more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions; in a foreword to one of the many publications of the novella, noted science writer Isaac Asimov described Flatland as “The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions.”[2] As such, the novella is still popular amongst mathematics, physics, and computer science students. (Wikipedia)
I majored in mathematics, with a substantial number of courses in chemistry, physics, astronomy and engineering. I thoroughly enjoy re-reading it again and again.
Just recently physicists are all excited about the multi-verse concepts and are seemingly in a “psuedo-religious” fervor when they talk about it. They posit that "we have multiple copies of ourselves in many parallel universes. (There was a program on the history channel about this recently.)
I once took a course in theory of games course where one of the problems I had to solve was a two-person game where the solution for on person could be represented/solved by a 3-dimensional graph and the other persons solution was a 5-dimensional graph that could only be represented mathematically because it is absolutely impossible to physically draw the graph in our three dimensional space we inhabit. However this does not mean the problem was unsolvable, it just required mathematics alone for solution.
If your friend has had even the first course in electrical engineering he has been introduced to imaginary numbers (i. e., the square root of -1 (minus/negative 1). Use of imaginary numbers is the only way one can describe the characteristics of and behavior of electrical circuits. It is especially important in electrical power generation and distribution to homes businesses, etc.
What I am trying to get at here is that the scientific method does have a problem in that it emphasizes the empirical and there are things that cannot be subjected to empirical. analysis.
I could very easily have gotten of on the wrong track in college because of my scientific bent/studies was fortunate that I met two wonderful priests who were instrumental in keeping me on the right track in my walk in faith.
There is a funny thing about Truth, if you are at least bit open to hearing/accepting it, you will know that you know that you have no choice but to embrace it fully. another reason for considering myself so fortunate is that the conditions of our society when I was a young adult were not really not relativistic in nature. I predate the sexual revolution of the sixties.
If your friend can muster up some openness to Truth, he has got it made. It may take some time but it certainly has a fighting chance.
God bless…Keep the Faith,
Bussi
