Extra Dimensions of Space

I have heard that there are extra spatial dimensions (beyond lwh & t) that can be demonstrated mathematically, but are impossible for the human mind to comprehend in nice explainable terms (i.e. if Dick and Jane were paper dolls, their world could not conceive of "depth"). I seem to remember a professor stating that in the fifth dimension, one could turn a basketball completely inside-out without puncturing the surface in any way--again, supposedly proven mathematically. Is this mumbojumbo or are there dimensions we simply can't grasp with our puny brains?

I don't know the math, but I do know that humans are very stupid. I'm sure there are other "dimensions" or whatever you want to call them. Some we will probably get a grasp on eventually. Others will elude us for eternity.

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I don't know who first said "everyone's a critic," but I think it's a really stupid saying.

Zooey71,

As far as I understand it (from just reading the lay-literature on the subject), some current theories in physics postulate a number of other dimensions at a sub-sub-microscopic scale - I couldn't tell you the physical distances involved off the top of my head, but they're really, really small, smaller even than subatomic particles. But the theories hold that these dimensions only exist at that scale, and not at our macroscopic scale.

AFAIK, most of the serious (as in, accepted for submission by peer reviewed scientific journals) physical theories only postulate the 3 linear dimensions + time at a large scale.

One place to reading up all this is here: http://superstringtheory.com/index.html. It has a bunch of info on superstring theory.

k0myers

i wonder why scale would have anything to do with a dimensional constant?

k0myers writes:


...some current theories in physics postulate a number of other dimensions at a sub-sub-microscopic scale...


These theories are mentioned in Hawking's "A Brief History of Time".


Zooey71 asks:


i wonder why scale would have anything to do with a dimensional constant?


Hawking suggests that these dimensions are necessarily that small (at least within our universe) so that they don't wreak havoc on our universe... or said another way, if they were not that small, then our universe as we know it would not exist with it's current set of 'laws' and observable phenomenon. Hawking postulates that there may be universes elsewhere (or elsewhen) where these dimensions are not nearly as small, but there is little chance that any form of life could exist in these universes, capable of observing these dimensions.

In theoretical physics, all things are possible...

If I remember aright, orbits are not stable in >3 dimensions.

------------------
John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams

Back to the original question: it's not mumbo-jumbo, it's mathematics. One can easily describe n-dimensional spaces mathmatically (technically, n-dimensional vector spaces.) One can describe geometric shapes (such as, the "baseball" as a sphere) and one can describe formulas for distorting those shapes -- this is called topology, it's a branch of mathematics. The mind of man can conceive of these multiple dimensions just fine, through use of mathematical equations. We can't draw a picture, but then, it's difficult to draw a 2-dimensional picture of a 3-dimensional object that has much meaning to your paper doll people.

Hey, look, it's late, and I'm feeling tired, so what the heck. Here's an example.

Imagine a one-dimensional universe, a straight line. There are two "orientations" -- a bug could move from left to right, or from right to left. Think of two arrows on the line, one facing right, one facing left. No matter how you move those arrows, you can't make the one facing right turn about to face left WHILE THEY REMAIN ON THE LINE. But it's easy if you get off the line -- you pick up the right-facing arrow, give it a halftwist, and drop it back on the line. Bingo! It now is a left-facing arrow. But to do that half-twist, you needed to use a 2nd dimension.

Now imagine a two dimensional universe, a plane. There are two orientations, clockwise and anti-clockwise. Think of clockwise as being a clock with little hand on 3, big hand on 12, at right angles, fixed (not moving). Think of anti-clockwise as little hand on 9, big hand on 12 (fixed, not moving.) If you have a clockwise clock, you can't move it into an anti-clockwise position WHILE STAYING ON THE PLANE. (If you move the little hand over to the 9, the big hand points to the 6, not the 12.) But, if you lift it off the plane and give it a half-twist, you can convert the clockwise clock into the anti-clockwise clock, if you follow me.

Hence, in three dimensions, we also have two orientations: call them right-handed and left handed. By simply moving it around, you can't make a right-hand glove into a left-hand glove. Not by moving it in three dimensions. But if you could lift it into a 4th dimension and give it a half-twist and then return it, you could indeed move a right-hand glove around and convert it to a left-hand glove.

That mind-boggling enough for you?

I was reading a site on string theory one day and they described the existence of multiple dimensions and scale something like this:

From a long way away, a garden hose looks one-dimensional. It only has length. Move closer, and you notice it has width as well. Even closer you can see that it has depth. Theoretically, other dimensions are there too, but you need to be really close (something around the Plank length ~10^-34 m, I think) to see the other proposed dimensions "tucked into" or "wrapped around" the three we know and love.

Since the resolution of the instruments we use today isn't even close to the Plank length, we can't directly detect these dimensions.


Alphagene

Sounds to me like the existence of further dimensions could even be used to explain spiritual matters (npi). Perhaps "spirits" and "gods" are not mysterious less-substantial beings but rather "super"-substantial beings. The classical view of ghosts has always shown them as being incapable of functioning in the physical realm--perhaps they are simply operating in a capacity that is not confined to our four dimensions.

Instead of paper dolls, think of an ant (I know, the ant still functions in length, width & hight, but as far as he's concerned, his world from moment to moment is confined to a plane). For another ant to approach this first ant, the second ant must walk toward the first. However, a man can touch the ant FROM ABOVE (cue the music) and thus make contact in a manner that is basically impossible to another ant. Sounds almost religious, eh?

In fact, Einstein once theorized that the existance of extra dimensions would scientificly explain actual beings that could exist among us, though neither they nor we would have knowledge of each other. Can you say, Nexus!

It was suggested long, long ago in Abbot's Flatland.

For what it's worth, serious theologians do not go along with it.

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John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams

Thanks Kennedy, Flatlands it is...but isn't "serious theologian" a bit redundant? Scripture says nothing on the subject as far as i know, so what do they know?

You forgot the famous line from Leviticus:
"And thou shalt take the vector product of the xy-plane with that of the zt-plane, and thou shalt call the resultant subspace an abomination." I forget exactly where in Leviticus this comes...

And then there's the line from Relevations:
"Know thee that n-fold cup products vanish in a suspension."

Sitting in a bookstore cafe this evening, I spent some time flipping through Spaceland, the sequel to Flatland. It's much like the previous book in tone, but its speculations and visualizations go a bit further afield, and into higher dimensions than three.

For instance, take a chain of completely closed links. From our perspective, that chain cannot be unhooked without cutting at least one link. But a four-dimensional being could simply pull a whole link out of the middle, by moving it through that other dimension.

Similarly, if I tied a knot in a rope, and then held both ends of the rope, you couldn't come along and untie it unless I let go. But since the knot is only three-dimensional, it could be undone using motion through the fourth dimension.

So, then I guess it really can't be DISproven that unseen, coexistant beings cohabitate the universe, not in a spooky spiritual sense, but simply in a scientifically explainable dimension that is naturally outside of our "mere" three-dem realm of experience. They could literally be "closer to us than we are to ourselves."

Zooey71:

It all depends... Do you prefer to BELIEVE in things that you can't DISPROVE or DISBELIEVE in things that you can't PROVE?

JoeyBlades:
As a self-proclaimed "perspectivist", I prefer to indulge, though not necessarily support, the belief in that which can't be disproven, rather than disbelieve outright anything outside the realm of the discovered. I personally do not believe that anything is forever outside the realm of proof, but rather knowledge is simply either proven, disproven, or yet to be discovered. To insist on or against the existance of the unproven seems to me a leap of faith either way.

On the subject of physical dimensions, i would SUSPECT it to be shortsighted to assume that the dimension we are accustomed to experiencing is the highest dimension in existance--like disbelieving in anti-matter just because it doesn't exist on our planet.

if our minds have adapted to working in three dimensional space, then perhaps it will always be senseless to try to imagine what a higher dimension would be composed of. Like a two-dimensional being trying to conceive of depth--or elisabeth hurley trying to solve a math problem.

Zooey,

You wrote:


like disbelieving in anti-matter just because it doesn't exist on our planet.


You are misinformed. Antimatter does exist on our planet. It is believed that antimatter is all around us, though in very, very, very small quantities. This (apparently, though I don't pretend to understand the math) is a necessary consequence of the big bang. Since seeking out and harvesting this naturally occuring antimatter is not pratical, there are laboratories on earth that are producing the stuff for use in fusion research and for medical research. It may very well be the most valuable stuff on earth costing millions of dollars to produce just a few nanograms...

JoeyBlades:
I have to dispute your facts when you claim that antimatter exists all around our planet. As i understand it, antimatter--that is, matter composed of a negatively charged nucleus surrounded by protons--by definition cannot coexist with matter, due to the opposite charge that its atomic particles are carrying. When antimatter is placed in contact with matter, the result is thought to be the instant anihilation of both substances. Thus it must be assumed that any traces of antimatter that found themselves on our planet would instantly go *poof*!

I should clarify one thing, however, antimatter may have been demonstrated on this planet. A researcher this year claims to have produced a couple of atoms of antimatter by "knocking" its electrons out of orbit and replacing them with protons. The resulting substance was observed for about a nanosecond before it reacted with the air around it and disappeared.

I should clarify one thing, however, antimatter may have been demonstrated on this
planet. A researcher this year claims to have produced a couple of atoms of
antimatter by "knocking" its electrons out of orbit and replacing them with protons.
The resulting substance was observed for about a nanosecond before it reacted with
the air around it and disappeared.

Well, I DOUBT this was what he did, since replacing an electron (a baryon, with fine structrue and all) with a proton (a lepton) is a physical impossiblity. On a size scale, that would be like knocking the earth out of its orbit around the sun and replacing it with another sun.

What he probably did (and I have not been keeping up on this) is somehow replace a electron with a positron, which is rather abundant for antimater. He'd still have to get some anti-protons and anti-neutrons around. Most likely he put a positron in orbit around an anti-proton (no small feat in itself) and generated anti-hydrogen. Any antimatter more complex than anti-helium would be nigh-impossible to create using this method.

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

oops, I reversed my baryons and leptons. I should have said that the proton was a baryon (heavy particle, composed of quarks) and the electron was a lepton (elementary particle w/o fine structure) I feel like an idiot.

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

you got me, jayron. my apologies--of course the nucleic particles of antimatter are positrons, not electrons, and they are surrounded by anti-electrons rather than protons. I'm working from memories of college here, meshed with a drunken night of learning channel.

Zooey,

You wrote:


I have to dispute your facts when you claim that antimatter exists all around our planet.


Sorry, I should have been more clear... this is not my claim, but rather a claim made by Stephen Hawking, though I've certainly read many other books and papers that support this claim. Hawking is merely where I was first introduced to the idea that antimatter is all around us...


When antimatter is placed in contact with matter, the result is thought to be the instant anihilation of both substances.


Quite true, however antimatter is created from the natural radioactive decay of some elements. Also small quantities of antimatter "rain" down from space. So while it may not last long, it is all around us, nevertheless.


I should clarify one thing, however, antimatter may have been demonstrated on this planet. A researcher this year claims to have produced a couple of atoms of antimatter by "knocking" its electrons out of orbit and replacing them with protons. The resulting substance was observed for about a nanosecond before it reacted with the air around it and disappeared.


You're talking about atomic scale antimatter. BTW, the first anti-hydrogen atom was actually produced in 1995. Check out this link:

http://www.cern.ch/Press/Releases96/PR01.96EAntiHydrogen.html

Actual detection of antimatter occured over 30 years ago during the study of K-meson decays.

Antielectrons, antiprotons, and antineutrinos have been produced commercially for several years. Some of this antimatter is used, for instance, in Positron Emission Tomography (AKA PET scans),and has other uses in medical research, as well. It is also being evaluated as a possible source of "ignition" for fusion reactions for such notable research facilities as Penn State's Laboratory for Elementary Particle Science (LEPS) and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center / Space Sciences Laboratory... to name but a couple...

Sorry, I should have been more clear... this is not my claim, but rather a claim made by Stephen Hawking, though I've certainly read many other books and papers that support this claim. Hawking is merely where I was first introduced to the idea that antimatter is all around us -- JoeyBlades
Sounds like you are referring to spontaneous virtual particle pairs. While these do exist everywhere in a sense, they are not very useful or detectable most of the time. Certainly harvesting energy from these wouldn't be practical, as the net energy of a virtual particle pair is zero. :)

Those little guys are the basis for the concept of Hawking radiation, which is the concept that allows a black hole to emit energy, and as a result, give off valid thermodynamic blackbody radiation.

Certainly it seems that anti-matter was a bad example of something that isn't proven, as it is a very well established and frequently observed thing. Like you said, it has long been observable in cosmic rays (cosmic rays were kinda like our first particle accelerators) as extremely fast particles from space collide with the atmosphere, and of course they have become an everyday thing for high-energy physics experiments.

Quite true, however anti-matter is created from the natural radioactive decay of some elements. -- JoeyBlades
I doubt this, although I may have missed something. The only emmissions I am aware of from radioactive decay are alpha (helium nucleus), beta (electron), and gamma (photon). However, positrons are definitely emitted from some natural nuclear reactions, such as solar fusion. In some fusion reactions, a proton transforms into a neutron and emits a positron (and a neutrino).

Zooey71, I recommend you pick up a copy of "Hyperspace" by Michiu Kaku. It takes a while for him to get to it, because he builds upon one concept after another, but he does reach point where he explains why it seems (at the present,i.e., at the time of publication) that the universe about us may have up to 10 dimensions. The book is 3-4 years old.

of course the nucleic particles of antimatter are positrons, not electrons, and they are surrounded by anti-electrons rather
than protons -- Zooey71
Um.. positrons are anti-electrons. :)

I think you meant that the nucleic particles were anti-protons.

Well, I'll take back the thing about elements emitting positrons. I was just reading something about PET scans, and it did mention various positron-emitting isotopes. I wonder why this isn't classified as another fundamental radiation type. Perhaps it doesn't exist in isotopes that are found naturally.

Undead dude,

You wrote:


Certainly harvesting energy from these wouldn't be practical,...


I think the record will show that I agree with this... [wink]

Well, yeah. :)
I was just kinda throwing emphasis on the fact that there is no energy there to harvest.

Size DOES matter.

I think part of the difficulty here is that some are defining "anti-matter" to mean "contra-terrene atoms" and some are defining it to mean "contra-terrene particles". The latter exists (in small amounts, and very briefly) on Earth due to natural causes. The former exists in far smaller amounts, and only in the laboratory.

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John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams

As to the ORIGINAL topic, the existence of extra-dimensional states, I still submit that though these dimensions can be proven mathematically, they cannot be conceived by our mind because, quite simply, our mind is itself three-dimensional. Try as you might, you'll never be able to "figure out"--that is, imagine spatially--a basketball turning inside out with out poking a hole in it...though this is shown in mathematics as possible.

Zooey71 writes:


As to the ORIGINAL topic, the existence of extra-dimensional states, I still submit that though these dimensions can be proven mathematically, they cannot be conceived by our mind because, quite simply, our mind is itself three-dimensional.


Whoa Nellie. First of all, space-time is 4 dimensions not three. Second of all, while I can't draw things in more than 3 space dimensions, I can certainly visualize them in my mind. Third of all, it's somewhat naive to assume that any real extra dimensions are spacial. Finally, why do you assume that the mind is 3-dimensional. The brain is 3-dimensional, but our minds may be extra dimensional or anti dimensional.

Open your eyes and you can see everything in front of you - open your mind and you can see much, much more.

Holy smokes, Joeyblades! Throw me a bone here--check out my VERY FIRST POSTING and see that yes i realize we operate in l,w,h, AND time. "Secondly", since your brain (assumming you're not one of those being hunted by agent moulder et al) has evolved into the same soft gray control center the rest of us have, it's generally theorized that however we might try, we truly cannot pictorially grasp a higher dimension than that in which we operate. we can come close, with metaphors and such, but we always slip at the last moment. so i hold suspect your claims that you can visualize higher dimensions. "Thirdly" i don't believe i ever assummed higher dimensions to be necessarily all spacial. In fact, it is quite possible that successive dim's expand upon the one dim of time we understand, somehow mirroring the 3 known dim's of space. "Finally" i use "mind" and "thought" interchangeably when not righting haiku. the mind is simply the poetic word we have made up to refer to the actions of the brain. "Mind"=brain as "Window"=eyeball as "superhighway"=al gore's brainchild (just kidding)

Heck, give me some shrooms and i could see God!

It is hard to imagine our one-dimensional concept of time--think, a "line"--having "width". (Co-planal / chronological realities?)
Boggles the mind!

I can imagine things in more than the "normal" dimensions-- three, plus time, plus one more (or maybe two). I have a clear mental picture of how a hollow sphere may evert itself through a fourth dimension. That's just the way my mind works.

But I can't draw you a picture, and I can't really explain it in words; the vocabulary just doesn't exist. There's no way I can show you my imagination, so you'd have to take my word that I can visualize higher dimensions.

If you don't think this sort of visualization is actually possible-- maybe I'm mistaken somehow-- I cannot possibly prove what I imagine. However, you can also not prove the impossibility, so you can't prove to me that I'm mistaken.

Therefore, let's please not argue about whether or not it's possible to imagine something. Let's just say that it's not provable in either direction (or else start a new thread in GD).

There certainly are ways to 'see' more than 3D.

If a hypersphere were to intersect my 3D world right in front of me. I would see a point grow into a sphere, get bigger, then start shrinking back down to a point, and then disappear.

Now, I can assign direction names for travel in the 4th dimension, perhaps call them fourwards and quatwards. Then when the sphere appeared again and was growing before me, I can call to the hypersphere, 'Stop!' and it would remain in the same size.

Then I'd say, "Which direction are you going?"

"Fourwards," the hypersphere would reply.

"Go three inches quatwards, please," I would say.

"Sure." And the sphere would shrink a bit.

Then I'd think, "Now, if I were able to go three inches quatwards, I'd see it grow back into the size it was when I said 'stop.'"

Thus, I'd be putting together in my mind, the total shape of the hypersphere, even if I couldn't see it all at once.

It's like watching a merry-go-round. You don't see all the horses at once, but you get an intuitive feel of where all the horses are at any one time. You can, in your mind, open up the merry-go-round and see all the horses lined up in order in a straight line. You can't see all the sides at the same time with actual sight, but you get an intuitive sight of the entire structure.

There are other tricks to help the mind 'see' more than the three spatial dimensions.

When I used to play the ancient video game, Asteroids; I used to be quite good 'visualizing' how I can shoot off one side of the screen to hit something on the other side of the scree (a wrap-around screen world). Though I couldn't see it with actual sight, I intuitively could see it.

Skeet shooting is 4D sight, if you count time as a fourth dimension (which you can, thanks to Einstein). You're targeting in 3D, but have to antipate future placement in the 3D world in time. That's seeing in 4D.

Peace.

Zooey71,

You wrote:


"Secondly", since your brain (assumming you're not one of those being hunted by agent moulder et al) has evolved into the same soft gray control center the rest of us have, it's generally theorized that however we might try, we truly cannot pictorially grasp a higher dimension than that in which we operate.


I've never heard that theory... A very peculiar one, since in actuality your brain (the part that perceives images, senses, and remembers) is actually a two dimensional surface. Furthermore, what you think you perceive in your brain as three or four dimensional space, is merely a trick. The way you perceive and remember things closely resembles a movie - a collection of two dimensional images (with perspective) chained together to create the illusion of timelapse playback. If your two dimensional brain can trick you into visualizing the world in three or four dimensions, why is it so hard for you to extend the illusion to five or more?

Moriah gave an example of one way to visualize a hypersphere moving in five dimensions. A slightly more simplistic one might be to visualize a sphere in space-time, that changes color as it convolves in it's (non spacial) fifth dimension.

A slightly more complex visualization can show one way that your basketball can convolve to an "inside out" state without necessitating any surface holes. Don't get wrapped up in the "science" required to produce this effect. It's mostly contrived to help you visualize. Let's say that we've just invented a new energy beam. When we point this beam at our basketball, two things happen:

(1) Matter on the interior surface of the ball is attracted toward the exterior.

(2) All of the matter in the ball undergoes a change at the sub-sub-sub-atomic level such that "particles" at this level can exchange places without affecting the overall atomic structure. Basically, molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, and even quarks can turn themselves inside out, but otherwise remain unchanged.

In this scenario, the inner surface would appear to "melt" outward and the basketball would turn itself inside out.

Operating at these sub-sub-sub-atomic levels is where some scientist believe we may yet discover extra dimensions.

As I said, that is merely one possible visualization. Like AuraSeer, I can convolve the sphere through a virtual fourth spacial dimension, in my mind's eye. It's a bit hard to describe, but you have to allow that the surface is at once, both spherical and saddle shaped...

The brain is a two-dimensional surface? Hmm...I'm pretty sure mine is 3D--perhaps I misunderstood what you're getting at. In reality, a two-dimensional object only exists theoretically, since everything that exists has width, however infinitely thin.

Sorry, but the "fourward", "quatward" or "inverting" motion all of you are describing is not the same thing as "imagining" a hyperdimensional behavior. All you are really describing is the particular behavior of an object moving in a higher dimension which would be observable in our third (+time) dimension. To say the ball "flips" or the particles invert or the hypersphere grows and shrinks is simply to state that facet of its movement observable to you in your dimension, it is not truly descriptive of what is happening on the higher dimension. One can only think and speak in "3D" metaphors when dealing with these things. Imagine a theoretical 2-D paperdoll trying to describe an object with height--impossible for him to do except at that point which the object intersects his world.

Trust me on this, this inability doesn't mean you are unimaginative! It means you're not crazy.

Zooey,

You wrote:


The brain is a two-dimensional surface? Hmm...I'm pretty sure mine is 3D--perhaps I misunderstood what you're getting at. In reality, a two-dimensional object only exists theoretically, since everything that exists has width, however infinitely thin.


I don't have time for a complete dissertation on the workings of the brain, however suffice it to say that the basic structure is such that the surface of the brain is where the neurons are mapped (BTW, the word "cortex" means "surface" in Latin). No it's not an infinitely thin surface, but it's a reasonable facsimile. The inner core of the brain, the 3-dimensional part [wink], is the connective "wiring", plus blood vessels, etc.. Your senses and memories are mapped onto the surface of the cerebral cortex in a surprisingly regular fashion. As stated previously, images received at the visual cortex are rendered in two dimensions and this seems to be the way the brain typically recalls these images. Of course, when your brain processes any of this surface information, it is done through the (3-dimensional) neural network...

My real point, however, was to contest your assertion that since the brain is a three dimensional organ, we are incapable of perceiving things in greater than three dimensions. This is simply one dimensional thinking.

<HR>JoeyBlades,

You wrote:


...the basic structure is such that the surface of the brain is where the neurons are mapped.


You're still not speaking in 2-D, JB. Just because activity is directed side ot side and not up and down does not mean the elements of that activity have no 3-dimensional position in the spacial matrix. in fact, "Surface," the word you use to describe a location of activity, by definition connotates a specific 3-D location. The surface is the description of the level of "depth" into the brain that activity is taking place. Therefore, neural mapping takes place at a specific place in the 3D matrix of space. The point is, three-dimensional space is state in which our brains are selected are evolved to function. That doesn't mean we can't describe what the effects of higher dimensions would be--on a 3D OBJECT, that is!--but we can't describe what's actually happening in that higher dimension. The mental images, much less the language, just won't come. In fact, we are so "programmed" into 3D, it is pretty difficult for most (perhaps all?) to honestly "picture" 2D or 1D. Sure, we can say, "a line with no height" or "a point with no length or height," but be honest--your brain is still picturing a point/line that has 3D properties.

Not even Einstein could visualize singularity without relying wholly upon 3D characteristics.

Zooey,

At one point in your counter argument, you completely lost me...


The surface is the description of the level of "depth" into the brain that activity is taking place.


This just sounds like jibberish to me, but I'm sure it's just the grammar that has me confused...

And you wrote:


The point is, three-dimensional space is state in which our brains are selected are evolved to function.


Again the grammer has me tripping a bit, but I think the argument you're trying to make is that we tend to try and visualize things in three dimensions because of natural mechanics in the brain... since we don't yet know how the conscious mind works, I can't argue too strongly. However, I submit this alternate theory that we tend to visualize things in three dimensions because that's what we've trained our brains to do. This might explain why AuraSeer, I, and others feel that we can visualize extra dimensions - we've retrained our brains.



but be honest--your brain is still picturing a point/line that has 3D properties.


Honestly... no. At least not in the context of an ideal point or an ideal line (or an ideal plane, for that matter). I've retrained my brain not to try and visualize or attach non existent dimensions.



Not even Einstein could visualize singularity without relying wholly upon 3D characteristics.


Einstein could not visualize a universe that was expanding... hence he invented the cosmological constant. The man clearly lacked vision...

I, on the other hand, would not try to visualize a singularity for the same reason that I would not try to visualize an infinitely large object.


ps
Just kidding with that Einstein crack... the man clearly had more vision in his little pinky than I'll ever have in my meager brain.

[Zooey71]

JoeyBlades,
Hey, if you still say you can honestly think in 4D (or 1D or 2D), I'd be a schmuck to keep arguing with you. I just wish you could teach it to me!

Peace...

[moriah]

OK, let's put it this way:

The image hitting our eyes is definitely as 2D as a photograph. Our brain takes two 2D images (offset from each other by the distance between our eyes) and constructs a 3D visual world.

If the brain can be trained to create a 3D illusion from two 2D pictures; it can be trained to create 4D illusions that are as reasonable a facsimilie of a 4D world as is the 3D illusion.

Peace.

[Zooey71]

But Moriah, the image read by our eyes, though a 2D image, is of a 3D object. Our brains, themselves 3D objects, have simply learned to convert the image into a mental interpretation of reality (3D). There is no metaphorical interpretation required by the brain to render this image to us, we simply see what is actually there and able to be proven with methods of measurement. The 4D behavioral characteristics of an object in front of us, however, cannot be experienced with any of our (5) senses or methods of measurement.
Let me give an example: Someone could tell me there is a man standing outside in the street, and the same man is simultaneously standing beside me in my room. I could "visualize" this using metaphors--that is, simply imagining him on the street AND in my room. but this is in effect really just imagining two identical beings. I'm not REALLY able to imagine just one man in two places. I get close, but my mind reverts to a metaphor it is confortable with--two beings in two places at the same time.

[JoeyBlades]

Zooey,

You wrote:


But Moriah, the image read by our eyes, though a 2D image, is of a 3D object.


Not precisely. Your brain/vision cannot differentiate between 2D and 3D. There are cues (shading, perspective, binocular vision, etc.) that enable your brain to attach special 3D meaning to what it is registering, but it's still just a translation. As evidenced by a number of different kinds of optical illusions, the brain can be fooled into registering something as three dimensional when in actuallity, the object does not (or sometimes could not) exist in three dimensions.

[PeaBear]

I have found the banter between Zooey and Blades to be a highly interesting read, but I think it might be a futile discussion. No one, I suppose can disprove to Joey or Aura etc... that they are in fact seeing these extra dimensions but my question is this:

How can you assume to "SEE" or "Visualize" these dimensions when they (in all reality) may be unrelated to VISION (or visualization) as we know it. You are automatically nullifying the very thing you are saying you can percieve by simply saying you are "seeing it" in you mind. My point is, to assume you can retrain your mind's eye by using the five sensual tools to see extra dimensions is naive. What if sight stops at the third dimension, what if we are confined to the dimensions that we know of because of our sight? Something to consider is that Zooey is correct in saying that you are assuming the manner of these extra dimensions by using
the 3+T that we operate in.

[JoeyBlades]

PapaBear wrote:


How can you assume to "SEE" or "Visualize" these dimensions when they (in all reality) may be unrelated to VISION (or visualization) as we know it.


Very good question and it really points to an inadequacy of language. When I try to grasp the whole "picture" of 5 dimensions, it's really not an image, per se. I can't exactly describe it, but it's not like remembering a face, where there seems to be some sort of image recall going on. So words like "see", "visualize", "picture", etc. don't precisely capture the concept. On the other hand, sort of contrary to what I told Zooey previously, I do sometimes find it useful to try and actually visualize, in a piecewise manner, some portions of a function in 5 dimensions. The way my mind does this is sort of like adding a new independent time-like dimension. Basically, I freeze time and then do a sort of "fly-by" where pseudo-time maps to the 4th spacial dimension... I know that sounds sort of metaphysical, but it's really just conceptual.



What if sight stops at the third dimension, what if we are confined to the dimensions that we know of because of our sight?


Actually, my argument is that sight and image memory stops at 2 dimensions. The fact that we can perceive and register 4 dimensions is due to mapping functions performed by the mind. If you accept this, then it's not a great leap to assume that some people's minds can map to more dimensions.


Something to consider is that Zooey is correct in saying that you are assuming the manner of these extra dimensions by using the 3+T that we operate in.


Actually, I agree with this, in part, but there are other conceptual 'modes' of brain operation where there's simply no direct mapping to 3+T.

[AuraSeer]

For purposes of visualization, change-over-time is one quality that can represent an object's properties in a "higher" dimension (i.e., neither length, width, nor height). Color is another; some contour maps are color-coded, which is how they represent a three-dimensional object (the Earth) on a two-dimensional surface.