My take on God, if anybody cares.

What is wrong with just saying “I don’t know who or what created the universe.” The method you and the OP use creates the false impression that you know something that you really don’t know.

Sure you can visualize 3 dimensions. 3 dimensions is what you can see right now. Look at your computer; it has length, depth, height. You don’t need to visualize it - you can see it just by having your eyes open*. :slight_smile:
1 dimension is a line (length - the line is 3 inches)
2 dimensions is a square (length, height - the square is 3 inches by 3 inches)
3 dimensions is a cube (length, height, depth - the box is 3 inches by 2 inches by 3 inches)
4 dimensions is an event (length, height, depth, time - there will be a box of 3 inches by 3 inches by 3 inches at 4.30pm)
These four dimensions are everyday dimensions with which you are intimately familiar. You are able to perceive all of them without even trying.
Dunno what the lecturer was trying to describe to you as dimensions #5 and up. We can’t perceive any others, if they even exist (which they do in many mathematical models, but that’s when you have to start visualizing weird concepts which we can’t perceive).

*Well, unless you have some kind of rare ocular disorder and are not, in fact, able to see three dimensions.

5 dimensions is the duration of the event-there will be a box of 3 inches by 3 inches by 3 inches from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.
edited to add: We perceive this dimension by the fact that we don’t see a “new” box every second we look at it. Every instance isn’t a new event, but the same event over a duration.

Apparently I overstated my disability. :wink: My problem is quickly visualizing, e.g., the intersection of two cylinders, not understanding that I don’t live in Flatland. :smack:

(BTW, my monocular diplopia is severe enough that I often close one eye to read, but this is not the “visualization problem” I was referring to.)

I don’t have issues with anybody’s faith or spirituality (as long as it is not imposed upon me, at least), but as for this video, in so far as it claims to be scientific or related to current scientific understanding, it’s worth pointing out that it’s simply wrong, in the sense that the word ‘dimension’ is used in a way that’s different from the way it’s used anywhere in current science or mathematics. It’s in a word just something somebody made up because they thought it sounded nice (and I don’t even think it’s internally consistent). You’re of course free to make up anything you want, but you’re not free to claim that this then explains anything about other people’s concepts; for instance, you’re free to consider ‘god’ to mean ‘horse’, but the existence of horses then does not prove the existence of the judeo-christian god.

As for dimensions, in most modern readings of string theory, they don’t necessarily have a nice geometric interpretation – this is partly due to the so-called AdS/CFT correspondence, that links an ordinary quantum theory to a string theory, i.e. shows them to have the same physical content. But the quantum theory typically will live in a space of lower dimensionality with respect to the string theory, so those dimensions can’t mean quite the same thing we usually mean by ‘dimension’.

If they are considered to be ‘ordinary’ dimensions, though, they don’t have anything in common with what’s claimed in the video; in most models, they are considered to be ‘rolled up’ to a size far too small to be ordinarily detectable – like a fire hose, i.e. a two-dimensional (length and circumference) surface, may look like a line, a one-dimensional object, from sufficient distance, a 10-dimensional manifold may look like a four dimensional spacetime for sufficiently macroscopic objects, i.e. us. Other versions have large, macroscopic (even infinite) extra dimensions, which however ordinary matter is prohibited from entering due to their extreme curvature.

In general, the dimension in this sense is just the minimum number of orthogonal directions you need to exactly describe a point, the number of coordinates; parallel universes and the like don’t enter into it. Dimensions are not places to be so much as they are directions to travel in.

I stopped watching the video after it explained that a flatlander would perceive a balloon as a dot that grows into a hollow circle and then shrinks down to a dot again before disappearing. This is obviously nonsensical as in order to perceive such a thing, one would necessarily need to be perpendicular to the two-dimensional plane, a condition we now know to be caused by three-dimensionality. A flatlander would perceive a balloon as a dot that morphs into a wall that curves sharply away and then expands in length while curving less gradually until it shrinks back into a dot. The cross-section of a human would be similarly simple although more varied in curvature.

This sounds like Cthulhu you’re talking about.

I think I’m in that kind of situation right now, and there is no easy answer. It feels like I am being tested by Someone who knows me better than I know myself.

Only a flat-lander would know for sure. :wink:

You should reply to that video with your own (correct) video. For the purposes of education.

Some people can’t admit that they lack knowledge. "Admitting that “I don’t know” is like admitting “I am gay.”

Nole., no offense intended, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but - aren’t you adopting an atheist position, and playing with words, perhaps in an attempt to disguise it?

Gods are personal in the sense of having intentions and understanding and awareness and so on, by any reasonable traditional definition of the word. And, using words according to your own custom definitions is pretty much an empty game when you do it with the rest of us - if the meanings of the words aren’t trustworthy, what are we to do with anything you say?

God is uncaused. God existed before the Big Bang, before the universe. The rational mind abhors an unsolvable riddle. It will either try to solve the unsolvable riddle and keep trying forever or simply abandon the riddle. Like a child angrily throwing a Rubik’s Cube across a room after it has spent hours and hours trying unsuccessfully to solve it.

Look here to see what Flatlanders would see: roycode.com/flatland

Or they will make up an answer to the riddle…much as you’ve just done here.

I didn’t make this up.

It’s not something scientists can take credit for, which is why it’s not considered science. Scientists want credit and adulation. They’re fame monsters, in their own way.

Great-another kanicbird.
It’s not considered science because it is a conclusion reached without evidence that raises more questions than it answers.

I agree. Divine inspiration can hardly be called science, nor should it.

It’s not considered science because it’s not science and has nothing whatsoever to do with science. If your answer boils down to “the rules don’t apply and it’s impossible for us to understand,” it’s not science.

Correct.

But I do not agree with scientism.