stbenge wrote:
> It's good to know that some people are taking the idea of a fourth 
> spatial dimension seriously. A lot of people argue that time is the 
> "true" 4th dimension, but that idea just doesn't sit well with me, even 
> though I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area.

I agree that it seems sort of like cheating to call time the fourth 
dimension, but there are some extremely good reasons for doing so. 
Foremost among these is that, due to special relativity, time and space 
can't be cleanly pulled apart like they can under a more classical model 
of physics.

In the "common sense" viewpoint we have a three-dimensional universe 
which is changing over time, so that at each time the entire 3d universe 
has some "state".  If you wanted to look at this is a four-dimensional 
space, you'd just stack these 3d universe-states together along a single 
other dimension representing time.  This gives you a 4d space, but under 
this view it's perfectly possible to the time dimension as somehow 
"fake".  The key point here, however, is that the common sense view is 
possible because these 3d "slices" of things happening at the same time 
are always parallel (and thus never intersect).

Under special relativity, unfortunately, this model is no longer the 
most natural.  The reason is that there is no longer a well-defined 
meaning to "things happening at the same time" as there was before. 
Instead, this meaning is dependent on your velocity (or rather the 
relative velocities of objects to you).

If we go back to the 4d model of the universe we'd built up for the 
common sense viewpoint, the interpretation now is that the *angle* of 
the 3d slice corresponding to everything "happening at the same time" 
changes with your velocity.  Thus it's not possible to pull the space 
apart into a bunch of well-defined 3d universe-states anymore, but 
instead you need to keep time in there are a proper fourth dimension.

It is worth nothing, however, that the time dimension is *not* identical 
to the space dimensions (one would hope not!) and distances are measured 
differently in time than in space.  Nevertheless this doesn't prevent it 
from being a proper dimension, it just means that the space has a 
different geometry than you'd get from treating time just like another 
spatial dimension.

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Invisible wrote:
> Assuming our hypothetical 4D world has 4D atoms and 4D gravity, I 
> imagine your 0-thickness body would slip between the microscopic gaps 
> between atoms...

Since clearly the electromagnetic forces would remain three dimensional? 
  I'm not sure it's possible to talk about what it would actually mean 
to superimpose a three and four spatial-dimensional laws of physics in 
this way in a coherent manner, and at the very least doing so would 
require a significant amount of analysis to make sure you've correctly 
coupled the two.

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stbenge wrote:
> It's good to know that some people are taking the idea of a fourth 
> spatial dimension seriously. A lot of people argue that time is the 
> "true" 4th dimension, but that idea just doesn't sit well with me, even 
> though I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area.

I have found that there are 2 theories (Wikipedia), spacial 4D and the 
one assuming the 4th dimension is time, I think both concepts are not 
compatible, are two different assumtions.

> Yeah. I think maybe with our 3D minds we could travel through the fourth 
> dimension, yet not be able to witness it directly as we do the 3rd. More 
> speculation, I know. It might have been inspired by something...

Or maybe you leave your 3D body and become a 4D spirit that then will 
incarnate a 4D being and so on...

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Saul Luizaga wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> I have. I liked Cube better. I didn't know there were more.
> 
> I liked Cube²:Hypercube better because of the wonderful weirdness 
of 
> waking up inside a 3d Cube which was part of a 4D cube,

OK, maybe i'm remembering the wrong movie. The second Cube movie I saw wa
s 
shown from the POV of the operators of the first Cube.

Maybe we're talking about entirely different series of movies. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Saul Luizaga wrote:
> stbenge wrote:
> Or maybe you leave your 3D body and become a 4D spirit that then will 
> incarnate a 4D being and so on...

But if so, how could you possible remember and/or integrate the 
experience with a 3D mind? Maybe you could remember that *something* 
happened, with a gained benefit of a new spiritual perspective...

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Darren New wrote:
> Saul Luizaga wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> I have. I liked Cube better. I didn't know there were more.
>>
>> I liked Cube²:Hypercube better because of the wonderful weirdness of 
>> waking up inside a 3d Cube which was part of a 4D cube,
> 
> OK, maybe i'm remembering the wrong movie. The second Cube movie I saw 
> was shown from the POV of the operators of the first Cube.
> 
> Maybe we're talking about entirely different series of movies. :-)
> 
No no, the second movie you saw is 'Cube Zero: the beginning' or 
something like that, which is the fourth and latest of the series, to my 
knowledge.

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stbenge wrote:
> Saul Luizaga wrote:
>> stbenge wrote:
>> Or maybe you leave your 3D body and become a 4D spirit that then will 
>> incarnate a 4D being and so on...
> 
> But if so, how could you possible remember and/or integrate the 
> experience with a 3D mind? Maybe you could remember that *something* 
> happened, with a gained benefit of a new spiritual perspective...

Is a possibility, but again, who remembers being a 2D person before this 
life? maybe is part of the "instinct" of each person, but who knows...

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Saul Luizaga wrote:
> stbenge wrote:
>> Saul Luizaga wrote:
>>> stbenge wrote:
>>> Or maybe you leave your 3D body and become a 4D spirit that then will 
>>> incarnate a 4D being and so on...
>>
>> But if so, how could you possible remember and/or integrate the 
>> experience with a 3D mind? Maybe you could remember that *something* 
>> happened, with a gained benefit of a new spiritual perspective...
> 
> Is a possibility, but again, who remembers being a 2D person before this 
> life? maybe is part of the "instinct" of each person, but who knows...

You seem to be alluding to a sort of an evolution of consciousness. 
Which I won't refute, considering how this life seems to be evolving our 
consciousnesses.

I can see how having a working knowledge of the second dimension could 
help our understanding of this one, just as this would have an effect on 
the next :-)

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stbenge wrote:
  > You seem to be alluding to a sort of an evolution of consciousness.
> Which I won't refute, considering how this life seems to be evolving our 
> consciousnesses.

is just one of many possibilities you can speculate, since nobody 
actually knows for sure, what we were or what we will be before/after 
this life, all you can do is just choose to believe in something...

> I can see how having a working knowledge of the second dimension could 
> help our understanding of this one, just as this would have an effect on 
> the next :-)

yeah, would be logical, fair and a nice guiding way :-)

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Saul Luizaga wrote:
> stbenge wrote:
>  > You seem to be alluding to a sort of an evolution of consciousness.
>> Which I won't refute, considering how this life seems to be evolving 
>> our consciousnesses.
> 
> is just one of many possibilities you can speculate, since nobody 
> actually knows for sure, what we were or what we will be before/after 
> this life, all you can do is just choose to believe in something...

Which I do.

That's not _all_ we can do ;) Dreams, for instance, can facilitate new 
learning experiences. But that's not the end of the possibilities. Some 
are more morally accepted than others, though.

>> I can see how having a working knowledge of the second dimension could 
>> help our understanding of this one, just as this would have an effect 
>> on the next :-)
> 
> yeah, would be logical, fair and a nice guiding way :-)

Which, based on my experiences of this life, I can only guess that we'll 
have as much fun and as much good company as this one :)

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