Can't really wrap my mind around 4 physical dimensions

[JulesMaximus]

Have you given any thought to the seminary?

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: latino666

Originally posted by: Analog

Originally posted by: archcommus
I've been using this website to try to envision and understand a hypercube but I can't fully understand it. All it looks like to me is a regular cube with thick cube-like sides.

This may help:

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

my head hurts

i actually thought it made a lot of sense.

0 - a point
1 - a line
2 - a flat shape
3 - 3space
4 - time
5 - instantaneous probability
6 - all probability in time
7 - all the probabilities in time for a universe
8 - probabilities for different universes (multiverses/parallel dimensions?)
9 - shifting from one universe to another
10 - all possible combinations of existence; strings

im actually quite tempted to buy the book

It makes sense, but is it true or is it bogus?

I think the time travel stuff is bogus. I remember talking about this to someone and I said that if was possible, we'd have it already. They said, "Maybe we can't go back in time right now, but in a hundred years we might", without realizing how ridiculous that logic is.

 

[iamaelephant]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Jeff7

That, and you're using a 2-dimensional output device (your monitor) to attempt to portray a 4 dimensional object. Enough information is lost just trying to illustrate 3D objects in 2D. 4D -> 2D translation can't be expected to work very well.

What I find interesting is that you can hear in 3d with only 2 ears.

Huh? "Hearing" is just your sensory organs (ears in this case) sensing vibrations in the air. We can hear that things are to one side of use because we learn that when the sound is louder through one ear than the other it must be on that side etc.

Interestingly this behaviour is learned, not something we are born with. The same is true with the eyes - when we see a car driving away from us, it doesn't appear that the car is shrinking, just that it is moving farther away. There have been cases where people haven't had the opportunity to learn to interpret this properly, and would actually think that the car is physically shrinking. A good example is the Ba Mbuti people in Africa, who grew up in jungles so thick they never saw more than a few metres in front of them. When anthropologist Colin Turnbull took these people out to the plains and showed them buffalo at a great distance, they asked what sort of insects they were, and didn't believe him that they were buffalo twice the size of the animals they hunted.

When the Ba Mbuti came closer to the buffalo they genuinely thought that the buffalo were growing in size. This shows that parallax and depth perception are learned behaviours. Yes this was a huge digression but I thought I'd share an interesting story I read recently.

 

[iamaelephant]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: latino666

Originally posted by: Analog

Originally posted by: archcommus
I've been using this website to try to envision and understand a hypercube but I can't fully understand it. All it looks like to me is a regular cube with thick cube-like sides.

This may help:

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

my head hurts

i actually thought it made a lot of sense.

0 - a point
1 - a line
2 - a flat shape
3 - 3space
4 - time
5 - instantaneous probability
6 - all probability in time
7 - all the probabilities in time for a universe
8 - probabilities for different universes (multiverses/parallel dimensions?)
9 - shifting from one universe to another
10 - all possible combinations of existence; strings

im actually quite tempted to buy the book

It makes sense, but is it true or is it bogus?

I think the time travel stuff is bogus. I remember talking about this to someone and I said that if was possible, we'd have it already. They said, "Maybe we can't go back in time right now, but in a hundred years we might", without realizing how ridiculous that logic is.

It's only ridiculous if you don't understand it. Currently, theories of (backwards) time travel, although very tentative, all have one thing in common - you can't go back further than the moment you opened the worm-hole (basically the moment you switched the machine on). There are a number of books describing genuine time travel theories and many of them are conceivable, but would require technology far beyond what is currently available, and also a large abundance of dark energy which may not even exist.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: iamaelephant

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: latino666

Originally posted by: Analog

Originally posted by: archcommus
I've been using this website to try to envision and understand a hypercube but I can't fully understand it. All it looks like to me is a regular cube with thick cube-like sides.

This may help:

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

my head hurts

i actually thought it made a lot of sense.

0 - a point
1 - a line
2 - a flat shape
3 - 3space
4 - time
5 - instantaneous probability
6 - all probability in time
7 - all the probabilities in time for a universe
8 - probabilities for different universes (multiverses/parallel dimensions?)
9 - shifting from one universe to another
10 - all possible combinations of existence; strings

im actually quite tempted to buy the book

It makes sense, but is it true or is it bogus?

I think the time travel stuff is bogus. I remember talking about this to someone and I said that if was possible, we'd have it already. They said, "Maybe we can't go back in time right now, but in a hundred years we might", without realizing how ridiculous that logic is.

It's only ridiculous if you don't understand it.

You, too, missed the very obvious point. I'll give you more time to think about it.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: iamaelephant

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
[
What I find interesting is that you can hear in 3d with only 2 ears.

Huh? "Hearing" is just your sensory organs (ears in this case) sensing vibrations in the air. We can hear that things are to one side of use because we learn that when the sound is louder through one ear than the other it must be on that side etc.

You didn't understand what I just said? You can hear in 3d. You don't just hear in 2d. It's not a matter of simply hearing if something is off to your left side or your right, you can hear the location of something 360 degrees around you, and 360 degrees of inclination... with just two ears.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
I remember talking about this to someone and I said that if was possible, we'd have it already.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
I remember talking about this to someone and I said that if was possible, we'd have it already.

I think he's saying that if people in the future developed it, they would go back in time and give it to people of the past, thus if it's possible at all, we'd technically have it from long ago.