new philosophical thread by jake, hated and feared scourge of the board... *sigh*

[thejakeman]

so. um... uh... TL;DR warning.

alright, I'm going to start this off by assuming that most of you have already heard of the concepts that I'm going to briefly pass over. because i have faith in most of you. as it stands, humans go through life in approximately 4 dimensions, or as some mathmatical definitions would put it, 3 spatial dimensions and one time dimension.



note, that this image is a representation of a two spatial dimensional plane plus 1 time dimension. other further dimensions have also been proven by mathematics to exist, reaching the fourth spatial dimension and beyond. the best way we can detect these higher dimensions is by the shadows that they leave behind. "what shadows?" you ask. in day to day three spatial dimensional life (heretofore referred to as 3d) objects cast shadows (or rather block light from reaching an object behind it) that are conceptually 2 spatial dimensional. though these shadows have length and width, they have absolutely no depth. 4d objects should presumably leave a 3d shadow. another way to detect or conceptualize extra dimensions is to apply the theory that each new higher dimensional object can be created by attaching all of the corners to an identical copy of an object. ergo attaching the ends of two lines to create a square, and attaching the ends of two squares to create a cube. the 4d object created by this is called a tesseract. these can also be created by folding together 6 cubes, apparently.


notice that all of these are shadows, and not the figures themselves as unfortunately, our eyes are limited to 2d vision.

i found a link to an old comic i read years ago at my grandma's book shop that illustrates the point i'm trying to get across fairly well. you can find the entire thing here

so, what the fuck is my point? why does this asshole insist on rambling on as though i cared for a physics lesson. well, I'm here to discuss the relation of the human mind (or soul or whatever) to the three dimensional world. as it is, biology can fairly clearly describe what random stuff is happening in our heads when we think, and where certain things take place, but obviously science has yet to understand what exactly causes self-awareness and "free" will. something happens somewhere along the way that converts subconscious thoughts into conscious ones, plays movies and music in our heads, lets us create our own music and movies. somewhere in there is an OS guiding it all. so as it goes, i propose the (tired and unoriginal) idea that the soul, psyche, whatever, is actually a fourth dimensional construct.


what? that makes no frickin sense. are you telling me I've got a freaky spinning thing in my head?

ok, so we're back

a fourth dimensional construct in three dimensional space would be capable of many fantastical feats, such as shapeshiftery, ignoring physical laws, and being able to perceive all of a third dimensional object at once. to think of it, think of the subject of Edward Abbot's book, Flatland, in which a sphere visits a 2d world. the sphere appears to be constantly changing shapes and sizes to the flatlanders. the sphere can do many fantastical things, such as pulling things out of locked safes, just by reaching in and grabbing the object in question and moving it in 3 dimensional space. the sphere could teleport, simply by moving to another part of flatland.

so anyway, i propose that the soul is just as capable of these feats. the soul constantly changes shape, usually just in the course of growing more experienced in the world. also, through trauma and whatnot, you may show a side of yourself that you weren't aware existed. this could also explain stuff like yogis and the odd fact of our ability to conceptualize these ideas in the first place. also, i believe that on some level our "souls" are able to communicate with each other. when you hear of people "connecting with one another, finishing each others sentences and whatnot, i think those are examples of this.

[Grumpy]

You know, sometimes it's just easier for you to just not care. Hey, I'm all for interesting facts and stuff - but as long as things are theories I don't want to give a damn honestly. On another note, that animation is pretty hypnotic.

OK, I'm confuzzled. I thought time WAS the forth dimension, and that we don't have any, just as a 2d object has height and width but no depth, a 3d object has height, width, and depth, but no time. A 4d person would have a certain about of time as if it was a height or width. Or am I nuts?

[TF-Viewer]

Okay, so the point of this was to show us some nifty animated optical illusion and try to give us a headache with bullshit about how shadows have no depth? Well of course they have no depth, because light has no mass (discussed in an earlier thread) therefore shadows can't have mass either. All a shadow is is a spot where light isn't as present as the area around it due to it being blocked by an object. No mass, no substance, no depth. Making the entire concept of a 3D shadow.. retarded. That 4D object animation, is only 2D, using optical illusions to attempt to represent a moving 3D object, but even the most complex of 3D objects are still only 3D whether you put another object inside it or not it does not create a 4th spatial dimension.

Mathematics that "prove" the existence of higher dimensions are only mathematical theories, in that they can only be "proven" within the field of mathematics. Sure because 2+2=4 and so on.. it must be true that there's a 4th spatial dimension? No, that= bullshit unless and until it's existence can be proven outside a chalkboard drawing or computer simulation.

Next you'll be telling us that the quantum theory of infinite worlds is "proven" by math, even though no one has ever actually observed another quantum instance of reality in which the cat in the box was actually both alive and dead at the same time.

[thejakeman]

In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behavior are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and the theory of general relativity.

[resiz3d]

Carl Sagan ftw



He explains it pretty well. What we're seeing is a 2D/3D dimensional projection of a 4th dimensional object.

His explanation is based on a famous novel called Flatland which is supposed to be a good read, you can find it online for free.

edit: This is AWESOME

[thejakeman]

Originally Posted by TF-Viewer

Okay, so the point of this was to show us some nifty animated optical illusion and try to give us a headache with bullshit about how shadows have no depth? Well of course they have no depth, because light has no mass (discussed in an earlier thread) therefore shadows can't have mass either. All a shadow is is a spot where light isn't as present as the area around it due to it being blocked by an object. No mass, no substance, no depth. Making the entire concept of a 3D shadow.. retarded. That 4D object animation, is only 2D, using optical illusions to attempt to represent a moving 3D object, but even the most complex of 3D objects are still only 3D whether you put another object inside it or not it does not create a 4th spatial dimension.

Mathematics that "prove" the existence of higher dimensions are only mathematical theories, in that they can only be "proven" within the field of mathematics. Sure because 2+2=4 and so on.. it must be true that there's a 4th spatial dimension? No, that = bullshit unless and until it's existence can be proven outside a chalkboard drawing or computer simulation.

Next you'll be telling us that the quantum theory of infinite worlds is "proven" by math, even though no one has ever actually observed another quantum instance of reality in which the cat in the box was actually both alive and dead at the same time.

wow, so vitriolic. you're ignoring the fact the unless we somehow attain a method to perceive things with three dimensional vision we are never going to actually be able to perceive the fourth dimension.

so, your saying that a shadow is not a 2 dimensional construct? that 4d spinny thing is a 3 dimensional shadow of a fourth dimensional tesseract.

and you're right. having mass would imply that shadows had depth. which they don't. a three dimensional shadow would obviously look quite different. maybe spongy and squishy and gray. and minutely folded.

again, these are conceptualizations, something you don't seem to be getting.

so... if i were to use, say, literary techniques, i could prove that 2+2=5? it still wouldn't be true, no matter what the ruling party says. you could percieve it to be true, having be led along by an oppressive government, but whether you like it or not. putiing together two objects with another two objects still makes four objects. lets not have some junior-grade solipsism here, even if Haruhi Suzumiya is excessively popular.

so, anyway, if it helps, remember that the above gif is a 4th dimensional object rotating, not a cube going through another cube. try following on line at a time.

[thejakeman]

Originally Posted by LilBigFox

OK, I'm confuzzled. I thought time WAS the forth dimension, and that we don't have any, just as a 2d object has height and width but no depth, a 3d object has height, width, and depth, but no time. A 4d person would have a certain about of time as if it was a height or width. Or am I nuts?

time is a seperate entity altogether, though it is another dimension, it cannot be described in the smae way as a spatial dimension.

[genderhazard]

Originally Posted by LilBigFox

OK, I'm confuzzled. I thought time WAS the forth dimension, and that we don't have any, just as a 2d object has height and width but no depth, a 3d object has height, width, and depth, but no time. A 4d person would have a certain about of time as if it was a height or width.

Time is the 4th dimension in the theory of relativity and physics.

This is the 5th dimension


In mathematics the dimension of a space is roughly defined as the mimimum number of coordinates needed to specify every point within it.

so a line is one dimensional.
a square is two dimensional.
a cube is three dimensional.
a tesseract is four dimensional.
a penteract is five dimensional.
a hexeract is six dimensional.
a hepteract is seven dimensional.
an octeract is eight dimensional.
an enneract is nine dimensional.
a 10-cube is ten dimensional.

Or am I nuts?

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Jake in the first few seconds you will see a four dimensional object in a three dimensional world. From threshold.

Also a shadow is not a two dimensional object it is a three dimensional object. For a shadow to exist on a surface it must also exist on every plane between the casting object and the blocking surface, even if our perception does not register this . Thus a shadow is a grouping of rays of darkness, (contrasted by rays of light).

[thejakeman]

Also a shadow is not a two dimensional object it is a three dimensional object. For a shadow to exist on a surface it must also exist on every plane between the casting object and the blocking surface, even if our perception does not register this . Thus a shadow is a grouping of rays of darkness, (contrasted by rays of light).

that's if you want to define a shadow by everything above it. no, lets try something else. lets say it's a piece of depthless paper.

and any fucking way, i didn't start this to get mired in a discussion about things that have already been proven and represented billions of fucking times.

i wanted to discuss the possibility of our "souls" being 4th dimensional constructs.

[fuckface]

You people seem obsessed with Shadows on this forum...

[TF-Viewer]

Originally Posted by thejakeman

[B]
i wanted to discuss the possibility of our "souls" being 4th dimensional constructs.

That portion of your post had been edited in after my post so forgive me for not commenting on that part.

Firstly, you'd have to prove the existence of the soul itself. Then we can discuss what dimension a soul inhabits.