If you are going to talk about time as a separate dimension (which it is) we already live in a 4 dimensional universe - 3 spatial dimensions and a temporal one. But when people say "The fourth dimension" I think they're usually referring to a fourth spatial dimension which is a whole different animal. It's kind of impossible to picture in your head what something like that would actually look like, because there's no point of reference, but I don't think a universe with 4 spatial dimensions would necessarily operate on a profoundly different level. One could maybe argue that the universe we're in right now has four spatial dimensions, but since we're 3-dimensional beings we can't perceive the further dimension and don't know that it's there.

To my understanding, isn't 4-D being able to see something from 4 points of view, and be able to make a logical connection between the views?
if not then idk, those videos were pretty cool.

Quote from Drone

Those arent the same thing? .-

I was actually thinking the same thing

Does Light curve and bend in the 4th Dimension?

Alright, the 4th dimension might cause some confusion, because when people say "time is the 4th dimension" they don't always have a good idea of what that really means.
Time is not really a dimension, it's more like a direction in the same way that right or left is. We need more than just that to describe the fourth dimension. You need two opposing directions to describe a spatial dimension, for example: up and down. Now, we could use time and anti-time to describe a temporal dimension like the 4th dimension is. We'd need way more terms than that though, since the 4th dimension bends. There can even be causality in time's reversed direction.

No dimensions exist on their own, since they're orthogonal to each other. You wouldn't be able to make a line without dots. The same way, you can't have a 4-D dimension without the 3rd one.

It really doesn't matter what you call the fourth dimension as long as you understand that it has to be at right angles to the preceding dimensions.

Quote from Leokill

Alright, the 4th dimension might cause some confusion, because when people say "time is the 4th dimension" they don't always have a good idea of what that really means.

That's true, and you're adding to the confusion by explaining it in a way that doesn't make sense.

Quote from Leokill

Time is not really a dimension, it's more like a direction in the same way that right or left is.

No. Time is a temporal dimension, it is not "like a direction" like left or right. Those are referential descriptions of a horizontal axis, which exists in a spacial dimension, not a temporal one.

I understand what you're trying to say, you're saying we subjectively experience time as one-directional, but that doesn't mean it isn't a dimension. It just means we experience it differently than we experience spacial dimensions.

Quote from Leokill

We need more than just that to describe the fourth dimension. You need two opposing directions to describe a spatial dimension, for example: up and down.

The existence of either up or down means there is a vertical axis, which means both of those concepts necessarily have to exist. You can't have one without the other.

Quote from Leokill

Now, we could use time and anti-time to describe a temporal dimension like the 4th dimension is. We'd need way more terms than that though, since the 4th dimension bends. There can even be causality in time's reversed direction.

Not really, since a cause necessarily has to come before the effect. Spacial dimensions bend as well. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.



Think about a square. It's four 1-D points connected to each other to form a 2-D object. Now think about a cube -- it's two 2-D squares connected to each other by their corners, to form a 3-D object. Rotating it is only possible with 3 dimensions, even though it can easily be visualized using only two dimensions (like an animation on a screen).

So a four-dimensional hypercube is simply two 3-D cubes connected by their corners, which would rotate along four spacial dimensions. Which looks like this. You can even see how the cubes are connected by their corners. We can't really conceptualize what this would look like in reality, but creating a 3-D projection of something 4-D isn't extraordinarily difficult.


As far as whether or not they exist in reality, nothing has experimentally verified that more spacial dimensions exist than we're aware of.

Quote from Exilement

As far as whether or not they exist in reality, nothing has experimentally verified that more spacial dimensions exist than we're aware of.

Ah, this was gunna be one of my questions, just because something follows a pattern doesn't mean that that pattern extends further than what we currently know.

As far as visualising the 4-D cubes in 3-D, I think people get confused as to why it's so confusing. The reason we can see 2-D versions of 3-D objects is because we live in the 3-D plane. Seeing 4-D objects in a 3-D plane is not possible because we're confined by our third demension experience, whereas that's not a problem with viewing the 3-D as 2-D because the original object is one that we can comprehend.

That is right, right?

if we consider that a 2-Dimensional being would be capable of only ever seeing one "slice" of 3-Dimensional space at any given time (illustration), it becomes easier to understand. as 3-Dimensional beings ourselves, we can only ever perceive one "slice" of 4-Dimensionala space at any given time; that is, the instant of time which we are in.

time goes on moving as a never ending sequence of what could be thought of as frames of an animation; however we can only ever see one frame at a time - the frame we are in - and cannot perceive of the entire timeline as a manipulable object.


oh yeah, and i found this:

Quote from Scarecrow

having said this i am very curious as to what exactly the consciousness is. perhaps we are fourth dimensional beings, capable of moving through time, but we are all stuck watching the equivalent of a three dimensional linear series of events?

ever noticed how sucked in to a movie you can get? feel associated with a 2-D character? that's basically you moving down a dimension, for a while. we gotta move up fellas

I hate how this died once it left the debate forum, as it interests the hell out of me.

I agree with what fusion originally stated about spacial dimensions and temporal dimensions being separate. Based on the video that envoy posted, I feel it explains some supernatural things that are only seen as myths right now. The first one being shape shifting. When the apple first touched the ground, it looked like 4 dots. But let's say it rotated. It would change into an entirely new shape, based on what flat plane of the apple was against the surface of Flat Land. The other two things were mentioned in the video. The first would be a sort of x-ray vision. If you were in a higher dimension, you could see everything from point of views that don't seem to exist to the people living in the lower dimension. This extra dimension could also explain teleportation.