Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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SteveKlinko
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Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

Post by SteveKlinko »

I have always more or less been on a quest to understand the Universe. I decided to start with understanding the more fundamental aspects of the Universe and then build on that understanding to understand more complicated things. But the question came up as to what was the most fundamental thing in the Universe. Elementary Particle Physics seemed to be a good place to start. What could be more fundamental than Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons? Well you quickly find out that Elementary Particles are just made out of Energy. So Energy seemed to be the thing to start with. Eventually I learned that Energy can arise out of Space itself. So what does this mean about our concept of Space? It would seem that Energy might be made out of Space. So then the regression back to find the most fundamental thing ended up with trying to understanding Space, which of course is Nothing. How do you study Nothing?

Eventually I realized that Space was not really Nothing it was Something. Since Space is Something it could exist or not exist. The common notion that Space is an ever existent background Thing that extends out infinitely in three directions could be wrong. There could be different kinds of Spaces besides our 3D Space. There could be a 4D Space. There could be no Space. The possibility of no Space is almost impossible to grasp by the 3D human brain.

I thought that if I could show that 4D Space is a workable reality for a Universe , then I would be able to convince myself that Space is a Thing just as Energy and Matter are Things. The concept of Nothing then becomes a concept of Absolute Nothing where there is no Matter, Energy, or Space.

To understand 4D Space I thought I should try to experience what it would be like to be a 4D Conscious being living in and moving around in a 4D World. I generated many Animations to help me do this. I think the Animations were helpful but I still feel that I am unable to exactly experience a 4D World in the same way an actual 4D being would. The key thing that we must do is understand how a 4D being can see a 3D Hyperplane as a Flat object. Anything else you think you know is irrelevant until you understand that.

But even though I was not able to experience 4D in the way I had hoped I believe that the Animations have shown me that a 4D World is possible and therefore that our 3D Space is only one type of Space. There can be No Space if there can be 3D Space or 4D Space.

The one thing I learned from the Animations is that the reason I don't understand 4D Space is because I am too embedded in this 3D Universe. I can think about 4D Space in theory and use all the different techniques for visualizing it but my 3D brain will never let me fully understand it. I do not think anyone can. We would need a 4D Brain to do this.

To be able to see in our 3D World we have a Visual Cortex that is roughly a flat (but folded) 2D patch of a little more than 1 billion Neurons. If it were a square patch it would be about 32000 Neurons on each side. A 2D being would only need a line of these Neurons or 32000 of them. The whole 2D Brain Neuron count would be scaled down by a factor of 32000. A 2D Brain would be 32000 times less intelligent than a 3D Brain. A 4D Visual Cortex by analogy would have to be a cube of Neurons with 32000 Neurons on all sides. It would be a 3D Hyper Plane so the 4D being would view it as flat. A 4D being's Visual Cortex would have 32000 times more Neurons than a 3D being's Visual Cortex. The 4D Brain Neuron count would be scaled up by a factor of 32000 and a 4D being will probably be 32000 times more intelligent than we are.

So the conclusion we have to come to is that we, and I mean all of us 3D beings, can never know what it would be like to actually be a 4D being. We are just not smart enough. You might think you understand 4D using one of the techniques but you never really get there. You need to be able to see our 3D Space as being Flat. I think this is an important realization for Philosophy and the study of the limits of our ability to understand things.
Impenitent
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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do you really want to understand 4D space?

ask me tomorrow

-Imp
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HexHammer
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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Pure mad ramblings! 4D space is just 3D + time, that's how they make make GPS work by sending the signal 45 ns before it hits the satellite due to time dilation etc.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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HexHammer wrote: Sat Nov 24, 2018 6:33 am Pure mad ramblings! 4D space is just 3D + time, that's how they make make GPS work by sending the signal 45 ns before it hits the satellite due to time dilation etc.
4D Space does not include Time. In a 4D Universe Time would have to be the 5th dimension.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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SteveKlinko wrote: Sat Nov 24, 2018 1:48 pm4D Space does not include Time. In a 4D Universe Time would have to be the 5th dimension.
You are making up your own reality, shut up!
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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HexHammer wrote: Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:19 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Sat Nov 24, 2018 1:48 pm4D Space does not include Time. In a 4D Universe Time would have to be the 5th dimension.
You are making up your own reality, shut up!
It looks like you don't understand the purpose of this thread. Of course our Universe is 3D but there is Speculation that it could have been 4D or other dimensional Space. So we are Speculating on what a 4D Universe would look like. If you don't want to play, then fine, go away.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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What are your criteria for "understanding" ? e.g how would any particular "wannabe understander" (such as myself) determine if I do or don't understand 4D space?

If you recognise time as a dimension, then do you also recognize my ability to build/debug/control parallel computation on a machine with 40 or 400 CPUs while processing N-dimensional matrices as 'understanding' 400-dimensional space?

Think "things which evolve independent from each other"
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:56 pm What are your criteria for "understanding" ? e.g how would any particular "wannabe understander" (such as myself) determine if I do or don't understand 4D space?
You can understand Graphically, where you would look at slices of 4D Space, which would be separate 3D Spaces, and try to make sense of how they fit together. You could also look at Projections of 4D Space onto 3D Space and try to understand how they piece together to form 4D Space. Another way to understand 4D Space is to just consider 4D Matrix representations. But these are all well and good techniques but ultimately unsatisfactory to me.

I want to know what it would be like to be a 4D Being living in a 4D Universe. I want to do this mostly because there are some theories of the Universe that say that the Universe could have been a 4D Universe (or other dimensions) instead of the 3D that we know. A simple Empty Box in 4D Space will be an object with 8 sides. Each side will be a 3D object but this 3D object will be and look Flat in 4D. This is the first stumbling block that you come to. How can 3D Beings like us imagine the Flatness of a 3D object in 4D Space? It is easy to determine that this is true with Mathematics. But the Mathematics gives me no understanding of what that would actually look like to a 4D Being. Points that are inside the 3D object and all other points would Visible to you all at the same time. This is fascinating to me and I want to understand how this could be Visualized. I came to the conclusion that I would need a 4D Brain to do this. Our 3D Brains have us trapped in 3D Space and they refuse to Visualize 4D.
TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:56 pm If you recognise time as a dimension, then do you also recognize my ability to build/debug/control parallel computation on a machine with 40 or 400 CPUs while processing N-dimensional matrices as 'understanding' 400-dimensional space?

Think "things which evolve independent from each other"
You could program such a thing but does that really let you understand what it would be like to be a 400D Being in a 400D Universe? Stick with 4D. It's hard enough.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm
TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:56 pm What are your criteria for "understanding" ? e.g how would any particular "wannabe understander" (such as myself) determine if I do or don't understand 4D space?
You can understand Graphically, where you would look at slices of 4D Space, which would be separate 3D Spaces, and try to make sense of how they fit together. You could also look at Projections of 4D Space onto 3D Space and try to understand how they piece together to form 4D Space. Another way to understand 4D Space is to just consider 4D Matrix representations. But these are all well and good techniques but ultimately unsatisfactory to me.
This is circular. I am asking you to explain what you mean by "understand" and you are using the word "understand" in your explanation.
SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm I want to know what it would be like to be a 4D Being living in a 4D Universe.
You can't even explain what it's like being a 3D being in a 3D universe. Maybe you should start there then work your way up?

SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm You could program such a thing but does that really let you understand what it would be like to be a 400D Being in a 400D Universe? Stick with 4D. It's hard enough.
Well, lets just go back to 3D space. What do you mean by "understanding" in your current form/shape?

My bar for 'understanding' is prediction/control for some degree of precision. I don't understand a whole lot.

I can, however, recommend this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
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HexHammer
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:51 pmIt looks like you don't understand the purpose of this thread. Of course our Universe is 3D but there is Speculation that it could have been 4D or other dimensional Space. So we are Speculating on what a 4D Universe would look like. If you don't want to play, then fine, go away.
Yes that's very apparent, but you are wrong, the rest of the dirementions are not any "dimensions" as of such imo, they're merely quantum phenomenons.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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HexHammer wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 10:06 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:51 pmIt looks like you don't understand the purpose of this thread. Of course our Universe is 3D but there is Speculation that it could have been 4D or other dimensional Space. So we are Speculating on what a 4D Universe would look like. If you don't want to play, then fine, go away.
Yes that's very apparent, but you are wrong, the rest of the dirementions are not any "dimensions" as of such imo, they're merely quantum phenomenons.
Pure nonsense and babble Hex. So, tell us how extra dimensions are not really dimensions. While you are at it, perhaps you can tell us how dimensions are related to quantum phenomenon.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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Ginkgo wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:09 am Pure nonsense and babble Hex. So, tell us how extra dimensions are not really dimensions. While you are at it, perhaps you can tell us how dimensions are related to quantum phenomenon.
Have you ever heard of serialization (a.k.a marshalling)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshalli ... r_science)

If the Universe is just information and some physicists lean that way ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics ) then "dimensions" are just mental constructs of Euclidian space created from parsing the data stream of "reality".

Also. Did you know that Koch curves are 2.5849 dimensional ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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Ginkgo wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:09 amPure nonsense and babble Hex. So, tell us how extra dimensions are not really dimensions. While you are at it, perhaps you can tell us how dimensions are related to quantum phenomenon.
You will find the answers in the "Double Slit Experiment" when there are no observer effect the photon will make waves which will account for "dark matter" therefore it's imo a quantum effect that also will account for other dimensions especially considering "Path Integral" where the eggheads claim the photon goes to the edge of the universe yet still travels the same distance in the same amount of time which seems self contradictory ..therein lays another dimension!
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 8:02 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm
TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:56 pm What are your criteria for "understanding" ? e.g how would any particular "wannabe understander" (such as myself) determine if I do or don't understand 4D space?
You can understand Graphically, where you would look at slices of 4D Space, which would be separate 3D Spaces, and try to make sense of how they fit together. You could also look at Projections of 4D Space onto 3D Space and try to understand how they piece together to form 4D Space. Another way to understand 4D Space is to just consider 4D Matrix representations. But these are all well and good techniques but ultimately unsatisfactory to me.
This is circular. I am asking you to explain what you mean by "understand" and you are using the word "understand" in your explanation.
This is weird. I thought you asked me How one might understand. If you are asking me for some metaphysical explanation of what it means to understand then you have the wrong thread. It's up to you to decide if the Graphical and Mathematical methods explain it for you. They don't for me.

TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 8:02 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm I want to know what it would be like to be a 4D Being living in a 4D Universe.
You can't even explain what it's like being a 3D being in a 3D universe. Maybe you should start there then work your way up?
I do understand what it's like to be a 3D being, within certain limits of course. The point is how do you take the understanding that we do have and apply it to 4D Space. Probably need new ways of looking at things that don't translate from 3D.

TimeSeeker wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 8:02 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:32 pm You could program such a thing but does that really let you understand what it would be like to be a 400D Being in a 400D Universe? Stick with 4D. It's hard enough.
Well, lets just go back to 3D space. What do you mean by "understanding" in your current form/shape?

My bar for 'understanding' is prediction/control for some degree of precision. I don't understand a whole lot.

I can, however, recommend this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
This thread is not about the Metaphysical meaning of understanding. Thank you for the book suggestion, but even though I have not read it I have read enough about it to know what it is about.
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Re: Why Humans Will Never Understand 4D Space

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SteveKlinko wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:06 pm This thread is not about the Metaphysical meaning of understanding. Thank you for the book suggestion, but even though I have not read it I have read enough about it to know what it is about.
I am not talking about metaphysics. I am pointing at the meta-epistemic problem of self-skepticism: How do I know that I understand?

I am pointing at the empirical problem of understanding: What does "understanding" feel like?
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