Do you believe in the present?

[restin]

this picture is fucking trippy. It's a cube moving in a bigger cube and getting the bigger cube...huuuh....

time as the 4. dimention was, as far as I remember, a proposal by Einstein which was refused by modern physics.

 

[st.bot.32]

For sure!... To work your way up to it conceptually (cuz it's tricky)... If you take a short line (one dimension), you can project it across 2 dimensions into a square (2d). You can take a square (2d) and project it in 3 dimensions and it becomes a cube. The basic idea here is that you end up with a cube (3d) projected in 4 dimensions, the appearance of which is two 3d cubes connected across four dimensions.. a hypercube. Rotating in 4d. Have fun thinking about that (edit-or just watch the late great cannabis smoker carl sagan's video posted above! he's quite entertaining)

As for time being the 4th dimension.. I think that idea predates Einstein quite a bit actually. It's kind of late 19th century, early 20th century thinking in general. eg. HG Wells 'the time machine'.. time is explained as if it is a spacial dimension you can move around in, pop over to 800 000 AD to save the people from the morlocks and still be home in time for afternoon tea. (I <3 HG Wells)

 

[Envix]

what I don't understand is how the fourth dimension could be spacial, as space should only exist in the 1st (length) 2nd (length x width) and 3rd (length x width x height) dimensions.
Time is not spacial, but temporal. We can not understand higher dimensions by relating them to elements of lower dimension i.e. space. Time is only partly in our dimension - the future constantly becoming the present/the present constantly becoming the past. We can get a grasp on the concept of time in this dimension because we posses the abilities of memory, and anticipation of the future.

Theoretically, the 5th dimension is all of space i.e. the inside of a wormhole - in a place where you would exist at every point in space simultaneously. Like, imagine the universe is a beach ball. to exist in the 5th dimension would be to exist on the inside of the beach ball. To go through a wormhole would be to go from one point of the beach ball to the opposite end by going through it, instead of around it. (as opposed to the popular concept of folding a piece of paper where 2 points meet, suggesting the folding of space being a result of a wormhole) What I'm speaking of is the actual ripping of space.

This is all theoretical, by the way. That's what philosophy is.

 

[st.bot.32]

what I don't understand is how the fourth dimension could be spacial, as space should only exist in the 1st (length) 2nd (length x width) and 3rd (length x width x height) dimensions.

I kind of blame hollywood 'science' for creating this sort of confusion/distortion. (But Back to the Future is such a fun series nonetheless). Carl Sagan isn't talking about time in his lecture, he's talking about 4d geometry, or more to the point, how to visualize a 4d cube in 3d space. It's possible to visualize structures with pretty much any number of spatial dimensions actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercube

Time is not spacial, but temporal.

Exactly.

To go through a wormhole would be to go from one point of the beach ball to the opposite end by going through it, instead of around it.

Yes, and what's interesting about this idea is what it implies. The idea of a wormhole--that can connect two different points in time and space--implies that you can peruse through all of space-time as if it is already there all mapped out.

 

[IJesusChrist]

A wormhole would lower your dimensions, essentially bipassing the 3rd and 2nd dimension, essentially making where you want to go and where you are 1-dimensional.

Time is an illusion, it isn't really there - somehow we perceive it with our minds - I don't know how. It may be something to do with the special abilities of neurotransmitters "holding" on to electrons, or it may be quantum entanglement that ultimately gives our perception of time.

Imagining a 4d anything is impossible - even with the aid of a picture. Atleast for me it is impossible.

 

[infinitetransistor]

If you can divide a time unit to infinity ( 0,00000000000000000etc seconds).

it still is a time and without something to measure it with, like humans have, you cant say its any diffrent then a thousend years, or all time.

since there is no definite measurement couldnt you say its all equal?

idk maybe that doesnt make sence or i cant explain it well but i think there is only the present, and its unmeasurablle

 

[TheBarn]

I dont think you can measure the present unless you stop time, then you can point to the present at the exact moment it stopped.

but as it keeps moving,the presnt doesnt have a moment in time to measure, there is only what was and whats to come. But whats to come has already happened and is now what was. When you see the road in front, you have already travelled part of it.

its so much fun trying to explain.

 

[Psyolopher]

I dont think you can measure the present unless you stop time, then you can point to the present at the exact moment it stopped.

but as it keeps moving,the presnt doesnt have a moment in time to measure, there is only what was and whats to come. But whats to come has already happened and is now what was. When you see the road in front, you have already travelled part of it.

its so much fun trying to explain.

That makes so much sense in an obvious and logical way.
Mindblower!

 

[Envix]

most people (especially westerners) think of time as linear. and so try to explain it as it having a before/after quality. this is, however, not the case.

time is an illusion. the only time now, is party time.

 

[Ahuaeynjxs]

I'm not fighting for this one... it's not like it was elemental power crystals and stuff...

I'm currently indulging in one-liners... it helps me decompress and sing with me the blue bells of scotland. Long story...

 

[Rudolf]

No one knows about future and the past never comes. So I live in present and I so much believe in present time bcoz present is in our hand. I think present makes future.

 

[VerusDeus]

The present certainly makes the future, spot on!

This is quite a mind-boggling subject... If there were no present, could there even be a past or a future? There must be a point in time from which we choose to contemplate memories of the past or fantasies of the future, the present or the now is the moment of perception.

If anything, all but the present is an illusion...