Young Writers Society

I’m going to take the liberty to synonymize ‘dimension’ with ‘universe’, since the essential point of my article is focused on a single universe within a single dimension. Please ignore the multiple universes within a single dimension, as it is unimportant.


Our dimension, the 3rd in number, shifts on the plane of Space (or, for the layman, Distance). It also shifts on the Time plane as well, but we’ll get to that later. Just accept that our dimension is commonly accepted to shift on both Time and Space.
The Fourth Dimension, however, is Time. Does this mean that the Time dimension is integrated into our own, and that ours is merely a universe of Space? Is our realization of Time merely a figment of imagination? Not, so; if it were, we would experience only static Space. Of course, our consciousness would be as though frozen forever at one point, stuck like a bug in amber.
However, where would we be stuck? If there was no Time, then we could never have had a single point of Time on which we could be stuck. Our universe would then be trapped at the very beginning. For dramatic effect, I will accept the Big Bang theory briefly and say that our world would have never gone beyond the initial existence of a single mote of super-dense matter.
Truly, this has not happened and clearly could not, so Time as we experience it (the Time of the 3rd dimension) is obviously separate from the Time in the fourth dimension.
Why then two Times? And why must the Fourth Dimension be a dimension of Time?
All dimensions above the Zeroeth Dimension possess Time. Time can be calculated with velocity and direction, for which a dynamic effort must be present (‘dynamic effort’ = change, referred to as ‘dynamo’ from hence forth). In the postulated Zeroeth Dimension, there is no Space, only an infinitely small, infinitely dense point.
Hard to grasp? Let’s go down the line from our dimension.
The dimensional graph can be defined as the maximum number of lines between which is an angle measuring exactly 90 degrees. In our dimension, you can look at the corner of a cube to see the three lines that make up the corner. (In the second dimension, only two such lines exist, and they make up a flat right angle).
Our dimension consists of three directions in which light and matter may travel. The X plane, the Y plane, and the Z plane. X and Y are basic, and known to any with high-school level graphing abilities. Z is the ‘up’ direction, out of the flat paper. The Z direction gives us 3D objects such as a sphere.
In the Second Dimension, a sphere would appear as a circle, since there would be no ‘up’. The Second dimension is infinitely flat, like a cartoon, and there is no ‘up’. If you were an entity in the Second Dimension (I can’t even begin to imagine what sort of creature could exist there) You would see the entire world as a razor-thin line, living forever like a bug between two pages in a book (only worse, a squished bug still has a depth, the Second Dimension has none)
The First dimension has only one direction, so an entity within it would be able to see only in a tiny line, as thought he could see down two drinking straws to his left or right (or before and behind him, relatively). Any thing before or behind him (or to his left and right, relatively) would be invisible.
In the Zeroeth Dimension, there are no directions, so that lonely little point can see nothing, go nowhere and is nothing. The Zeroeth Dimension is Nothing.
That brings us back to the beginning.
As I was saying, there is no Space in the Zeroeth Dimension, and without it, there can be no room for velocity and direction, right? If so, the Zeroeth Dimension is suspended in stasis, and therefore there is no Time in it. For Time is relative, and without dynamo to time our watches by, there would really be no time.
Try it yourself. Get a box that is lit evenly inside it. Make sure no one will brush it, bump it or knock it over. Make sure the inside is perfectly smooth and featureless. Make sure no sound can penetrate it. Make sure the temperature will not dynamo.
Get in.
Time yourself for one hour, then get out. How accurate is your own timing? The only way would be for you to count the seconds, but it would also be flawed (timing by you heartbeat would not work, because after the first fifteen minutes claustrophobia will set in and subsequently increase your heart rate)
So Time is relative, and thus the Time as we know it in our dimension is different from the Time in the Fourth Dimension, thus, two Times. Our Time is relative to dynamic efforts in our environment, shifts in our thinking, and shifts in Space. If our Earth spun faster and faster, people would experience shorter days. If we were to replace our solar and lunar calendars with a unified stellar calendar, massive changes would take place.
The only Time that is perfect is in the Fourth Dimension. There, from the beginning of Time, a lonely little clock has been ticking. Were we to travel into that dimension, we would see truly how old the dimensions and universes were.
Or could we? Is there matter in the Fourth Dimension? That brings us back to the original question of Space in the Time Dimension.
Since our Time is relative, we would expect direction and velocity to govern Time in the Fourth Dimension, but that is not true. Our Third Dimension-restricted minds cannot grasp the concept of a pure and perfect Time, in a non-Space, static universe, yet ticking away none the less.
If this is true, then all Time in the Fourth dimension would exist as a single point, similar to the Zeroth dimension. And if that were true, then traveling into the Fourth Dimension would take you to all times, and you would simultaneously exist in eternity, or, at least, from wherever Time began to the present.
But is there a ‘Present’ in Time? Must it tick away exactly the Time of our universe? What if is was representing the Time of the Fourth Dimension? What is the Time of the Fourth Dimension? Does it stretch away in both directions like a number graph? Is it constantly looping, a circle of perpetual motion? What the heck drives pure Time?
I said it once, and I’ll say it again, we cannot grasp pure Time. Time as we know is not pure Time, it is an invention of Man to put notches into his life. We can study all we like, we’ll never find Time.
And if that is so, then Time of the Fourth Dimension must be limitless, unrestricted by anything at all. It is not connected to our dimension any more than ours is connected to the first or second. We do not receive inter-dimensional tourists into our world, and we will never travel into any other…unless we die.
After our death, do we transcend into the Fourth Dimension? And what about the Fifth? Do we live a perfect-time life in the Fourth and then transcend further into the Fifth? For those who believe in reincarnation, these would be some pretty sturdy theories with which it could be backed up, but I still don’t think it would work that way.

This article was meant for me to express some of my Dimensional ideas, but it only churned up more questions for me. Please, feel free to disagree, discuss or dimensionalize with me.

Jenthura wrote:I said it once, and I’ll say it again, we cannot grasp pure Time. Time as we know is not pure Time, it is an invention of Man to put notches into his life. We can study all we like, we’ll never find Time.

This is where you hint at my views on the matter. Since it's such a strange topic, let's refer to what we already know: the first three dimensions, and how each builds off the rest. That seems to be a fairly straight-forward procession, right? Like a step-ladder, each step a little more complicated in a methodic way. But beyond that is very hard for us to understand. Of course it is! It wouldn't be easy for a second-demension entity to understand the third dimension, would it? Of course not. Because all they know about is their own, planar world. They wouldn't be able to think beyond their dimension very easily. And so it is also hard for us to understand the fourth dimension, because our very thoughts are in three dimensions. So, if you are saying that the fourth dimension is time, then I don't think there are two different times so much as two different views of time. For example, if a two-dimensional being were to see a cube, they would see it in a cut-through, right? a square or a rectangle depending on their angle. So maybe the time we experience is but a sliver, a cut-through view of the time that can be experienced in the fourth dimension.

But there is an inconsistency in your argument. The first three dimensions are spacial dimensions, by definition. The fourth dimension has been called time, but time is not spacial--therefore, if the fourth dimension is time, it would not be a spacial dimension and it is useless to consider it spacial. I don't know much about this stuff, so I can't give many details, but I do know that there are also mathematical fourth spacial dimensions. Look it up on YouTube. There are some pretty awesome animations of objects that we can't quite grasp. Something that I find interesting is that we need time in order to "see" these things. Think, again, of a two-dimesnional being. Let's now say they are trying to understand a sphere. What they would see would be a circle, as you say. But if, on the two-dimensional world's YouTube, mathematicians have posted their thoughts about that mysterious "third dimension," then their videos would look like a circle getting bigger and smaller as the two-dimensional viewer traveled in three-dimensional space and got different two-dimensional views of a three-dimensional object.

Of course, YouTube, being on a computer screen, is completely two-dimensional, so it's funny to think about us, in out 3-D world, trying to see 4-D by looking at a 2-D screen... but that's beside the point. ^_~

All in all, it's something we can't and will never understand. Maybe that's what makes it so fun to think about, though? I know there are a lot of mathematical ideas about the spacial fourth dimension. I don't know much about them, but I hope to learn more someday and I think if you are interested in this stuff you should probably try studying it.

And I'm not sure if you wanted me to look at your writing or not, but... I did. I can't help it. >.< I have to say, you make some interesting points--or, rather, you ponder some interesting points. But it sort of feels like what I might scribble on a notebook when I can't fall asleep, or when I'm just feeling existentialist. It is very stream-of-consciousness and doesn't feel very organized. I know it's hard stuff to think about, but I suggest working on organizing your thoughts a little more and trying to present them in a more readable way. This would include, of course, adding spaces between the paragraphs. ^_~ Right now, the whole piece looks a bit like a huge wall of text, and it's a bit daunting.

Anyway, I had fun pondering this! It's hard to wrap your head around (now there's a strange dimensional image! >.<) but it's fun to try. I only wish I knew more about it so that I could have given a more intelligent, well-educated response!

Thanks for sharing this with me, and happy year of the rabbit! ^_~

a

True, I merely assumed that the Fourth Dimension was time, simply because I have heard it said so often (most often in time-travel references in fiction). I have heard about the way Second Dimensional see Third Dimensional objects, and how a Fourth Dimensional object would look in our dimension, but I alwasy wondered how one could traverse the dimensional gap.

Of course, YouTube, being on a computer screen, is completely two-dimensional, so it's funny to think about us, in out 3-D world, trying to see 4-D by looking at a 2-D screen... but that's beside the point. ^_~

So funny! And true.

Also, you celebrate the Chinese New Year? Do you get Ang Paow?

Jenthura wrote:True, I merely assumed that the Fourth Dimension was time, simply because I have heard it said so often (most often in time-travel references in fiction). I have heard about the way Second Dimensional see Third Dimensional objects, and how a Fourth Dimensional object would look in our dimension, but I alwasy wondered how one could traverse the dimensional gap. :D

Ah, but right there you've got the contradiction I was talking about: objects exist in spacial dimensions. So if you're assuming, for the sake of this argument, that the fourth dimension is a temporal one (as opposed to a spacial one) then how can there be four-dimensional objects?! Basically, I feel like your whole argument is written in a way that assumes the fourth dimension to be spacial--but then you call it Time. So what ends up happening is that you're thinking of time as space, which I don't think is the right way to approach it. Like I say, I don't really know much about these things, but I think you're trying to combine two different definitions of the fourth dimension (one spacial, one temporal) into one argument, which is only confusing matters. They're confusing enough already, Jen, don't make them more so! >.<

Yes, speculative fiction may do this. Lots of science-fiction authors may consider the fourth dimension both spacial and temporal... but that's called artistic license. Do you want to discuss the mathematical/theoretical concepts or different authors' speculative ideas?

And no, I don't celebrate Chinese new year and I'd never heard of Ang Paow until you said it (I'd seen them, I just had never known their name). But my pet rabbit is really excited about this one, so she wouldn't let me forget it. ^_~ She's putting on all sorts of airs--I swear, she thinks that because it's "her" year, she's all of a sudden better than everyone else! *sighs* You know how rabbits are.

Some thoughts.

So I think what one of your basic assumptions is that Dimensions are independent. That you can exist in a higher dimension without existing in a lower dimension. Like where you ask if there is "matter in the fourth dimension." But, my understanding is that all dimensions are built on each other.

If you take your zeroeth dimension, infinitely small point--and drag it out, it becomes a line. That's your first dimension.
If you take your first dimension line--and drag it out, it becomes a rectangle. That's your second dimension.
If you take your second dimension square--and drag it out, it becomes a cube. Third dimension.
If you take your third dimension cube--and move it, it has duration/movement. Fourth dimension.
Then you get the rest of the dimensions by imagining greater and greater possibilities/probabilities/realities. (i.e. the fifth dimension is probabilistic outcomes of dimensions 1 through 4).

So of course the zeroeth dimension has nothing to do with the fourth dimension. It's about as plain a statement as saying a line doesn't have thickness to it.

So when you question the existence of space in the fourth dimension, it's logically paradoxical. You can't have a fourth dimension without at least one of the previous dimensions. Just like you can't have a second dimension without a first dimension. Things must have length before they have depth. And things must have space before they endure. So you must have 1-3 before you have 4.

Nothingness cannot endure. It's just--nothing. So then what would be the point of considering a dimension that's completely devoid of anything that the dimension could possibly measure? It'd be like making an invisible cloak that also cannot be touched, smelled, tasted, or heard and that you accidentally dropped in the ocean--gone before you could even appreciate it, and no one in hell is gonna believe you or care.
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On your thought experiment of getting in a box and timing yourself--well, we've always asked ourselves the question "How accurate is our own timing?" It's always relative, even if we had the most accurate stopwatch technology can provide us.

If we measure in seconds, we might be off as much as 0.999999 seconds.
If we measure in microseconds, we could miss it by 0.99999 microseconds.
If we measure in nanoseconds, then we'll never see a picosecond-long event.
And so on.

So, if we get in this box for an hour, yes, it will have been as inconsequential as if we never got in the box in the first place. There will be no measurable change in the world (unless you got robbed while you were in there; then you can say you were in there for approximately 1 burglary), so we say, "Well, what's the point of time if it can't tell the difference between when I climbed in and when I climbed out?" Our minds exist for such a longer time period that this 1-hour box event was as meaningless to us as a 1 picosecond event.

But what if we got in that isolated box for our entire lives? Our bodies will still decay. We will still exist for an average human lifespan (disregarding the bothersome things, like nutrients and sunlight and exercise). And when we die, we can say, "That was 0.8 centuries long" with as much reasonable accuracy as all the other tools we measure with.

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So perhaps, as we conceive time, we can say that it's a measurement of change (or, in the previous case, decay). We can't be so pompous as to say the universe is measuring itself in seconds. That's basically personifying something--giving it human qualities and human terms of measurement. Nothing, besides humans, measures itself.

The universe exists, and because it exists, it has a 'time' quality to it. But what I mean when I say it has 'time' to it, I mean that it changes. It is made up of infinitely many states-of-being.

It's the humans who chose the measurement tool to measure change. 'Time' doesn't actually exist, much like the way 'beauty' doesn't exist; it's just a convenient way to communicate with each other: "Before it was like that. Now it is like this."

And--like seconds--meters and liters don't exist either. They're just convenient ways to communicate.

But, that doesn't mean 'space' and 'duration' don't exist. Because they do, obviously. Just because we can't accurately measure anything doesn't negate their existence.

I will measure the 'time' between the moment in the universe I sprung into being until the moment I depart the universe in time. And it will only be so accurate because nothing is 100% accurate.

Just like I will measure the 'space' between where my feet touch the ground and where my head ceases to exist in distance. And it will only be so accurate. At what picometer does my head cease to take up space? We're measuring in the third dimension from one plane at my feet to one plane at my head...but between them is an infinite number of planes.

In both cases, these are two distinct "markers" we use to say "begin measuring here" and "stop measuring here." We choose to measure these things, yes, and we choose to give names to the units. But these things were there before we measured them. Space and time/duration/change existed before we ever looked.

Anyway, that was really fun. Let me know what you think.

I took way too long to write that -_-

sargsauce wrote:I took way too long to write that -_-

Yes, but it was an excellent demonstration of Time. "I wrote for 1 review long."
I really enjoyed what you wrote, it cleared up some things for me. I'm not sure how I was imagining the Dimensions before you spoke of them as piled on each other (Or built out of each other, or even coexisting in one amalgam of boundary-less Dimensions), but I think I thought of them as adjacent rooms, as separate as they were different.
As Azila pointed out, I was getting very mixed up. Something I looked up just now is that the Fourth Dimension is spatial, but a fourth dimension with which we measure our dimension is time as we know it. Change and motion and so forth.
Apparently, the article was saying that we measure along the X, Y and Z planes for our 3D cubes. The fourth dimension, Z1, is time, and along this new planar* X, Y and Z may change.

I'll try to be less confused, Azi, but it is hard when one truly is confused.

Azila wrote:Yes, speculative fiction may do this. Lots of science-fiction authors may consider the fourth dimension both spacial and temporal... but that's called artistic license. Do you want to discuss the mathematical/theoretical concepts or different authors' speculative ideas?

No, please, let's not go there. I was merely pointing out the reason I was confused and making a very contradictory statement(s).

*I say planar for lack of a better word, I do not think the fourth dimension [uncapitalized] is in any way planar or flat)