How many dimensions are there?

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

So will you read Flatland, Shape of Space, or Relativity?

I belive my former answers relects knowledge about shape of space and relativity, but I refuse to read Fladland, as it's nothing but a fariytale unlike the 2 other things.

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I'm fairly out of the loop on science that isn't practical.

When I think of dimension, I think of the flatland people. A spoon passes through their world. A few of them piece together what they can see and tell everybody else that it means there's another dimension.

The question is, what's missing in the flatland people that they can't see the spoon? The scenario suggests that it's a matter of awareness. Is it some sensory mechanism that they lack? Or is it something else... something missing in the how their sensory information is processed into awareness?

I think this has already happened to humans. We so thoroughly take the clock and the calendar for granted that we've lost the ability to see the world without them.

In other words, the structure of our awareness changed so we can't go backward. Likewise we balk at the idea of going forward. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

There's a story told by a guy who went to study babboons in Africa and hung out with the Zulu. One day he was working to get across to a Zulu man how far away his home in America was. The Zulu didn't understand the concept of a map. So rocks were placed on the ground and associations between the rocks and the nearby village were made. Once that was understood... the analogy was used to hint at the greatness of the distance in question. All at once the Zulu man understood. He broke out laughing.

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@Arjuna,

Arjuna wrote:

There's a story told by a guy who went to study babboons in Africa and hung out with the Zulu. One day he was working to get across to a Zulu man how far away his home in America was. The Zulu didn't understand the concept of a map. So rocks were placed on the ground and associations between the rocks and the nearby village were made. Once that was understood... the analogy was used to hint at the greatness of the distance in question. All at once the Zulu man understood. He broke out laughing.

Yes, there are many other such stories, but basicly it's about humans inability to precive things for which they have no concept of. I have played online games, and come across many who claimed they were "experts", and I challenged them 1v3 and won, where I claimed to be rook, but they refused to belive I was rook when I could beat 3 of them singlehanded.

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@HexHammer,

HexHammer wrote:

I belive my former answers relects knowledge about shape of space and relativity, but I refuse to read Fladland, as it's nothing but a fariytale unlike the 2 other things.

Usually it is for these reasons that people go off and read the works of great minds so I am stuck as to what to say.

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@HexHammer,

Yes, we tend to assume every other human experiences the world the same way we do. Only incontrovertible evidence will make us realize that isn't true.

I've been on both sides of that... refusing, or rather being unable to believe it, or watching someone else's firm disbelief.

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@Arjuna,

Arjuna wrote:

Yes, we tend to assume every other human experiences the world the same way we do. Only incontrovertible evidence will make us realize that isn't true.

I've been on both sides of that... refusing, or rather being unable to believe it, or watching someone else's firm disbelief.

Huh? ..I don't belive that everybody else thinks the same as I ..quite the contrary. Did you even read what I wrote?

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@HexHammer,

HexHammer wrote:

Huh? ..I don't belive that everybody else thinks the same as I ..quite the contrary. Did you even read what I wrote?

Hex, in English when one refers to "everybody" it's assumed that one means everybody except Danes.

1 Reply

@Arjuna,

My good Arjuna, I have known you for some time, yet I don't fully understand you. Do you think that you are 100% rational?

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@Diogenes phil,

Four dimensions are experimentally supported.

The three space dimensions I assume you're familiar with.

The time dimension is, mathematically, very difficult to distinguish from the space dimensions. All the operations that work with distance and volume etc. work perfectly well when applied to it.

There is a factor of sqrt(-1), however, and I suspect - with no experimental or logical support - this reflects a fundamental difference with the time dimension that means, among other things, that you cannot accelerate or decelerate in the time dimension. Even so, it's still a dimension, just a special one.

If you're not afraid of math:

Basically, every particle can be entirely described by its wavefunction or something like it, which maps a distribution of a value across space and time. The relationship conforms to the strictures of the definition of function. (Hence the name.)

The thing about functions is they can have any number of dependent variables, but they must have one independent variable. I believe time's special properties are the consequences of its status as the physical independent variable.

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@prothero,

prothero wrote:

Reconstructo;165934 wrote:
It all depends on what we mean by "dimensions," yes? Spatially, there are 3...in any usual sense of the word. Assuming that scientists come up with some useful equation suggesting their are 11 or 111, what would this mean, exactly? We would not be using "dimension" in the same way. These would be abstract dimensions. Mental models rather than "transcendental intuitions." As far as the time dimension, I think time is conceptual. Kojeve is brilliant on that.

Quote:
Everything that is "real" or "acutal" or that "exists" is not part of the realm of human sense experience, human mental construction or even accessible to human reason.

really

so air , water is not real , actual or exists and is not accessible to Human reason

well go without either air for 10 minutes or less most likely , and Human reason will kick in real soon no doubt

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to the objects themselves there are only three dimensions

length , breadth and depth

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what I'm getting at in my last post is this ;

all other dimensions beyond the fundamental three , length , breadth and depth have no affect on any object(s) existence , because these dimensions are the result of abstract mathematical calculations , nothing more

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@north,

Not quite. You see if I throw a ball to you and you catch it, even in Newtonian physics - your body solves several second order differential functions in order to achieve that outcome. Maybe a second order differential isn't abstract to you, but lets say that ball has mass and approached light speed. Well the calculations get alot more tricky as the ball gains mass under relativity and this mass warps the space time around it.

My point is scientists have to fit all the data we have gathered to models to describe reality and see if the data supports the model or challenges it. To me this isn't abstract or having no effect - its simply complex.

Models have the levels of variables they need and no more. So which model is correct - we don't know yet. If spacetime becomes fractal at small scales - scale invariance - then the answer to you question may be there are 2.61 dimensions + time - would that freak you out?
Smile

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How many dimensions are there?

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