Friday, January 23, 2009

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2nd Timothy 3:7

8 comments:

The Angry Coder said...

I just watched this sober- was that my mistake?

Percussivity said...

Well... at least it is still called String Theory as opposed to The First United Church of the Tenth Dimension.

Percussivity said...

To me it would makes sense for God to stop at 4 dimentions... since 4 is loosely considered the number of creation or structure. 4 seasons, 4 compass points, etc. Oh there is also the fact that 4 dimensions are all we can observe or prove actually exist.

SQLFunkateer said...

I only saw a bit of this but it sounds like the book Flatlands. Good book...when I read it as a kid, it was eye-opening. The video gets a few things wrong...two-dimensional creatures, like flatlanders, would not see other beings in two-dimensions...they would see in one dimension, ie., they would see only lines on a circular plane, that changed in location and size. The video showed things passing through the two dimensional plane, seen outside the plane, from our third dimensional perspective, but that is not how someone on the plane would see it. A sphere passing through the plane would appear as a dot that grew into a line, then shrank back to a dot and finally disappeared.

I don't buy time as the fourth dimension. I think we say time is the fourth dimension because we can't come to grips with the concept that there could be a fourth SPATIAL dimension, and so we say time is that fourth dimension, but I think its just because its more believable to us than to consider that there could be more to physical space than 3 dimensions.

Percussivity said...

Well if you are referring to the spiritual realm... I don't really consider that as a fourth dimension necessarily... there are merely beings angelic and demonic that can travel through 3 dimensions (4 including time) much more freely than we can, but as it took the angel in Daniel chapter 10 3 weeks to fight his way through the second heaven to reach Daniel, that would indicate that even angels are bound to the same four dimentions we occupy. I do consider time as a possible fourth dimension and the closest thing I would consider to a 5th dimension is the one in which God exists which is outside of time. He truly would see linear time as a dot. When preachers talk about time one day ceasing and eternity beginning they make no sense. There will always be time unless God's creation were to one day completely cease to exist and only God remain, but there is nothing in scripture to validate that. The scripture that I feel proves there will always be time is in Isaiah 9:7 where it says of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. Anyway this is probably one of those topics where no one will have the absolute correct answer in this life but it provides for stimulating discussion.

The Angry Coder said...

I agree with Neuf in that calling time "the" fourth dimension is more of a choice or pereption. It fits models that we like, but it is not necessarily the only possibility. Mass or energy could also be the fourth dimension. None of these are spatial.

It bothered me later how many times the guy said "simply" through this as well. Just simply bend time and voila! That doesn't even have any practial meaning- what is he talking about?!

This is just reverse engineering of derivatives taken to an absurd level. Oh, and I like how they arrive at the "definiteness" of there only possibly being ten dimensions. Come on!!! It's all more philosophy than science or math.

SQLFunkateer said...

Well, I wasn't referencing the spiritual realm at all...and personally, I would also see envisioning mass or energy as a 4th dimension as comparable to envisioning time as the 4th dimension...neither are as simply and purely spatial as x, y, and z, and basically we are taking some other phenomenom and fitting it, like a square peg in a round hole, to make another dimension.

My point was not that there was a 4th dimension. It would be entirely impossible for us, as 3 dimensional beings, to perceive it. Imagine the 2 dimensional flatlanders discussing what a theoretical "3rd dimension" would be! They could never conceptualize what we know as 3 dimensions...they would offer up suggestions such as time, mass, and energy, because they could witness and understand those things. But again, as we 3 dimensional beings know, that would just be trying to rationalize (incorrectly) something beyond their possible understanding. IF there is a 4th dimension, and if in light of eternity we are ever made aware of it, or higher dimensions, I would bet it would be something as seemingly simple as height, width, depth, and, let's say, "phlurbth" or some other -th, something that once we could see it in 4 dimensional space would make perfect sense, but in our current state as 3 dimensional beings we remain thoroughly unable to conceptualize.

Basically, my theory is that no theory anyone puts forth on this subject is likely to be actually true! :D I guess the above theory is subject to itself...uh-oh, I've created an infinite loop!

dbomoni said...

this just brings me back to Brian Regan when he said he watched the "String Theory" on PBS. "I started watching it at 8:00 and at 8:03, my brain exploded."