Is it pointless attempting to conceive the notion of higher dimensions?

[Knotted]

Not quite sure what you mean by the above.

You seem to need a specific notion of cause and effect for your arguments to have any force. I don't understand your specific notion of cause and effect so I'm finding it difficult to even assess your argument.

You can't measure any strength of a cause that produces the entanglement effect but you can say that a cause acts so as to conserve the entanglement.

As far as I can tell this is just assertion. What's wrong with the view that entanglement just is and does not need conserving?

 

[merlin wood]

You seem to need a specific notion of cause and effect for your arguments to have any force. I don't understand your specific notion of cause and effect so I'm finding it difficult to even assess your argumen


As far as I can tell this is just assertion. What's wrong with the view that entanglement just is and does not need conserving?

Wel it's an assertion because I'm afraid I continually have to summarise an argument that really can't be summarised on any message board. Whereas please see my blog for more details (that is, my homepage by clicking on my name above.)

But essentially the idea is that the only causes that orthodox physics recognizes are those that can be called forces that either push or pull objects and four of these can be described as surrounding objects. While no details can be described of these causes to make sense of how matter from hydrogen atoms to human beings is the way that it is because it needs be explained how matter can be or remain in any form while the forces act as they have been described. Although all the evidence indicates that the known forces are the only causes that act universally in three dimensional space.

Then the reason I can't summarise my argument adequately here is because the only way to sufficiently justify the existence and enough details of a further cause that can be considered to act universally is to justify and construct an appropriate causal hypothesis from the quantum evidence, and then relate this to a wide range of observable natural evidence of where the cause can also be considered to act.

And even then this theory needs to be further supported by measurement and calcuation from the astronomical evidence

 

[merlin wood]

...And I say that if you agree that the hypothesis in my homepage at least could be valid then you are in the avant guard of the Real World Revolution to come.

 

[maya]

*Bump!* ... I was pondering about the fourth dimension last night, and think this thread deserves to be resurrected for those of us who missed it the first time...

 

[merlin wood]

*Bump!* ... I was pondering about the fourth dimension last night, and think this thread deserves to be resurrected for those of us who missed it the first time...

That's the fourth dimension of space I suppose you mean, and not time as in Einstein's relativity theory or one of the curled up small scale variety of spatial dimensions as in the stringy thingies theory.

 

[merlin wood]

*Bump!* ... I was pondering about the fourth dimension last night, and think this thread deserves to be resurrected for those of us who missed it the first time...

Rather than thinking about "higher" dimensions of space, suppose that there could be extra dimensions of space that are always behind you.

So you can say you have a body in three dimensional space with a 3D brain, but can still ask: where in your 3D brain is your experience of the world? and with what and from where are you experiencing the world in 3D space?

 

[max_freakout]

psychedelic drugs can certainly enable you to experience higher dimensions

 

[merlin wood]

psychedelic drugs can certainly enable you to experience higher dimensions

or, perhaps, experience from extra dimensions.

 

[jonH]

experience is a 3D concept

once you're experienced you just know

 

[max_freakout]

or, perhaps, experience from extra dimensions.

Ah yes good point, they 'lift' your mind

 

[merlin wood]

experience is a 3D concept

once you're experienced you just know

How do you know?

 

[jonH]

mum says

 

[merlin wood]

mum says

So mum's the word.

 

[maya]

Okay... Go easy on me, I'm an utter fool and a knave in these matters... But, just some thoughts which aren't groundbreaking in any way but nevertheless interested me:

Since our experience of the world is shaped by our sense apparatus and how the brain processes and organise the information we receive, the world in itself could be very different from how we perceive it... So even though our world seems spatial/in 3D, isn't that just a fabrication by our common neurological layout, so to speak?

Also I'm intrigued by the fact that a lot of "lower" organisms are able to function without a brain at all- Jellyfish, mussles for instance... *
*Would a being like that be just like a robot, acting mechanically on pre-programmed patterns without any awareness at all, or could there be "other" types of organisational mechanisms which wouldn't need a physical centre at all but would still be able to act like a brain, in the form of swarming neurons for instance? something so different it couldn't be easily recognised?

And... While we might not be able to understand or imagine radically different ways of perception-
What about pheromones? Isn't that a form of communication? (Couples matching each other fall in love easily, both body and mind is involved in signalling interest)

Err, I'm not sure how these thoughts fit in with the debate on dimensions - if at all- but I guess I started off thinking about the slightly silly new age idea of "shared reality", wordless communication over short distances and thinking that in the instance of pheromones, that is actually real and no hocus pocus at all... It happens, even though it's a super prosaic everyday thing and of course a far way off from singing whales and hippies with crystals etc...

</ confused off-topic rant >

 

[EastEnder]

Since our experience of the world is shaped by our sense apparatus and how the brain processes and organise the information we receive, the world in itself could be very different from how we perceive it...

The world exists, and we perceive it a particular way. Some other form of exotic intelligent life may well perceive it differently. But then those are only perceptions of a "thing" - by their very nature, specific to the being doing the perceiving. So I wouldn't say the world was "different from how we perceive it", more that the world is what it is, and we perceive it in one particular way. In a sense, the world is exactly how we perceive it because that's how we perceive it. Aliens might perceive it quite differently. Which perception is "best" or most "correct" is entirely subjective. Think of it as looking at an egg illuminated only by yellow light, or only by red light - is the egg yellow or red? Depends on whether you see in yellow or red....

 

[merlin wood]

Since our experience of the world is shaped by our sense apparatus and how the brain processes and organise the information we receive, the world in itself could be very different from how we perceive it... So even though our world seems spatial/in 3D, isn't that just a fabrication by our common neurological layout, so to speak?

I've found physicists saying things like: if there were large scale extra dimensions of space then we'd be able see them. Such an idea being a justification for string theory where it is supposed that that there are extra spatial dimensions, but these are only on a scale that are far too small to be observed.

But then you can point out that, for a start, the spatial dimensions of the obervable world are not things that you can observe but just relations in space of height, breadth and depth that you can describe of the world. It's bit like saying if gravity existed then you could see it.

Perhaps you could be aware of extra spatial dimensions if these contained large material objects. But then suppose these (large scale) fourth, fifth etc dimensions only contained a cause that, like gravity, is invisible and so could only be described from its effects upon matter and energy? And then, of course, gravity itself was only shown to exist for the first time in the 17th century.

 

[User 301X/5.1]

You can't see the hidden dimensions but I reckon you can "hear" them.

Music is the result of vibrations "bouncing around" in the special geometry of the hidden spacial dimensions.

The timing/rythym/melody in a tune is a result of the dimension of time being knitted into the hidden spacial dimensions.

Music is often beautiful & wonderfull - this is because space-time is also beautiful & wonderfull.

 

[merlin wood]

You can't see the hidden dimensions but I reckon you can "hear" them.

Music is the result of vibrations "bouncing around" in the special geometry of the hidden spacial dimensions.

The timing/rythym/melody in a tune is a result of the dimension of time being knitted into the hidden spacial dimensions.

Music is often beautiful & wonderfull - this is because space-time is also beautiful & wonderfull.

Although I'd say the appreciation of music and other arts is itself a product of pure consciousness which is itself extra-dimensional (and also beautiful & wonderful) but then this is really quibbling with words.

 

[User 301X/5.1]

Although I'd say the appreciation of music and other arts is itself a product of pure consciousness which is itself extra-dimensional (and also beautiful & wonderful) but then this is really quibbling with words.

I don't think it is quibling with words really. OK.....I agree it's speculation as the extra dimensions are not scientifically proven so far.

But I think the extra dimensions will fully account for musical melody and how conscious beings appreciate the progression of time. I know you could call this quibling with words but it's my projection of where sceintific proof will go. Which actually doesn't count for shit but hey>??

 

[Blagsta]

nutcase alert

 

[merlin wood]

nutcase alert

pinbrain alert. Ask where in this brain is your experience of the world when all you can see are brain cells and all you can detect is (perhaps somewhat limited) brain activity? So why shouldn't the mind that experiences be outside the three dimensions of space of the world we can experience of brains or anything else?

But I think the extra dimensions will fully account for musical melody and how conscious beings appreciate the progression of time. I know you could call this quibling with words but it's my projection of where sceintific proof will go. Which actually doesn't count for shit but hey>??

I'm not saying that your interpretation of music as extradimensional is qubbling with worlds I'm saying that the choice between the mind listening to music and the music itself being extradimensional is, in a way, quibbling with words. So there is no such thing as music without the mind listening to it.

 

[Pol]

three letters:

DMT

 

[merlin wood]

three letters:

DMT

three more letters:

NCM

 

[Blagsta]

 

[merlin wood]

 

[Blagsta]

mmmmmmmmm, multi-dimensional cake, mmmmmmmmmm

 

[merlin wood]

mmm but only three dimensional fruitcake, I'm afraid.

 

[Blagsta]

don't be so narrow minded maaaaaaaaaaan, that cake extends my brain to the fifth dimension

 

[Pol]

three more letters:

NCM

whaa ??

the Neural Control of Movement society ?

the National Corvette Museum ?

the New American Media ? ? ?

 

[merlin wood]

don't be so narrow minded maaaaaaaaaaan, that cake extends my brain to the fifth dimension

But then you can say that the cake exists as a three dimensional cake object without any one looking at it. So you can leave it in cupboard for a few months and then look at it again and find it's gone mouldy.

Whereas music only exists as music when it's listened to, otherwise it's just wave movements in the air.