by AnonYMous
I understand, but this seems completely unnatural to me. These accepting beings, perhaps they may feel this way, but couldn't a creature know what the future will be but still wish it was something else?
That would be equivalent to looking at your chess set, and wishing it was an ice cream cone, what would be the point?
Does there need to be one?
This is why I love being around humans, you have such strong feelings. You believe that you can change your fate, that you can mold the universe to your desires. You have an innate sense that your actions determine the form of the universe.
Well, our little corner. I suppose it does sound grandiose.
Not at all, it is ingrained within you; it is part of your very nature.
Is our nature just wrong?
No, and you make a very good point about the desire to change your future. It can happen that you know a future, and I mean really know, not imagine, yet still desire it to be something else. I share this nature. I also want to experience futures that I choose. I also would not sit idly by and experience a future I do not want to experience, and in fact, I don't.
Well you just contradicted yourself. You just said it was impossible to change the future, since it already exists, so how can you possibly experience something else?
--I was just beginning to think that perhaps he had regained his sanity and that this last objection would somehow bring him back to reality, when he suddenly got up, walked over to the window, and climbed out on to the ledge. I was too surprised to do anything but sit there for a moment. He then stood up and started walking down the ledge. I started to panic and ran over to the window to see what he was doing. He was standing in front of my neighbor's window, perhaps twenty feet down the right side of the ledge. He was looking down at the street. I was afraid he was measuring for a jump when he suddenly kicked over two of my neighbor's empty flowerpots. They landed on the street below, shattering. I yelled to him.
What are you doing?
Reserving a parking space.
--He walked back to my window and climbed back in while I stood there, speechless. He went right back to his chair and drank down the rest of the bottle of juice. When he finished he calmly resumed speaking.
I know you think my last action seemed odd. Unfortunately, due to your very limited perception of time, you do not understand the reasons I just did that. Since you have not seen the past events that caused this action, nor can you see the future events that this action will lead to, your mind will make up the most likely explanation for my action. That explanation would be that I am crazy. I assure you that this is not the case. Please relax, have a seat, perhaps you would like some tea?
-- I did not know what to do. In my mind, this person was capable of anything. The hold his story about time had had upon my attention was broken and my intention to challenge him in hopes of breaking him out of his delusion strengthened.
No thank you, I am fine, and in fact, since we are speaking about physics, I see another major hole in your argument. What you are really talking about is a deterministic universe where everything is already predetermined. You may not know this, but you are talking to someone who remembers everything they read. I know for a fact that the universe is not deterministic. After all, quantum theory shows that events are actually random, that particles can move in random ways that we can't predict. Since the future is unpredictable, I don't see how it can already be set, or how anyone can possibly know any future outcome.
You are right about quantum theory. It states that you can never know a particles location and momentum at the same time, thus you cannot predict with complete certainty where it will be in the future. However, simply because you cannot predict what will happen, does not mean it does not happen. The fact that, due to randomness, you cannot predict what the future will bring, doesn't mean that the future cannot exist. Think of randomness as a veil that hides other coordinates of time from your current one. Because of randomness, you do not know for certain what will happen at another coordinate in time using information from your current coordinate. Still, that does not mean that other coordinates do not exist. Lets say from your current coordinate in time, a photon is bounced off of a mirror and has a 50% chance of going left and a 50% chance of going right, and you have no way of knowing which way it will go. Once you do observe the next coordinate in time, it will indeed have gone left or right. Even if it is random in your universe, there is one definite version that comes from the randomness.
What you are saying is that if the future exists, the fact that it got there in a random way doesn't change anything.
In a universe that doesn't unfold in time, but is already a whole, the perceived randomness of the unfolding is a manifestation of your consciousness. For those beings that can see other coordinates in space-time, though the events that lead from point to point may seem random to you, and perhaps even to them, they still see the outcome.
So if randomness doesn't stop the future from already existing, then how can you alter the future? Can you somehow manipulate the randomness?
An interesting thought. If you could manipulate the quantum randomness of the present moment to your own advantage, that would be quite a power.
The ultimate power. You could make events unfold the way you want them to.
But alas, you cannot manipulate something that already exists. In your universe, time exists, it just appears to unfold to beings who experience only one physical coordinate of it at a time. Thinking only this point in time exists is similar to the notion that nothing in the universe exists except the one location in space that you are occupying right now. As if the entire universe is only as large as this little apartment, because that is all that you can see.
Yes, yes I understand that now, but again, if you can't manipulate randomness, how do you have any choice in what you experience?
Charlie Brown
I will try to explain it to you, but this will be a bit of a challenge. Though you instinctively touched on the key, which is the nature of the quantum randomness you mentioned earlier.
But you said it plays no part, since their ends up being one event that does occur, random or not.
Yes, but the inherent randomness of all things in the universe is a very interesting phenomenon, the implications of which most humans fail to understand. The reason goes back to your conception of dimensions. When you can only observe one coordinate of a dimension, not only does that dimension appear flat to you, you can also be unaware that it is a dimension at all. In the case of time, it was not thought of as an actual dimension until Einstein, with the use of mathematics, showed it to be part of space-time. This is what happens with the human perception of other dimensions of the universe as well.
I am pretty confused, you are implying there is another dimension in the universe that I cannot sense?
There are many dimensions in the universe that elude your senses.
It sounds interesting, but making up an extra dimension to explain yourself contradicts your own previous statements about teaching. There is no way for me to know if you are speaking the truth. After all, how can you make me perceive a dimension that I can't perceive?
You do perceive this dimension, but like time, you perceive it in a very limited way. Now that you have expanded your understanding of time, you are ready to understand this dimension. Just as with time, I can't physically make you see a dimension exactly the way I see it, but I can describe the dimension to you and explain how it relates to concepts you do at least partially understand, like randomness. Then you can begin to see it in your own unique way. First however, I need to get past a major mental block. I need you to understand more clearly how it is possible that you could fail to identify an entire dimension in the first place. Once you understand that, you will be able to actually comprehend many types of dimensions, and be open to adding at least one to your universe. I think you will enjoy this part.
--I was not really enjoying it. I was looking at my
quickly emptying crate of juice, and while the previous conversation about time would have been a wonderful thing some evening with a scientist friend over tea, having it forced upon me by a schizophrenic stranger was not so pleasant, and try as I might, I had not yet dissuaded him from his lecture. At this point, I felt he was a greater threat to himself than to me, so I don't know why I didn't force him out. Perhaps I didn't want to traumatize him further. Perhaps I was just curious. Though it also dawned on me that without power, there would be no chess games to review anyway. And with very little light, not much to do but talk. He continued.
I already explained to you the definition of dimensions as defining coordinates in the universe. Now we just need to explore how I can perceive a dimension that you cannot. I will now transform you into the extra dimensional, super powerful, alien being who is trying his best to communicate with a pleasant, but more simple-minded fellow.
--This last statement broke me out of my internal dialogue about chess and juice and I responded with some surprise,
What?
Don' worry, I won't actually do anything to you. We will just perform another not so scientific, but still instructive attempt at an Einstein-like thought experiment. Size is relative, so instead of trying to make you bigger than you are, let's just imagine you are attempting to communicate with someone smaller; a being who exists and perceives only three dimensions, one less than the four that you can perceive. You will need the time dimension to communicate with this being, so let's assume you both perceive time in the same way. Thus we will have to imagine that this simpler fellow can perceive one spatial dimension less than you can. This dimensionally handicapped being would live in a spatial world of not three but two dimensions. He would then be living, moving, existing, on a two-dimensional plane. A 2D plane is like the surface of a sheet of paper, it has two dimensions of space, North-South and East-West.
Yes, longitude and latitude, with no height. Like a cartoon.
Exactly. This being would be living in a flat cartoon world. So, imagine that you are reading the daily newspaper and you decide to have a conversation with one of the cartoons in the cartoon section, let's choose Charlie Brown. Now Charlie is very happy in his 2D world. He can move left and right as well as up and down. He sees things to his left and right, and also above and below him. Now in your conversation, you are trying to convince Charlie that his world is simpler than yours, that in fact there is an entire large spatial dimension, a third dimension of depth that he cannot sense. As you try to explain to him the extra dimension of your world, he would have many objections to this possibility. The first one would be that the universe feels totally natural and complete to him in his 2D version. He doesn't feel this so called third dimension, he cannot see it and he cannot move through it. It also seems completely unnecessary to him, as the world he inhabits is already infinitely large and infinitely complex. He could walk forever in any direction left or right, or climb up or down, and never get to the end of his massive world. What you say about a mysterious third dimension of in and out seems ridiculous to him. Charlie is stuck on his flat sheet of paper. What can you do to enlighten him? And you cannot, after getting really frustrated, just yank him out of his cartoon and into your three-dimensional space.
Without actually moving him into the third dimension, I think it is impossible for him to understand our world. After all, his senses, his beliefs, are anchored in a 2D flat world.
True, if he were not a logical, rational being, you would be stuck. But he is Charlie Brown, the epitome of the serious brooder. You could appeal to his sense of logic. You could tell him that there are some strange things happening in his world that he can't explain with his limited 2D conception of the universe. For instance, if Charlie runs towards his friend Lucy and Lucy runs toward him, when they get close enough, in a 2D universe, they should bounce off each other every time, since they cannot occupy the same space. Yet in Charlie's cartoon world, something strange can happen. When he and Lucy run toward each other, sometimes Charlie and Lucy collide, but other times, instead of colliding, for no apparent reason, either a part of him disappears or a part of her disappears.
Yes, a cartoonist could draw Charlie running past Lucy instead of into her. He could run in front of Lucy, thus blocking her from our view. In a cartoon, it is very common for one character to just get drawn over by another. We automatically assume that the one that disappears is behind the one that does not. This couldn’t happen in a true 2D universe.
Yes. But it does happen in cartoons because the cartoonist understands how the universe actually works. When Lucy disappears, we realize she is simply behind Charlie, she didn't literally disappear. But to Charlie, Lucy does in fact disappear. When you point out to him that it is strange that part of Lucy simply disappears when he is close to her, he would certainly have some theory to explain it. For instance, he might have a theory that as he approaches Lucy, if they do not collide, then randomly, part of him disappears, or part of her disappears. Since they both cannot exist in the same space at the same time, this must happen. It is just the way his world functions. One or the other must disappear and reappear afterward. To Charlie, since he does not know the intention of the cartoonist, there is no way to predict with certainty who will disappear. Sometimes it could be him sometimes it could be her. Though his universe generally works very consistently, there is a strange randomness to it in certain circumstances. You could say "No Charlie, there is no randomness. It is not that you appear or Lucy disappears. It is that when you come together with Lucy, you are actually occupying space in an extra dimension. She seems to disappear, but in reality she is just in another dimension of space, behind you."
I see what you are saying, even though he doesn't sense it, by explaining the reason he perceives random events, Charlie could logically understand the possibility of another dimension.
The many problems of overlap that can happen in cartoons are not confusing to us. In fact we don't even notice them. But they would be confounding to inhabitants of a cartoon world, due to the limited senses of their consciousness. Perhaps there could be certain scientific experiments or predictions you can make that will uncover the hidden dimension that Charlie cannot perceive with his senses. Though Charlie will probably not believe you at first, by explaining the nature of the randomness in his world, you will have made more sense of it.
Is this how you perceive me? As a sort of cartoon?
Yes. You seem like Charlie Brown to me. You are surrounded by a much more interesting and complex world than you currently perceive. Fortunately, like Charlie Brown, you have the ability to understand your limitations and expand your perceptions.
So you perceive extra spatial dimensions?
Well, I used that as an example because spatial dimensions are the easiest for you to visualize. In fact, because of that, extra spatial dimensions are a key part of many of your modern scientific theories like string theory. Existing in extra spatial dimensions is a nice ability. As a four spatial dimensional being, to humans who can only perceive three dimensions, you would seem to have super-powers. You would appear to have the ability to disappear and to teleport to various locations instantly.
I understand the disappearing part, since all you would need to do is just move in the fourth dimension we cannot perceive and you will disappear from view.
Yes, like Lucy does when she goes behind Charlie. The cartoonist can have her occupy the same 2D coordinates as Charlie but once he moves her slightly in the third dimension, she will disappear. If you were able to create a 2D avatar of yourself and put it in Charlie's world, all you would need to do to have your avatar disappear is to move it slightly within the in and out dimension Charlie cannot see. Your avatar will be hovering just above him, invisible.
That I understand, but how can you teleport, it seems to me you still have to move through space to go anywhere in a 2D world.
Imagine that Lucy and Charlie are on opposite sides of a comic strip that runs from the far
left end of your newspaper all the way to the far right end. For the ever lusty Lucy to reach Charlie, she will need to run all the way across the entire newspaper. But we three dimensional beings can make her trip a lot shorter. All we need to do is close the newspaper. Once the newspaper is folded, Lucy will actually be laying right on top of Charlie. To us she will be hovering just above him. Charlie won't be too worried however, since he will not see her. And Lucy will not even notice that anything has changed, though she will be millimeters away. In her attempt to reach Charlie, she will actually, from our point of view, start running away from him until she reaches the center of the closed newspaper and only then will she start running towards him. If Lucy had the ability to see and move through the third dimension, once we folded the newspaper, she could step through that millimeter of space and appear right next to Charlie. Because they are limited in their dimensional perception, neither Lucy or Charlie would have any way of knowing if their cartoon world was long and flat, or folded once, or even rolled up over and over in the third dimension. If it were rolled up tight, and they had the ability to move and perceive the third dimension, they could actually have access to many different points in their two dimensional world.
He Does Not Play Dice
So is this your power then? You can disappear and teleport?
Disappearing and teleporting aren't bad powers per se. But they are nothing compared to what I can do. I see a much more interesting dimension than purely an extra spatial one. And now that you have gotten this limiting idea of not being able to conceive of extra dimensions out of your head, I will explain how you can understand this dimension, at least logically and then perhaps intuitively. Do you want to make some tea yet?
--It looked like I was in this for the long haul, so I decided to follow his suggestion. Luckily I have a gas stove so making tea was not a problem. He waited as I poured the water into the kettle and lit the burner with a match. I noticed the light in the room grow brighter as I fumbled around for the tea and sugar. He continued talking as I waited for the water to boil.