Visualizing Higher Dimensions
Dimensional Theory
This was written by 15 year old Trevor Loflin
Are there any higher dimensions than our own? If so, what do they look
like? How
are objects in our dimension viewed in other dimensions? These are all
standard questions
to most philosophers, but until now, they had unsatisfactory answers or
none at all. The
first question that needs answering is how objects are viewed in other
dimensions.
To understand higher dimensions, we need to look at lower dimensions.
So, how
do you show a three dimensional object in two dimensional space? The
easiest way would
be to show it as moving. If a sphere, for example, is put through a
plane, it would be seen
in the plane as an expanding and then contracting circle. Therefore, the
way that higher
dimensions are shown in lower dimensions is with time, or movement. This
applies to our
own dimension as well. What is happening in time is simply the depiction
of a four
dimensional shape in three dimensional space. So, the first principle of
my dimensional
theory is:
1) Movement in any dimension is the representation of a shape in the
dimension
above it.
This means that there is a shape, or series of shapes, in the next
higher dimension,
that describes movement in our dimension. You may notice that this means
that everything
that happens in our dimension is predetermined. Fatalism is a
side-effect of this theory. For
you revolutionaries: this does not mean that people are controlled by
fate. It simply means
that what we are going to do is already predicted, or if you like, we
"told" the higher
dimension what we will be doing.
The second principle is derived from taking the first principle one
step further.
What happens to a lower dimension when there is movement in a higher
dimension? Let's
take a cylinder and pass it through a plane. This creates a two
dimensional representation
of three dimensional space, a circle that appears and disappears. This
is something that
we've already covered. But now, let's create movement in the third
dimension. We will
bend the cylinder in the middle. Now, when we pass it through a two
dimensional plane, it
is a circle that appears for a while, then elongates and moves sideways.
Now, how are the
planes before and after the bending of the cylinder related? This is my
second principle:
2) Movement in a higher dimension creates parallel lower dimensions.
This means that the planes in the above example are parallel
dimensions, both at
the same dimensional level, but with different characteristics. There
are an infinite amount
of parallel dimensions, because the cylinder was passed through the
plane an infinite
amount of times while being bent. There are also an infinite amount of
parallel dimensions
on the level above that, because there is movement on the level above
the higher level.
This shows my third principle:
3) Any principle in one dimension is in every dimension, because there
is an infinite
number of dimensions.
There are an infinite number of dimensions because there must be a
dimension
above every dimension to represent it in higher dimensional space.
Otherwise, it couldn't
exist. Therefore, there must be a dimension two dimensions above every
dimension, so
there is movement and parallel dimensions in all dimensions.
Incidentally, if you're
wondering what happens when you take the parallel dimensions another
step, it simply
partitions the parallel dimensions into groups, somewhat like a
descendant tree.
So, there are three principles in the dimensional theory: the principle
of movement,
the principle of parallel dimensions, and the principle of infinite
dimensional levels. There
are more, minor principles, but I will leave those for another time or
perhaps another
person.
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