Multidimensionality: A Matter of Perspective.

 

A 4 Dimensional 'Clifford Torus'

Welcome to the 4th dimension. Or at least, a map of how to get there, or, more accurately, since you are already there but just don’t know it yet, less a map, more a guided tour. So here I present my guided tour of the 4th dimension, a place you instinctively already know, and you will find much that is already familiar to you, except perhaps, you didn’t KNOW that this was the 4th dimension, nor did you even know how much reality there was in what you thought you already knew, if you know what I mean. Well, even if you don’t hopefully you will by the end of this briefing.

The universe we live in is a geometric reality. We know this because we can observe it for ourselves. We can use the facts of 3 dimensional geometry to build and shape the world around us and have been busy doing just this, with varying degrees of hubris and success, for thousands of years. From the construction of the ancient Pyramids; the great Gothic Cathedrals of the middle-ages to soaring steel and glass structures which are our new Holy Temples of the secular era. Our physical senses are sensors built within our 3 dimensional physical forms.

We are constructed from the sum of 1 dimensional, 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional forms. Our eyes are roughly 3 dimensional spheres, the skin covering our 3 dimensional body is roughly, at least to our observation, an approximate 2 dimensional film or surface which covers the body and the hairs which sprout from this are more or less, from our point of observation, roughly approximate to 1 dimensional lines. So the 3 dimensional universe we observe is a rough cumulation of the previous dimensions. 

Classic Tesseract or Hypercube. A 4 dimensional cube.

However a single human hair, from a certain perspective can be reasonably approximated to a one dimension line, but in reality we ought to know that it is in actuality a 3 dimensional tube with 1 dimensional length, 2 dimension width and 3d dimensional thickness. But because its higher dimensions are visible only with a microscope or with exceptional eyesight or perception, then it can be approximated to a 1 dimensional shape and this is something which the artist or painter is the master of. Indeed an artist is even able to represent a 3d dimensional object in only 2 dimensions as long as we observe the image on the scale the artist intended. 

Should we zoom in too closely and observe the painting too closely then the illusion of higher dimensionality breaks down and we clearly observe the 2 dimensional shapes which make up the apparent 3 dimensional image. Should we observe the painting even more closely then even the illusion of 2 dimensionality starts to break down, and we will observe the 1 dimensional brush strokes which have been accumulated to give the illusion of higher dimensionality.

And this metaphor of the artist’s canvas and the illusion of dimensionality is actually very useful to us in our exploration of what we consider to be the ‘real world’. From this analogy we can discover that the dimensionality of the world is not actually absolute but depends on our point of observation.

For instance if we observe any 3 dimensional object from a far enough distance it will lose its apparent higher dimensions. A tree, a building, or even a person, from a distance will lose its depth and appear to have only height and width; from further still a tree for instance may appear as only a 1 dimensional line, and this is how an artist will represent a tree or group of trees, in a painting. It is only when one draws closer and closer to the object that the higher dimensions reveal themselves.

First the line of the trunk thickens and we observe that it is a standing brown rectangle; closer still and the rounded cylindrical nature of the trunk is revealed. So if we get closer still, closer perhaps than our 3 dimensional sense organs will presently allow us, would we observe a higher dimensionality to the tree trunk? According to modern scientific theory the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Presently science is a little vague and confused about the nature of time and space but has a certain notion that higher dimensions are ‘folded’ into the quantum realm at a subatomic level.

This theory of ‘dimensional folding’ may seem like a contrived last ditch effort for science to balance its books and account for the various forces in the universe, in particular the rate of expansion of the universe which seems to literally fly in the face of the balance of forces presently observable, by cooking up some mysterious extra dimensions where they can hide all their miscalculations and scientific misapprehensions, and how convenient that science tells us these dimensions are so small as to be invisible which handily means they don’t really have to exist at all since no one will be able to check what sounds like a dubious claim. Like some kind of quantum-rug which all the accumulated bad science can handily be swept under, and science can carry on regardless pontificating and pretending to be the class ‘know-it-all’ claiming even to know the things it does not know, but this theory of dimensions being scale-dependent is really the core of the whole idea of dimension, space and reality.

Although we cannot observe these subatomic realms where science suspects these extra dimensions lay, with their hidden play of forces which balance the books of the energetic universe we observe, we can observe the higher end of the scale, the macro universe, which conveniently for us, mirrors the micro.

4 Dimensional Orthoplex hexadecahedron.

Just as the old mystical adage ‘as above so below’, namely that the micro-cosmos is reflected in the macro-cosmos, that the apparent forms and energetic interchanges which we can observe in the outer world of the greater universe, are all repeated at diminishing scales until 3d reality as we know it ceases at its ultimate point of origin at the subatomic Planck length. So as we observe distant galaxies as flat disks against a black background, we see only two dimensions and we would have no reason to suspect that the cotton wool smudge we observe has a depth of field. Not only that, the distant galaxies contain not only millions of stars but of course planets, animals, life of all kinds, bacteria, and also their own corresponding unaccountable plethora of subatomic particles from which all of the visible activity and energy in the galaxy is originating.

The 2d circle viewed from afar on closer inspection is revealed to be a 3d sphere. The bacterium or cell observed on the plate of a microscope appears to be flat, but of course, this too has 3 dimensions, so too do molecular patterns observed with electron microscopes, but we are too far away, too removed from its reality field to observe it properly. Despite the object under observation appearing to be right under our noses as we gaze at it, we are infinitely removed from its reality field. It exist on a whole other scale which we can never access.

In a sense we are as 'far away' from sub-atomic strings as we are from a distant galaxy, so if we were to get closer to the physical centre of the universe (the string) its multi-dimensional 'depths' would reveal themselves.

So the deeper into the ‘field’ you go, the more dimensions of reality ‘open up’ or unfold. Reality to my mind is rather like the electromagnetic field of light. With the Planck length being the most remote and smallest possible point in 3d, expanding outward, increasing in scale through quarks, electrons, protons, atomic elements , molecules, bacteria, living organisms, mammals, planets, stars, galaxies and.....the presently unknown out limits of the expanding universe. It is not a linear movement through dimensionality but an exponential growth through size and scale as reality either ‘unfolds’ outwards, or ‘folds’ inwards. 

4d Octaplex Icositetrachoron

First of all, on the intuitive level, if higher dimensions are accessed from only within the present geometry and not outside of it, then it makes sense that sub-atomic particles will open up new dimensions deep inside themselves. When these particles are destroyed then new 3d dimensional particles come into existence from within the inner 4d dimension which resolves into 3d particles, many of which exist for only short periods in 3d time-space.

At this point I feel I must temper all of this scientific styled discussion with a timely interruption of ‘spanner’ in the works, and start to get on-track for the destination where we are heading, for let us remember that ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you’. And that, in summary is my thesis. That the whole invisible mystery of God, of the spirit, of heaven and hell, exist ‘within’, in the SOURCE. The folded higher dimensions which science has told us we are ‘allowed’ to believe in and even encourages us to do so.

Though I suspect if Science had a strong suspicion that God could be found folded up within the minute but infinitely large higher dimensions hidden within the subatomic realm, then they would likely back-track and reconsider the promulgation of this theory. Indeed, this is why the media are trumpeting the hunt for the so called ‘God Particle’, never mind that the idea of a ‘particle’ rather misses the point and they ought to have learned from the double slit photon experiment that God would not be content to reveal himself solely as a particle since that would mean he was a limited 3 dimension phenomenon and we know that God would be the creator of the universe, not a product of it. So Just as the higher dimension is within us, it is also locked within every electro-magnetic particle in the universe: The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Indeed.

To be continued.....