5th Dimension

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by DJA, Jun 17, 2007.

  1. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    As this is my first time posting on this forum, I'm not sure if this is exactly the correct place to put this but here goes......
    When I googled some explainations of the fifth dimension I found that the mathmatical abstractions sere a bit hard to understand. Some say that the fifth dimension is an all encompassing dimension that exsists in a way to surround the prvious four. Another said that the fifth and other dimensions were existed at a quantum level.
    It was when a friend of mine wrote to me and said something that harkened back to the days when I took metaphysics and the good father/professor was trying to explain how the creator exists outside of any dimention in order to be the cause of existence. I responded to this in this way............
    For purposes of understanding the creator only-not to have any true visualization of the creator-but in order to understand the relationship of him/her to creation imagine a point being the creator.
    So I can think in my own head's terms, let me refer to "The Creator" as God and refer to "The Creator" as him or he in the masculine. And please pardon this as it was how I was taught when gowing up.
    Anyway picture God as a center point. Now God is said to be present to all parts of creation as they are present. So God exists apart from any thing or dimension at any point in time. So now draw a cirle around this point of "God" and you see how God is present to all time.
    However, being the creator the circle can also represent all of creation or as science names it,the cosmos.
    Dimensions are measurements of things. If a dimension exists apart from being, it cannot be a dimension, As a dimension must exist. If it exists, it must be a measurable part of being.
    Now so far this is philosophy or metaphysics. But it occured to me that if dimensions exist as part of being or beings then they must be measured as part of being or beings.
    Now everyone has heard of the firs three as lenght, width and depth(or heigth. Then a lot of us were introduced to that fourth dimension through H.G. Wells and "The Time Machine". The fourth dimension-an object has duration as a dimension.
    So I started thinking about the fifth-how, if looking at the first four, could a being have a fifth dimension?
    Well, above all, if a being or object were to have a fifth dimension, it would have to be measurable. Then it hit me.
    THE FIFTH DIMENTION IS INDETERMINATION.
    Every being, or object, is never the same from moment to moment. Now, as most of you know, moments can be divided infinitely. But even if there is a furthur and furthur division, no object is exacly like it is from the previous moment. If an object travels through time, as in "The Time Machine" it travels as it is from the instant it moves. But even as it travels it contimues to carry with it the qualities of the other four dimensions. This can be true to a quantium level.
    Now how about the "measurement" part. This is very interesting as the fifth dimention is measurable provided we could secure the measurement of an oblects changes "FROM MOMENT TO MOMENT". So only the only way to see this change is to have a device to measure the change in the object from moment to moment. This indeed may be theorectically possible, but impossible to actually do as we would have to measure change at a quantum level.
    Dimentions cannot exists as some ether type "environment" apart from being. Dimensions are part of being itself.
    Force in itself does not contain all dimensions as there only two dimentions to force. Whereas force may travel through time and can be measured as indeterminate, it does not contain that which is required of other objects which contain all dimensions.
    The theory that multiple dimensions may exist does not seem logical to me as there is no thought given to measurement. Even energy, which contains but two dimensions follows the necessary quality of measurement.
    As usual, I'm leaving myself wide open to feel foolish. So if you want to correct these statements-feel free.
     
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  3. andbna Registered Senior Member

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    Well, Welcome to Sciforums

    First, watch out, mixing metaphysics and quantum physics leads to angry people in this forum, so if you get a few hot-headed replies, don't take it personaly.

    Now, as far as I know in the theory of quantuim mechanics there are 3 spatial dimensions and there is 1 time dimension. They can be merged into 4-dimensional space-time and calculations can be done (I think Einstien is to thank for most of that.) Is that what you refer too when you mentioned Wells novel?

    As to wheather our universe has a fith dimension.. I dont know what you mean by "Indetermination" but if you look at string theory we can have up to something like 14 dimensions...

    Ultimatly a dimenson is a methematical concept however, and is simply a way of representing our universe, and allowing us to comprehend it. It can be proven no more than you or I can prove we exist, however they do have a very strong place in physics, and they are a bulding block of any mathmatical system. Since it's completely unlikely physics will ever discard math, get used to them.

    And what to you mean by ?
    I'm not sure what the post was about exactly, sorry.

    But w/e.

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    -Andrew
     
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  5. Vern Registered Senior Member

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    Probably the 10 + 1 of string theory which is strangely acceptable to otherwise normal folks

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  7. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    Vern,
    What is the 10+1 theory? I hope it can be explained so I can undertand it. And thanks for reading my post. DJA
     
  8. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    46
    Anrew, I mean that a dimension can only exist if it can be measured in some way. As for indetermination...Think of a vase sitting on a piano. Is the vase the same five monutes after it has set there? Apparently so-but no, if you get down to what has imacted the surface of the vase on a, say, microscopic level, some dust particle will have most likely impacted it and changed the surface in some way. Now if you contiue to get smaller and continue to divide the length of time the vase sits there the vase will continually present as something slightly different.
    Our CONCEPT that it is still a vase will not change, but the actual vase is constanly changing from one moment to another. It does so from the infinitely tiniest moment to the next so that it is never the same. And the only way we can measure it is to take it in one moment. Say if you could take a picture in three dimentions that would lock the vase in a specific moment. But the vase But it can never be determined what qulities the vase has as a constant. We can measure the vase theoritically if we had a device to lock a moment where measurement IS possible, but we can only measure it in that moment. The dimention of something is indeterminate as it contantly changes from moment to moment.
    A better example might be water liquid-say a wave or water sloshing around in a glass. At any given moment it takes a different shape, but we can capture it in a photograph. But everything we know of is like that-constantly changing in some way from moment to moment. DJA
     
  9. original sine Registered Senior Member

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    924
    It sounds like you're describing time, the "fourth dimension".
     
  10. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    46
    Andbna,
    Sorry for the typographical errors, thinking and typing at the sme time to me is sometimes like. you know rubbing your stomach and head. Well, the fact that something is Not the same from moment to moment gives it a dimension of being indeterminate, even though it retains the other three dimentions. Everything we know, including energy has this dimention to it. As it travels through the dimention of time it(being anything we know exists that is not imaterial ..say a "thought") constatnly changes. This is a dimention that all things have-indetermination. We cant conceptualize something to identify it, but in itself it never is the same. DJA
     
  11. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    46
    That is we can(not cant) conceptualize something to identify it......and something that constanly changes retains the other four(not three)dimensions(not dimentions (spelling)).
    I don't have spell check to use......sorry,DJA,
     
  12. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    46
    Original,
    Yes, I know-I've thought that might be a point of confusion. But no...energy from a supernova moves through time to get to earth, but in that time, it changes as it moves. Remember the time machine. The man moves through time seemingly staying the same age. But for him, time inside the machine still moves-but he changes just as the world he moves through is changing on the outside. Time is a dimension that indetermination exists within actually.
    If you go back to my original post-you will see that the only thing that does not change is God, who is present to all of time. Yet the things within that time are never determinate-never the same, They all have a dimention of change or being indeterminate.
     
  13. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

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    11,888
    It depends on what you want to measure and how finely you want measure it.
    Does the vase+dust stop being a vase?
    Or do you now want to claim that vase+dust = new "thing" (nearly vase?).
    Or if you're talking about the vase being eroded by the impact of dust and age then at what point does a vase become "not a vase"? When it's no longer useful for putting flowers in or when it becomes too ugly to worth keeping and goes in the bin? Or some other criterion?

    No it won't because "vase" is defined". The vase is still a vase while it's in use. You're talking metaphysics not ohysics.

    If you can show "indetermination" to be anything it won't be THE 5th dimension, it'll be just one more among many.
    Really? It depends, again, on how closely you want to measure the changes.

    No they can't, there is a shortest length of time, below which it becomes meaningless.

    How closely do you wish to measure? Vase+dust is measurable enough with a fine enough scale.

    No, the units of force are newtons: mass, length and time^2: - 3 dimensions.

    Force may "travel" through time?

    Look up the definition of dimension sometime. There are as many dimensions as one wishes to use, depending upon what one is measuring.

    The SI unit of energy is the Joule, 1 newton per metre or m^2.kg.s^-2: - 3 dimensions.
     
  14. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    How does it change? It's still energy.

    Remember that Wells's Time Machine is fiction.

    "Actually"? You've yet to show that indetermination is something that things can exist in.

    Prove that god exists before claiming any actual properties for him.
     
  15. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    46
    Oli,
    The vase is still a vase as a cracked baseball bat is still a baseball bat as a worn tire is still a tire. The fact that the demension of indetermination exists does not mean that the concept of an object changes, only the object itself is not the same moment to moment. You can divide time as infinitely as it can be divided and still the thing will not be the same moment to moment.
    Take the wave on a beach for instance. You can photograph the wave as many times as a high speed film can work but at each moment, the wave changes, yet it remains a wave.
    Instead of a supernova lets take a beam of light. Is the beam of light seen more clearly from ten feet or from 1000 feet? It's obvious that the beam of light gets dimmer as one moves away from the source of the light. Heat energy from the sun diminishes as it approaches earth or we would be toast.
    Yet the beam of light remains a beam of light and heat from the sun remains heat from the sun but diminished because of change. The intensity, or amount, of energy that hits the earth is constantly changing if only minutely or more dramatically. Yet it remains heat.
    You see, I'm not talking about a concept we have of things changing, only the things themselves. Change is a dimension that everything has. That is why everything is indeterminate. We can only capture what something is in an instant if in that instant all that it is can be measured.
    I maybe mispoke myself when I said energy from the Supernova traveling "through" time. I was merely trying to use through time as a way of saying that the energy from the supernova diminishes the farthur away it gets from its source as the flashlight beam does as you get farthur and farthur away from it.
    Insofar as "proving" that God exists, I think we both know that we cannot prove it. But the EXAMPLE I was using was trying to show that unless something can be measured it seems impossible to speculate scientifically that it exists. However, as I am describing a fifth dimension, the existance can be measured as a thing can be measured in a moment, given that there is something to measure the change. And since we can at least see some of that change-say in the broken bat, the ocean wave and the beam of light, I think we can say that indetermination is a fifth dimention of all things.
    On another note, and perhaps this should be in a different post, it does disturb me than scientists seem to be searching for a proof or not of God. I think many scientists and science of our past thought of science as a discovery process. I prefer to think of science as a way to discover things that God has made or has given us the ingenuity to invent or do. It seems easier to count our blessings and be thankful for our achievements than to try and reach something that is not in the possibility of our existance.
    Today some in this world are able to control so much that it becomes harder and harder to make a leap of faith. The only thing that becomes greater is death-and great amounts of money are being spent to put that off as long as possible.
    No, I cannot prove that God exists (although insofar as I know C.S.Lewis seems to come the closest in my book) but if you can conceptualize a being existing apart from time that is the cause of things, you can appreciate what God might be. And as for other dimensions...I don't understand how there can be 14 dimentions as I don't know a system of measuring them as we have with the four-now five-that are here. Maybe those to whould have to be put in a category of belief, albeit certainly not the same belief as one would have with God. DJA
     
  16. original sine Registered Senior Member

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    924
    I still don't see any solid description of the "fifth dimension". Your hypothesis of the fifth dimension's existence seems to be based on the changing state of an object over time. Using your examples, the sun produces heat and light that will eventually reach Earth. They may start out as a measurement of X degrees or Y lumens, but over time and distance the temperature and intensity of the heat and light will decrease. At any given time it is possible to determine the measurement of heat and light at it's location.

    As an alternate example, think of a cookie.

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    A cookie is being removed from the oven, but it falls to the floor and breaks in half before it could be eaten. In this situation, it is possible to measure the various properties of the cookie at any given time.

    To talk about change as a dimension is the same as time. A "linear" measurement of some object's physical properties as it "changes" over "time". Yet without change there is no measurement of time, and without time there is no measurement of change. Perhaps I should elaborate, but I must shut down for now. Please respond with your thoughts.
     
  17. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    Why not? And can you prove it? So far this seems to be a conception of your own, with no foundation.
    This might seem obvious, but a vase is not wave.
    Because radiation (light and heat) follows the inverse square law. The heat doesn't change, just the amount in any given area as distance increases. It's still heat.
    A rather nebulous concept, and yet to be proven, or even demonstrated. The vase illustration doesn't hold up, nor do the heat and light. The wave changes due to motion.
    So it's distance that changes things?
    Then why introduce god, if it's irrelevant to the argument? You still haven't said how we can measure this "indeterminacy" or what purpose the concept will serve.
    Scientists are searching for proof or disproof of god? Which ones? Science is a discovery process - god doesn't come into it.
    What's making it harder to make a leap of faith? And why would you wnat one? Science does not operate by faith.
    Why would I want to conceptualise a being outside of space and time? 14 dimensions? Last I heard it was 11. And the fifth is not your "indeterminacy". I have no belief in god, as LaPlace said: "nous n'avons besoin de cette hypothese-la".
     
  18. andbna Registered Senior Member

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    DJA: Well, you would have to delve into string theory to understand them (I havnt...) and,
    Oli: that was me who mentioned the 14 dimensions, I dont know much about string theory and don't keep up to date with it so it was an unresearched guess

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    DJA:
    Change is the measurement of at least 2 points in a dimension.
    The more you describe, the more I see the description as time, perhaps you'r thinking of it differently?

    You can pick a singe ploint in time in describe it, and as in the Time Machine time is not actualy a universal constant according to the theory of Relativity. (and actualy, for him traveling forward in time, it would be possible if he could get moving close to the speed of light thanks to time dialation

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    )

    This is exactly what time does. Change is simply the measurement of one dimension with respect to another. In a purly mathematic manner if i have
    function y=f(x) then i can measure the change of y with respect to x at any two or more point of x. And better if i take the derivative: y=f'(x) I can measure the amount y is changing at any single point of x! This would be like taking a singly point in time, I could then have based on f(x) the variable of whatever the function represents, and I could see how its changing at that 1 point with f'(x)
    In a physical example, If I have a particly moving, based on physics I can find its position at any point in time, find its velocity at any point in time, and I can see how much change in velocity is happening to it (acceleration) I could even find the amount the acceleration is changing... So really, using all 4-Dimensions of measurment we have currently, I can find all the change that is happening to an object.

    So, I dont understand how this 5th dimension fits into things or what it is doing exactly...

    As for your mention of god:
    remember: we absolutly know nothing.
    Science uses perception to come to an understanding of reality; it is possibly the most objective way of knowing, science doesnt search for god, it doesnt not search for god, it attempts to understand our universe. The only leap of faith in science is trusting that your senses dont lie (and I mean that more like the senses of someone in the Matrix would 'lie' to them, not as a drunk or stoned persons senses lie.) the rest falls into place through observation.

    -Andrew
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2007
  19. Klippymitch Thinker Registered Senior Member

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    699
    Let's say time is the rate of expansion of space relative to the perspective of the mass of the one observing.

    So if we were able to shrink ourself's way down even passed quirks, way way down and even further way way down. I bet we would see another universe. If we landed on a planet of the universe. That is of course if life is still supportable in such a universe that has lived for such a long length of time. All the stars in this universe would of probably burnt out a very very long time ago.. Or we can see it from another perspective and say that unverse is continuing growing and still producing what we would call atoms. Which would form molecules and later form stars and more planets. So the center of this bottom universe might of ran out of fuel along time ago but it's outer edge is still fresh. Now lets say we land on a planet. We could stay on the planet and live for 10 years. And then return to our original universe. But to our universe it seemed like time didnt pass at all. Well time did pass but it was just a very minimal amount of time.

    Okay I dont know if there are bottom universe's or not but the rate of time that has passed would still be true.
     
  20. DJA Registered Senior Member

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    I'm sorry,
    I turned the site off and watched a movie with my wife last night and only caught up with your thoughts today.
    Original, I think that the cookie idea was great. Oh, and I truly am greatgful for all of you discussing this with me. It's great to be on a site where ideas exchange like this.
    I do realize that at any one point in time, an object can be measured in it;s three dimensions. But then at the same point we can say sith infinite accuracy, exactly what time it is, just as we can measure the length width and heigth of the object. Still, stime itself remains a dimention even though we are looking at it at one point it to "measure" the cookie.
    But the cookie changes along the the flow of time. It is only determinate when we stop or measure the other therr dimensions(highth with and depth) at some point. The fifth dimention or the "Indeterminate" is only measured at the point when we stop or pinpoint a moment. The cookie will continue to change as time flows.
    Oli, I appreciate the enthusiasm and close examination of my statements. I hope to respond in much the same way as I have to Original. When I used the vase and the wave, I tried to show how something is indeterminate as it flows through time. The wave, I felt, was a better EXAMPLE than the vase of indeterminancy as it truly does flow and chage as it does so. But my point is that everything else has this dimention no matter what state of matter (for lack of a better term) that one is in.
    The heat from the sun changes in intensity it seems as it moves away from the sun. Energy of most kinds lessons as it is spent.
    I think that Entropy must enter here. Entropy is not a term that I understand completely, but I believe it the main idea is that energy will be spent and fall toward inactivity. Will other dimensions fall too? Will the dimensions of existence cease to exist when entropy spends the last drop of energy in the cosmos? That is a question to ponder.
    But for now in this existence change is part of existence and indetermination seems to be the dimension of change. Everything is subject to change one moment to the next as time must pass as an arrow(apologies to the book"The Arrow of Time").
    As for Science not considering God in it's workings......You know,there are a lot of scientists who DO use the scientific method to examine things. But God as you and I know cannot be proven scientifically or even logically. Belief in it's definition excludes both these concepts. Yet still Scientists remain believing in God.
    So if you BELIEVE in God, what is science to you? Well the answer is obvious. I "know" God exists through my faith, and through my faith alone. To believe in God is not the logic of science. To believe in God on e must LEAP from science to a faith that God does exist. I believe that my DAD, who has been dead for many years now, is in heaven. I only "know" this because I believe it and I have faith that God will help me be with him one day.
    Science becomes an investigation of God's creation. But remember, God loves us as my DAD loved me. It is only I who do things to make him proud or hurt if I do things that hurt him as they do my deceased father.
    So a scientist can merely believe in his work and ignore this God, or work to find out the many things that God has put in this existence for us to come to know "scientifically".
    Have you ever been in a sick bed for a long time to then recover and again go outside to see the beauty around us. Beauty made by nature and beauty made by womankind or mankind, if you prefer. To see all this is one thing that inspires my "leap" from only the empiracal to belief in God.
    I do have a question that could challenge my position. What about elements? How would you say it does or not? Do you think so?
    Is there any defense to this posit that lelements like Gold do not change?
    Klippymitch, you may approach this answer with what you have stated? Do you think so? At that level of existence-do elemtnts experience change?
    DJA
     
  21. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,888
    So how does your "indeterminacy" differ from time?

    The wave is constant, its motion through the water (i.e. position) varies with time, and the energy of the wave itself reduces with time.

    So how does this relate to indeterminacy? It follows a strict mathematical equation, there's no indeterminacy about it.

    No is the short answer. Entropy is about energy distribution. It doesn't affect length, height, colour or anything else.

    So your indeterminacy IS time?

    Some scientists abandon scientific thought in their personal lives... it happens.

    So what is science to you?

    Perspectives differ. Science investigates what is, not "god's creation".

    Unprovable, undemonstrable and therefore irrelevant.

    A good scientist doesn't ignore god, since there is no evidence for the existence of god: something that doesn't exist cannot, by definition, be ignored.

    I appreciate the beauty around us - my evolution was in this world: I'm suited to it and it to me. But it's not god.

    Gold would change the same way as the vase would, surely? UIt gathers dust, gets worn dfown by the action of weather, etc.

    Klippymitch's picture of atoms etc comes from old-style SF stories. The smaller you get the defined anything is, so planets, solar systems etc are a no-no at that scale.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2007
  22. DJA Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    46
    Hello again,
    I would like to correct, or maybe more precisely say something about my statements concerning elements "experiencing" change. Quite obviously elements hae no sense of "experience". I should have said "does my postulation work with elements which at one time were said to be the smallest bit of matter to be made using only one substance"?
    I think that all matter will eventualy be drawn into black holes until entropy exhausts the energy that is required of this. So that being as it may, then even the gold in the center of the earth or on ,say a mineral composition of a meterorite, must experience some change at the quantum level. But here is where the argument is the weakest I think. What say you all?
    DJA
     
  23. DJA Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    46
    Oli,
    Indeterminent means that a thing changes constanly. It cannot stay the same because of this dimension. Change is not only inevitable it is a dimension that could be measured by the differences in the thing that changes from one moment to the next.......
    Oli, do you think that there is a morality? Does it come from culture? Did it evolve from nature?
    I realize that this get's into philospophy, but let's try and let the lines cross for a moment. How would a scientist explain......sponteniety?
     

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