Last night I was at a bar and I found myself trying to explain what it would be like to experience reality in four dimensions, instead of only three. At the time I felt utterly sober and lucid, but in retrospect I believe I may have been a little bit drunk. Either way, I had them eating out of my hands and marveling at the wonders of the universe.

I didn't actually mention Tralfamadore, but my explanation was cribbed heavily from Kurt Vonnegut's classic descriptions of four-dimensional reality in various novels of his (but in particular Slaughterhouse 5). To paraphrase (thanks wikipedia):

Tralfamadorians have the ability to experience reality in four dimensions; meaning, roughly, that they have total access to past, present, and future; they are able to perceive any point in time at will. Because they believe that when a being dies, it continues to live in other times and places, their response to death is, "So it goes."

Of course, there was never the remotest possibility that I would be able to do as good a job of it as Carl Sagan:



It's important to recognise that while Vonnegut's (and indeed the common) fourth dimension is identified with time -- for example, in Einsteinian relativity physics -- the dimension described by Sagan is a fourth spatial dimension. So in effect, he and I (and indeed Vonnegut) are describing two different things. And have described. And will describe. (Sorry, that was gratuitious.)

If that wasn't enough, Cliff Pickover asks us to consider how it would be to encounter four-dimensional beings in our three-dimensional spacetime. I gave it a shot. I think that is was for exactly this exercise that the phrase "my mind boggles" was coined.

And, The Commonsense Nihilist (whose blog has been going bloody great guns in general lately) recently posted on how to create four-dimensional paintings.

Labels: aliens are in our midst, debauchery, dubious nonsense, heroes

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