If you mean "dimensions" in the sense commonly used by mathematicians and physicists, these are a human concept, invented to simplify mathematical descriptions of the physical world.
- Dex, Karen and presumably Cecil of The Straight Dope (www.straightdope.com).
That is way better than the four times and ten ways I tried to put it!
"All of space has three dimensions; time does not exist. / As we approach the speed of light, the clock remembers this"
Now that quote is by no means The Straight Dope. And is Cecil really an intellectually self-deprecating heterosexual or what? "The Straight Dope?" What's he trying to tell us there.
But in any case, for the record: and purely for conceptual purposes, the best humans at it calculate reality along twelve dimensions. Nine of space, and two of time. Four extended and perceptible at our scale of observation, all the rest curled up tinier than our highest-resolution devices can measure or perceive, metaphorically at least you might say they were curled up so tight they were approximately the size of quanta. But put 'em all together, three of space and one of time all unfurled, plus seven more of space and one more of time all curled, they could go like so:
1. height
2. width
3. depth
4. time
5. space (curled up)
6. space (curled up)
7. space (curled up)
8. time (curled up)
9. space (curled up)
10. space (curled up)
11. space (curled up)
12. magic (no I'm kidding, it's more space curled up)
As you can see, humanity has never bothered to name the curled-up ones, because they aren't perceptible to us. There's no social or cultural reason to name them. At no point are you ever going to be leaning back eyeing some girl's behind which happens to be extra-well endowed in the 10th dimension for some reason, and remark, "Wow, check out the zidth on THAT! HOWZA!!" It'll never happen. Imperceptible dimensions add nothing to our experience.
I'm mostly only putting this numbered list here because...embarrassingly enough, I keep forgetting how many curled-up dimensions there really are. Can you believe it? "How many dimensions total again? Ten or eleven," I'll ask - like I'm going to get that answer right! Try twelve, jackass. Because it's twelve.
Anyway, now I'll have one easy place to look next time I need to know. But if you're asking yourself, "well that's well and good for him, but what do these extra dimensions mean to me?," well, to return again to the Straight Dope, the chief point to remember is -
"So what we're telling you is, there's nothing magical or mysterious about dimensions. They're just notions scientists dreamed up to help them describe the world."
— Dex
Quite so, Dex. You go, motherson. Couldn't have said it simpler m'self, and I should know, having tried.
Footnote.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1655/how-many-dimensions-are-there-and-what-are-they
All further references within text.
Comments
Our world is artificial, man
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/11/physicists-may-have-evide_n_1957777.html
*and yes, I do mean both sides of that. But then, I haven't at any point decided to believe in God, and the fact the universe looks how I'd expect it to isn't a reason why I believe in God.
But they've been saying that simulation bit for a while. Here's a link to my buddy Sean's blog from a couple years back, where we pitched it to and fro.
Buddhists, Christians, speculative science buffs and others are all keen to tell you how there is a greater reality, a higher truth, which from where we are we cannot reach to touch, definitively know, or conclusively prove - but they will tell you this "reality" is so much more than our mere universe that by comparison with this "reality," our own reality, which we can reach, touch, know and prove - is not real. Is an illusion, or is a passing stage, or is a simulation.
Which matters...how? The reality we know is not an iota less real. Unknown and unknowable "greater truths" can't stop our reality from being exactly as real as we know it to be, as we touch it to be, as we find it and probe it and prove it to be. It's as real as it is, it's as real as it gets, and we interact with each other through it within its known consistencies.
Even if these speculated other realities did indeed intrude they wouldn't make THIS less real. They would just - once they show up - be however much more real. Reality itself is not diminished by bigger things. Just because one person is twenty feet tall, it doesn't make me any less every inch of five eleven.
But since they're not here, not intruding into existence, since - in every meaningful sense, they can not be found to exist - there's not much reason to credit them. Oh, it's OK to believe or not believe! But such private amusements pall next to the true and actual grandeur of the universe. Why bother with these toys? You might just as well say God exists, and is running the universe on UNIX, that's why it looks like that.
Which...it's true. It would look exactly like that.
Off topic, but this is very similar to my point of view when dealing with paranoid schizophrenic clients. When they tell me that the government has planted transmitters in their brain to read their thoughts (a common claim) I am always humbled by the awareness that for them this is their reality. Just because I believe it to not be true, even if I could prove it to not be true, it doesn’t make it any less real to them. It is their reality.
The self is perception. Reality is agreement. To me that's the perspective humility brings.
I don’t think we should differentiate between reality and perception. To me they are one and the same. It sure is nice to have someone agree with my perception/reality, I adore validation! but if I’m a lone voice I don’t feel that makes my reality not a reality and only a perception.
I don’t think there is an “overall reality”. If there is, then when is “agreement” deemed the “overall reality”?. How many people are required to agree for it to become reality? All we can possibly have is our own reality. Sure we can agree that black is black and not white, that a cat is a cat and not a dog, but what we are doing there is just a useful tactic for achieving consensus. We aren’t describing reality. If we took five people who had never before seen what was commonly agreed to as being black and we told them it was white, one would presume they would all agree it was white. Their own reality is that it is white. They also share a reality, which is wonderful and reassuring, but it is still just their own unique reality. Their reality is different from those who believe and perceive it to be black. Neither group is wrong, not one of the individual’s reality is wrong or just perception.
I agree with your assertion that it’s fucked up for someone to think their reality is the only reality. There are as many realities as there are people. Thankfully most of the time they align, not as an “overall reality” but as a common experience.
Or I’ve made you all up and I’m all alone.
Perception shows us a reality far bigger than one's self. It takes an unnatural thought contortion to try to cut all phenomena down to "a thing in one's mind." But if one is attentive to reality what is perceived puts phenomena irretrievably back and out beyond the brain, again. Yes, we have only our sensation of it - occurring within the brain. But what is sensed is another matter.
All we "have" is our own perception, if you like. But everything we perceive shows us - a reality bigger than what is in our brain. You say it does not describe reality to agree a cat is a cat?
But all language is describing reality, Mel. All consensus is describing reality: "do you see it this way? I see it this way. How many see it this way?" My best try current definition of reality is: "Reality is the medium through which one individual interacts with another hypothetical individual." Yet the agreement I'm talking about is not dependent on individuals. A rock serves as well. A star serves as well. A panda serves as well. All things perceived serve: observable reality serves, to establish itself as a thing perceived, independent of the sensing brain.
A person could live a hermit on an empty continent and still through thought and observation and testing of surroundings find in reality agreement and disagreement with the only one in existence's (to said hermits p.o.v.) thought model of it. And by discarding the points that disagree and seeking more points that agree with what's observable, the person builds a thought model that more thoroughly agrees. With - what? Reality. Observable reality. Agreement does not require agreement with selves. One self, plus reality and critical observation, will show that one self a greater reality than their thought models of it.
Look at Einstein. His reality validation came not from adoring physicists, but from the agreements his mind sought and eventually (fumblingly, after frustration and effort), found with reality - with phenomena. He differed with other individuals on the way, dead and living. But he could hardly be said to have struggled with them. His struggle was to fit his thought model to the universe, or to fit the universe with his thought model, or die trying. In the end, he died with his task unrealized. His own perception still showed him a reality that was bigger than him, and that couldn't be made to correspond with his thought model of it.
Powerful advantages to perceiving this. Powerful advantage, to perceiving that reality is bigger than one's thought model of it. That one's perception is less than reality. That reality is a bigger thing than one's self.
I can't think of an advantage to pretending otherwise. But can you?
Because you for me are an external referent, Mel. Just like the English language is. I can imagine I invented you, Mel, but I couldn't have invented you. You come up with things that are beyond my ability. As did Einstein. And his things remain - every time I go look - the same, and beyond my ability.
I have seen my limitations. My limitations are within my perception, and my perception apprehends them. Just as clearly as my perception apprehends that people exceed my limitations - in all directions.
(even though my perceptions of it are the only means by which I apprehend reality, still my own perception shows me my limitations, and shows me the many places where reality exceeds my perception, operates from outside my perception to exert effects within it, fails to correspond to my thought model, and is in other ways greater in extent than my mind, than my perception, than the contents of my brain.)
The conception of reality as a thing outside the brain and outside my perception of it is practical: a useful tool to help me move to improve my thought model of reality, and to better and more effectively operate within reality. By admitting a reality greater than self, a thing beyond my mere perception, I am able to take lessons from it on all things: not only physics, but stranger-behavior phenomena such as people.
I do not own this greater reality. It is not "my reality." All objects exist within it, and all objects are not mine. All people exist within it, and all people are not mine. Each person is a universe in one self: or at least, each person is the center point of a universe.
But reality - all reality, "overall reality" shared reality - is none of ours, and greater than us all. My definitions do not define it. But my descriptions attempt to describe it.
My descriptions get better and better at describing it, solely because I know it's greater than I - solely because I know I my brain and all its contents and projections are not so much as a patch on reality. My descriptions improve every time I concede reality is bigger than I am. Every time I condescend to take a lesson from reality. Every time I concede to the frequent superiority of another's viewpoint. Every time I allow myself to take a lesson from the universe that I myself am the centerpoint of.
But the universe is smaller than reality. The universe continues to expand into it.
Right back atchya. I am glad your concept of reality works for you. Certainly mine provides me with all the advantages you have listed. For me, to acknowledge that there is no greater, overall reality but only everybody’s unique reality keeps me incredibly humble. I am able to appreciate others’ struggles, points of view, and truths. It keeps me sane, because I am not trying to find a greater truth, I can be content with my own reality, be respectful of others and keep growing and altering my reality with each interaction with another’s.
I guess our views aren’t too widely disparate. We both agree that reality is not just our own unique reality. You say there is also a greater overall reality; I say there are innumerous realities that can patchwork into a shared reality. To me the two ideas aren’t incredibly oppositional.
The only salient part of my own conception of reality is its worthlessness. My conception is entirely disposable. Any aspect at any time is up for the ax! - but it does take a better aspect to come barreling in, for that ax to fall on the aspect that's out. And for me, the main place that source for revision comes barreling in from is - outside. The reality outside what I already know. The greater reality, what I call: observable reality, to which others can also refer, which others also can observe and interpret by their own lights. Their lights are not greater or lesser than mine - but we've got something between us upon which all lights shine.
I wonder - maybe what you're saying is, there is no greater reality which one person (or one codified worldview) has authority to define for others? Of course I'd agree with that, if so. I can't even define my OWN conception of reality, except by slow, sure, incremental steps - and not always forward.
Anyway, I never mind being confused! Not my job to know things to a certainty. Absolutes don't exist in nature, not really.
You say there is also a greater overall reality; I say there are innumerous realities that can patchwork into a shared reality. To me the two ideas aren’t incredibly oppositional.
- are you saying that...there is nothing in reality except people?
I think that could be what you're saying. If that were true - if there were no actual, real space between/outside, or rocks and buildings or whatever, except in the cooperative sense where the ACTUAL FUNDAMENTS of reality - i.e. consciousnesses - project such space/rocks/buildings between them, via some sort of mutually-projected and subsequently-perceivable overlay - this is to my taste a mystical idea! But I GET IT - it's one I have heard and can get! It's actually a take on the old aboriginal conception of dreamtime, and singing the universe into existence between us. Which would be awesome for your Australianness Mel! And such a conception could have far more than cultural reality. It could indeed be the true truth greater than me, greater than us all for all I know. It could be the truth of how all beings relate, of how all reality between beings arises! But only if it's true, of course. Indeterminate at the moment, but I'm open to it.
For now I tend to fall back on the idea that reality is the fundament, and consciousness the overlay. That the space between, including all rocks and buildings and such, is what lies outside and between us all, between all we individual viewpoints and conceptions. And it is there to perceive between us and outside us because it has - external reality. And we consciousnesses move within it, and it is permeable and pervious to us. We do make it change! But more often by dint of main strength than by mystical means.
Anyway, I could also be way off! That may not be what you mean - apologies if I'm reading too deeply in. Just trying to digest or understand or "get" the nothing-except-for-numerous-individual-realities-that-patchwork-together idea.
Ultimately though, I think we're looking at the same thing through different lenses. But then, that's more phrased in terms that support my view. In terms of your view - we are looking at different things, which appear to each of us to correspond?
I agree with this entirely except that I’m not sure I would define it as the “outside”. To me, it’s still just what I’m perceiving as my external world.
I wonder - maybe what you're saying is, there is no greater reality which one person (or one codified worldview) has authority to define for others? Of course I'd agree with that, if so. I can't even define my OWN conception of reality, except by slow, sure, incremental steps - and not always forward.
Yes. This.
- are you saying that...there is nothing in reality except people?
I guess I am, kind of :-D
Perhaps more accurately I am saying there is nothing in reality except other people’s realities.
Ultimately though, I think we're looking at the same thing through different lenses. But then, that's more phrased in terms that support my view. In terms of your view - we are looking at different things, which appear to each of us to correspond?
Yes!
And my apologies for frustrating you, honestly it’s me not you. My inarticulateness combined with the fact that my ideas are not fully fleshed out is the culprit. Do you know, only a few days ago I found my highschool Logic textbook and I was like “Oh yeah, I studied Logic lol, man all I can recall is amusing myself in class trying to remember the lyrics to Monty Python’s Philosophers Song."
I am way out of my depth!
Also, I read things like this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=watch-how-to-merge-your-real-virtual-augmented-reality
And I’m like I don’t even…. Now I have to try to understand augmented reality?I Then I decide just to go back to googling cupcake recipes.
Anyhow, you've not frustrated me. Confused me, yes - and I'd go so far as to say yes please. Nuts in a good way is where you tend to drive, and confusion in a good cause is a pleasurable journey.
Wow. I think we're entirely clear to each other!
And I do differ strongly with you on one point: I feel sadly but strongly that even if there were no beings within it, or if all the beings we are and know of died out, still there'd be...all this rock and space. So I can't see reality as dependent upon beings. Except as a pure hypothetical case! Of course if the mystical projection theories are true then reality is dependent, utterly dependent, upon beings.
I don't buy it, but the cornerstone of what I do buy is...my belief does not affect what reality is. On that or any other score.
So...find any good cupcake recipes?