🚀 go-pugleaf

> On 5 Jul 2006 17:28:48 -0700, "Timothy Golden
> BandTechnology.com" <tttpppggg@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >S D Rodrian wrote:
> >> The confusion, if there is any, arises from the purely
> >> mathematical convenience of speaking about our reality
> >> being a "3" dimensional reality. Whereas no purely
> >> three-dimensional object could possibly exist "in
> >> reality."
> >
> >The three dimensional aspect of space is very simple.

No doubt, no doubt! Who can't count to three?
Well, there ARE a number of drinks beyond which...

> >Take an object like the tip of a pencil.

  What is a tip of a pencil! Certainly to an ant
  it must be a mountain top. And to our dear ole
  Planck Length Creature it is its universe in all!
  But, what is the tip of a pencil to the elephant,
  or to the whale! O, what is a tip of a pencil
  to the world!

(Good Heavens, I've still got it! --The Poet In Me.]

> >Place it in a square room.

Why does it always HAVE to be a square room?
Every time I am placed in a square room I feel
compelled to only walk in "2" dimensions! Unless
I manage to wiggle out of my strait jacket, of course.
And then I can walk "3" dimensionally (via the rope
my kind keepers like to leave for me tied to a hook
on the ceiling).

> >You will find that three measures sufficiently
> >represent its position
> >relative to the room.

Why bother? Why not simply ask, "You
can't see it?!?! It's right in front of you nose!"

HINT: However way you point it out.... said "way"
is all in your head:

Unless your "lines" are the thickness of a Planck's
Length's Planck's Length's Planck's Length's Planck's
Length's (ad infinitum) your triangulation will only
always ONLY succeed in giving a general direction
as to where the thing is. (Cross you fingers and see
just how large the area is over which they cross.)
And, yes, it works both ways... or try to triangulate
the position of the earth with such itty bitty "lines."

   We live in an approximate world only. And this is
   the achilles heel of all attempts by Mathematics
   to "rule" the universe, I'm afraid. (Who knows not
   this, is doomed to waste a lot of his life de-noodling
   his mind with infinite minutia.) --SDR

   And how comes it that we just happen to live in
   an approximate world only, you might ask. Because
   in reality we live IN OUR MINDS, and there's very
   precious little in there that's not but an estimation.
   Or something close to it...

Certainly none of it will have to do with "dimensions"
but only with different approaches to it (or, directions).

START QUOTE

Imagine a one-dimensional wall... From where would one
even "see" such a wall? Certainly if we are NOT
looking at it dead-on we are using other dimensions
than its merely one to "see it" (since we would have
to look at it from a little to the side).

    Throw a left-hook and freeze your punch in mid-air:
    Your floating arm is describing an impossible
    journey through an infinite number of (certainly
    more than just three) dimensions! And thus too any
    circumference such as the earth's...

And because all it would take would be a very tiny
"little" ... no huge human eye could ever see it. (And
we are talking strictly theoretically here.)

The wall itself would have to be infinitesimally
tiny. Impossibly tiny. Let's say that a Planck's
Length is the smallest thing (and that there are no
lengths as small as a Planck's Length to our Planck's
Length, although I do not know of any objection to
that). Then the wall would have to be a Planck's
Length AND the observing eye would also have to be a
Planck's Length and be looking at it perfectly head-on
because if it were but even the smallest fraction to
any side it would have to look at it from a second,
third, or additional dimension. [You can see why it's
much more easy to just look at a comic strip and
believe the fiction that it's a two-dimensional
drawing... even though we know that no true purely
two-dimensional object can exist in our reality.]

       HINT: It's your mind agreeing to "go along with"
       the fiction that the comic strip/painting/photo
       graphic is two-dimensional.

And if no purely one-, or purely two-, or even purely
three-dimensional object can exist in our reality,
then any talk of the existence of ANY-numbered-
dimension is also nonsense... whether in or outside
our reality. And if you can't see this, you're not
really very smart, no matter how clever you may be
(and not even though you be even as clever as a
checkers-playing computer).

END QUOTE

Repeat after me: IF A ONE-DIMENSIONAL
ANYTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, THEN A TWO-
DIMENSIONAL ANYTHING IS TWICE AS
IMPOSSIBLE. AND A 3-DIMENSIONAL ANY-
THING IS 3 TIMES AS IMPOSSIBLE & SO ON.

A balloon only has two-dimensions. But only
because that's a convenient short-hand in
mathematics: That two-dimensional balloon
helps mathematics neither to add to nor to
substract from REALITY anything whatsoever,
though we speak about it until the Word of God
at last falls silent in the universe. Amen.

> >Any more will be wasteful
> >and any less will be broken.
> >In this sense the Euclidean three
> >dimensional space is an empirical
> >discovery that takes very little to demonstrate.
> >Do you deny this?
> >These are the three dimensions that you are
> >disputing.
> >Even if more dimenions do exist this
> >behavior must be resolved.
> >Three dimensions are an observation.-Tim

You are right at last, Tim: "3" dimensions ARE only
a requirement of the mind (in the mind) and have
nothing whatsoever to do with reality:

Imagine that man has finally become extinct. Then,
to the world that continues without him, what use
are the methods he used to use to point out things
to himself?

I don't mind your use of whatever method you wish
to point things out to yourself, Tim. But don't then
ORDAIN that your brain commands reality, Tim!

That's positively bonkers, ole boy.

> An interesting way to conceptualize this
> is to imagine a large
> screened TV in front of you. Then,
> in your imagination, expand
> the width and height to infinity.
> Next, in your imagination, toss
> the hardware aside, leaving
> only the image in place.
> Persons in this image perceive
> their space as 3-dimensional.

That would be a nice trick for such "persons"
to perform, since they would have to do it
with "brains" which have no "depth" at all.

> That
> is, they can move in any direction they want to.

With "muscles & limbs" which have no "depth"
at all.

> To them, a meter
> stick will appear to be one meter long,
> any way they orient it.

Well, certainly, if they try to orient it from "width" to
"height" they are going to have to make it travel
through a zillion dimensions other than their only "2."

As I've said: I don't mind Mathematics describing
every point in a circumference. But do not let then
Mathematics try to describe the "dimensions" of
reality! (Because, as I said, it's absurd to limit them
in any way... in effect, by any number. It offends
the laws of physics.)

> However, from your perspective,
> these people are limited to
> something very close to two dimensional
> space. Granted, the image
> has some thickness, albeit very small.

Ah! A little bit of sanity creeps into this petty pace!
Not much, but a little bit does. That's a start.

> Now, in your imagination, shrink the
> image's thickness on down to
> less than a Planck Length.

Does it really matter how thick the image is?
And, who sez when we get to a Planck's Length's
thickness we won't get bitten by an even tinier tick?

> From your perspective it is no longer
> discernable, but it is still there.

"In your imagination" everything is possible, yes.

> From your perspective, their
> third dimension is rolled up to less
> than a Planck Length. But,
> from their perspective their third
> dimension is no different than
> their other two dimensions.

A truly "really" three-dimensional "thing" could
only be observed from "six" very specific, very
specifically placed very infinitely infinitesimal
"impossible" positions (hint: no such positions
are possible in reality, ole boy):

BEGIN QUOTE

Imagine a one-dimensional wall... From where would one
even "see" such a wall? Certainly if we are NOT
looking at it dead-on we are using other dimensions
than its merely one to "see it" (since we would have
to look at it from a little to the side).

    Throw a left-hook and freeze your punch in mid-air:
    Your floating arm is describing an impossible
    journey through an infinite number of (certainly
    more than just three) dimensions! And thus too any
    circumference such as the earth's...

And because all it would take would be a very tiny
"little" ... no huge human eye could ever see it. (And
we are talking strictly theoretically here.)

The wall itself would have to be infinitesimally
tiny. Impossibly tiny. Let's say that a Planck's
Length is the smallest thing (and that there are no
lengths as small as a Planck's Length to our Planck's
Length, although I do not know of any objection to
that). Then the wall would have to be a Planck's
Length AND the observing eye would also have to be a
Planck's Length and be looking at it perfectly head-on
because if it were but even the smallest fraction to
any side it would have to look at it from a second,
third, or additional dimension. [You can see why it's
much more easy to just look at a comic strip and
believe the fiction that it's a two-dimensional
drawing... even though we know that no true purely
two-dimensional object can exist in our reality.]

       HINT: It's your mind agreeing to "go along with"
       the fiction that the comic strip/painting/photo
       graphic is two-dimensional.

And if no purely one-, or purely two-, or even purely
three-dimensional object can exist in our reality,
then any talk of the existence of ANY-numbered-
dimension is also nonsense... whether in or outside
our reality. And if you can't see this, you're not
really very smart, no matter how clever you may be
(and not even though you be even as clever as a
checkers-playing computer).

END QUOTE

Repeat after me: IF A ONE-DIMENSIONAL
ANYTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, THEN A TWO-
DIMENSIONAL ANYTHING IS TWICE AS
IMPOSSIBLE.

> This is not a real-world kind of thing,

There ya go! THAT's my whole point in a
banana peel.

> but it does provide a
> rather nice way of getting the concept.

I'm sure that as long as you understand, Gordon,
the world/the universe will sleep soundly tonight.

> Those other dimensions
> could very well be right her in our midst,

There ya go! THAT's the whole problem right there
out of the safety of its banana peel:

The instant you even so much as HINT at the
mere possibility that it's possible to assign a
(necessarily limiting) number to the dimensions
of "anything" you are literally knocking all sorts
of bits from "it" OUT of existence (in our reality).

And THAT would be a jolly nice trick indeed. Gordon!

> but if they are less
> than a Planck Length, they are completely
> indiscernible to us.
> Gordon

Gordon, if something exists, it does (or, if it doesn't
it doesn't). But you can't cheat on the rule by ANY
means. (And I should think CERTAINLY NOT by merely
shrinking the thing out of sight... or tossing a hanky
over it and hollering, "Abracadabra!")

Voila!

S D Rodrian
http://poems.sdrodrian.com
http://physics.sdrodrian.com
http://music.sdrodrian.com
http://mp3.sdrodrian.com