I find this one to be rather humorous, simply because: No, we would not know or feel such a thickness, but it does exist. Our extension to the 4th dimension is what allows us to exist. Aging and keeping track with the erosion of Time around us is the effect of this extension. Much like the keel of a sail boat that reacts to underwater currents. We don’t see the keel, but we do feel the response as we are pulled along through the sea of Time. We have no physical knowledge of this and there is no evidence of our passage except through record and recollection. The 2 dimensional character that Isia mentions does extend to the 3rd, as well as the 4th. These extensions are not in the physical sense, though. To the 3rd dimension, there is the extension of both reflected and generated radiation, which would make the 2 dimensional being visible to a 3 dimensional being. At the same time, there must be an extension into the 4th to allow for the existence of the 2 dimensional being. This would allow for a 4 dimensional being to be able to sense the presence of 2 and 3 dimensional beings. I guess the more dimensions you add, the more crowded the dimensional universe gets.

First of all i would like to say that i am so glad to have found some people to talk to about these things with. I have studied and attempted to understand infinity and the fourth dimension since i was 14. To speculate as to wether we, as 3D creatures, would or would not feel a (i am assuming) 4D thickness in a 4D space, i would ask a 2D person if he could feel a 3D thickness in our 3D space. The 2D person would probably reply that he has no thickness and, therefore could not feel something that he does not have. So, we 3-dimensionals, having no 4th-dimension, would not be able to feel something that we do not have to feel. If time is the fourth dimension then we would have something to feel the 4th-D with. A good question would be,"Do 2D people feel time and if so does it act as a third dimension for them?"

I would like to point out that the notion of thickness is inherently 3-dimensional. We can not perceive thickness without refering to the Cartesian system of coordinates. Some other property is needed to denote the awareness of the 4th Dimension. It is very human to visualize and concretize mental images. Yet mental images, taken as abstracts, do not exist in a physical world. If I were to ask you to draw a mental image of, say, intention - what would you come up with? What kind of a physical shape would you assign to it? At the same time we all know that every action we take conciously is based first on intention. Thus - intention generates action and it is the result of that action along with the mental or physical activity of the action itself that brings "physicality" or "reality" to the original intention. Intentionality of our existense is, then, a necessary condition for the apprehention of the reality as we can relate to it through the faculties that we possess. Sense of sight, smell, touch etc. serve as mere confirmations of the original intention to prove what we anticipate to comprehend. Same goes for the mental process itself. We anticipate the understanding of the 4th dimension and our intent is to create a cognitive instrument that would allow us to "peak" through our own reality. Out of that intent comes action in a form of discussion that is taking place here, for example. Yet again - our cognition is physical with respect to the instruments that it employs to prove its propositions. Math, Physics, Philosophy, Chemistry all deal with different aspects of physical reality just because the physical reality imposes the rules of cognition. We can not think if our brain is damaged - the medium upon which our thought travels in this dimension has to be physical and has to be in good shape for us to think in the first place. And, as much as I would like to believe that thinking is an independent process that we control, I have no other choice, but to submit to the notion of a certain physical barrier, if I were to consider the origins of the thought itself. Kantian "abiding and unchanging I" disappears beyond the point of the first impression. First "impression" - the print out of which we derive all our imaging, while conducted to us in our reality through familir shapes, in the case of thought itself looses shape and becomes a thing the existense of which we can prove just by thinking and at the same time the physical origination of which is taken for granted. Won't it be viable then to propose that the origination of thought as a process is beyond our physical realm? If this is true, then what we have to concentrate on is not the results of our thoughts as they relate to our reality, but on the origin of our thought and how our reality is altered by it. This "reverse" thinking will lead us outside of our physical realm into the realm of pure cognition and, then, to the environment in which that cognition exists. It should also make us see what methods the Nature employs to "convert" the information existing in that environment from non-physical to physical - something that we can work with in our 3-dimensional reality. For as long as we "apply" our thoughts to problems lying beyond our comprehension by using conventional methods, we will be eternally baffled by complexities of our reality and find nothing but more and more intricate correlations of physical phenomena. If we can accept the fact that this Universe is incoprehensible under the current paradigms, we will be able to at least start searching for new paradigms in which physical reality will be just another part of the Whole. This sort of thinking has long been an accepted maxim in nuclear physics, where each new particle poses more questions that it solves. The 4th Dimension is not only how we relate to it - for this has been a prevailing method of thought up until now and it is quite obvious that no viable results were produced in that respect. The 4th dimension is also the understanding that it has the power to relate to US. It is the Idea of our Idea as we realte to it vs. the Idea of our Idea as IT relates to US. We are being watched from the Forth Dimension by beings, who understand ALL dimensions leading to it. They know our methods - we just don't know theirs. And they use whatever methods they find necessary to convey their messgaes to us. I guess we just have to learn how to listen.

We would not have any "thickness" in the 4th dimension. And we can prove this! Simply by using the law of conservation of energy. To have a thickness in the 4th dimension would mean we would have some mass that we could not measure, and therefore there would be a "leakage" of energy whenever we used Ke = 1/2mv^2.

I think that we would be unaware of the presence of the fourth dimention. It is possible that some of our everyday phenominons are merely parts of figures that live in the fourth dimention. The "people" of the fourth dimention would think they had a concept of the third dimention, but would be just as clueless as we are about the second dimention. People of the fourth dimention would be baffled by the second dimention and want to learn more about the fifth dimention (no, not the music group) Candice

Well, if time is the 4th dimension, our "thickness" would be our age. And, yes, we do notice. We even celebrate every time we've spread out by a whole year. But if time is not the 4th dimention, then our fourth dimension is probably paper thin, sort of like the 3rd dimension of the inhabitants of Flatland. IIRC, hey were thick enough to see each others' edges, but not thick enough that they could perceive that thickness as a measurable dimension.

I think we can and do have a 4 dimensional thickness. It may be our "souls"... I think we defintely notice once we die.

The Arabic number system we now use is accepted merely for the simplicity of it:

                 VII               7
                x IV            x  4
                ----            ----
                XXVIII            28

        The concept of mathematics is literally thousands of years old, dating as far back as "me and you make two."  What makes math always work out are the constants that are involved.  Two things will always be two things and three things will always be three.  Bring them all together and you will always have five things.
        Without people, would this still be true?  Who would care?

Being completely ignorant of Math myself I would like for somebody to explain to me the essense of "number". I understand the substance of it. Something like this number is a property used to illustrate a quantitative characteristics of an event. So - I am clear on the substance. But I am far from clear on the essense. There is a world of difference between "substances" and "essenses". Both are viable concepts, yet the former is easily deduced from the general properties of a given concept, and the latter is usually left to the lot of musicians, artists, writers and philosophers. We agree that both exist - at least the colloquial usage of either term is not out of the ordinary. At the same time, essenses are very often dismissed for the lack of substance, I suppose. I have yet to see somebody quantify the essense, but we can "substantiate" almost anything, or such is the claim of science - regardless of what science it is. [Sub][stance] - [under][stand] - I guess that is the essense of the substance. It is the ability to understand, the intellectual promise that "the solution exists" that appeals to us. Looking for solutions is a powerful drive present in humans and it is the essense of life for us. We need to understand and on the way to that understanding we will imploy the highest of all "substantial" abstractions - Mathematics. Yet that, which remains unknown to us and which we will never be able to understand is the composition of the "essense" itself. Art, religion, philosophy attempt to understand the essense through a different sort of substance - the illusive and unquantifiable instruments of sound, speach, color, thought. These are all in existence along with Math. In fact, Math employs a subset of those instruments. What I am saying that it doesn't really matter whether we look for essenses through Math or through Music - the final goal will always be the same. Essense will, hopefully, remain always as far from us as the horizon and we will only be able to live as long as we see it in the distance. We all know it is there - we just don't know what it looks like.

I think math always "works out" because it was invented to do so. Math is mainly a tool for describing our universe, and it's only valuable if it is self-consistent. So every new mathimatical invention (like calculus -- hey, it was brand new a few centuries ago) has to take into consideration all the previous inventions like algebra and geometry. If integrating the equation of a circle to find the area inside it didn't produce Pi*r^2, calculus would be useless, and Newton would have scrapped the whole idea. It's kind of similar to the way every new theory in physics has to explain phenomenon at least a well as the old theories to be accepted. If the theory of relativity had contradicted Newton, instead of just expanding on his laws of motion, Einstein would have been called a crackpot instead of a genius for suggesting it.

I don't believe that math would exist without people. I would not say that math is "manmade" though. I think that "math" is a human interpretation of certain phenomena which are biased by our physiological "make-up". We construct ideas about things which we can somehow perceive (physically, mentally, or otherwise). It is apropos to mention higher dimensions in which our laws of math and physics may not even be "real" just as we could see that a mathematical system or set of physical laws made by "flatlanders" would not be real to us because we can perceive more than two dimensions and thus construct ideas about them. Our "interpretation" of math I think can be likened to the old question: "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound"? My answer would be no. "Sound" is the human perception of disturbances in the air. Yes, the percussion waves from the event still propagate through space but without a human to perceive them there would be no sound much. The same goes for light which is the human perception of electomagnetic waves. So I say the same goes for math. Does that make any sense?

Being a Math major at college, I've seen a lot of intricate properties of numbers and of mathematics in general that many people won't get to see, and I know there are lots of things that I have yet to learn and even more things that I will never get a chance to learn about Math. However, it is amazing (almost MIRACULOUS) how well these things work. And after all I have learned, I cannot believe that anyone could have created this. Take (as a well-known example) the multiples of 9. 9*1 = 9, 9*2 = 18, 9*3 = 27, 9*4 = 36, 9*5 = 45, etc. For ANY multiple of 9, if you add up all of the digits, then you get a multiple of 9. (1+8 = 8, 2+7 = 9, etc.) No one could've created this property of numbers. I believe God created the universe in such a way that these things work out the way they do. I believe it was Galileo that once said "Mathematics is the Alphabet with which God has created the universe." (or some similar translation into English). Man only "discovers" the properties of numbers and mathematics. Or sometimes, man invents a creative way of dealing with these properties, but it is because of God, and ONLY because of God, that these properties hold and that math works out the way it does.

Well, math would exist, but it wouldn't be known (not that it matters, because humans wouldn't exist). Math was more-or-less discovered to be right, much like basic physics (some astro-physics is still theory).

I think Math is man-used. God set the rules of math and we look for the patterns and regulations. Math "works out" because it is from God and it is the language that he "wrote the universe" with. Math is dimensional in that numbers are arranged according to their place in the universe on differnt dimensions. Math is MUCH deeper than we realize because we work with only 3 dimensions of it.

The conseption of 2-D is not conseviable to a person of the third dimention regardless of how much we think we understand. Even the thinnest piece of paper has depth and the ink on the paper also has depth, it is the lack of our in-depth thinking that enables us to concieve the idea of the second dimention, and, if, we ever want to understand the fourth dimention, we must face it with the same ignorance as we face the second dimention.

I think that we are too scared to accept the UNKNOWN. If we don't know IT, it doesn't meant IT doesn't exist. and what is existence anyway? Do we have to touch, smell, see in order to beleive? How about what we feel? How about Love? What is it? It doesn't have definition, and it's useless to try and find it. If you have it, you soar, if you don't you look for it, whether you realize it or not. Why do people argue about what is God, what "HE" (?) wants us to be or do? We can't look up to they sky, praying to HIM, then get up, take a gun and shoot a human being in the name of GOD. We can't sit and read the Bible, discussing the meaning of verses in it, then leave the church, and practice intolerance to another human being because they're of different color, sexual orientation, or they believe in different "God". If we had guts to accept this world as it is, and love it for what it is, then maybe it would be a better place for each one of us. It's easy to ha! te, it's easy to deny. Try loving and accepting. It FEELS good. But then again, how do you define "feelings"?... Don't even try.

when jesus fought santa it disrupted the time continum and caused our world be merged with the world created by the spice girls thank god that a genious from the marine corp named senior drill seargent keck along with his clone the bishes guy dave keck and ufc champiand dan severen solved the problem by spreading radio active material into the negative zone. thank god for people like dan keck the town has now proclaimed him a god he has been on the price is right ten thousand times and he doenst know the price of scothbright spoungers obviouly 1.39 he said 1.69 he goes around because of bob barker and spays and neutres every srtay he sees with his teeth.

I was wondering, Why do we always assign integers to represent the "dimension"? We can say "x times 5.5" - why can't we say that we live in, say, 3.5 dimension at this time? I would think that dimensions "build" on top of one another, expanding as they "grow". Why can't I presuppose that a dimension is a thing in progress and the faculties that we need to progress to the next level are just a matter of acquisition of understanding of a particular connection (link) between dimensions? This would explain the process of aging. And death. What if time is not the 4th dimension, but only one faucet of it? Just like looking at the cube head-on. All we see is a two-dimensional square, yet all we have to do is switch the angle and voila - the cube. We "know" that we are looking at the cube only because we have the experience of actually looking at it, and the knowledge that it might turn out to be a cube if we change the viewing angle. If we didn't believe that angle could be changed we would happily think that we are looking at the square. The believe has to be there prior to us postulating that what we are looking at is not what it appears. Maybe our "established" paradigms are only "good" for the dimension we live in. Aristotle once thought the Earth was the center of the Universe. This has been a prevailing concept for a thousand years. The very necessity for us to use concrete references to represent that which lies beyond our reality is, I think, a mistake. The only thing that we have is based on the "scientific method" that doesn't allow for a hypothesis if it can not be assigned some probability of existence. Anything outside of that scope is usually taken as "not possible". I don't understand why. I, personally, think that our Soul is just as physical as our liver. The problem is that, not being able to "touch" it or prove it "scientifically", we forget that the science is a search for Truth. And, for the sake of Truth, we are willing to dismiss the notion of not being able to understand. But why? We accept the limitation of not being able to fly using our physical bodies. The ability to "not understand" is just as valid, in my opinion, as the ability to "understand". I personally wouldn't want to lose any of my abilities, especially the ones that are in perfect balance with each other. I always wondered why Socrates went on to question the oracle when the latter proclaimed that the former was the "wisest of all greeks". I think that the more we understand, the closer we are to the realisation, that it is possible that any and every event in this Universe relates to any and every event in all other representations of existence. Who are we to say that our crowning achievement should be the understanding of everything. I don't propose that we should stop looking for Truth. I am only saying that we would be much better off if we just stopped accepting the concepts of Science and Faith as mutually exclusive. This applies to religion as well. The notions of Good and Evil as interpreted by all sorts of clergy does not leave room for a personal search for God. The idea of "life after death" is skewed in a way that it brings in the notion of death as being something absolutely terrible. How do we know that? What if all the prophecies are not of some distant future to which we have to prepare by obliging to the laws of this or that religion, but of what is happening right now? We go around devising more and more "sophisticated" weapons, meanwhile failing to address the root of "sophistication". Sophists taught the art of justification. Justification of any deed, regardless of its consequences. Weapons are built to kill. Now we are building those weapons, thus justifying the need for killing. I find that disturbing. Understanding does not really depend upon our intellect. Rather - our intellect depends upon the ability to understand. Our intellect is a fine machine that processes certain input and comes up with certain results. And where does that input come from? The facts are secondary, for they are just the consequences of the inquiry. Inquiry is a necessary condition for the accumulation of facts to begin. And what breeds inquiry? Curiousity? Need to know? Need is an insentive for action. What gives the insentive? Some weird chemical imbalance in our brains? But then it is curious to see that this chemical imbalance has a tendency to produce similar results in people for thousands of years. The cause for inquiry has always been of the same potential - regardless of the age. People, put in a condition where their very ability to dream and believe is questioned, or worst yet - supressed, begin to address the issue of viability of the system where they are not trusted. They refuse to accept a human judgement upon them, for they see that any judgement, regardless of the percieved benefit to the one being judged carries in itself the supposed understanding of Truth. But we all know that we don't know the Truth. Who does? Certainly not the person who teaches us that the only salvation lies in scientific knowledege. Hasn't gotten us any happier yet. Besides - that is his judgement upon the rest of us. Certainly not the person who teaches us that his believe is the only true believe. That is his judgement yet again and worst yet - his judgement covers everybody, who does not follow him. If we don't accept anybody's judgement about ourselves, how can we pass that judgement upon others?

If you mean "Does God live in the Fourth Dimension?", then I would have to say "No." But I DO believe He exists. As a Christian, I believe God exists outside of ALL space and time. If you could travel in the Fourth Dimension, then you would not be able to "find" God there, any more than you could find Him in our 3-dimensional reality. But I believe He created the universe with more than just the limited three dimensions we view the world in. Questions? Please e-mail me. ricky_duval@hotmail.com

This is an easy question for me to answer. I am an atheist. If you are asking about the connection between god and the fourth dimension, I see none unless it is that they both do not exist except in people's minds. However, although I am sure there is no such thing as a god or creater, I am open to the possibility of a fourth dimension.

Religion often talks about perfect bodies and deals with infinity of our universe. The fourth dimension is a great way to think of it. It is not a explanation against religion but rather a confirmation.

Which may easily be confused with: "Time is what?" Time exists to keep everything going. Without the incessant count of Time, what could exist? Some say God could. I’ll buy that. Nothing else would translate to Timeless existence. By the same token, though (you gotta flip the token over) Time could not exist without something to count. That something is you, and everything you see around you (the universe). Time exists for the convenience of everything’s existence, which exists for the convenience of Time’s existence. One cannot exist without the other. It’s rather like the presence of good and bad, happy and sad. Could you know one without ever experiencing the other? Of course not . . . And not just because I said so. Someone else said it first. At this particular moment in history, Time is an evil invention that tells Western mankind when to do something – anything! It rattles you awake in the morning, trundles you out the door and into that fun-filled traffic-jam, tells you when you can take a break, when to eat, when to go home, and when to sleep. It tells says you cannot relax and watch your favorite TV show, because the news is on till 7:00. You can’t talk to your wife because she’s still on her way home from work. You can’t drive up to Akron to see your folks, because you have to get up in the morning and start the day all over again. What is Time?

Time in my opinion is a different type of dimension. Unlike spatial dimensions where you can move in two directions for each dimension you add, time is like a ray dimension. You can only go in one direction. I also believe that it is possible to have multidimensional time. This would explain the Lorentz transformation when used with variables that are faster than the speed of light.

Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

A Measurement of the non-3d distance we "travel" uncontrolably.