We got where we are on our own. The mistakes throughout history were all manmade. The only demons walking this once green and fertile Earth are men. They use satanic and holy scriptures to excuse their fierce and barbarous acts, claiming some form of clemency or justification—but they remain merely fierce and barbarous acts performed by fierce and barbarous people. Our place in the development of the universe is where we are, and we should be so much further along. The potential for interstellar flight and exploration has been with us for well over a century—some say for the past five centuries—but complaints of funding and the stifling of the great minds throughout history has stunted our growth. Where are we? Sadly, my friends, we are far behind in our development in the universe.

I may sound slightly archaic but I believe we are exactly where God wants us to be. GASP!! Yes, you read it right. Now on more relative terms we're about midway between eternity, or approximately six or seven thousand years since the creation of the universe. Now you may be thinking how could be the earth or more importantly the stars and our sun be so young. That would be if the sun did not operate on nuclear fusion but on gravitational contraction, which would imply homogenity in the earth's interior, a gradually shrinking sun (which has been measured), and a suspicious lack of solar neutrino's(which has also been measured). Of course that's all old stuff. More importantly is the redshift which indicates that things are moving away from us and from measuring the redshift of known stars, calculated using Cepheid variables or that other kind I cannot remember, which were calculated on something else which was calculated using something else which was finally calculated using parallax, we can approximately calculate by the rate of expansion how far away they are (which both uses the Hubble variable which is different depending on who you ask) and thus the age of the universe. Have you ever heard of a blueshift, which would indicate something coming towards us? That means that everything is moving away from us. That would be weird, would it not? And, what if the redshift is accounted for by something else? That sure would offer an explanation for quasars. Jeff Skiles

We are different relative to where we were at any other point in time. BUT we are the same as we were at different specific points in time at other times.

I think that we are in the beginning of the end. Its like we are in a ball on a hill with a constantly increesing slope heading for a cliff. (tecnology) I mean that we are rapidly improving technology until time runs out. I have no real theorys on that exept the one in Revelations in the Holy Bible.I think that if we weren't on a ride over a cliff of time, we would be at our extreme infancy of the universe. Yet I don't think that it would be good to increese technology. One day it may learn to think and make decisions. Turn on us.

I believe that we are precisely where we percieve ourselves to be at any given moment in time. Time itself is nothing but a frame of reference in which we comprehend ourselves.

Gosh. This one looks kinda bleak! Hasn’t anyone climbed the mountain to ask that old guy? All right, so the mountain shall come to Mohammed. The very basic meaning, or purpose, to life is to exist. Even an amoebae knows this one. We, however, being human and therefore theoretically well above this guy’s level of social endeavor, seem under the impression that there’s more to life than shooting the boss, robbing the bank, and hiding out in the Dakotas. Okay, I’ll go with that. But what is it? "Be kind to your web-footed friends." "Their laughter, friend Euthyphro, is not a matter of much consequence. For a man may be thought wise but the Athenians, I suspect, do not much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom to others, and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say, from jealousy, they are angry." "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "It was necessary to convey to Moses the Commandments of the Law on Mount Sinai." "It is certain, my Lord, that in these days withdrawal from the world means no sacrifice at all. Since worldly people have so little respect for Thee, what can we expect them to have for us?" "The petition, gentlemen, is before you. Independence is a necessity. A break from England is required." "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." "Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country." "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" "That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." "My, God! It’s full of stars!" "Melissa Milanda, come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right!" "The universe is expanding, spanning the cosmos for billions and billions of light years. What is known is seen . . . What is not known must be approached and seen." Though I may have missed a point or two, I think that pretty well sums it all up. Any takers? Dan

I think that the meaning of life is to do the best you can. Every person has strengths and weaknesses. If we do our best, we would live in a utopia. It is important to hold morals as well.

Throughout history, mankind has been plagued with ignorance, mottled with intelligence, and occasionally graced with brilliance. All three of these phases have had two sides, good and evil (almost sounds religious, eh?). First I would like to point out that no one has ever lived before his or her time. A statement like "Socrates was before his time" is an oxymoron. It is people like Socrates who improve us. They are necessary to pull the rest of us out of the mire.

Which history are we talking about? The history of Western thought or the history of humanity? There is a difference. The brilliance of our philosophers and scientists would not be possible without the foundations of thought and its development as an instrument of knowledge. If it is only the scientific knowledge to which we are paying our respects, then what about the tradition of thinking for its own sake? Back at the beginning of time a human being sat on a rock, looked up to the skies and let his cognition create a system of addressing the questions he thought were important. Why were those questions important to us as we were living through wars and suffering, plaques and pestilence? That is the question. The persistence of those thoughts throughout the human history is the most amazing phenomenon. It is relatively simple to speculate about the physical world. It is sensible, we can see it and the ways in which we relate to it lend themselves fairly easily to establishing a common scale within a given frame of reference. We are the ones who create our own frames of references. All it really takes is to go beyond the accepted one at the time and postulate the existence of yet another one, then develop a philosophical and scientific justification for it and the new vision is born. Then it is a matter of time until that frame of reference, that method and style of thinking becomes a prevailing norm. The originator of that norm (Democritus, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, St. Augustine, Jesus ..... Newton, Copernicus, Galilei .... Leibnitz, Laplace, Keppler ... Einstein, Bohr, Saharov, Kapitza etc. etc.) becomes a "most brilliant" person in known history and on that account his convictions contribute to the sum of human knowledge about themselves and the Universe and it is on that account that the opposing convictions are very often dismissed or neglected by the world. How do we know that the incredible mass of recorded western knowledge is not erroneous in its assessments of reality? If we were to presuppose the possibility of the mistake in the original foundation of our thinking, i.e. the very fact that what is considered a conclusion worthy of us passing a judgement of truth upon it, can only be assessed through the exposure to physical facts, then our view of the two essential physical maxims - Matter and Time is most definitely a mistake. And mistake of such a great magnitude that even to consider what we would need to do to correct it would not be possible for us, for our understanding of how things are fixed is a slave of the system in which we live. I pray to God that if that original judgement of the first human sitting on the rock was, in fact, wrong, there is still some hope left for us to discern the facts and find the truth in all that confusion of religions and creeds and languages and colors and philosophies.

Ludwig von Beethoven. Because of his 9th symphony. Or possibly Shakespeare. Because he wrote comedies that are still funny 500 years later

I think the most brilliant person was Isaac Newton or perhaps Einstein. Newton was brilliant in his time for being the man who "discovered the universe" according to what Einstein once said. Einstein only rediscovered the universe but makes some improvements in describing it.

I am noticing that the amount of people contributing to this page is dwindling. This is sad. I wonder if the beautiful legacy of dream of the unknown somehow gets caught it the trivial drudgery of our 3-D reality. I hope not. It is that dream and the unbiased speculation that has a tendency to turn the impossible into possible and dreams into reality. And it is that reality that is thereby altered by those who has the guts to voice their opinions. Creating the world in which our being is not limited by the constrains of our technological vision of the universe will take much more than reliance upon established norms and paradigms. Fourth dimension is most likely to be beyond our technological grasp for a simple reason that our technology is inherently material and as such is confound to the world in which it exists. The very word technology presumes that it is NOT human-based system of interaction with nature. It also means that the usages of technology while capable of interacting with humans can not or, at least, should not substitute human experience and should not be treated as the Absolut when it comes to our undestanding of the world. We can not possibly create systems of thought and understanding without having at least a rudimentary Idea of what it is we are trying to achieve. Philosophers do not pick out words at random and compile them together in hope of producing a coherent picture of their vision. It is their vision that allows them to find the words and to arrange them in order they deem appropriate for expressing their thoughts. Presence of the original Idea is a necessary requirements for philosophical speculation and once it is possible to establish a basis for understanding, although speculative at first, it nevertheless provides the first step toward creating a cognitive instrument - abstract thouh it may be, like Math - to try to "materialize" our visions and dreams and to make them happen. Continually confining ourselves to the realm of what is already known does not give us a good foundation for understanding of that which is not known. Refusing to speculate or to dream about the impossible is very stupid. And that is why it is sad that there aren't more contributors to this page. Having said this - I will now address the original question. Would I like to be 4-D? Well, as far as I am concerned - I am. The fact that I can not access this dimension at my convenience doesn't mean that what I see about myself in the mirror or what I can assess about myself based on my experiences alone repesent the only possible truth. The fact is that of all the things in this world the least we know about is ourselves. We don't know where we came from - anthropologists are now releasing human remnants dating back 2-3 MILLION years. We don't know our own history - the very recent science of mythology is questioning the pillars of our scientific thought - it is now a known fact that the Laplace formulae are flawed in a very significant way, i.e. his conclusions that our planetary system is in a state of balance with possible deviations from it coming within the range of 10e6 years is wrong. The more likely figure is 10e2, which is to say that there is a very good chance for us to be witnesses of a major planetary shift within our lifetimes. We know very little about our psychological makeup for it is becoming more and more evident that the Self in a western interpretation of it is not sufficient to describe our relation to nature and to the rest of the world. Theories, ranging from quantum physics, the respectability of which is unquestioned at this point, to psychology and even psychiatry, which in themselves are pityful attempts to reconcile our misunderstandings about ourselves with our misunderstandings about the universe now acknowledge that ther are states of human consciousness that upon brief examinations look like common pathologies yet examined in depth represent an unknown to us state of being which is totally unexplored by our western minds. Furthermore, those "new" states of mind in themselves are not entirely individual (btw [in][dividuel] is a German word for undivided) but somehow related to a much bigger system, the likes and complexity of which we are only beginning to acknowledge. It is in that state of mind that people relate to us the existence of higher planes or consciouness where our vision is non-directional, things that we deem subjective are objective and vice versa. In that state of mind people create works of art of such a breathtaking beauty, that startles even those very people who created them. This state of mind is also responsible for bringing to human level the understanding of peace, love, hate and the whole range of human emotions. Understanding of the very mechanisms that make humans tick. Being the children of this Universe we are composed of its matter and it flows through us in all its manifestations. Any reality which you can comprehend is a viable reality. We just have to acknowledge it as such. Having dreams might still be considered by the so-called scientific thought as a non-issue from material standpoint, but we can't possibly deny that from the standpoint of our consciousness it is as real as it gets. While we are in a dream - we are living it, whether we want it or not. Our heart races, we hear the voices, we fly, we have sex and we sometimes even understand that what we are experiencing is a dream. If it were just the nonconsequential firing of neurons, how would we be able to acknowledge the reality of it and remember it? Why would the memory have to retain any of our dreams at all? Our memory is our capacity of building the associations based on experiences - at least that is how we are taught in schools. Then if the experience is not real, the memory wouldn't have built that association. Yet we all remember dreams, which means that those experiences are real, but are coming from a completely different reality. What is that reality - we don't know. There are many theories about it but for the sake of the discussion I would call it Fourth Dimension. Technology alone cannot amplify the reality of this state. We have to be aware of it and learn how to deal with it before we can consider the ways of working within its realm. Funny thing is that all our mode of existence has to be altered to reflect psychological changes needed to survive in that new world. Remember the subjective becoming objective? Well - imagine your fear materializing in that dimension into a monstrosity with wich nobody but you would have to deal with. Subjective feelings of the world material become your reality once you enter that universe. Anything hidden becomes real - and if what motivates you in this world is greed and fear, hate and anger, then on the plane where your sub-conscience establishes the rules of communications these are the things amongst which you would have to operate. So, I guess, the ways of evolution, and the way to get to that 4th dimension is to think really hard about what is really important in your mental, psychological and moral makeup, distill the facts about yourself and evaluate them based on what kind of world you would like to live in if all of a sudden you gained access to 4th dimension. And you never know what you are going to see in your dreams - nightmares or beautiful visions of the Universe as seen in all directions simultaneously, hideous faces of death or the flight of angels through the sea of endless light, screams of horror or the strange and fantastic music which you would be able to bring back into this reality and play for the whole world to hear? It has always been about choices that we make...

Yes. Fourth Dimensional beings have an infinite more number of directions they can travel in. But, I must say that if we were 2d, then we would long to be 3d and if we finally became 4d(if we aren't already) then we would want to become 5d... There is not satisfaction in one dimension. The grass is always greener in the other dimension.

Eric. What would be the acceptable evidence to us? How do we decide on the viability of facts we have available pertaining to this or that phenomena if we are to treat them as evidence? Not having an established basis upon which to rely in evaluating information - that which we could take as evidence, we have to speculate whether each new piece of data is a) relates to that which we want to find (4th Dimension), b) reliable, c) consistent. The fact that 4th Dimension exists does not need the evidence - not in a way that we are accustomed to treating it. Scientific instruments have proven the possibility that using the mathematical models we can create numerical representations of almost anything. If we want to ``see'' the 4th Dimension than it would probably make sense to try to create a new mode of thinking for ourselves. This really needs a long discussion, but what works for me is the method of ``expanding'' upon the facts that are known to be true - from the observational standpoint. Example. Have you ever thought that light, travelling in space lives forever? The fact that we can see things doesn't mean that the light carrying information that makes it possible for us to see an object dies upon reching the surface of our eye. Where does it go? Example. Looking though the telescopes into the Deep Space we see galaxies - millions of them and the scientists tell us that we are looking back into the origins of the Universe. Well, if we point those telescopes into the opposite direction - we will again see galaxies - and again millions of them - are we still looking into the origins of the Universe? Then - how did the Big Bang work? Was that an explosion of Implosion? Because if it was an explosion - than looking back we theoretically can see it - Ligh travelling in Space lives forever. But then, we will be able to see it in any direction we choose to look... This seems strange to me and that is how I envision the Forth dimension - any way you look, you see the same event and maybe our ability to comrehend the 4th Dimension is limited to realization that in a 3-dimensional Universe we can only see the act of our own Creation and that Act, while being absolutely evident is at the same time absolutely incomprehensible in our present form. These are all speculations, of course, but think about it...

I think the simple fact that there are lower dimensions indicates a pattern of increasing the dimension with a new perpendicular direction

How many angels do you suppose can dance on the head of a pin at one time? Without making a big mess, can you pass a camel through the eye of a needle? Is the fourth dimension conceivable to the human mind? Many say it is and try to prove it on paper. Not good enough. Show me! (And I’m not even from Missouri.) Heaven. The 9th Level. The fourth dimension. Danger Mouse says heaven is a state of being. Penfold says it’s a wheel of smoked gouda. Moe Howard says it’s the joy of good, destructive comedy. Calvin says it’s recess. Hobbs insists it’s a smooch from Susie. Mickey Spilane says its a tall dame in a tight skirt. Charlie Brown says it the loud crack of the bat when you finally hit that homer. Thomas Edison said it was the quiet hours, late at night in his lab. Penny and Brain both agree

I think it is quite possible and true. There has to be a place for Heaven. I think that the fourth dimension fits that place nicely because we cannot get to it no matter how far we travel in our 3D directions. Heaven is a perfect place compared to earth just like the fourth dimension is so much better than the 3rd.

Can we have fractional dimensions? Well, as long as we refer to a dimension in terms of an abstract tool, like Mathematics - I don't think so. We have to look at the dimensional representations the way we relate to them in terms of the paradigms available within that dimension. Paradigm is nothing but a style of thought. It is in style now, as utilitarian as it may sound, to think of the Universe in terms of multiplicity of correlations of Matter. Matter, of course, being ever-present and obvious, naturally lends itself to a development of cognitive instruments, composed from it. Our thought process does not understand, can not understand continuity yet. Even our understanding of that which is undeniable to us - Self, does not extend beyond the image in the mirror in which we see One person. The whole cognitive space that human thought occupies in this Universe is centered around our ability or inability to make a place for ourselves in this mush of Matter. Another words - we think in terms of the Universe, being a place for US to exist in, the emphasis is on US. We address visible Matter only, trying to fit it into the style of thought that is now en vogue. This is a sound approach when we consider things that lie within our own frame of reference. But the frames of reference by themselves are just systems combining our physical abilities so that we can establish common grounds to relate to others results of our exploration into the nature of things. Venturing beyond our common frame of reference requires understanding of that frame of reference in which the object of your exploration exists. It is possible to figure out how many grains of sand it would take to fill out the visible space, yet how is it relevant? When we die, do we really care how much time it would take for our bodies to rot? It is possible to figure it out, though. What we need to do, I think, is try to think of this Universe in terms not of singular events - stars, Black Wholes, atoms, particles - but that of continuity, of which Time itself is a prime example. And think of the Matter as not a self-perpetrating conglomerate of conitnually changing states of particles - this is an obvious thing, but as an intersection of the infinite number of the courses of that which created the Universe itself, for Matter is just a part of it. If one were to hold that opinion (which I do) it is much easier to understand that, from the continuity standpoint, the essense of Knowledge does not present itself in a concept of a number only (sorry, Mathematians) - no matter to which phenomena numbers can be applied. Even Hilbert space has to have a frame of reference. And Dimensions, while at this point having the numeric representation denoting their sequential order, can not be described by that property alone. And here is a clincher. Our existing paradigm does not have a valid measure for those other properties (how many?) that are involved in the process of apprehending other Dimensions. This is a very brief speculation and certainly deserves close investigation, even if it is only nothing but speculative. My opinion.

Very good question, but if this world or universe had another 1\2 then all the people would be walking around cut in half which is not possible and The big Bang probably wouldn't of happened because there isn't enough matter to make it explode. (Icould easily be totally wrong)

No, it is not possible because the numbers are not mathematical spaces in the universe. They are naming words. They must be integers because a line is infinite and each line perpendicular is given 1 more number to its dimensional name.