This might sound kinda screwy, but is our inability to see the fourth dimension and beyond merely the result of an insufficently evolved eye? And given time, could our eyes theoretically evolve to the point that we could see other dimensions?
2007-11-11 19:51:08 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
No, probably not. The extra dimensions hypothesized by theoretical physics are supposed to be wound up in infintessimally small space. We'd be seeing individual atoms, before we'd be seeing these dimensions, and that's going to require that 'seeing' be not based on light as it currently is.
Generally speaking, you have to be using something much much smaller with as large of a wavelength as possible to see something of any given size. To see small conglomerations of atoms we have to use electrons, which, though large compared to the photons that make up light, have a much larger wavelength. Though all we can see of these atoms is just a bump, it's on or off.
It's like pixels in a computer screen. Looking at one pixel is not interesting and doesn't communicate any kind of information. You need to see hundreds or thousands before it really tells you anything.
Even if our eyes were advanced enough to see the infintessimally small, it would not be like seeing another dimension how we classically think of other dimensions. The first three dimensions are all on the macro scale. The higher dimensions are microscopic. They are of a different nature. It would be more like looking at a speck than another dimensional.
2007-11-11 19:58:51 · answer #1 · answered by Corey E 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Corey is not off base. The term conglomeration is used to describe many things which are composed of smaller units.
We have developed a working knowledge of vision that is reflected by the precision of the tools we use.
This is a speculative question regarding our ultimate perceptive limits. It is more of a cosmological metaphysical question because we cannot currently use the scientific method to evaluate the other dimensions Eric is alluding to.
True pioneers of knowledge see more than what is. They do not exclude possibilities of what could be.
This is a good question Eric. Allow me to reach. It is possible that perception of other possible dimensions would occur in the brain at the level of very high frequency electromagnetic waves... at the level of thoughts. We know the wavelength of light perceived by the eyes, or at least we know what is consistent with our knowledge of light. Perhaps other "units" have effects on the eyes, or these wavelengths are out of phase with mammalian ocular systems.
Today, science cannot tell us what a thought really is. Science cannot tell us what a dimension really is with today's tools.
The answer to this question is more than insufficiently evolved eyes. It would involve other insufficiently evolved neural perceptive mechanisms.
2007-11-11 23:41:35 · answer #2 · answered by flip33 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Dimension? Which dimension do you mean, actually?
Anyways, if ever our eyes were more say "evolved," then eyes are "devices" fit to catch a part of the electromagnetic spectrum which starts from the end of infra-red (lower frequency) to just before ultraviolet (upper frequency). Subsequently, a "better eye" might be capable to see infrared and ultraviolet and that's all.
2007-11-11 20:05:21 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It really depends on how you define the other dimensions. Typically people think of the fourth dimension as time in which case we already perceive it (ignoring general theory of relativity). At any rate, evolution is driven by survival need (at least until relatively recently), so unless survival suddenly becomes dependant on the need to "see" other dimensions, no. Even assuming other dimensions are proven to exist, we will never evolve to perceive them.
2007-11-11 20:04:45 · answer #4 · answered by Maniaca Esoterica 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
You mean if the eye is more advanced and can see more dimensions. I would think theoretically that it could if there is such thing as more than 2 dimensions that is.
2007-11-12 07:48:33 · answer #5 · answered by Nadir H 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
May i point out that Corey E basically making it up using big words. I know this as a fact because many of these 'BIG' words having nothing to do with seeing or the body. An example of this is that he mentioned conglomerations, which is a type of rock, commonly known as conglomerate ( cong-lom-erit), which has been made up of weathered material from previous rock formations such as sandstone, basalt and slate.
2007-11-11 20:23:56 · answer #6 · answered by aaron.wolfenden 1 · 0⤊ 3⤋