Here's something that bugs me about dimensionality and time - would be grateful for enlightenment...?

Question

we directly experience 4 dimensions - 'up/down', 'in/out', 'side-to-side' and time, right?
how come we only experience the last one as being 'uni-directional'...if i understand it right then mathematically there's no reason for this?(i mean that time only goes one way for us,PLEASE put me right if i ain't!)...

my THOUGHT was that time was the dimension that we experience the other three 'in', as it were and that if we were in a fifth dimension that 'contained' space/time then we would be able to move back and forwards in time as easily as i can move up and down etc. is that right?

if so - how come the dimension at the top of my hierarch is directional? if we could experience a fifth dimension would THAT be one-directional like time is for us now? and - this is the important bit for me - WHYYY!!!????

any elucidating concepts would be appreciated, ty.

wow - i am SOOO glad i asked this here as well in science!!!
TY to ALL of you who find the lil thumbs ups - some excellent stuff for my mind/soul continuum! ( thanks in particular to - rev phil, j153e(cool book list Ty - copied/pasted!! =))but the leader so far -for clarity and actually addressing a question i was REALLY asking...though it isn't in my question!...waltcosmos(even though i thought alot of 'model' was kinda opaque in that - 'is this alchemy about metal or souls?' kinda way) THAT is essentially what i was struggling with! TY!(you ever find you can't remember for long what you're not ready for?)

if you can beat walt - go for it, i'll let this run to the end..or if you can do the science/maths perspective better then go for it!

ty for all of you who took the time and trouble and effort to think about this and add interesting perspectives

=)

interesting Rahul but i think you miss the point i'm making - there is ONLY something like your 'negative dimension' with TIME...how come?(and for my won crit' thinkin' =P the map(language) is not the territory(territory!) =)

ty louise - my current thinking, circa 14:30 today, is that the 'higher dimensionality' i want to explore is perhaps more open to enquiry within some of the 'non- or meta- rational epistemolgies' that a couple of the posters refer to(eg,like ousspensky's work) because logic ITSELF is an expression of the 'directionality-experience' that seems to be soft-wired into our consciousness(would have said hard-wired but i have good reason to suspect that ain't so from certain peak experiences i have had in the past!)..your response, for me, highlights that map/territory problem as expressed linguistically - ie language and the rational, directional, deictic rules it neccesarily follows to enable shared communication are NOT necessarily mirrored by reality! ie language breaks down when considering the extreme question of enlightenment just as physics breaks down at the extreme case of a singularity, for example. wanna get married and have multi-dimensional babies?!?!? =)

Answer 1

okay, each dimension adds to the dimension below it. Starting with a point, which is ZERO dimensions, we move to a line. One dimension. A line moving at right angles to itself creates a plane. Two dimensions. A plane moving at right angles to ITSELF creates a solid. Three dimensions. A three dimensional "object" moving at right angles to ITSELF (growth) creates a living creature, which can only exist in three space dimensions and one time dimension. A life moving at right angle to itself, for example, a human soul perfecting itself through many recurrences (NOT reincarnations, which take place in TIME...) travels through ETERNITY. And finally, a human soul that has reached it's full potential is in the 6th dimension, which has no name, but is the actualization of ALL POSSIBILITIES.

Answer 2

Yayy! this is how I think about it and have for years (not so long huh??)

And indeed as another poster has written, it's a matter of the way we are facing. We do have an awareness of 'the other way' in time; that is backwards. Sideways though.. Hmm, maybe that is where so-called 'parallel existences' occur.

Another feature of a universe viewed this way is that events that seem to be discrete (in time, which is the context of events) are actually parts of the same 5D form, perceived at different places on the time surface. To put it another way, separateness is a relative function defined by individual perception.

Another way of viewing this is that we are aspects of one 5D entity (or numbers of us (including other things than human) are aspects of several such).

AS for the fact that it seems that time is unidirectional, if it is the outmost dimension perceptible in terms of the brain we have (or the 3-10%we normally use of it). Imagine a plane view of any 3d object; and make that plane an 'entity'; its 2d-ness is also unidirectional, as we in time; I mean, it has a 'back' and a 'forward'; and its movement is a function of the movement of the whole 3d object, so will be in its 'experience' a movement of the next dimension up, against it.

Answer 3

I believe that the first three are tangible/tactile dimensions and time, is, agreeably tangible but not very tactile or it is impossible to feel your way moving back and forth in time. However, consider the following: I am a musician by trade, a percussionist. If I play a song at a different speed than the other musicians I will finish faster/slower than they. In this way am I moving Thu time? No I submit. If I were, would I not feel that I was "out of sync" in some way considering that I am a professionally ? Yes I would FEEL this, therefore making a correction. But this FEELING is one of emotion and not a physical sensation. this being said, it seems imposable to stop this type of emotional sensation, or to apply a physical characteristic (such as puttin the brakes on time) to a non-tactile dimension. Therefore, a fifth dimension may or may not have a directional aspect to it and that is the answer to WHY!!!

Answer 4

Sounds like a bit of a cop out but possibly its divine intervention. Thinking about it there is an issue with multi reality theory (Every possible action and every possible happening occurring in an alternative reality) and if time travel was possible the space time continuum would become imbalanced in all the other alternate realities at the same time.
There is another potential issue with relativity and the speed of light, if the speed of light is constant irrespective of the speed at which a body travels at then if time travel was possible then the actual speed of light would change thus negation on of the basic premise for the balance of the universe as we currently understand it.
One problem with the potential of at some stage in the future being able to bend or revers time is the current fact that we have never met or seen a time traveler.
However if we agree that for example a time traveler was able to return to 1938 and kill Hitler would it not be true that all the multiple realities would change at exactly the same time to reflect the change and the people in the different realities would not know the change had happened?
Ja.

Answer 5

For you to be able to ask that question we need cause and effect. For any intelligent being to evolve stars must form and planets cool . Life is started and evolves into an intelligent form that can ask and answer questions. If time were reversed then star formation would not go backward i.e. we would not start with supernovas or brown dwarfs that became stars and regrew their planets. Instead gravity would repel (excuse the recent discovery of an accelerating expansion, it makes the answer too complex but not invalid) and stars would not form. Gravity is directional and attracts as time moves 'forward'. Cause and effect. Planets would not form and life could not exist. Even if God is your solution to the 'why are we here' question, you still need cause and effect. Think of Genesis and the seven (six plus a rest) days of creation. Think of when you repent your sins. God may not need a mono-directional time, but you do.

There may be universes where time goes backward or moves forward and backward like the random vibrations of an atom. There may be many more of them than of our type of universe but none of them will have anyone (or anything) able to ask your question.

Answer 6

Well, philospohically speaking, you can only travel one way in a physical sense, and that is forward. You can stop, not move, but everything around you will continue to keep moving, and there is nothing you can do to stop that. The only way you can travel, without boundaries is in your mind's eye, where you can experience life in every other dimention but physically. There is a reason if you stop and think, why we are not permitted to time travel. If everyone was doing it, going back and changing history, what the hell kind of present or future would we live in. Just like in the movies, you can't mess with anything, because even the most minute detail can have a profound effect. You are way ahead of your time, and wise beyond your years. People like you should be studying the earth and sky and telling us the answers to life's basic questions. Hats off to you.

Answer 7

Ahhhh young Grasshopper. A worthy question indeed! The answer is simple really. We CAN experience time as bi-directional like the other three dimensions that we occupy. The hitch is that we haven't figured out how to harness the amount of energy that must be expended to make it happen. Believe you me, the world's top minds are working on this as we speak. We, most likely, will not experience the solution in our lifetimes but it will eventually happen.

Answer 8

Hello:

Try thinking about it this way...

When we perceive the other three dimensions we experience them in a finite length (even if we cannot see the end we know that there is one to an object). However this is always positive length...we do not know anything that is five feet deep, five feet wide and negative two feet tall...thats impossible.

This does not really do much to answer your question so much as to show that perception of all of the dimensions is...well limited in a sort of way, this is not to say that they do not exist in or cannot be perceived in another way, its just that we do not have the ability to perceive it.

I hope this helps

Rev Phil

Answer 9

Ok other parts im not sure i understand, it might be the way you explained it but heres what i think...
Time,is unidirectional. let me try to explain this. Time only moves forward, not backwards or anything, it does stop for every individual. thats what we call "time of death". when you die, they say the time of death was for example, 3:00pm, the time stopped for you at 3:00pm because, you died.

As for the dimension at the top, im asumming your talking about the up/down dimension. well it is directional because, obviously its a direction, up and down, not only is it a direction but we SAY it like a direction (look up! No dont look down! Keep driving upwards.) see? so not only mathematically but logically.
you asked if there was a fifth dimension would i be one-directional. Im not exactly sure, but what i think is that if there WAS a fifth dimension, it allows us to completely travel with complete disregard with all the other dimensions. travel through time, space,shape, Everything! sort of like the book " The boy who reversed himself" its a children's book but its pretty much what im talking about...

I know im going to be corrected by a rocket scientist or w/e but that is what i think.

Answer 10

Please stop thinking of time as linear it is not.. fourth dimension is "Spacetime" and that is a position, traveling in time may yet be possible as atomic particles can go backwards in Spacetime aswell as forwards,
maybe if you invent a time machine and that date is the point that you cannot go back before, so all the future time travellers will just show up when the first is activated