What do you think Four or Five Dimensional Beings could be like?

[Jenova7]

Just another sci-fi brainstorming thread.

I have an universe that's created after the old one is destroyed that was created in the 5th dimension. There are many civilizations that exist in this universe, I've come up with ideas for one or two but it's pretty difficult to stretch my imagination to imagine a fifth dimension when it's already so difficult to imagine a fourth one being added.

- What might they look like? Do they have an appearance or is that just something third dimensional beings have to visualize each other and beings in higher dimensions no longer have a need of them?

- Would evolution even be a thing since the 4th dimension is time, so they have full control over time and therefore can go to any point they like, back and forth.

- Would energy even exist? What might it be like? What would the source be? How could it be used to power things? What could it be used for?

- Resources? Would any of that stuff matter to a 5 dimensional being?

- How would the universe itself act? Would it expand/contract or would it remain the same indefinitely?

- In a 3-D universe, we had stars, black holes, galaxies, planets and moons. What would a 5-D universe contain?

Leave some of your thoughts in here on what you think it might be like.

If you want to get a better understanding of how lower dimensional beings might percieve higher dimensional beings you should read "Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions " by Edwin Abbott Abbott. You can find a description and brief summary on wikipedia to make sure it is something you are interested in.

[Ubermensch]

Think about what you're saying.

A 2-D model cannot have time? What if the universe has the dimensions (x, t)?? I assume you were imagining the dimensions to be (x, y) instead, but that is a pretty obvious solution: you removed time as a dimension from the system. Suddenly the system is timeless.

No, beings in the second dimension cannot PERCEIVE time, they have time, they just can't perceive it at all, in any context. They lack the ability to comprehend that there is even such thing as energy consumption and in there, they lack directions that would otherwise be perfectly available to 3-D beings.

I think you're trying to imagine a fourth *spatial* dimension, wherein we might try to turn that direction and start walking. Why would a fourth spatial dimension suddenly no longer be effected by the other dimensions that dictate the vector space modeling it? You're saying an object is defined as x and not-x?

Because does the fact that we cannot reach higher elevations without some kind of physical object or terrain to assist us stop us from reaching those higher elevations using a staircase? We're still affected by the physics of lower dimensions but that doesn't stop us at all. It's the same principle as in a Fourth Dimension, you wouldn't be able to appear on the other side of a mountain if you weren't using that specific direction.

You're attempting to use structures and systems that are defined (dimensions, black holes, etc) and extend them to a system without any semblance of order or definition. This is evidenced by the fact that you think a system can be modeled by both TIME and somehow.. extended to simultaneously not time? Imagine a 3-D universe where the third dimension no longer cares about the x-dimension. You might plot me as (1, 2, 3) or as (purple, 2, 3), the x dimension is now meaningless, because the 3 has decided so. So now what.. is this a 2-D universe? I just don't get how a dimension turns on and off suddenly, like it no longer is a constituent part of the whole.

But that's exactly the point, each dimension will have physics or logic in them that would be paradoxes to the previous one. For example, the Penrose steps, that's a paradox in 3-D right? Not in 4-D, it makes perfect sense there. So extend this logic to the physics of higher dimensions and realize that they very likely make perfect sense in those dimensions.

The Fifth Dimension has time and no time, which allows one to travel and alter their own reality by creating parallel realities although they still have some semblance of logic and restriction to their world. Their parallel realities are affected by probability, which means that that aspect, that dimension is out of their hands and to them, it would seem impossible or a paradox to be able to then be in full control of this thing when the reality they've known has always had probability dictate it. "How can you alter something without probability jumping in at some point in the timeline to affect your desired end result?" Is something they'd ask, it would likely confuse them as it would confuse us as to how one could even create a parallel reality.

[Shadowferal]

Stuck in the middle...

[Ubermensch]

If you want to get a better understanding of how lower dimensional beings might percieve higher dimensional beings you should read "Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions " by Edwin Abbott Abbott. You can find a description and brief summary on wikipedia to make sure it is something you are interested in.

I'll check it out, thank you for recommending it.

[PACOX]

They'd probably have a higher sense of time than us. Perhaps being to see the 'time' that happened at a point in space.

[Ubermensch]

Stuck in the middle...

The tesseract is awesome, too bad we're only seeing a slice of what it actually looks like.

[PACOX]

isn't the defining aspect of the 4th dimension sensory? like 4d movies that poke you in the back, blow cold air, etc. aren't we IN the 4th dimension?

We are however many dimensions exist. Don't mean we can perceive them.

[Cidel]

That's how Rick and Morty did it.

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It's thought that as a 4-D being moves towards us in the fourth (spacial) dimension they would grow larger (in our 3 dimensions.) Also as they turn they would appear to change shape (unless they were a regular sphere.) The flatworld analogy has you think about 3D shapes intersecting with a 2D plane like a piece of paper and they shapes they would make as they move and turn.

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Sorry if this sounds a bit dickish, but why are you basing the story in a 5-D universe if you don't have any solid ideas about what it would be like?

You say the 4th dimension is time, but in a 5-D universe it may be the 5th dimension is time (their universe would be 4 spacial dimensions + time, just like we perceive 3 spacial dimensions + time) so they wouldn't be able to move through time at will.

Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are set in our 3 dimensional space but advanced races have access to a fourth dimension (hyperspace, split into infra-space "below" our universe and ultra-space "above" our universe, a realm of energy that separates us from the slightly older and slightly younger universes in the nested multiverse that make their Reality) which gives them lots of interesting things to do (a 3D object viewed from hyperspace will be as open as a 2D shape viewed on a piece of paper.) It also includes the concept of "subliming" where a species can ascend to existence in a higher set of dimensions, however practically all that do so lose any interest in our mundane, 3D space and any that have returned are so altered by the experience they can only speak in barely comprehensible abstractions.

I apologize for nonsense post, but looking to read new (to me) science fiction and want a way to save something that interests me so I can look it up in the future and buy or borrow the series. Thank you for the name / books.

[GreenJesus]

Maybe before jumping to 5D you should have a full grasp of 4D first? Anyway... 2D>3D AYAYA

[Daedius]

How would they look on an Axis?

We got x for 1D, x y for 2D, and x y z for 3D.

x y z 0 ?

[Chonar]

A good read for everyone interested in this topic;

FLATLAND; A Romance of Many Dimensions
https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Abbott/paper.pdf

Synopsis; in a society of 2D creatures, the wealthy elite have many sides while the common folk have few. They are ruled by the magnificent circle, one with so many sides that they become indistinguishable, so perfect is He.
Yet one day, a gentleman Square is visited by a mysterious interdimensional being.

He calls himself Sphere, and opens the Square's mind to the truth.

But in a world where the elite is firmly established in their ways, how will they react to this revelation?

If you want to get a better understanding of how lower dimensional beings might percieve higher dimensional beings you should read "Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions " by Edwin Abbott Abbott. You can find a description and brief summary on wikipedia to make sure it is something you are interested in.

Aw darn, Jenova beat me to it.
Anyway, go read. It's an interesting story. My personal favorite parts are his dream visit to a singularity called Pointland.

[Monster Hunter]

In my Old Universe, it follows a Dark Forest equilibrium as well, destroy before they're destroyed to preserve themselves. But in the New Universe, there isn't any violence or suffering, it's an era of knowledge, compassion and tranquility. I just can't understand what the point in this is, why bother if you're going to die doing it? Why not remain hidden? Why isn't there entire civilizations hell-bent on hiding their presence from others? I know it's a story that you didn't write but that kind of irks me, interesting concept though.

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The Lovecraftian approach is lazy in my opinion and should be used sparingly.

Problem is any attempt to describe a 4th,5th,6th dimensional being will always fall short and be wrong because by there vary nature we can't comprehend them.

So it's the only way of yeally doing it.

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How would they look on an Axis?

We got x for 1D, x y for 2D, and x y z for 3D.

x y z 0 ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota...uclidean_space

[Puupi]

I think people are overlooking the fact that all dimensions, outside of "3D", are purely theoretical concepts that only exist in the minds of people.

Yes, that includes 1D and 2D. Those are not real. Nothing is 1D or 2D nor can really be.

[Gaaz]

I think people are overlooking the fact that all dimensions, outside of "3D", are purely theoretical concepts that only exist in the minds of people.

Yes, that includes 1D and 2D. Those are not real. Nothing is 1D or 2D nor can really be.

I suppose that black hole singularity can hypothetically be considered a 1D object, an event horizon a 2D object / event (because it does not have a depth, only an outside and an inside state). Perception of 1-2D or 4D+ would indeed be very difficult, if outright impossible outside of a math equation. That said, we do have scientific hypothesis for objects that require 11 dimensions to exist (M-Theory)

[Super Kami Dende]

Our Brains wouldn't be capable of even comprehending their existence, let alone what they could be like.

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I think people are overlooking the fact that all dimensions, outside of "3D", are purely theoretical concepts that only exist in the minds of people.

Yes, that includes 1D and 2D. Those are not real. Nothing is 1D or 2D nor can really be.

YOU MEAN MY 2D WAIFUS ARE REAL??!

[Magical Mudcrab]

Leave some of your thoughts in here on what you think it might be like.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him

At the risk of being non-constructive, there is likely no reason to even speculate on this as the concept of what someone is will be fundamentally different to those beings than what it is to us. Even if we could somehow communicate with them in the hopes of finding out anything about them, we likely would never be capable of understanding their perspective (i.e.: they would be unable to explain anything to us in a way we can understand, and vice versa). There's already a lot of difficulty in communication between different people (lost in translation, differences in beliefs/values, etc.), the likelihood of us being able to meaningfully communicate ideas is close to non-existent (i.e.: how do we communicate what something looks like when what we both see looks fundamentally different; people cannot conceptualize the idea of 4th dimensional and higher objects).

[Dhrizzle]

How would they look on an Axis?

We got x for 1D, x y for 2D, and x y z for 3D.

x y z 0 ?

w?

/10chars

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No, beings in the second dimension cannot PERCEIVE time, they have time, they just can't perceive it at all, in any context. They lack the ability to comprehend that there is even such thing as energy consumption and in there, they lack directions that would otherwise be perfectly available to 3-D beings.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that time is the fourth dimension, it might be better to think of it as the first (or even zeroth) dimension that underlies the others.

[Devilyaki]

An unimaginably horror, were a glance would melt your eyes, a form with a wordless figure unthinkable to even the greatest mind of our worthless existence. It walks on time, see sound and tastes colours.. you are thought as nothing more than a passing thought is a sea of conversation.

[orochimaru22]

maybe it would be like naruto in the war arc

[Ubermensch]

So 2-D beings don't perceive time. And 5-D beings escape time altogether... I'm rather flabbergasted that you can literally make all these statements in one sentence without flinching. And why do you get to define the rules of which dimensions interact with time? What makes "glop" any less meaningful than this claim?

None of it is scientifically confirmed but it's almost accurate and since nobody really knows what these dimensions could actually contain or consist of, we're all speculating here. It's useless to get all worked up over scientific facts and evidence over something that we can only speculate about. Yes, your Bulk theory could be true but we really don't know that, hence the reason why I'm speculating these definitions because they're interesting, make a lot of sense when conceptualized in their own dimensions and they're quite close to the many theories scientists and people come up with about them.

Mathematicians may use multiple dimensions to do their calculations and figure out theories but let me ask you something: mathematics is universal but can it actually account for crossing into multiple dimensions? We use it to map out and draw them on paper but how do we know that mathematics is even enough for something like that? That's why we're starting to look into Quantum Mechanics, which is a step above mathematics, because it's not enough for what we're doing here.

Also, you say that we're not restricted by the dimensions we're in but can we harness or manipulate the Fourth Dimension? Are we able to understand or even use the new spatial direction provided by a Fourth Dimension? No, because it's invisible to us, we'd have to have a different kind of brain or some kind of technology that'd be able to detect it for us because we're not capable of doing it. That's the easy part, the hard part is actually transversing that dimension.

I don't get your point here. Are you suggesting that staircases aren't physical objects/terrain??

No, you assumed that I was saying that higher dimensions weren't affected by lower dimensions but that's not true. The Second Dimension affects us in the fact that we still have to utilize a method to reach a higher elevation, something that's impossible in a 2-D world but is possible in our world. But we can't just simply "go up", can we? We need to utilize our 3-D world in order to "go up", in order to utilize the third spatial dimension. Likewise this is what goes for all the higher dimensions, they're affected by all the dimensions before them in some way or form.

You keep saying "paradox". Pentachorons don't exist in 3-D but they exist in 4-D. That doesn't mean it's a paradox, it's just a 4-D object.

But can it exist in our dimension? What is it considered when we attempt to create something like it in our dimension? A paradox, like the Penrose steps, it's a paradoxical structure until it's in a fourth dimension, which enables the fourth spatial direction that ensures that the Penrose steps now makes sense, in that dimension.

I get what you're trying to say with the mountain example, but we go around mountains all the time without using a fourth dimension...

We as 3-D beings HAVE to go around a mountain using the means available to us in all our previous dimensions. A tunnel through the mountain, a detour around it or to climb over it. I'm not saying it's impossible to bypass a mountain, I'm saying it's impossible to utilize the fourth spatial dimension, which a fourth direction in which we can take to bypass our mountain.

Just because we created a system that no longer follows our intuitive perception of reality doesn't means that reality suddenly breaks down.

I didn't say that either, I said that the perception of reality becomes different. We're used to assuming that we cannot perceive time as non-linear, that we cannot alter time or travel it and nor can we fully control our parallel realities from altering time itself. The reason for this is because these things make no sense in our world, there's no frame of reference, there's no connection and no possible way for these things to occur for us here.

You're thinking about numbers, I'm thinking about the perception of a creature that exists in that dimension and what they'd be like or capable of doing.

The fifth dimension does *NOT* have time and no time. That makes no sense at all. Just because the fifth dimension can interact with time differently does not mean it's timeless. You're injecting extra meaning into actual physical theory by slamming the door open when all we've done is put a foot through. There isn't a parallel reality, the structure of spacetime is still causal.

It has to make no sense at all though because we're not 5-D beings, do you really think we can perceive and understand something so convoluted and paradoxical? It has to exist in that particular dimension for it to make sense, with all the spatial dimensions that allow it to become possible. It's just another direction that wouldn't make sense or occur to us.

Our understanding of the structure of spacetime is still limited by what we know of the 3-D, no matter how much mathematics we inject into it to create models of spacetime in higher dimensions, we're still unable to arrive at a proper theory as to what we'd actually be seeing or what the creatures in there would look like, behave, think or be capable of doing. All we're doing is drawing pictures, we're not thinking about the perception of the world.

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You seem to be stuck on the idea that time is the fourth dimension, it might be better to think of it as the first (or even zeroth) dimension that underlies the others.

No, I'm saying that the full perception of time is the Fourth Dimension which allows us to bypass the physical world using the new direction that could only be understood if you had a comprehensive grasp of a non-linear timeline. If you can see time backwards and forwards, then what use are physical structures? They'd be nothing to you, just colorful scenery.

Just to clarify and reinforce my point, you're not TRAVELING or actually harnessing time itself, it's just your perception of it now opens up a new doorway that's always been there all along that you now know how to enter and exit.

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If a lion could talk, we could not understand him

At the risk of being non-constructive, there is likely no reason to even speculate on this as the concept of what someone is will be fundamentally different to those beings than what it is to us. Even if we could somehow communicate with them in the hopes of finding out anything about them, we likely would never be capable of understanding their perspective (i.e.: they would be unable to explain anything to us in a way we can understand, and vice versa). There's already a lot of difficulty in communication between different people (lost in translation, differences in beliefs/values, etc.), the likelihood of us being able to meaningfully communicate ideas is close to non-existent (i.e.: how do we communicate what something looks like when what we both see looks fundamentally different; people cannot conceptualize the idea of 4th dimensional and higher objects).

It's still fun to speculate about it, some of our speculation may turn out to be right and some wrong, maybe all of our speculation is wrong or right. But it does create new ideas of our universe and what might be going on in it, where we can't see.

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How would they look on an Axis?

We got x for 1D, x y for 2D, and x y z for 3D.

x y z 0 ?

Using mathematics to predict our perception of these things is pointless, in my opinion.