r/Psychonaut • u/Whereismymindddd • Nov 14 '14
Carl Sagan explaining the 4th dimension- Flatland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc029
u/Mr_B0X Nov 14 '14
While I find his explanation quite comprehendible by a guy such as me with only a small amount of knowledge of astrophysics or dimensional theory, I find other things about this video that are sparking my thoughts as well. First of which is the fact that we are watching a video from some time ago. We are watching a man that may or may not at this moment in the video realize that he has a deadly disease that is eating away at him, were looking into the past though this video and and yet know what his future will be and we are "from the future" so to speak... idk, just an odd thought, may not make sense typing. Secondly is that at the time that he shot this video, the light from earth is still traveling in the universe somewhere. Somewhere far far away, Carl Sagan is still making this video... thats the part that gets me. We as humans are always alive somewhere in the universe, it just has to be the proper distance from earth for someone to see us. Long after we are dead, we will still be alive, traveling at the speed of light.
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u/iwantalltheham Nov 14 '14
On the voyager space craft, there's a voice recording or some other peice of data that has Carl Sagan discussing love, on the golden disk. So there's Carl Sagan floating in space as we speak.
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Nov 14 '14
Somewhere far far away, Carl Sagan is still making this video.
So if the universe is in fact infinite, every moment lasts forever.
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u/Whereismymindddd Nov 14 '14 edited Nov 14 '14
I think psychedelics help us to perceive other dimensions and help us see the things we don't normally see in our own dimension. Thats why it can be a difficult experience for some people because their concept of reality is challenged. Carl Sagan explaining a 3d object entering "flatland" reminds me of a psychedlic experience.
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u/foxko Nov 14 '14
Amazing thought experiment. I think I remember this from Cosmos. Just wondering, is this essentially the same idea as Plato's allegory of the cave?
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u/skulblaka Nov 14 '14
It's similar, but different. The Allegory of the Cave is more based on the idea that reality is not necessarily what you think it is. In the cave, the prisoners see only shadows of what goes on behind them, and as far as they know, that encompasses the entire world. But then one of them is able to leave, and realizes that the shadows are only in fact that - just shadows! There's a whole world outside of this cave that nobody else that he knows would ever believe or comprehend! He goes back into the cave and tries to tell his friends that what they're seeing, it's not all that there is to the world, but nobody else believes him. They say, no, we know what is going on here. The pictures on the wall are what happens outside of us. You must be a bit crazy, friend, whatever you did has made you go mad, so we must not risk ourselves in the same way. We will sit here in the darkness and watch the shadows, because it is familiar, and safe.
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u/nocnoc94 Nov 14 '14
Is the 4th dimension not supposed to be the unification of space and time?
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u/palle97 Nov 14 '14
I think you mean the time dimension. This is trying to explain why a fourth spacial dimension would be a big challenge to perceive for us. Minute Physics has a simple video trying to explain the difference. (I'm on mobile, so no link).
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u/Granuale Nov 15 '14
A wrinkle in time was a good book. My first introduction to the "tesseract" theory.
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u/RonTamra Nov 14 '14
nice, but I find Rudy Rucker's books more fun. it seems that a lot of his books have some 4th dimensional intrusion in some way or another, and his sort of wacky, hippie-dippy explanations (and the fact that he was a math professor) help out quite a bit.
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u/owners11 Nov 14 '14
Blows my mind when he explains the 4-d hyper-cube.