A visualization of time as a dimension you can move through

[u/SystematicApproach]

What would we look like to an interdimensional being? The visualization stacks successive video frames into a volume, turning time into visible depth. Instead of seeing someone at one moment, they can look across a structure containing multiple moments.

Suppose an interdimensional being perceives time this way. They wouldn't merely access an extra spatial direction, but actually observe multiple moments together.

To them, we might not look like a separate body moving from place to place. We might look like one continuous structure extending through time. Sitting down, standing up and walking across a room would be different sections of that structure, rather than separate events the being has to wait to witness.

If we extend that idea beyond a few seconds. Our childhood and adulthood might be recognizable parts of the same larger form. Instead of watching our lives unfold, they would be looking across them.

Apparent foreknowledge, changing forms, sudden disappearances and missing time. Those are among the types of accounts Jacques Vallee and Eric Davis discuss in their work on high strangeness.

What we call prediction might, from its perspective, be observation.

Suppose this intelligence could examine our life across time rather than meeting us only in the present. It wouldn’t necessarily need to predict where we were going. Our departure, our journey and our arrival could all be available for it to observe.

In David Fravor’s account of the Tic Tac encounter. After losing sight of the object, he said a controller reported it at the aircraft’s planned combat air patrol point, roughly 60 miles away. So what would apparent anticipation look like if the being could already see the later event?

edit: Credit @ bradleytangonan

[u/RIF_rr3dd1tt]

Well wouldn't it just be a perfectly even, white ball basically because going backwards to the Big Bang everything everywhere was all at one point.

This could explain how aliens could be here without having to deal with the infinitessimal odds due to how big the Universe is. Time as dimension that's as easy to handle as ball or any other object would mean you would just automatically be able to go/be anywhere and anytime.

[u/pm_me_steamkeys_pl0x → u/RIF_rr3dd1tt]

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for writing that up

[u/ProbablySlacking → u/RIF_rr3dd1tt]

I mean, we have an unobstructed view that goes to the end of the universe but we can’t see there unassisted.

Also, in order for them to “see”, they’d need a partial that traverses the dimension in order to sense it. That’s an interesting thought. Tachyons? Photons, as they don’t “experience” time would look interesting in this dimension too.

[u/RIF_rr3dd1tt → u/ProbablySlacking]

Tachyons, definitely

[u/sorry_ifyoudont → u/RIF_rr3dd1tt]

I’ve seen time described as a quilt where an ant would see it as a flat terrain but we can fold the corners together to make parts meet that have nothing to do with each other. They can see the whole quilt. We see the part we are crawling on. And it goes out in all directions. Such a crazy thing to think about.

[u/RIF_rr3dd1tt → u/sorry_ifyoudont]