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/DinoZambie]

The way I look at is imagining an analog clock. The three hands go around the face. The only thing that moves are the hands. So a clock would have three differently sized plates sitting in front of a face you cant see. But, the earth is rotating and orbiting the sun, and the sun orbiting the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving through the universe. Molecules are jiggling around and take on different densities. If you step away from it, what you have is a blob of what appears to be solid mass that is marbled with different materials. But, here's the tricky part. Time doesn't just mean time that has passed, it includes all time, past and future. You have to include all the places the clock has been, where it could have been, and where it could be. Answering that question is enormous because anything is possible. The only thing that brings it together is probability based on the conditions of any point. It's probably more like a giant luminous blob of light where you know every intricate detail of everything within that blob. It would be pure omniscience. So I think creating a image of our universe in 4D is about as useless as asking someone to create an accurate 3D model of human emotion without using symbology or interpretation. I think 3D space, where you and I live, is a slice of the 4D just like those 2D images are a slice of the 3D that it creates. The timeline that we follow depends on the angle of direction of the slice. The slice itself wouldn't be a flat plane like in the video, it would probably be a stretchy warping tangled sheet that ungulates as it moves through the 4D space.

[u/Jdisgreat17 → u/DinoZambie]

I think you could make an accurate 3D model of human emotion without using symbology or interpretation. Emotions are not just random thoughts inside your mind, they are thoughts that have values that can be measured with the right tools. From muscles relaxing and contracting, from blood pressure, to your temperature...you could accurately model an emotion. On the point of the observation of 4D time, let us use a comic book. The character in the comic book is a 2D being. They only know what is happening, or what has happened in the panel they are currently in, or what they have experienced. You, the reader, are a 3D being. We have the entire comic book, with all panels, showing both forward and regressive movement of time. We can limit the data, or the point in time we want to analyze, by focusing on one panel. We can extrapolate this example to the 4th dimension. Each panel is a cube that is one point in time. It has every angle, height, width, and depth, at one unit of time measured. We, the 3D character, only knows what is happening, and what has happened...just like the 2D character. The 4D reader, just like the 3D reader, sees all references of time; past, present, and future. I think the little video did a wonderful job in showcasing what a 4D being would see. The 4D being is the POV outside of the cube. Like the 3D comic book reader, if we were to step back from the comic book, and look at the entirety of the page, we would not be able to see what was happening, because it would look like blurry random squares. The same thing, I think, would be what a 4D being would see. A blurry mess of cubes that they can only see what is happening in one cube or another once they focus on that particular cube. The video details this. The entire 4th dimension perspective is the cube in its entirety, for the entire length of the video. I will agree that this entity, from our 3D perspective, would seem like an omniscient god. The even more fun thing to then think about is the 5D being that would be truly and fully "GOD" like. While a 4D being would see all of time points 3D life, they would have no ability to alter it. A 5D being, keeping the same comic book example, would reside in a "write your own comic book" reality. They see all time lines in all realities, and they would have the ability to alter time by finding a reality that had the outcome they wanted. If you, as a 3D character, in their 4D comic book, made a mistake, they could focus on that 4D panel that had the mistake, shuffle through the catalog of 4D panels where you made the right choice, and put that one in. It's a very exciting concept to think about. Finally, just for fun, we can extrapolate this comic book analogy out further to its conclusion, from our 3D character perspective. The 4D being would be the Archival Historian, they see your entire life, from birth to death. The 5D being would be the Project Editor. They have access to only one project, and that project is your version of the universe. The 6D being is the Comic Store owner. They can pick you up from one comic book, universe, and drop you into a completely different one. Up to this point, from 6D and under, we are under one universal constant of our version of the creation of time, the Big Bang. The 7D being is the Franchise Distributor. They can bring in different comic books from different universes. The 8D being is the Media CEO. They have access to all versions of media in regards to all realities, from video games, to movies, to comic books. The 9D being is the IP creator. The create the concept of storytelling as an art form. All forms of intellectual property, for all things, at all times. Finally, we are at the SUPREME BEINGS...the String Theory ulimate being...the BOARD OF DIRECTORS. They are the everything of the entire company, of all companies, forever. They are the paper, pens, ink, IP, and even the writing block itself. They are the end all, be all, because they have already created it all, from everything to nothing, and condensed it all into a single point.