Reality consists of 3 spatial dimensions with time adding a fourth dimension. But what reason could we possibly have for putting such limits on reality? Do higher dimensions have any reality apart from their construction within a mathematical framework?
Plato believed in the reality of higher dimensions, as his allegory of the cave demonstrated. Claude Bragdon considered the fourth dimension to be spatial. He believed our conception of time as the fourth dimension was mistaken. We experience time as a “fourth dimension” because of our lack of ability in sensing this dimension which is spatial. He used an analogy equivalent to Plato’s cave analogy. A flatlander would experience a cube travelling through its plane-wise world as beginning with a point, expanding to a polygon and finally contracting to a point before disappearing from sight. It is obvious to me that this flatlander inhabits a three dimensional world and is itself three dimensional, but can only perceive in two spatial dimensions. It perceives itself and its fellow flatlanders as a polygon which changes over time. It conceives of reality as consisting in two spatial dimensions and one time dimension.
Rudolf Steiner discusses the dimensions of space and beyond in a collection of lectures and discussions collated in the book, “The Fourth Dimension. Sacred Geometry, Alchemy, and Mathematics.”
Here he considers beings consisting of various dimensions. A being of two spatial dimensions would only be capable of perceiving one dimension, a being of three dimensions would only perceive two dimensions and so on. In this resect we are beings of four spatial dimensions but we only perceive three of them. Although each of these three dimensions are unique. They all differ experientially.
Regarding the contemplation of the fourth dimension, Steiner admired the work of Charles Howard Hinton who has been credited with coining the word “tesseract” as the name for the four dimensional equivalent to the cube. As a cube can be represented in two dimensions by the hexagon, so the tesseract can be represented in three dimensions by the rhombic dodecahedron.
In Steiner’s lectures linked to above, he introduces his audience to the mathematical treatment of the higher dimension with accompanying diagrams. He also highlights the differences between mathematical treatment and the reality of further dimensions. He does not view reality as consisting of a series of ever increasing spatial dimensions. The neutralization of polarity in one dimension gives rise to the adjacent dimension. For example when two planes cross there arises a line. The planes give rise to the line but the line has no two-dimensional component.
He considers us to be six-dimensional beings with the three physical dimensions being a reflection of three higher causal, creative dimensions. The plants we perceive are three dimensional images of four dimensional beings. In his “archetypal plant” Goethe caught a glimpse of the reality of plants as four-dimensional beings.
Time is a projection of the fourth dimension into the three spatial dimensions of the physical world. It is a feature of living beings that they change intrinsically over time. Sentient beings encompass five dimensions and self aware beings encompass six dimensions. Thinking is dimensionless.
Now when we try to understand the connection between mind and matter some people regard this as a problem of interaction between an immaterial mind and a material body. This becomes a problem for both materialists and idealists to grapple with. But if we look at this from the point of dimensions we can see a solution. We can take an example of a similar problem in two-dimensional reality. In this two-dimensional world we can imagine a ring with a smaller disc sitting outside it. How can the disc get inside the ring without somehow interfering with the structure of the ring? This would be impossible if reality was limited to two dimensions. But if the disc could be lifted into the third dimension and then moved into the ring, this would seem like a miracle to any being perceiving in just two dimensions. It would be as if the disc disappeared and then reappeared within the ring. It is the same with an act of willing a part of my body to move, i.e. mind affecting matter. The connection does not occur in our familiar three dimensional spatial world but in the higher dimensions in which my inner sentient life belongs. This activity impinges on the three-dimensional world but it is not restrained by it.
This is why “flexible” use of language pisses me off.
Charlie, you were talking about how the ego lives on after the last of our body cells have died and you linked to some guy with a degree that spoke of interacting with the dead. Is it any wonder that I got away with the impression that you were referring to ghosts?!?
Hey, you are on the same wavelength as Steiner. You are both in sync here. 🙂
In “The Fourth Dimension…” he talks about speed being equal to distance over time.He says:
The reality is that all matter is dynamic, from the non-relativistic spinning of quantum mechanics to the motion of stars and galaxies.
These are particular triangles which are determined by the relative relationships between their internal angles. They partake of the ideal triangle but none can be considered the ideal triangle.
Here is Olive Whicher on the subject:
You are asking if the ideal triangle is a particular type of triangle. No it isn’t.
If we go with Whicher, there’s really no such thing as a non-ideal triangle. A geometric shape is either an ideal triangle, or it’s not a triangle at all.
Ms Whicher appears not to understand the meaning of the word “infinite”.
I should add, according to Whicher “A triangle is determined either by any three points in a plane, but not in a line; or by any three lines in a plane, but not in a point.” But according to Wikipedia, these are called “degenerate triangles”, which I suppose one could consider “non-ideal”, but still triangles.
I provided links to several people who had researched NDEs. For all I know they might also have talked about ghosts, but I am not responsible for everything they say or have said.
It is precisely because of all the images and concepts that people have when the word “ghost” is brought up in conversation, that I would not use it.
CharlieM,
This is one of the reasons why it is sometimes so hard to communicate with you:
versus
So which is it going to be? Flexible or precise context-sensitive use of words?
By the way: I take a ghost to be the soul of a deceased person. You accept that those exist, if I am not mistaken?
You are having the same confusion as Kantian Naturalist.
The ideal triangle is inclusive of all triangles. Any triangle you care to create, physically observe, or make a mental image of, is exclusive of all other triangles.
Can you expand on that accusation? How familiar are you with projective geometry?
Here Whicher is describing non-degenerate triangles. In my opinion if a triangle is flattened enough to become a straight line or a point, then in losing its two-dimensionality, it ceases to be a triangle.
A degenerate triangle is a non-triangle.
I prefer context-sensitive flexibility covering many angles if possible. People are welcome to ask for clarification if they’re unclear as to the meaning.
But your take is not everyone’s take. I’m not sure why we need to discuss a word I didn’t even use. It’s my opinion that the concept “ghost” produces in the average mind a very materialistic idea of what lies beyond the physical. It conjures up the idea of a very ephemeral, highly vaporized physical-like substance.
And of course we now have try to understand what you mean by “soul”.
Yes. I believe we consist of body, soul and spirit, with the body being the most transient. But these are my personal beliefs and I would not ask anyone else to unthinkingly accept these beliefs.
Wait, what??
Material bodies are mostly empty space, because this is what we have learned from instrumentation- even though our naked eyes can’t perceive it.
How is that in any way whatsoever a simile for thoughts being material? Our eyes can’t see material thoughts but they really are there? We are just waiting for the day we can measure them?
What is the evidence for that?
Whether thoughts are material depends on what you mean by “material”. And we don’t have a precise enough definition to settle that.
I am not sure why you get all upset when I use a perfectly fine synonym for the words you did use.
Well, your opinion is not everyone else’s opinion. It is my opinion that the average mind just thinks of ghosts as the souls of the deceased manifesting themselves to the living.
If you believe the “ego” lingers after death and is able to interact with the living, then you believe in what most people would habitually refer to as ghosts. I did not mean to use the term in a derogative sense; this was genuinely what I took you to be referring to: the idea follows naturally from minds being independent of physical bodies.
If you’d rather have me using a different word, just let me know. But “ghosts” is what I will be having in mind. Just so you know.
I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. But let’s notice what follows when we are concerned to avoid that confusion.
What Whicher calls “the ideal triangle” is simply the definition of a triangle. And of course the definition must not be conflated with the examples. We can think of definitions as criteria, and with that in mind, it becomes perfectly clear that we must not confuse the criteria themselves with whatever satisfies those criteria. (Some well-known infinite regresses happen if we make that mistake!)
But once we realize that all this talk of “ideal triangles” is just a way of talking about criteria and definitions, the air of mysticism disappears. For those who dislike mysticism, this is a good thing.
The evidence comes from neuroimagining studies made by cognitive neuroscientists and neurophenomenologists.
The idea is that just as we perceive solid objects but we can learn, via physics, both (1) that solid objects are mostly empty space and also (2) why it is that we perceive mostly empty space as solid objects, so too we can learn, via cognitive neuroscience, both (1) that thoughts are neurophysiological processes and also (2) why it is that we perceive thoughts as lacking material properties.
And then we are told that empty space is far from empty. And the bits in between are probabilities. They cannot be thought of in terms of solid, liquid or gas.
So we end up with empty space being filled (according to quantum field theory, “even the vacuum has a vastly complex structure”): whereas occupied space is unlike matter as we know it. Nothing is something and something is nothing like matter. 🙂
You can put your mind at rest, I’m not getting upset.
CharlieM: It’s my opinion that the concept “ghost” produces in the average mind a very materialistic idea of what lies beyond the physical. It conjures up the idea of a very ephemeral, highly vaporized physical-like substance.
Corneel: Well, your opinion is not everyone else’s opinion. It is my opinion that the average mind just thinks of ghosts as the souls of the deceased manifesting themselves to the living.
Fair enough. I’m all for individuality and people having their own opinions.
Please carry on using using words as you see fit.
The main point I was trying to make is that the physical body is a very transient entity which is in a constant state of change. It, like opinion, is always becoming as opposed to being. With our egos and intellect we are concerned with being as Plato would put it.
So am I. I’ve been saying this for years.
Yes, we don’t need mysticism to understand triangles. Referring back to Plato, any particular triangle, whether in the world or in the mind, belongs to the realm of becoming. On the other hand, the ideal triangle belongs in the realm of being. It is not subject to change.
Your “just a way of talking” concerns something that is not subject to the foibles of time and space, while the actual triangles that approximate the description are indeed subject to these foibles.
All we can say is that neurophysiological processes can be seen to accompany thoughts. But we know that feelings also accompany thoughts. So it is possible that these neurophysiological processes are an aspect of the feelings which are accompanying our thoughts.
Also you mention learning. In order to learn our thinking has to be active. And if we want to retain in memory the object of our thoughts, we invoke our will. So will too is connected to neurophysiological processes.
When you decided to learn philosophy was it brain processes that put this idea into your mind?
No, because it is not an accusation. But to the extent that an expansion is required: infinity is not a number, and Whicher is using the term as if it were.
This is a confused way of putting things. The correct way of framing the idea is that my decision to learn philosophy was the very same thing as a fantastically complex array of synchronic and diachronic neuronal responses modulating and resonating with fantastically complex configurations of my social and physical environment.
This is the exact opposite of what Whicher was doing. She has given no numerical value in relation to any point at infinity or otherwise. Where are you seeing her using numbers in her treatment of infinity?
A good summary of why a sentient computer is forever 20 years in the future.
Just read the plain text. How does she, or you, or any philosophical idealist, propose to establish whether one point of a putative triangle is, in fact, at infinity? You can assert that it is, but you can’t prove it without computation. Since you can’t (by the definition of infinity) enumerate its position, you can’t do anything with such a mathematical unicorn, except to compare it differentially with other mathematical entities beasts. But that is in the nature of idealism – trenchant, mythomaniacal, and ultimately useless in the world of real existence.
In one of his lectures here is what Steiner had to say
Both men drew the same diagram. One represented brain processes and the other pathways of thought.
So, like Neil, you too are on the same wavelength as Steiner. Brain processes and mental processes are both aspects of the same thing and so they can be represented in similar ways.
Goethe would have remained within his mental processes as this is what he has direct experience of. Examining the brain processes that accompany mental processes involves an additional step in which any supposed relationships between the physical and the mental come from the realm of opinion. Our mental life is empirically experienced whereas neuronal processes are not.
Nobody needs to demonstrate the position of infinity. It is beyond having any position. Look at this diagram. The red points “object” and “image” form a triangle with the origin as the third apex. You can select the viewpoint and move the line ray from the point. As you move it towards a position parallel to the base blue line the image point moves away from the origin. Imagine the line ray extending out to the left as a complete line. When the lines are parallel the selected line will cross the base line at infinity and further movement past the parallel will result in the crossing point to approach the origin from the left. These lines will always cross at some point and so a triangle will result from all points along the line infinity included.
We can have a mental grasp of all this without making any numerical measurements.
That tells us something about how theoretically underdeveloped neurophysiology was in the 1920s (or whether this meeting took place). At that time, neurophysiology was very limited. It was commmonplace to draw upon psychological assumptions in describing what one thought one saw. The fact that the materialist and the neo-Kantian have sketched the same functional relationships tells us something about how simplistic neurophysiology was at that time.
Any similarity between myself and Steiner is a coincidence based on our having similar philosophical influences (e.g. Kant and Hegel), though I follow Marx, Engels, Dewey, and Bateson in holding that that dialectical and holistic principles only make sense when liberated from idealism and transposed into the dynamics of material reality.
In any case, my view is not that “Brain processes and mental processes are both aspects of the same thing and so they can be represented in similar ways.” My view is that what we call mental processes are a specific way of talking about what are in reality brain processes.
The simplest way I know how to put it is this: the relation of mental process to brain process is one of appearance to reality.
I reject the assumption that brain processes are not introspectible. I say this because we know that people can learn how to introspectively observe their own brain processes. It requires learning enough neuroscience that one can use it in generating reports about one’s mood and experience.
For the curious, Pete Mandik does a good job of explaining why the idea that we can learn to introspect our brain states as brain states is much more plausible than the reasons given for rejecting that idea.
Well, that’s your opinion. I too reject your assumption.
We’ve been here before; I now have a much better understanding of why you were so goddam eager to tell me what I was NOT experiencing. You are demonstrably wrong about this.
I also now understand the enormous pile of woo he is pouring on top of the elegant, simple realm of projective geometry. The Whicher piece was illuminating.
Neither of them was claiming to make an accurate representation of brain or mind processes. They were each making a rough sketch of the respective processes.
A material reality that only enters your awareness through mental processes.
This is a conclusion you have come to through thinking, and so thinking should be your point of departure. A great deal of learning was required to lead you to this belief. This learning involved observation, thinking and memorizing.
We first observe and then apply thinking. No doubt you have at the least observed diagrams of brains and neurons and such like and learned about the various functions involved. But there is one thing we can observe which is unique. That is thinking itself. We study external objects such as brains through thinking. But thinking is the only thing which we study where the entity under study is the very same as that which we use to study it.
Here is a very short video on this subject.
I agree that we can introspectively examine brain processes. But this introspection is a study of generalized brain processes, and not a real time observation of one’s own brain activity.
Thanks for the link. I’ve read through the paper and it’ll probably take further reading for me to take it all in.
I thought the account of the “gorilla” in the restaurant was worth thinking about.
Both men have the same basic perception. And in an attempt at understanding, both attach concepts to what they have perceived. Neither of them come to a complete understanding but George does come closer to one. He has a fuller range of concepts to select because of his previous experiences. Although he does make the assumption that the person in the gorilla suit is a man. Could it not have been a woman?
Another point I have trouble with is Churchland’s talk of an ammeter being in “introspective mode”, and Mandik’s further example of a thermometer being in “introspective mode”. I hope they are not trying to claim that ammeters and thermometers are capable of introspection!
I assumed you might. 🙂
I wouldn’t have thought reincarnation was your thing. 🙂
Elegant and simple and polarity being fundamental to it. What’s not to love?
I value your criticism. I just wish there was a bit more substance in it.
Here is a similar video to the one I linked to above: “True Knowledge | The Thinker Has A Reason To Exist”.
Apologists rely on the confusion/equivocation to try and say that thoughts are supernatural (“immaterial”). The word physical works better to explain the confusion: thoughts are not a cell, or a molecule, but activities performed by cells/molecules/chemicals.
I am pretty sure that not a single cognitive neuroscience study can tell us what a thought is.
So we now accept assumptions as science?
Nonsense. None of that is true.
But I tried pointing out the flaws in this entire approach before, and that criticisms were ignored. Now I know better.
You come across as basically a kind and decent person, so I don’t want to be mean-spirited. But it’s not to your credit that you’ve accepted such codswallop as your worldview.
KN, you are getting worse. Don’t you understand what Charlie is telling you here? He is absolutely right. You (people) are using your mind to analyze what your mind is. You can try to obfuscate it and say that you are using instruments* (which your brain is then interpreting the results of-instruments that were also made by your brain’s ideas) and its the instruments measuring your brain, not your brain measuring your brain, but the problem of an atom measuring an atom doesn’t go away.
And furthermore you are assuming your mind is correct in deciding what your mind is, because the mind is infallible and thus it must be infallible, because our minds have determined this.
Think it possible that you may be mistaken KN. I have pointed out your flaws and you have ignored the criticism (Notice the DNA Jock level of unwarranted condecension here?) . If you don’t you aren’t likely to notice your own.
*There are no such instruments, this is a figment of your imagination.
Your body is useless. Please donate it to science.
Corneel,
Can you use your forearm to measure your forearm? And would you be able to know if the measurement is right or not?
I assume you mean only using my forearm. No, I cannot. Can you study your mind using only your mind? I think you need the physical bits as well.
We often use our body parts in the study of ourselves: We have used hands and eyes to learn about hands and eyes. We also need our hands and eyes to learn about brains and minds. You are not just your mind, phoodoo.
But perhaps you can explain: as I understand it, Charlie tries to establish “thinking” as the epistemological bedrock from which all other conclusions should follow. It is interesting that you support that idea. Can you explain why “thinking” as a necessary starting-point for epistemology would bar us from learning about our own minds? And why would it invalidate KN’s view that “mental processes are a specific way of talking about what are in reality brain processes”?
The physical bits as well?? So the mind IS something other than the physical bits?
I for one see thoughts as natural.
You believe the activity of physical substances gives rise to thoughts. I believe thoughts are mediated through physical substances. What makes you think that your belief is more justified?
I think the most he can say is that neurophysiological processes have been shown to have accompanied thoughts.
Your opinion is not as important to me as is your input from your point of view when you provide some background giving some context as to how your view relates to others. So I hope you will continue to provide us with many more informative posts.
Maybe we all need to try to understand each other a bit more. I’ll try to find the posts where you say you have pointed out flaws in the approach I follow so I can review your arguments and to see if I have amended my position since then. I do look back quite often and wish I had put things differently.
LOL. Aren’t we a bit too old for playing “gotcha”? If you really want my opinion: I think it is established beyond any reasonable doubt that the brain is required for the mind to exist. Whether there is some additional ingredient involved in conscious minds that is unknown to modern physics I do not know.
Will you be answering the questions?
Here is a video which I may have linked to before, I can’t remember. It’s a talk by Prof. Peter Heusser in which he asks:
“Do colours and sounds exist in the world or are they products of our sensory and neurophysiological mechanisms?” I have given my summary below.
It is generally believed that colours do not exist in the world. They are the product of brain processes acting on nerve signals coming via the optic nerves. The external colours are a projection of the brain.
He says, “No one has ever discovered any kind of device to project anything that happens in the brain out into space. It’s a purely theoretical assumption. It is assumed that the perceived world is an illusion produced by our brains. But if what the senses give us is an illusion then the brains and sense organs we see are also an illusion.
But if brains really exist in the world then colours and sounds also exist in the world.
It could be objected that these things do indeed exist but not as sense perceptible qualities, but as photons, airwaves and other quantifiable entities. But how do we become aware of this? Only by technically assisted sense perception. Neurotransmitters, sensory receptors and the like are all acknowledged through sensory perception. Qualities and quantitative measurable parameters can both equally be regarded as real. Neither colours nor sounds can be reduced to their wave function.
. The waves received by the eye and transmitted to the brain do not cause the colours but they mediate them. We experience the colours out in the world and not in the brain. The path from coloured object to visual cortex is a series of different methods of transmission of information. The carriers change but the information does not. Perceptive consciousness extends out into world. To use an metaphor I would say that we touch the objects with our consciousness. The extended mind is not confined within the body. It extends in both space and time.
The mediating material processes are necessary for sense perception but they are not sense perception as such. To think otherwise is to confuse physiological processes with psychological processes.
If we want to understand inner perceiving we must gain an understanding of how it relates to our perception. And this is why I think Plato regarded the practice of geometry so highly that the Academy entrance is said to have displayed the sign: “Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here”
Practicing geometry as it applies to the outer world allows one to become familiar with its laws and essences. To understand the unchanging essence that underlies the transient nature of any outer geometrical figure. Plato was very concerned to distinguish becoming from being.
“The mind” is an abstraction. And I agree that abstract things are not physical. However, we abstract it from observed behavior, and that observed behavior is physical.
As I see it, thinking (the process) is natural. But thoughts are abstractions. There’s no clear way of individuating into thoughts. The term “thoughts” has been added to language as a way of talking about thinking, but we cannot identify what is actually a thought.
What is that supposed to say?
Let me paraphrase that: You believe that the sky is blue. I believe that tomatoes are red. What makes you think that your belief is more justified?
In short, you are making a distinction between things that are not even comparable. It makes no sense to do that.
There are laws. But there are no essences.
I should add that the laws are all human constructs. So they are abstractions. In some sense, the laws don’t really exist. They aren’t actual things that we can find. They are ideas that we invent.
Yes, I suppose we could also say that essences are ideas that we invent. The difference, from my perspective, is that I don’t have any use for essences. They seem to add unnecessary confusion.
It’s hard to come up with the right answer if one begins with the wrong question.
Indeed he was. But he was wrong. “Being” and “becoming” are abstractions from being-becoming.
The point you are making is good food for thought. Mind, soul, spirit, ether, astral body, Goethean archetypes; these are all abstractions. They only cease from being abstractions and move into the realm of reality through personal experience. I have direct experience of my mind and so it is my reality.
An excellent way of examining the interplay of abstractions and reality is by observing the evolution of language in relation to the language we use here.
Compared to modern times there was a far greater reality to language for the ancient Greeks, Hebrews and others. The birth of written language out of spoken language was a move towards abstraction. Alpha, beta and gamma carried much more meaning for the ancient Greeks than our A, B and C. When we look at our alphabet written down, this is just a list of symbols.
But the ancient Greeks and Hebrews experienced the distinct sound of the individual words forming the alphabet. They received different impressions between vowel sounds with their pneumatic quality and consonants formed by the manipulation of the more peripheral mouth parts.
We only need look at the language of texting to get an idea of how abstract our language has become.
St John did not say that in the beginning was the grunt, or in the beginning was the letter. He is reported as having said, “In the beginning was the Word”. (In the language he was using at the time of course).