Quick thought about the 4th Dimension
I tend to be of the camp which accepts the idea that eternity is one giant 4D object that extends from the birth of the universe to its death, all of which would exist simultaneously in 4D space, just as the top of an object in 3D space exists simultaneously with the bottom.
As 3D beings ourselves, our brains are only able to perceive one slice of the great 4D object at a time as we slide along it in our bubble of immediacy that we call "the Present". Otherwise, to experience the 4th Dimension in the way it truly exists (if indeed it is a solid object as mentioned) means you would experience your entire life from birth to death all in the same instant.
I had a friend once who said that our experience of time is like the universe giving itself an MRI, which sounds accurate, but seems to be a bit more crude and less poetic way to put it. I like to think that it's like playing a record on a turntable.
The entire album exists all at once on the record, but the music doesn't play until you add a "present moment" which moves forward along the groove - the needle. Poetically, in that metaphor I like to think of all of eternity existing at once to be like the record, our physical bodies to be like the needle, and our lives as we experience them to be the music.
Enjoyed your record analogy and concur. Philosophically I'm of a different overall view, that space is not 3D at all, the three dimensions are imposed by our consciousness in its assessment of objective reality. The three dimensions are proprioceptive, subjective, that is where the concept arises. Rudolf Steiner indicated it was a grave error of materialistic consciousness in the development of Western scientific thought to externalize them as a metric of space. Space functions on projective geometry, with a spatial-counterspatial polarity. Space is space, there is no fundamental direction. Can't explain this all in a soundbite, just throwing in some perspective into the discussion. Will have to do a writeup on it.
Thanks for your post :)
I find the Biocentric Universe view to be intriguing and seems to be corroborated by our Quantum physical discoveries
Interested to hear how you consider the biocentric/anthropic universe to be corroborated by quantum discoveries. I find a divergence between the theses, on the one hand the biocentric universe is supported by such insights as the cosmological botany studies of the Anthroposophists (Kranich), but the quantum view appears to detach one from higher formative energies.
How consciousness affects experiment results and reality ; the observer effect
The record analogy is perfect.
This is a great description of how 4 dimensions (3 of space and 1 of time would work).
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 14.3 and reading ease of 50%. This puts the writing level on par with academic journals.