nightbiscuit

The video in my last post described the author’s idea of what humans would look like as 4-dimensional beings, namely that we would resemble long snakes, with a fetus on one end and a corpse on the other. This is not an entirely original idea, Kurt Vonnegut wrote about it in Slaughterhouse Five, effectively blowing the fuck out of my 5th grade mind. It may not be his idea though, either. Anyway, I think this description is very deceptive, and presents time/the 4th dimension as being much more neat and ordered than I believe it actually is. It just makes no logical sense that there would be any separation of entities in the 4th dimension. Think about it, were we really created out of nothing at the moment of our conception, and do people’s bodies just lay inert after death? No! We were made out of proteins from our parents’ bodies, and when our bodies rot after death, the proteins are released and repurposed over and over again. Atoms are constantly being recycled and used for other things, so if we were suddenly able to view the world in the 4th dimension, you would see that you are molecularly connected to everything around you. I am taking some conceptual liberties here, but I think you would see a huge mess of biological interconnectedness punctuated by vast islands of fire and darkness, the beginnings and ends of worlds.

Update: I am including a chat log in which my friend and I expound a bit on this concept in order to clarify my thoughts on this, without having to actually form any more meaningful paragraphs.

asher: so you’re imagining seeing the entire timeline of every molecule or particle that makes up a person?
me: basically
you would see at least part of that
i think
plus the birth and death of our universe and others which come before and after
asher: if you could see everything but i think just as in every day life, you could only see a slice of anything at a time
maybe you could look at different angles and see me eat lunch and to the slight left and right all the things that went into making that lunch
me: hmmm
but the 4th dimension is supposed to be all of time, at the same time. hmmmm, maybe i get what you’re saying, you’re thinking that a lot of stuff is too distant in space for us to see or something ?
but eventually the earth will be crisped out by the sun, so that element would also be present, even in daily life
so while you were making lunch, there would be cambrian protists swimming around, as well as scorched earth from 4 billion years in the future
does this make sense? i just think the fourth dimension would be a fucking crazy mess
asher: i think it would
i suppose a being able to see and process that would also have to be able to see all of space through all of time at the same time
me: That is totally what I think.
so do you think my post is intelligible?
asher: i think it is.. but i also think you could expand on it!
along the lines of what you were just saying
me: oof yeh
maybe i will just copy-paste our chat or something
asher: hehe
so do you think a being able to see the universe in that way would also be able to interact with anything anywhere, at any time?
me: yep
they would be able to time travel like we travel in 3d
asher: but we can look into the night sky and see things we have no power to travel across space to
me: ooo, good point
hmm
so you think they would have a limited range of observation as well as travel in the 4th dimension, just like a person in 3d?
i think that may be a projection of 3d perception
however, it’s not like we have unlimited dominion over the 1st and 2nd dimensions
so maybe that is more realistic
asher: i could imagine a god-like being with the total vision of everything but i think getting it in slices would be more likely
me: 4 dimensional slices of the 5th dimension!
asher: i want a slice of watermelon