How many dimensions are there?
There are many dimensions. If you are into mathematics or science in general, you would know this by now. And I am sure you have seen a couple of videos to understand the fourth, fifth dimensions. Some argue time is dimension. However, I think time is just an illusion created by mind comparing two events, while actually there is none. I have discussed this phenomenon in the book What is time? The objective of this article is to illustrate the fact that our blindness to the third dimension of in our lives and show that mindfulness is key solution to the problem.
There are many dimensions, you can say it is infinite. If you have learned about matrices, we can represent two dimensions in two numbers, three dimensions by three numbers. Hence there is no end to it. In reality we consider ourselves 3D creatures.
Flatlanders.
Remember the flatlanders (not the band but the book)? In the book "Flatland: Romance of many dimensions" Edwin A. Abbott invites us to imagine two-dimension world. Where there are only lines and even a 3D object passing through this flat world would be seen as a line. I find this a very good exercise for the mind to compare it with imagining a 4D world.
How to imagine Fourth dimension?
Imagine a square in a flat land. And reduce yourself to a 2d object and look at the square. What you would see is a line. Although you glide all around the square you would not find a way to get into the square. Just like a fortress. If you are inside similarly you cannot go out without breaking it.
Now come back to your 3D world and look at a 3D cube. You do not see inside of it right? And if you travel all around this, still you cannot go in, and if you are inside of it, you cannot go out without breaking its walls.
The problem is you are in a 3D world. You cannot see inside of it. But imagine you live in a 4D world. Someone in 4D world can see inside of it.
Just like we can play magic on flatlanders by taking out something from inside the square without breaking its walls, a 4D man can take something out from inside a cube and keep it outside without breaking its walls.
It doesn't stop there. Imagine crazy things that would happen. You would not be able to hide from this 4D man, as he would see everything from inside out in this 3D world. he would see your organs grow inside and how food moves through your Gut. How a cancer develops inside your body. He would be a walking CT scanner. More importantly he could disappear from our 3D world into the fourth dimension and appear again when he wants.
It seems very interesting to trying to understand the fourth dimension. However philosophically I use this analogy to what happens when you start mindfulness. This is the simple truth that David Foster Wallace invited us to think about saying "This is water" in his book.
Consider the following saying.
"You go to work, wearing your new cloths, in your car driving through the traffic, leaving your home, just to earn enough money to settle the debts, that you made, by purchasing all this to live a relaxed life at your home."
I can't remember who the great thinker was who thought of above, but it is the truth for most of us. What is the alternative? Travelling the world without any money? The problem is if everyone decided not to work, such a system would collapse in few months or years. It seems there is no alternative. We are kind of stuck in a loop of some kind of an abnormal 2D life where we cannot get out. Just like a flatlander stuck inside a square, we cannot see a way out.
And that is the problem of our 3D world. I can see some 3D landers, live their whole lives grossly unaware of these problems. But there are plenty who do. For those who wants to break the illusions of a flat land, I invite you to practice mindfulness today. So, you can peek into the 4D world which hides truth from our eyes and find peace in silence.
Life as a free fall
It is a big risk to take a lifetime of decisions to depend on views which are shaped by our teachings, culture and science. As nobody can answer why we were born, It is a gamble. We have only information, given to us by our own ancestors to make these decisions.There is no difference between someone who gambles at a casino, someone who takes a cigarette for the first time in their hands or someone who wakes up early to go to the job, in his office. We all take the free jump, pushed by our will. As all those decisions were made possible and limited by the information we received. We are clueless, risking our lives in everyday decisions, as we do not understand the limits of the current understanding in science and nature. What if life is a free fall, what if there is no destination but it's only a journey? What if we all are in a train which never stops?
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