Dimensional Perspectives
- Nichole
- Jun 4
- 13 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Dimensions are a constructive tool that allow for a change in perspective, being the very foundation for how we experience the world around us.
When discussing perspective there are multiple levels of interpretation happening simultaneously.
While we experience physical dimensions, we also are experiencing emotional and mental dimensions, which allow for changes in our mind’s perspective about what we are experiencing.
Let's first take a step back and define mathematical dimensions. At its most basic, a dimension describes possible movement, and with that movement more perspectives.
Without any dimension, there is only a point, one possible location and a single point of view, a coordinate with the spark of pure potential.
Keep in mind the connection between dimension and potential, a key insight into the relationship between physical, emotional, and mental dimensions.
With no dimension, the only way to move or perceive anything, including oneself, is to spin. It’s no surprise that our material world is constructed of spinning particles, the most fundamental building block of dimensionality.
Within the first dimension, movement beyond spin is introduced, extruding out into a line, producing additional points of view, thereby creating a newfound split between the observer and the observed.
With every new point comes an additional point of view, and what was once a single perspective has now broadened into a multitude of perspectives.
An electromagnetic field provides a compelling visualization of expanded dimensionality. While its source has dimensional unity, it extrudes out into higher dimensions as it moves, giving us a conception of how multiple dimensions are aspects of the same phenomena.
Each added dimension introduces a new direction of movement, or extrusion, providing additional perspectives and more opportunities to be observed.
If we think back to the electromagnetic field produced by our heart, we can begin to visualize how this translates into emotional dimensions, with our heart’s field extruding out into the emotional fields of those around us, creating new kinds of interactions.
This brings us back to the notion that all dimensional expansion begins with potential, and we begin to see the power of the potential that is produced by our emotional state, with emotions being foundational to our experiences of the world around us.
From here we can see the correlations with mental dimensions very directly, where an increase in the dimensions of our mind results in more points of view. Two people can have vastly different experiences of the same physical reality, because their mind is creating a mental perspective as well.
The broader our perspective, the more depth we have within our mind when we are interpreting our physical environment.
In effect, the doors of our perception are the thresholds between our physical and mental perspectives. The more depth we have, the more profound our experiences.
Each dimension can be represented in a lower dimension through projection, which we see in our everyday world with shadows.
Here again we see how additional dimensions are simply a different way of experiencing the same thing, since the shadow of an object is an expression of the object itself, albeit distorted.
Similarly, emotional and mental projections, or distortions, give us a warped and often misleading view of what is being experienced.
All of this means that we don't really ever go "through" dimensions, but experience more possible movement and perspective with each additional extrusion. The higher the dimension, the more extrusions, with each one providing more clarity of what is being perceived.
This clarity emerges because we can experience the dimensions below us directly, having a kind of bird’s eye view (think of looking down at a piece of paper), but we can only experience the shadow of the dimension directly above us, and beyond that, we can only conceive of dimensions conceptually.
Within our mental perspectives we often experience limitations, an inability to see from higher perspectives, although unlike our physical world, moving through dimensional perspectives in our mind is simply a matter of will, which becomes an easier feat as we gain more wisdom.
Visualizing higher dimensions is challenging, since it is not part of our physical experiences within our three-dimensional world.
One of the wonders of mathematics is in its power to describe phenomena that we can't directly experience.
Scientists at Quantum Gravity Research have used mathematical explorations of higher dimensions to propose what could function as a pixel in the construction of our physical reality.
They took a specific eight-dimensional crystal, and projected it down to four dimensions at a particular angle, and from there they derived a 3D quasicrystal.
The building block of this quasicrystal is proposed to be the tetrahedron, a 3D triangle with each side measuring the smallest theorized unit of length in existence, the Planck length, measuring 10 to the minus 20 times the size of a proton.
In the same way digital imagery is constructed of the smallest digital unit, the pixel, they propose that the tetrahedron acts as the 3D pixel of our physical reality.
Each tetrahedron has only a few possible states, with the state of one defining the state of others, together filling the entire space of the universe just as pixels fill the entire space of a screen.
The points on these geometries wouldn’t be representing actual locations in 3D space. Instead these mathematical structures would be describing particle interactions, with the particles that we experience emerging out of these abstractions, once again describing a kind of geometric kit of parts that informs the construction of our everyday world.
These types of mathematical explorations are reminiscent of spiritual and religious teachings throughout history, which describe how our material reality emerges out of activity within higher dimensions.
This brings us back to near-death experiences, where people describe an ability to perceive more, having a kind of bird’s eye view, seeing through ceilings and walls, and perceiving multiple events in different locations simultaneously. If they were to be in a higher dimension, by definition they would have a broadened perspective and an ability to move in new ways.
Unlike lower and higher dimensions, the fundamental characteristic of having three dimensions is the introduction of depth, where the nature of materiality emerges.
How exactly does our experience of depth materialize?
Let’s start with visual depth. When looking into a forest, at clouds in the sky, or into a seashell, our eye is reading repeating patterns at various scales, and this layering tricks our brain into perceiving vastness. This is how a 2D image can read as three-dimensional, because our mind recognizes the recursive structure as depth.
Our interpretation of patterns is how we experience our environment, both physically and mentally. Cognitive and emotional depth emerges from how we identify and connect these patterns together. When we lack depth, we are missing patterns that others are identifying, failing to see the bigger picture of what is unfolding in front of us.
Now let’s consider how physicality itself emerges.
Without any dimension, there exists only a point, often called zero point, a coordinate with a spark of potential to spin and vibrate, lacking any notion of width, height, or depth.
The first dimension introduces movement, extending outward into new locations and points of view. With the second dimension this original extrusion gains width, spreading out into the broad expanse of a flat plane, introducing orientation and the beginnings of shape.
In the third dimension the idea of depth is born, and with it mass, volume, and a leap from concept to corporeality.
Even with an ultrathin material measured in atoms, its “realness” comes from depth. Otherwise it exists within the liminal space of 2D mathematical abstraction, describable, but not tangible.
This is where we arrive at the perplexing world of 2D materials, which exploded onto the scene in 2004 with the discovery of graphene, a honeycomb lattice made of carbon atoms. Technically it has a thickness that can be measured, but experientially its thickness ceases to be “real” without the use of technology.
Interestingly, scientists are using 2D materials to simulate electron activity, bridging material reality with a simulated one.
When we go below or above the third-dimension, we enter a kind of mathematical realm, or mental abstraction, where matter disappears into math.
Nonetheless, the existence of 2D materials can influence our material reality, blurring the lines of what it is that we consider to be “real.” Within modern physics and material science we are beginning to get clues into how higher and lower dimensions influence our 3D reality, transforming the definition of realness itself.
Let’s try to conceptualize how our material world dissolves into mathematical representation, and conversely, how physicality can emerge out of this abstraction.
First, imagine a tangible, 3D sphere gradually shrinking. As it diminishes, it begins to lose physical traits such as volume, mass, and surface area. Eventually, it becomes so small that it reaches the limits of physical measurement, and is no longer a thing in the material world.
Even if it ceases to exist in a physical sense, it still exists mathematically. It becomes a point, a geometric abstraction without any dimension. This point is no longer matter, but pure potential.
Now let's flip our perspective around, and start with the infinitely small.
When subatomic particles are in a state of superposition, they exist mathematically as probabilities, being multiple potential states until some kind of interaction occurs.
After an interaction, this superposition "collapses" and the particle exists in a distinct state that can then be observed physically. What was a mathematical possibility has become a physical reality, with particles emerging from abstraction into experience.
In a 2019 study from the University of Vienna, molecules made up of almost 2,000 atoms were brought into superposition, as scientists begin to close in on the elusive boundary between mathematical probabilities and the fully defined, fixed properties of our physical world.
Wherever we look in modern physics we see how potentials transform into a lived experience, hinting at an underlying rendering process.
Could clues be found in the universe's penchant for symmetry?
Beginning in the 1970s, particle physicists began looking at nature's use of symmetry as a possible path to bridging quantum uncertainties with the nature of our more deterministic physical experiences at a human scale.
One team of physicists, led by Sylvester James Gates, Jr., hit a wall with their equations to describe supersymmetry, and began looking for answers in geometric representations of particle interactions, which could in turn provide them with an alternative language to address specific mathematical problems.
All the complex data from their equations could be put into simple illustrations with white balls representing particles of light, black balls the electrons of matter, and the lines connecting them representing the special relationships between them.
In the process they developed a new mathematical language, and while working with mathematicians they discovered that the illustrations had error correcting codes buried deep within them. And not just any error correcting code, but very specific codes developed in the 1940s by mathematician Richard Hamming, designed to detect errors in digital data transmission.
Scientists were baffled. It was appearing as if the universe uses error correcting codes for the transmission of data, just like a computer does. It’s interesting to note that scientists have also found error correcting codes in our genome, theorizing that they exist as a product of evolution.
At this point, we have firmly landed at simulation theory.
In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom popularized the simulation hypothesis, the idea that what we perceive to be physical reality could be the result of a simulation from the future, with some scientists estimating the odds that we live in a simulated reality to be near 50/50.
The logic stems from the idea that if future humans had the ability to do high-fidelity ancestor simulations, then the number of simulated realities could easily outnumber the “real” ones.
If we do indeed live in a simulation, how could we ever prove it?
To begin, we’d have to assume that the hardware creating the simulation doesn’t have infinite computing power, otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish our reality from a virtual one. Without some kind of technological limitation we wouldn’t be able to notice any glitches, and could never discover the true nature of our reality.
In the case of our universe, we do have a maximum speed limit, the speed of light, an upper limit that has not yet been explained by physics.
With the speed of light as a maximum, if the theoretical computer were to perform one operation per second, its memory container size would be roughly 300,000 kilometers, otherwise we would be able to travel to another galaxy before the computer could render it.
In the end, all of this is simply a thought experiment unless we find some way to travel faster than the speed of light. Nonetheless, we can get further hints into the possibility of future high-fidelity simulations by investigating how far along we are in creating detailed simulations.
As it turns out, scientists have already created virtual reality at a subatomic scale, which brings us back to 2D materials.
By harnessing the electromagnetic attraction between ultrathin overlaid metal sheets, researchers were able to simulate atoms 100 times the size of real atoms, giving them a larger and more simplified two-dimensional view of electrons, all in an effort to better understand their puzzling behavior.
Researchers were able to adjust the voltage, changing the properties of their artificial atoms in a kind of newfound scientific alchemy. As development of these and other technologies continue, it’s conceivable that one day we could simulate a molecule or larger object, eventually being able to simulate the human brain.
If we are indeed living in some kind of technological simulation, why would it use so much processing power to simulate first-person experiences?
When we watch a movie or play a game what we see on the screen is an integrated experience that the characters themselves never experience. The simulated reality is purely there for the benefit of the viewer of the movie or the player of the game.
All of the energy that goes into our internal experiences must exist for some reason, a purpose that we keep coming back to again and again; after all, what is the reason for any game or movie, but for the experience itself?
If we are considering evolution solely from a species survival standpoint, there isn’t any evidence of a clear evolutionary advantage to the existence of a first-person view of the world, where the primary function is to have an experience.
Without our unique array of sensory experiences and emotions, we would operate in a more deliberate, mechanical way, which could be argued to be more of an evolutionary advantage, not less.
Instead, we have evolved to have senses that take in just enough information for us to have immersive perceptual experiences.
This, in turn, begins to give us clues into why we perceive such a limited amount of the full spectrum of energy data available.
Thinking about why our internal experiences exist at all brings us back to the very definition of information:
Information is stimuli that has meaning in some context for its receiver.
Information is not simply raw data, but data that has been processed or organized in a way that provides meaning. For example, a simple string of numbers may not appear to be meaningful, but if those numbers represent temperatures recorded over time, they become information that conveys whether or not we should wear a coat tomorrow.
Since information requires both a stimulus, and a perceiver that can extract meaning from that stimulus, information itself doesn’t exist in any meaningful way without a mind to interpret it.
We can see how information is quite literally the process of putting energy data “into form."
In this way, interpretation (putting data into form) is as fundamental as the data itself.
After all, does a scene in a novel exist without a reader? Does virtual reality exist without a player? How about the data on an old CD that we can no longer play?
If we break down the implications of materialism, the notion that our ability to experience emerges from physical processes, we arrive at the notion of a material universe that exists outside of our experience. Any kind of existence (data) outside of our experience, by definition, can never be known and is as irrelevant as a broken CD.
Nonetheless, the notion of existence outside of our perceptions is potentially knowable, therefore fully relevant, as we have seen through history with the advent of new scientific tools, such as the microscope, telescope, and multitudes of other technology.
In the end, all of this technology—no matter how advanced—is simply an extension of our perceptions.
This is why scientific endeavors are not able to get outside of consciousness to see what it is, because in effect, we are trying to view ourselves without ever looking into a mirror.
No matter what avenue of inquiry we take, we can’t get behind the integral relationship between any notion of existence, and an experience of that existence, an experience that is ultimately the result of interpretation.
Our interpretations are not merely cognitive, but also deeply emotional.
The patterns we notice, and the meaning we extract from our experiences, are both shaped by emotions and profoundly influence emotional states.
Emotional intelligence emerges alongside an expansion of the depth and range of our interpretations, a kind of emotional dimensionality that is a continual dance between experience and perception, over time cultivating ever-deepening wisdom.
References
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