on dimensions and times

okay, so here's the deal.  i've not really previously done much work with metaphysics but i wrote this and i am hoping people will find this stuff interesting even if it isn't poetic. In Allegory of the Cave, Plato states that if people were kept chained in a dark cave with one fire, and forced from birth to see only the shadows of people and objects passing in front of the fire, then they would think that these shadows were reality.  However if unchained and allowed to see the world outside the cave, they would realize the truth.  But upon their return to the cave, the other people would think the freed individual to be insane.  Now this is a rather ackward metaphor, and in modern times it could more easily be represented by television.  It was when i thought of it in this terms, that i began to consider that the main difference between an image on a two dimentional screen and images in real life is that real life is three dimentional.  Having programed graphics for my lame computer games before, i thought of the mathmatical system of graphing a line using x and y coordinates.  Thus a cube would be represented as four lines forming a square on the x and y coordinate, but when we add the z it becomes 12 lines forming into a cube giving us the whole picture.  Now when i applied some thoughts that i had read over on the internet about time being able to be graphed in the same was as another coordinate, i accepted it as a fourth dimension to our commonly considered 3D world.  Basically his arguments stated that the physics of it work the same way, if the two points are in the same location, but not at the same time they do not touch, on the graph two lines could pass through the x,y and z coordinate, but miss on the time coordinate and not touch.  Further time is often refered to as a line, so adding another line in another direction would be the same as adding another dimension.  And if we looked at a three dimensional still frame picture of of perhaps a ballerina dancer, and compare it to watching a video of the same balerina dancer doing her dance.  The difference of percieved reality would be equivolent to the difference between the two dimensional square and the three dimensional cube.  The general idea is there, but you dont get the whole picture untill you see it with the extra dimension as well.  This leads me to finally conclude that time is actually the fourth dimension in a four, and not three, dimensional world we live in. Building on this though, it leaves me to question if it is truly only a four dimensional world.  Until adding the dimension of time to something three dimensional, it would seem unimaginable how a fourth dimension could be added, most likely even beyond comprehension.  So really we can't guarantee that we are seeing the whole picture.  Theoretically there are infinite possible dimensions that we exist in even now that are unknown to us, but until we can figure out how to interperate them, we cant comprehend them. I do have theories on a possible fifth dimension, but they are rough thoughts and have need to be applied to much much more personal analysis and questioning and re-questioning before i spill my guts.comments encouraged Written April 17th, 2002 © on Apr 16 2002 08:06 PM PST   0 • 10