- Dec 23, 2012
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First off, here's a link to an article about a physicist who thinks time is at least two-dimensional: A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws
Now Immanuel Kant anticipated non-Euclidean geometry to some extent by claiming that Euclidean geometry itself is based on synthetic a priori axioms, i.e. principles that, even if universally true and known by evidence not disclosed to us by the senses, are yet able to be denied without leading to contradictions. Another thing Kant claims in the Transcendental Aesthetic (where his comments about the synthetic apriority of geometry are concentrated) is that, "Time is one-dimensional," is also able to be denied without leading to a contradiction, wherefore Kant may have anticipated the 2D-time physics model Itzhak Bar is working on. Anticipated it in a very abstract sense, anyway...
I've never read Flatland, but it's been indicated to me that the book explains the dimensionality of perception in the following way: for any n-dimensional perceiver, objects can be perceived in n - 1 dimensions. So, for example, humans are 3D perceivers, so they can see all the sides of a 2D structure at the same time. If we were 4D, though, we could see all the sides of 3D objects at once, and so on.
Now map this logic onto temporal apprehension. A 2D temporal perceiver would see at once all the points making up a line traced by an object through time (this is because 1D structures, i.e. lines, are n - 1 for a 2D temporal perceiver). This is exactly how eternity has traditionally been conceived of: God (assuming It exists) doesn't see things moment-by-moment, but in terms of all moments "all at once," as an "eternal present." So an eternal God, if existent, would be one Who was fully aware of things not outside of time but from a higher dimension thereof. (Of course, we can push this thinking to the limit and attribute absolute infinity to God, wherefore God sees 1,000,000D time, and 2,300,000,000,000D time, etc. That's a way to think of divine ineffability without abandoning all concrete concepts.)
Besides theology and physics, modeling time as n + 1D might yield interesting results in other fields. One I would argue at length for subjecting to such treatment would be the philosophy of emotions and music, as well as theories of déjà vu, but in this thread I'm going to conclude by talking a little about ethics. Suppose, for instance, that ethics requires free will that transcends the order of physical cause-and-effect. Kant himself argued that this order is the transcendental synthesis of moments in time: the laws that bind events together into a coherent whole, the laws of nature, are laws for "connecting the dots" in time to form a line.*
What happens if we are not confined to just a line in time, though? Free will might be a force that operates in the domain of higher-dimensional time. It would not conflict with physical causation, but neither would it be subordinate to the process. Hannah Arendt came up with an interesting model of forgiveness, for instance, as basically a power of the human spirit to literally break apart moral timelines (see The Human Condition, not sure which section, for her pertinent remarks). To go back to Kant again, Kant describes spiritual redemption as involving a "revolution in our hearts," something that doesn't result through a single moment of our moral lives but involves an action on our part that somehow comprehends our personal moral timelines as a whole.
What do you think? Do you have any evidence of your own that maybe the ordinary notion of time as a line is mistaken?
_________________________
*To those of you who've read up on Carl Jung's concept of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" in time, how plausible do you find it to model synchronicity on the Kantian doctrine of transcendental synthesis, but applied to at least a 2D temporal manifold?
Now Immanuel Kant anticipated non-Euclidean geometry to some extent by claiming that Euclidean geometry itself is based on synthetic a priori axioms, i.e. principles that, even if universally true and known by evidence not disclosed to us by the senses, are yet able to be denied without leading to contradictions. Another thing Kant claims in the Transcendental Aesthetic (where his comments about the synthetic apriority of geometry are concentrated) is that, "Time is one-dimensional," is also able to be denied without leading to a contradiction, wherefore Kant may have anticipated the 2D-time physics model Itzhak Bar is working on. Anticipated it in a very abstract sense, anyway...
I've never read Flatland, but it's been indicated to me that the book explains the dimensionality of perception in the following way: for any n-dimensional perceiver, objects can be perceived in n - 1 dimensions. So, for example, humans are 3D perceivers, so they can see all the sides of a 2D structure at the same time. If we were 4D, though, we could see all the sides of 3D objects at once, and so on.
Now map this logic onto temporal apprehension. A 2D temporal perceiver would see at once all the points making up a line traced by an object through time (this is because 1D structures, i.e. lines, are n - 1 for a 2D temporal perceiver). This is exactly how eternity has traditionally been conceived of: God (assuming It exists) doesn't see things moment-by-moment, but in terms of all moments "all at once," as an "eternal present." So an eternal God, if existent, would be one Who was fully aware of things not outside of time but from a higher dimension thereof. (Of course, we can push this thinking to the limit and attribute absolute infinity to God, wherefore God sees 1,000,000D time, and 2,300,000,000,000D time, etc. That's a way to think of divine ineffability without abandoning all concrete concepts.)
Besides theology and physics, modeling time as n + 1D might yield interesting results in other fields. One I would argue at length for subjecting to such treatment would be the philosophy of emotions and music, as well as theories of déjà vu, but in this thread I'm going to conclude by talking a little about ethics. Suppose, for instance, that ethics requires free will that transcends the order of physical cause-and-effect. Kant himself argued that this order is the transcendental synthesis of moments in time: the laws that bind events together into a coherent whole, the laws of nature, are laws for "connecting the dots" in time to form a line.*
What happens if we are not confined to just a line in time, though? Free will might be a force that operates in the domain of higher-dimensional time. It would not conflict with physical causation, but neither would it be subordinate to the process. Hannah Arendt came up with an interesting model of forgiveness, for instance, as basically a power of the human spirit to literally break apart moral timelines (see The Human Condition, not sure which section, for her pertinent remarks). To go back to Kant again, Kant describes spiritual redemption as involving a "revolution in our hearts," something that doesn't result through a single moment of our moral lives but involves an action on our part that somehow comprehends our personal moral timelines as a whole.
What do you think? Do you have any evidence of your own that maybe the ordinary notion of time as a line is mistaken?
_________________________
*To those of you who've read up on Carl Jung's concept of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" in time, how plausible do you find it to model synchronicity on the Kantian doctrine of transcendental synthesis, but applied to at least a 2D temporal manifold?
I was really hoping this would be a more interesting topic. 
