Before the article, I would like to ask a question first, a fourth-dimensional life invited you to his home 5 light-years away for tea, are you going? Or not to go? Do you feel that your choices will determine the outcome? To answer this question, we need to understand what is nonlinear time? How does four-dimensional life see through our linear time? Today we will discuss this tall brain-burning problem!
In our real world we should have a good understanding of the linear view of time, for example: the beginning always precedes the end, and the cause always precedes the result. This relationship of time is deeply ingrained in our common sense, but this linear theory of time and causation will be very different for life in four dimensions.
Stephen Hawking's popular science bestseller "The Brief History of Time" is believed that everyone has read it, and I am ashamed that this book was read idly by me during college, and the last time a cute netizen commented that he was in elementary school when he read this book, and he could understand it and understand it! (Haha) I was really ashamed of myself!
At that time, there was a chapter in the book, "Arrow of Time", which triggered my fascination and reflection on the nature of time. The main discussion is the linear or unidirectional nature of time. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the entropy of the universe increases with time. For example, if you drop your phone on the ground and the screen falls to pieces, entropy (or randomness) increases. But if you have the superpower to reverse the process, you can get a complete screen out of the chaos. In fact, this process does not require superpowers, because making things develop in a flashback way does not violate any physics formula at all, and no physics formula has the factor of time direction. But it violates the second law of thermodynamics, the fundamental law of the universe. Now, from a scientific point of view, you should understand why time moves in a single direction. Many small partners will also consider, so why is everything tending to be chaotic? The question can only be answered like this: that's how the universe was designed! So there's no need to dwell on this issue.
Since our world does not allow nonlinear time, we certainly cannot understand what does not exist in our consciousness. Then we'll dig deeper into the rabbit hole of the science fiction novel Alice in Wonderland to learn more about time. Among the many examples of science fiction and movies, three vivid examples come to mind when we think of nonlinear time.
The first is that Billy Peargreen from Slaughterhouse Five mysteriously escapes in time and encounters a four-dimensional life called TrafaMado.
Second, Cooper in Interstellar walks through a black hole and finds himself in a four-dimensional labyrinth.
Finally, Albert and Costello in Advent are four-dimensional beings, and they both believe that time is nonlinear.
Look at two dimensions from three dimensions
If you haven't read or seen the fantasy experiences of these fictional characters, you're probably scratching your head: What the hell is this talking about! Then wonder what nonlinear time is. Imagine a cylinder like this first.
To answer two questions, do you see that the cylinder is a three-dimensional solid? Do you think it's always been there? Let's name the nearer faces of the cylinder face ₁ and the farther faces face ₂, and set the cylinder length to "l".
Imagine a two-dimensional man lao wang who lives in a two-dimensional world.
The old king next door
For Lao Wang, the cylinder does not exist because he cannot imagine anything in the three-dimensional world. He can only see the circular plane (or cross-section) of the cylinder.
Now imagine Lao Wang on the first side of the cylinder. For us, the length of the cylinder is a spatial dimension, but for Lao Wang, it is a temporal dimension. Therefore, the unit of length l for us is the time unit l of Lao Wang.
So after the time of l units, Lao Wang will reach surface 2. For each plane cut in the cylinder, some specific movements made by Lao Wang will be observed. This is what happened to Lao Wang in that instant of time.
What are your thoughts on all this now? For Lao Wang, there is only one plane at a specific moment, but you can see his process from face 1 all the way to face 2, because you can see the whole cylinder. So if Lao Wang asks you what you were doing when he was in l/2 time, you would give him a confused expression. Because you don't know what his time is, you only know the length l.
Look at three dimensions from four dimensions
Similarly, if a four-dimensional creature named Lao Li appears in front of you and you ask him the time, he will give you the same confused expression. He can see all the moments of your life in the three-dimensional world, from beginning to end, that is, from birth to death, every moment, every minute.
For Old Lee, entering any period of your life is like entering the plane of a cylinder. Your birth is on the face of a four-dimensional cylinder 1, and your death is on the face of a four-dimensional cylinder 2. Old Lee can see your whole life because he can see the whole four-dimensional cylinder at the same time.
"All moments, past, present and future, have always existed and will always exist." - Kurt Vonnegut in The Fifth Slaughterhouse
This view of time has a particularly bizarre meaning. This means that we do not have free will. How to say it? Because Lao Wang doesn't know that his end point is in Face 2, but you know ah, you can see it, and most importantly, you are sure that Lao Wang's future time is certain, because the cylinder itself has not changed. Similarly, if your four-dimensional cylinder is also fixed, it means that you are just moving forward, doing everything that is ready for you.
You might be thinking: Certainty time is nonsense. I was clearly in control of my own life. This idea may also be true. But in this nonlinear view of time, you have to make some complex arguments to prove the existence of free will.
Another interesting implication of this view is causation. In our universe, there is always a cause for the outcome that occurs, and the cause always precedes the effect. However, in your four-dimensional cylinder, Old Lee may first see that you fail the exam, and then see that you used to play chicken all day.
However, this does not necessarily mean that there is no connection between cause and effect. Just a four-dimensional life like Lao Li can see the outcome happening before a cause, because he can randomly access a slice of time from your four-dimensional cylinder.
Now that you understand the nonlinear time of life in the four-dimensional space, Old Li invites you to his home 5 light-years away for tea. Are you choosing to go? Or not to go? I personally don't think you need to struggle, because since Old Li can invite you, then he is already sure! Ha ha! Travel safely!