Can we imagine something new which is completely different ?

Uniqueness is one of those myths we like to believe in.

There is never anything completely new.
There are new, unique combinations of what is old and known already.

We can trace back ideas and inventions to previous ideas and inventions.

The sense of newness comes when enough re-combinations of older things have occurred and we can look back far enough into the past where what is and what was are so different that they appear alien to one another.

In truth they are no so different.
The new contains the old within it.
 
You're great, guys. One talks about projecting a hypercube to three dimensions. Another one goes on about how Einstein says the fourth dimension is time, and how according to Einstein we already see four-dimensionally without recognizing it. Can you think for a moment before answering???

I'm not asking whether there's a fourth dimension. That is irrelevent. I'm not asking whether we can project four-dimensional objects to three dimensions. That is useless.

I'm asking whether you can imagine seeing four-dimensional objects as actual four-dimensional creatures would.
 
Rosnet said:
You're great, guys. One talks about projecting a hypercube to three dimensions. Another one goes on about how Einstein says the fourth dimension is time, and how according to Einstein we already see four-dimensionally without recognizing it. Can you think for a moment before answering???

I'm not asking whether there's a fourth dimension. That is irrelevent. I'm not asking whether we can project four-dimensional objects to three dimensions. That is useless.

I'm asking whether you can imagine seeing four-dimensional objects as actual four-dimensional creatures would.
Click to expand...

All creatures are four dimensional, including people. We're apparently seeing and otherwise experiencing the 4th dimension without recognizing it.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/EinsteinGroupie
 
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That is what i want to ask ,

Rosnet has correctly understood my question ,

so in another term i will ask ,
we know three states of matter solid,liquid and gaseous but if anyone says there is a fourth state of matter can we image that state without forming any relationship with previous knowledge of matter and their states ?

so our this new state is different , as solid is different from liquid ?
 
OK, try to imagine something completely new... superstrings

Before they were thought of, did they exist?

I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure those guys can imagine stuff that is completely new.

Dark matter. There's another. Maybe?
Or I could just be rambling...
 
art_dex said:
Hi ,
let me explain my question a little bit: -

So my question is
"Can we imagine something new which is completely different from our
previous knowledge ?"

here "Something" means any kind of substance or material which you have
never seen or heard before. for simplification i could say
"Can you imagine a new colour ?" - this new colour should be completely new,
it is not mixture of any previous colour you know ?
Click to expand...
No. Knowledge is the essence of imagination.
 
Dexhaven:

Things such as strings, dark matter, et cetera, are new concepts taken from previous experience. No one suggests that one is not capable of imagining circumstances and other such things. But what would be impossible is to think of "red" when one only knows "green", or "sight" when one was blind from birth.
 
::sput:: ::sput::...

Why the heck is everyone ignoring the examples and why is Kaiduorkhon going on about four dimensional space time? I KNOW THAT SPACETIME IS FOUR DIMENSIONAL, OKAY???
SHUT THE HELL UP!

Read properly before posting something next time. PLEASE..........

I am asking whther it is possible to VISUALIZE a fourth SPATIAL dimension, or in other words can we see, or imagine seeing, like FOUR DIMENSIONAL creatures do?

If yes, how?

If not, why isn't it possible?
 
art dex:
I thought plasma was the fourth type of matter?

Rosnet:
The closest thing that I can imagine to a fourth spatial dimension is being inside a cube, if you go all the way to the end in one direction, you end up on the other side. Like Earth, only without gravity and moving in a straight line. I can't visualize a fourth dimension, but I can imagine experiencing it. I think that space must be like that. That makes more sense than a sudden endpoint or continuous nothingness.
 
I didn't mean experiencing it in the manner you described. Yuo are talking abou space curving in on itself. That's still not what I mean, and that is irrelevant to the discussion here. We're not having a discussion on spacetime or hyperspace as such. We're talking about (at least I am) visualizing a fourth spatial dimension.
 
Rosnet:

No, it is impossible. We have no way to even process such a 4th spatial dimension.
 
art_dex said:
Hi ,
let me explain my question a little bit: -

So my question is
"Can we imagine something new which is completely different from our
previous knowledge ?"

here "Something" means any kind of substance or material which you have
never seen or heard before. for simplification i could say
"Can you imagine a new colour ?" - this new colour should be completely new,
it is not mixture of any previous colour you know ?
Click to expand...

I would imagine that in order to imagine something completely different from anything you've imagined so far that first you'd have to find yourself somehow experiencing something you've never experienced before.
 
Prince_James said:
Rosnet:

No, it is impossible. We have no way to even process such a 4th spatial dimension.
Click to expand...

Why? Information does not have to be four-dimensional. For example, a computer stores information in one-dimensional form, but it is able to process the information to create 3D images. But I guess we're talking about the how our brain works at a very deep level, here.
 
Rosnet:

The difference is to be in the fact that whereas a computer is meant to simply place data in such and such a format as to facillitate its human user's comprehension, the mind lacks the ability to replicate and/or perceive things beyond its exposure to such things. Theoretically, a person blind at birth, who up until the moment of sightedness would not have been able to imagine sight, would instantly have the capacity to should vision be bestowed upon him. Moreover, when dealing with the 4th dimension, there might also be the fact that we are litterally geared towards not being able to see any 4th dimension. That is to say, we do not have the biological mechanisms to comprehend such things. If such is the case, it is likely due the fact that either there is no 4th dimension, or the 4th dimension does not sufficiently interact with us to warrant our awareness of it.

Also, you should note that technically speaking, a computer never gives any data which is three dimensional. Every visual presentation on the computer is in two dimensions, and ontop of that, not even coherent, but made of hundreds of pixels. It is an opitcal illusion that depth is present. And when it does deal with three dimensional geometry on a math level, this is doing so based on a system imposed upon by its creator, and simply using the algebraic calculations necessary to produce the answer in accordance with the rules it follows.

Also, as a brief note, a 4 dimensional object has indeed have geometries made for it, but has never been displayed as a 4 dimensional object in any form whatsoever. This is because even in the minds of mathematicians using an algebraic system to create answers for 4 dimensional problems, they are not looking at 4 dimensional images in their mind's eye.
 
That is okay...
Let's leave the fourth dimension alone then. I used that only because that is what I thought about first, and the idead is pretty clear to me. But the real issue i getting sidetracked, so let's just get back to the blind man problem, which is better.

So why can't a blind person (born blind) imagine color?
 
Rosnet:

Wow, I did not expect a response so soon! Ha ha! But yes...

To put it simply, a born blind person (let's say BBP for short) cannot imagine colour by the fact that he has no references. Thought requires antecedent experience in order to provide a reference for the thought, whatever sensory data is being manipulated in imagination. In the absence of such data, the mind is incapable of imagining such a thing.

If memories could be transfered, it would be interesting to find out if one transfered the memories of a sighted person to a BBP, would the BBP be able to think of sight and colour and such things? I would wager yes, although this is pure speculation and tangential to the main discussion.
 
I think so too. But would it be possible to invoke possibly inherited memories? Do blind people have dreams?
 
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