Thanks for the welcome, Laguna!

But seriously. Doesn't anyone have something to say about this? Attack me already, jeez.

Here's another one I've come up with that might help get things rolling:

In addition to the three dimensions of space and the dimension of time, it can be argued that, in the context of the physical universe, scale should be considered a fifth dimension, distinct from and perpendicular to the others.

Can it? Argue away, then.

Welcome to BAUT; I'm afraid I've not the scientific education to be useful to you.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Gillianren, are you stuck at 9,999 or will your next post be 10,000?

It appears I may have screwed up the flow of this thread quite badly. I wrote the following when the quote below was the most recent post, and as I've written it now, I must post it. Perhaps this thread can be split so I may discuss both my proposed theories seperately.

Regarding my scale-as-dimension theory:
Very well, thus I argue:

Based on the things I do have a firm understanding of, I see a distinct pattern in the universe for natural objects to come into existence as a result of complex interactions of smaller, more fundamental objects. For example, a star, though at once being a single definable object, is at the same time a coagulation of many instances of a smaller object - namely the atomic particles. Although a star carries its own individual properties and behaviors, completely distinct from those of the atoms and particles that make it up (although I guess there probably aren't many intact atoms in a star), it is only because of the properties of the particles that a star ever comes into existence at all, and the star can only be said to exist when those particles have a specific arrangement. Imagine a hypothetical universe containing only our Sun. If you took all the particles that make up the Sun and redistributed them evenly across a cubic lightyear, what will have changed about this hypothetical universe? It will still contain all of the particles it did originally, but it would no longer contain a star. Lets define all the "objects" in the universe to be any instance of either a subatomic particle or a star. The total number of objects in this universe in its first state would thus have so many gazillions of objects + 1, the gazillions representing the subatomic particles, the +1 representing the star. In the second state, with the particles distributed, it would contain the same number of objects -1, the star no longer being in existence. So merely be redistributing the matter, without physically removing anything, you have in fact removed an object from this universe.

In the actual physical universe of course, in the forward direction of time, the opposite process is what happens naturally. Continuing with the star example, the actual physical universe will at one instant have widely dispersed subatomic particles dispersed over a finite region, and at a later instant these particles will have condensed, through their own individual behaviors, to form a star, effectively adding an object to the universe.

How can we define a star to be a distinct object? Primarily, a star carries its own distinct structure and behavior, none of which occur separately from each other anywhere ever. Additionally, we can confirm that there exists another type of object whose fundamental parts are stars. If the specific set of patterns that define a star did not come into existence, then those that define a galaxy would also not come into existence - in other words, if stars didn't exist, galaxies wouldn't exist. Likewise, if subatomic particles didn't exist, neither would stars. Conversely, it can be argued that because stars exist - because objects with the structure and behavior that define a star exist - galaxies must exist.

This last statement is incomplete as is. The existence of a galaxy is not dependent only on the existence of star, it depends also on the number of stars that exist, and their positions in space and in time relative to each other. If only one star exists in the universe, there are no galaxies in the universe. If several millions of stars exist in the universe, but they are spaced evenly in a perfectly straight line through space, a galaxy will probably not come into existence. If several million stars exist, but they each exist at different times, again the galaxy will not come into existence.

This is a basic summary of complex systems and emergence, the most beautiful and powerful concepts I personally have ever come across. The universe I observe around me, it appears, is defined by such complex systems - each complex system provides the medium for the next complex system to emerge, and conversely, each complex system emerges from another.

I have not stated it explicitly yet, but it should be obvious at this point that scale has an important place in this overall system. Each individual "member" of a complex system - i.e. an atomic particle, a star, or a galaxy - can only exist in a certain range of sizes. Starting with the radius of our Sun, for example, and reducing, we at some point reach a radius that is too small for any star. Getting larger, we at some point reach a radius that is too large for any star. Moreover, there is no way to define these sizes except by how they relate to the sizes of other things - there is no absolute measure of size in the physical universe, there is only scale relative to other fundamental objects. A star can only be so many times bigger than a proton, for example, or a star can only be so many times bigger than a cubic meter (which is also, ultimately, defined relatively). Thus there is between all emergent objects a certain "length of scale" between that object and next smaller class of object, and the same applies in the bigger direction.

In addition, there is a very similar temporal relationship between the different scales of objects. Given the distribution of subatomic particles used earlier, there is a certain "length of time" before these particles coagulate enough for a star to be said to exist. This length of time is a function of many variables, but knowing these variables it can still be quite precisely defined.

I have drawn on so many terms directly relating to dimension now that I'd almost think it was obvious what I'm trying to explain:The universe is defined by objects that occupy certain positions in space and time, and it is also defined by objects that occupy certain positions in scale. The position of things in any of these dimensions can be derived from its position in all of the others.

Here is a summary of the dimensional properties of scale:
-Like space and time, scale is defined by two opposite directions: smaller and bigger.
-These two directions appear to extend for ever.
-The position of an object in scale is called its size. Just as the position of an object in space or in time can only be defined relative to another object, the size of an object can only be defined relative to the size of another object.
-Most interesting to me: the nature of scale appears to be similar to that of time in that it has a direction of flow: larger objects appear after smaller ones, and not the other way around. In fact, this pattern is directly tied to the flow of time: larger objects emerge from smaller ones as time moves forward. I believe the ever-elusive definition of time could quite possibly be found somewhere in this relationship, such as by the converse of that last statement: Time moves forward as larger objects emerge from smaller ones.

Finally, let me point out what to me is a striking and compelling illustration of everything I have just described: Most of you are probably familiar with what a tesseract is: a four-dimensional cube. I have always preferred to represent a tesseract in the following fashion, as it has always been more comprehensible to me:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rcubecubes.svg
Another common representation has never made much sense to me and has been difficult for me to relate to, but sometime after I formulated the above general theory, I ran across this representation again, and was dumbfounded:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ubecentral.svg

I believe I've made a case.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Welcome to BAUT!

My first thought on seeing this was "Of course not!" Hard on the heels of that came the thought "...Or is it?" Scale does, after all, make a big difference in how matter and energy, basic forces, and even space/time act and interact. So maybe there is something to this idea.

I have no idea how such a "dimension" would relate to the other ones. But then I'm not even sure if Time belongs on the list (if it qualifies as a dimension, or a process, or both), let alone adding a new one!

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

To be a dimension, scale must be independent of the other dimensions.

namely, x dot scale equals zero.

However, since x dot scale = ax (where a is a vector indicating the size of the scale) then scale is not a dimension.

For a simple example is the scale desired is kilometers, then a equals .001 km/m, assuming that x is in meters.

What is x here?

The concept here definitely still needs some work. I came to this theory because I noticed several things that reminded me of dimensions, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means. For one thing, I can tell right away that if scale is to be considered a dimension, it is only in the context of physical material, as obviously no fourth dimension is required to define a small space and big space. Furthermore, the relationship to matter must be tied to the complex systems they produce in the universe.

Anyone who is not familiar with the concepts of complex systems and emergence would probably be unable to comprehend how I came to this proposition.

And as Noclevername hinted at, this dimension would likely be much more similar in nature to time than to space.

As far as the vector math is concerned, perhaps we can help solve that problem by remembering that the two directions of scale would be bigger (positive) and smaller (negative). Or, if you plotted a point on a 2D graph of x-position versus scale, what would that point be telling you?

Still, a lot left to figure out.

This sounds like it could be a "Turtles all the way down" idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

I actually did a thread on this idea too, so we share the Nobel.

I'm a little familiar and I'm having trouble myself I looked over your OP, and it seems to me that you define the "dimensional qualities" in terms of other dimensions. In other words, without those dimensions, your "dimension" doesn't exist. We have plenty examples, especially in special relativity, where measurements in one dimension can translate into other dimensions, or other versions of dimensions. It doesn't increase the number of dimensions, merely their 'shape".

Like defining orbital parameters, which are defined by a certain number of independent quantities. The quantity definitions change, and take different shapes, but the total number ends up being the same no matter how you borrow from others to create a new one.

I would say no to considering scale to be another dimension.

The hierarchy of some of these fundamental structures is physically very real, but the limitations on the size ranges are consequences of physical properties that are fully described by means of mathematical constructions within the familiar dimensions.

What you wrote about hierarchies, like the sun being created out of atoms, etc., is quite an interesting thing, something that many of us think about, but it doesn't really have anything to do with dimensions. Just because you can measure something doesn't make it a dimension. Heat also has a scale, as does luminosity, as does anger for that matter. But it doesn't make them dimensions. I think a dimension is something like a direction in which you can travel. You can travel in three dimensions, and through time. But you can't travel in heat, or in scale.

__________________
As above, so below

Every value you cited - heat, luminosity, anger - are all absolute quantities. This is of course a clear indication that those things are not dimensions. As I've stated, though, scale does not share this property.

The tone of your comment makes it clear that you have assumed I'm probably pretty naive. Let me take this opportunity to assure you I am no lazy thinker. I am not surprised at all that others have noticed the heirarchical nature of matter, but I believe in my bones that it would be foolish of me to think this means I can't possibly think of something nobody else has yet. I believe such an attitude would probably be healthier and more fruitful for some people (nothing to their detriment; I am very good friends with several such people), but I am not one of them.

This is certainly not meant to be offensive, and it is a statement I would direct towards many people on this forum, not just you.

As to your last statement: upon considering how to refute the argument that we cannot travel through scale, it occurred to me that indeed we can and all of us have. Even more, it was accomplished through the single most perfect example of complex systems and emergence known: life. At one point, your entire person occupied the space of a zygote, and your scale has moved very smoothly from that point to where it is now.

This leads me to another thing: although it may be perfectly possible to comprehend every lipid and protein, every cell, every tissue and organ, etc, that make up the human body, although it may be perfectly possible to precisely describe the structure and function of every part, I assert that it is intrinsically impossible to create a fully functioning replica of the human form other than by the same process by which each of us was created.

This is not just a statement about biology. This statement says something about the universe. And it definitely has something to do with what I'm talking about with scale and dimension.

A couple of points;

You can't prove something impossible. Just because it can't be done right now doesn't meant it can never be done.

I know of no physical property that makes it impossible to create a human body atom by atom. There's no basis that I'm aware of for thinking that there's some property of human beings that makes us unable to be duplicated. If you know of such a reason, please don't hesitate to share it, I love to learn new things.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I'm not assuming you're naive. I'm interested in some of the same ideas, so I did not mean my message as an attack. I just think that the word dimension is not correct for what you're trying to say. It may well be that we grow, I won't dispute that, but to me, a dimension is something that you use to define the position of something. You say that something exists at time T, at position X, Y Z. And there may be other dimensions. But you don't mention its scale (or its heat) to locate it. But I don't know. It is true that dimension was originally used to refer to position in space, and then by analogy to mean time and also fractal dimensions. So I suppose my problem in a way is that "dimension" is really just a word, and I suppose you could define it in different ways. So I suppose it's not that important. Maybe the more important is why this would be important?

__________________
As above, so below

Can you clarify this? It's obviously true that you can have more or less heat, luminosity, or anger; what makes them absolute quantities?

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

You can also have no heat, no anger, or no luminosity. You cannot have no size. Not if you physically exist.

How do you have no heat, if you physically exist?

The comment about fractal dimension brings up a point--that things like orbital elements needing six independent quantities to define them is taken to mean that they have six dimensions. While some people say that there are 29 dimensions of compatibility, I think we've shown on BAUT that it's closer to a million five

What can scale tell us about a shape that the usual space and time dimensions can't? Imagine I have two cubes, and you tell me one has scale = 1 and the other has scale = 2. I'll ask how that is measured. Is the measurement derived from anything other than the length, width and height of each cube? If not, then scale doesn't really describe anything that 3 spatial dimensions can't.

TheNick, you are beginning to see that jargon is important and often the improper use of jargon will sidetrack a discussion of your idea. I am "jargon disadvantaged" meaning that I can discuss your topic in your jargon.

I’ve quoted from your above statements to put some scope on my reply.

You are talking about a progression of the size of objects from tiny particles to groups, to groups of groups, etc. right on up to the galaxies and beyond, all progressing on a forward moving time scale.

Several implications can be drawn. One is that the size/time relationship goes both ways, i.e. if we were to go far enough back in time there would be size “dimensions” smaller than the smallest particles that we observe, and if we were to jump forward in time there would be (or may already be) other “universies” () on a larger scale than our own observable universe.

On your other thread I predicted that you were wrong about the positive/negative universes that remain separated by opposite charges but offered to discuss it. On this thread, in regard to a dimension we can call “scale” I see possibilities.

I would like to inquire that though you can (and have) linked “scale” to “time”, do they need to be linked? I see you view the universe from the perspective of an ongoing process of scale and time, but can it alternatively be viewed as a complete system now (and always)? Could it be a complete system and still be characterized by a full range of “scale dimension”, and could your range of scale be potentially infinite?

I was not able to access your link to the tesseract.

"The fifth dimension is the tesseract."

--Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Oh, thanks. I found it here.

Nor does time. Scale might be considered a nonspatial, or "differently spatial", dimension.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Do you mean time "doesn't really describe anything that 3 spatial dimensions can't," neither?

That don't seem right

Does it? How do length, width and height (without scale) lead you to a measurement of time? Movement along one of these axes can give you a demonstration of time, to show that it exists, but without knowing the objective scale, it cannot give an observer a measurement of time.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Good so far ...
Still good ...
BZZZT!!! Looks like you've "jumped the shark" here. How does one measure anger? What units is it measured in? Furies, perhaps? So would a mild annoyance be several hundred milliFuries, a good venting be several kiloFuries, and a murderous rampage a megaFury?

What kind of instrument can measure this? What is a reference anger that could allow us to calibrate it?

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

"Scale" is not a separate dimension.

Instead, as it relates to size, area, and volume, it's the result of our assigning quantitative attributes to the three spatial dimensions. As it relates to speeds, velocities, rates, etc., it's the result of our assigning quantitative attributes to the three spatial dimensions and the one temporal dimension.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Yes, kilofuries. I'm surprised you never learned about it in physics. The instrument is called a furimeter, and I think it works by measuring the redness of the face or something like that.

OK, I went a little bit overboard with that one.

__________________
As above, so below

??

So, time does really describe something that 3 spatial dimensions can't. That was the point that I thought I was making.

I was just leaving time out to simplify. If I describe a moving object, then time will be involved, and scale still won't tell us anything new.