Top Ten Tenth Dimension Blogs - May report

The April 08 version of this list is here.
The June 08 version of this list is here.The July 08 version of this list is here.

There's a really interesting website I recently came across called "TOEQuest - a Quest for a Theory of Everything". Lots of lively discussion, check it out.

Back in my blog entry "The Omniverse" I suggested that perhaps a better name for my project would have been "Imagining the Omniverse": after all, by the time you've worked through my way of visualizing how our reality is constructed one layer at a time, you arrive at the Godelian concept of being "outside the system". In that sense, Imagining the Tenth Dimension is yet another Theory of Everything, but I hesitate to use the word "theory" since to some that term implies a certain rigor of thesis/argument/proof. Since I'm not a physicist and I'm not pretending to be one, what we're really talking about here is better thought of as a visualization tool rather than a formulated "theory of reality". As I said in "The Fifth Dimension Isn't Magic", does that mean that this visualization tool is more akin to Garrett's Lisi's E8 rotation? Again, I'm not claiming that my intuitive way of imagining the construction of the dimensions is backed by a set of complex mathematics in the way that string theory or Lisi's innovative ideas are. Nonetheless, I believe there is a connection: Mr. Lisi tells us that the eight dimensions of E8 are not spatial dimensions, they are just a way for us to see the relationship between the different subatomic building blocks and forces that make up the reality we are witness to.



For those who are unwilling or unable to believe that the extra dimensions actually exist, I think this same reasoning could be used to see how my visualization tool still has a certain relevance: since our physical reality only exists at this very instant as a particular reference frame in spacetime, everything else about our reality requires us to make a certain leap of faith, to accept evidence through inference, and so on. So, to those who say extra dimensions defy the rule of Occam's Razor by making things more complicated than need be, I say I can accept that as a viewpoint. If you choose not to believe Kaluza was right about the fifth dimension, there are still things to be gained from this way of visualizing reality that don't require you to believe that the extra dimensions are anything more than a filing system, a way of seeing how other different-initial-conditions universes could co-exist with our own within the fourth dimension and yet be inaccessible/decoherent to the one we exist within.

As of May 21st, 2008, here are the blogs that have seen the most visits in the last 30 days. For both of the following lists, the number in brackets is the position that blog held in the report for the previous month.

1. Time is a Direction (6)
2. The Fifth Dimension is a Dangerous Idea (new)
3. Tenth Dimension Polls Archive 1 to 10 (3)
4. The Flipbook Universe (new)
5. Your Fifth-Dimensional Self (new)
6. Flatlanders on a Line (new)
7. The Geometry of Music (new)
8. The Omniverse (5)
9. Crossing Your Arms to Change Your Trajectory (new)
10. Anime, Gaming and Cusps (new)

And as of May 21st, 2008, here are the ten Imagining the Tenth Dimension blog entries that have attracted the most visits of all time.

1. Time is a Direction (new)
2. The Google Suggestions Time Capsule Project (3)
3. Tenth Dimension Polls Archive 1 to 10 (new)
4. Tenth Dimension TagCrowd (5)
5. Infinity and the Boltzmann Brains (6)
6. Google, Memes and Randomness (4)
7. Hypercubes and Plato's Cave (1)
8. Visualizations (new)
9. 26 songs (2)
10. The Omniverse (new)

By the way, if you are new to this project, you might want to check out the Tenth Dimension FAQ, as it provides a road map to a lot of the discussions and different materials that have been created for this project.

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

Next, a more poetic entry: "You Are the Point"