Hi Seth, Rob Bryanton here, thank you
for including my Imagining the Tenth Dimension video in this list! I'm
honoured. Why, some may ask, is my 2006 video in two parts? Because back
in the early days of YouTube 11 minutes was the maximum duration for
accounts like mine. By 2008 they raised that limit, so I posted another
version which runs uninterrupted, here it is: https://youtu.be/XjsgoXvnStY
Yes,
there are a number of copies of copies of my video out there that have
removed my name, copyright info, and the explanatory text at the end...
including a Korean channel, their copy is currently at 6 million views!
But there are also critics who say everything about this video past the
third dimension is wrong, so let me try to clear up some confusion.
First of all, as I write at the end of the video, this is not the
explanation for string theory, although it has some connections,
including the idea that our reality is constrained by "branes" at the
third and seventh dimension. It has more direct connections to Everett's
Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and if you read Nobel
laureate Kip Thorne's 2014 book The Science of Interstellar you'll see a
very similar explanation of the first five dimensions. Thorne says a
theoretical observer elevated to a five dimensional vantage point would
see the many branching timelines of Everett's Many Worlds bending and
stretching in the warped 4D geometries of the tesseract. Thorne goes on
to say that it's fine to lump all of the dimensions beyond the fifth
together and call them "The Bulk". The Bulk is the rest of the
information that becomes reality that is not directly connected to our
observed universe. Likewise, with my approach the first five dimensions
show where our observed reality comes from, while with each dimension
beyond the fifth with my approach we move further and further "outside"
of the unique universe we are currently observing.
Finally,
I've always tried to make it clear with my videos and blog that I'm not
a physicist and I'm not pretending to be one. I'm a composer and sound
designer (currently I'm mixing a film starring Scott Eastwood and Mel
Gibson). The logic my video uses to imagine these dimensions relates
nicely to the point-line-plane postulate, which is the accepted
methodology for visualizing any number of spatial dimensions. That's the
key - this video requires us to accept that all of the dimensions,
including the fourth, are spatial, and it's our unique perspective as
creatures embedded in the third dimension that makes it appear that the
dimensions beyond the third are not as spatial (or "space-like" as some
physicists prefer to say).
Ultimately, I try to
frame this video as a "mind-expanding exercise". I hear all the time
from people who feel this video has been a positive influence on their
lives, and from people who see connections between this approach and
ancient mysticism, sacred geometry, psychedelics, and much more. In his
book The New Science of Psychedelics, author/scientist David Jay Brown
wrote these amazing words: "Physicist Michio Kaku's book Hyperspace: A
Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth
Dimension and Rob Bryanton's Imagining the Tenth Dimension both seem to
provide uncanny maps of the territory that one encounters after smoking
salvia or DMT. Like the two-dimensional character in Edwin Abbott's
book Flatland, we seem just as limited in our three-dimensional
perspective."
Posts
Hi Seth, Rob Bryanton here, thank you for including my Imagining the Tenth Dimension video in this list! I'm honoured. Why, some may ask, is my 2006 video in two parts? Because back in the early days of YouTube 11 minutes was the maximum duration for accounts like mine. By 2008 they raised that limit, so I posted another version which runs uninterrupted, here it is: https://youtu.be/XjsgoXvnStY
Yes, there are a number of copies of copies of my video out there that have removed my name, copyright info, and the explanatory text at the end... including a Korean channel, their copy is currently at 6 million views! But there are also critics who say everything about this video past the third dimension is wrong, so let me try to clear up some confusion.
First of all, as I write at the end of the video, this is not the explanation for string theory, although it has some connections, including the idea that our reality is constrained by "branes" at the third and seventh dimension. It has more direct connections to Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and if you read Nobel laureate Kip Thorne's 2014 book The Science of Interstellar you'll see a very similar explanation of the first five dimensions. Thorne says a theoretical observer elevated to a five dimensional vantage point would see the many branching timelines of Everett's Many Worlds bending and stretching in the warped 4D geometries of the tesseract. Thorne goes on to say that it's fine to lump all of the dimensions beyond the fifth together and call them "The Bulk". The Bulk is the rest of the information that becomes reality that is not directly connected to our observed universe. Likewise, with my approach the first five dimensions show where our observed reality comes from, while with each dimension beyond the fifth with my approach we move further and further "outside" of the unique universe we are currently observing.
Finally, I've always tried to make it clear with my videos and blog that I'm not a physicist and I'm not pretending to be one. I'm a composer and sound designer (currently I'm mixing a film starring Scott Eastwood and Mel Gibson). The logic my video uses to imagine these dimensions relates nicely to the point-line-plane postulate, which is the accepted methodology for visualizing any number of spatial dimensions. That's the key - this video requires us to accept that all of the dimensions, including the fourth, are spatial, and it's our unique perspective as creatures embedded in the third dimension that makes it appear that the dimensions beyond the third are not as spatial (or "space-like" as some physicists prefer to say).
Ultimately, I try to frame this video as a "mind-expanding exercise". I hear all the time from people who feel this video has been a positive influence on their lives, and from people who see connections between this approach and ancient mysticism, sacred geometry, psychedelics, and much more. In his book The New Science of Psychedelics, author/scientist David Jay Brown wrote these amazing words: "Physicist Michio Kaku's book Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension and Rob Bryanton's Imagining the Tenth Dimension both seem to provide uncanny maps of the territory that one encounters after smoking salvia or DMT. Like the two-dimensional character in Edwin Abbott's book Flatland, we seem just as limited in our three-dimensional perspective."