Sunday, November 30, 2008

New stuff at the store


A direct link to this video is at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=-tt1-w-wIpg

One of my most popular blogs over the last few months has a been a compilation of all the different video blogs that use video feedback. In his book "I am a Strange Loop", this trippy visual effect has been embraced by one of my favorite authors, Douglas Hofstadter, as a way for us to visualize the self-reflexive mystery of consciousness. Besides just being fun to look at and play with, video feedback is also useful as a way to think about the granularity of spacetime, and what a spacetime object might look like when viewed from an extra dimension.

These videos are all shot in hi-def, so there's a lot of detail in them that you just can't see in their web video versions. Because people are interested in watching these videos over and over again, we've put together a DVD of ten of our favorites, which we're calling "Tenth Dimension Video Blogs Volume One: Video Feedback". You can now buy this DVD for $10 from the tenth dimension store: www.tenthdimension.com/store

We've also put together a DVD with a number of the music videos we've created that go with many of the 26 songs that are associated with this project. That DVD is also available for $10 from the store.

And while we're talking about the tenth dimension store, just a reminder that there are other items available there as well - so if you're asking yourself "what can I get for the tenth dimension fan who has everything?", some of these items might interest you:

My book Imagining the Tenth Dimension is available in hard cover for $29.95 or soft cover for $21.95. Imagining the Tenth Dimension t-shirts are available in small, medium, large, or extra large for $18.95, or in XXL for $20.95. I also have Gevin Giorbran's wonderful "Everything Forever - Learning to See Timelessness" for sale at the tenth dimension store, at $33.95 for hard cover and $26.95 for soft cover.

As a special thank you to fans of Imagining the Tenth Dimension, for the month of December any book or t-shirt order placed at the tenth dimension store will get a free DVD along with their purchase. I'd also like to remind you about the tenth dimension digital items store, where you can download books, songs, and a high quality version of the original flash animation directly to your computer.

As we approach the end of 2008, I'd like to thank everyone who has been reading my blog, watching my video blogs, and joining in the conversations at the tenth dimension forum. It's been a wonderful ride and I'm very grateful for all the support you have shown for this project, a creative exploration of the nature of reality.

Enjoy the journey!

Rob Bryanton

Next - Welcome to Digg and YouTube viewers

4 comments:

Symbol said...

Hi. I'm not sure how you so quickly found me just mentioning your name (without even a link) but how ever you did it, I'm quite impressed.

Explain this to me (if you please). If you can fully see the fourth dimension then change can be introduced by way of the fifth dimension. This works beautifully because the fifth dimension branches off from the fourth dimension and therefore is closely associated with it.

But what if you can fully see the fifth dimension? By the logic presented above, change could then be introduced into the system by way of the sixth dimension, but you yourself argue that the sixth dimension is incompatible with our own dimensions. How, then, can it interact with the dimension below?

If you've already discussed this somewhere, my apologies for not checking your archives more closely and you can just supply a link.

Rob Bryanton said...

Hi Symbol, I've published a number of entries that explore that idea. You might enjoy
Time in 3 Dimensions
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/09/time-in-3-dimensions.html

We're Already Dead (But That's Okay)
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/09/were-already-dead-but-thats-okay.html

or for a more fanciful exploration, Twisted Dimensions:
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/08/twisted-dimensions.html

Here's how I would sum up one approach to you answer - the first five spatial dimensions are how we build the universe we're in, while the additional dimensions are how we get to the universes we're not in and can't get to. This can be very simple differences - if I get up a seven, then I'm no longer in the universe where I got up at 6, but that universe would be available to me if I moved through the sixth dimension. Within the fifth dimension, I can only move to the dimensions that are logically consistent with the version of the universe I'm in, and that idea extends all the way back to the big bang and forward to the end of the universe.
Thanks for writing!
Rob

Symbol said...

Alright, I must not have made my question clear. Let me try again.

I completely grasp how the first five dimensions fit together, but my problem is that the sixth dimension doesn't seem to interact with the other five. It doesn't extend from the dimensions below but instead exists beside them. The problem, as I see it, is that in order for there to be change (and therefore progress) in the fifth dimension, you would need another dimension above it to interact with it. The sixth dimension doesn't allow this, since it doesn't interact with the fifth dimension.

Of course, I might be being completely anthropomorphic in my interpretation, but I have great difficulty with a static universe.

I will certainly take a look at your entries soon.

Rob Bryanton said...

Hi Symbol, the interaction above the fifth dimension is like the other side of the symmetry that ultimately enfolds together in the omniverse of all multiverses, and all parallel universe versions of the different universes. In entries like How To Make a Universe
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-make-universe.html
and Unlikely Events and Timelessness
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/08/unlikely-events-and-timelessness.html
I try to show this.

Let's imagine the 10th dimension contains a set of 100 coin tosses representing every possible universe, or every possible pattern that could potentially contribute to a universe. The tenth dimension, as the perfectly balanced symmetry state MUST contain 50 heads and 50 tails. Then we go to the ninth dimension, and your hundred coin tosses become the (let's say) 48 heads and 52 tails that represents the breaking of symmetry that starts to move us away from the "all" to the specific universe we're in.

With each lower dimension, we're paring away other possibilities, other patterns that exist within the omniverse, focusing tighter and tighter.

By the time we get to the sixth dimension, we're looking at every possible timeline for our own universe, but that includes all of the ones that are impossible to get to for our fifth-dimensional reality in its current state. As we show in the original animation, the sixth dimension would be what you use to get to the versions of our universe that are logically incompatible - in the fifth dimension, you move back in time to your own past, then select a different branch and get to a different "now". In the original animation, your move backwards and then forward to get to a version of the universe where you're an adult and you're rich because of an invention you made as a child. The "now" where you're rich, and the "now" where you're not, both exist within the set of all parallel universes, the wave function of possible states for our universe, but they're logically incompatible or "decoherent" to each other: You Can't Get There From Here without viewing both sets of branching possibilities from the sixth dimension.
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2007/12/you-cant-get-there-from-here.html

Thanks for writing!
Rob

Tenth Dimension Vlog playlist