Subject: -->THE DIMENSIONS OF TIME<--

        Here is an article that examines the concept of time and
dimensions.  I hope you find this interesting!


        That time has many dimensions is a concept often advanced to account
for prophecy.  The gist of the idea is that time--which seems to unfold in a
linear way, with the past coming before the present and the present before
the future--might, in another dimension, not be experienced sequentially.
The past, present, and future could exist simultaneously.

        The concept that there are unfamiliar dimensions of time is most
easily approached by way of those dimensions with which we are already 
familiar, those of length, height, and breadth.  These in turn, are best 
approached, quite literally, from a starting point, which, geometrically
speaking, has a location but no dimensions.  It does however, relate to
figures with dimensions in the following way.

        If a point is moved through space, it marks a line, with the one
dimension of length.  If a line is moved through space, it traces the
figure of a plane, with the two dimensions of length and breadth.  And if
a plane is mved in space, it traces a figure with the three dimensions of
length, breadth and height.

        We can also work backward from a three-dimensional body and find that
the cross section of a body of four dimensions and that a three-dimensional
cube is a two-dimensional plane, that the cross section of the plane is a 
one-dimensional line, and that the cross section of the line is a dimensionless
point!

        From this we can infer that a body of three dimensions is the cross
section of a body four dimensions and that a three-dimensional body, when
moved in a certain way, will produce a body of four dimensions.  Then comes
the question, of what sort of body could a three-dimensional shape be the
cross section?  And in what sort of new direction could a three-dimensional
shape be moved to produce one of four dimensions, since a movement other 
than up and down, backward and forward, or side to side would simply produce
a larger figure, not one of a different dimension.  The answer, of course,
is the feature duration.  For as soon as something ceases to endure, it
ceases to exist.  To the three familiar dimensions, then, we should add
duration in time as a fourth dimension.  Ordinary three-dimensional bodies
should therefore be properly described as four-dimensional, and a body with
three dimensions must be defined as having only length, breath, and height but
no duration.  Is such a thing possible?  It is, but only hypothetically.  For
in fact, the point, line, and plane do not truly exist as such.  Any line 
that can be seen has breadth as well as length (and duration), just as any 
physical plane has a certain thickness as well as length and breadth.  What
movement, then, must a figure of three dimensions undergo to produce a body
of four dimensions?

        We moved a plane in the dimension of height to produce a cube; so the
movement of a (hypothetical) cube in the dimension of time should produce 
a (real) figure of four dimensions.  What does movement in the dimension of
time mean?

        As we said, it must mean movement in a new direction, not up, down,
or sideways.  Are there any other kinds of movement?  For a start, there is
the movement that the earth's rotation imparts to everything upon it and that
puts even apparently motionless objects in motion.  We can thus say that a
three-dimensional body is hypothetically motionless cross section of a real
body whose fourth dimension, duration, is inseparable from the motion that
the turning world inevitably imparts to everything.  Further inevitable
motions are that of the earth around the sun, of the sun, of the galaxy
itself around some unknown point.  Since any perceptible body is, in fact,
undergoing all these motions simultaneously, we can say that everything
has these dimensions, though in a way that is ordinary imperceptible.  Because
motions and the dimensions they imply are only perceptible in a framework of
time, they can be referred to as dimensions of time.

        If duration is one aspect of time, what might the others be?  Among
several possibilities, we can suggest appearance and disappearance, change 
and recurrence.  Of all possibilities, only duration is perceptible.  When
we say that something appears, we mena that we suddenly note its existence;
when something disappears, we note its lack of existence.  We perceive no
intermediate condition of "appearing" or "disappearing."  In the same way, we
talk of change but actually only develop the concept as we perceive aggregates
of characteristics that exist--or cease to exist.  And so we infer, but do
not observe, the recurrence of sunset and sunrise, the passage of seasons, 
the growth of a child.

        And yet, things really do appear and disappear, change and recur,
although not actually perceived to do so.  They are, so to speak, hypothetical
to us and must have their reality in other dimensions of time, just as the
hypothetical three-dimensional body becomes real, that is, perceptible, in
the dimensions of time we call duration.

        If access to higher dimensions of time belongs to one body, it is at
least theoretically possible that it belongs, though invisibly, to all bodies.
We can further assume that such access is by way of unfamiliar modes or
levels of consciousness--and that the name we give to one of these is
prophecy.


                                Whew! Heavy molecular stuff!
                                If you don't quite grasp this completely,
                                try reading this a second time!


                                Source of Information is from:
                                Mysteries of the Unexplained,
                                Readers Digest


                                Beaming out through a time portal...this
                                is John an569 Freenet Carleton Canada!

*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *