This is the first part in a series of pieces I plan to write, that will combine towards explaining one of my ideas for understanding the universe and hoe it may work. I am going to start this series by writing out some concepts, that I will later weave together:
The Flat Lake Conundrum
Picture a world very much like our own. Brimming with life. Circled by one moon. On one of its continents there is a very large, generally a very still lake. One of the creatures that lives there are something a kin to lake striding insects, they live exclusively on the surface of the lake. They are highly intelligent creatures, at least as intelligent as humans, and with an equally advanced form of civilization. However, despite their intelligence their brains have not evolved to comprehend the idea of three dimensions. In a way it makes sense, they live completely on the flatness of the lake, so why should they evolve to comprehend anything but flat.
They can feel the ripples as pulses of motion. They notice that the lake is light in colour when the sun is up, and dark when the sun is down. The many trees that surround the lake cast shadows, but they perceive the change in colour, and heat, not the object casting the shadow.
By measuring shadows at different times of year they can tell that the brightness of sun does not exist on the surface of the lake but is originating somewhere else. Some say the light of the Sun emanates from beyond the edge of the lake. However, being advanced in philosophy, math and physics, some of these creatures have deduced that there is another dimension. They they theorize that the sun does not exist beyond the shores of the lake but rather on another plane altogether, in a third dimension.
Now here is the important question: As their society continues to advance in questions of cosmology how far can their understanding reach? Can they deduce what eclipses are? Can they figure out that the moon circles the earth and that the earth circles the sun? What about the existence of other planets? Or stars? Could they ever deduce the existence of quasars, black holes, or the big bang?
How far can you go towards understanding the universe if you can only perceive two dimensions? The question helps illustrates a point: If our universe is made up of lets say 4 or 5 or even more spatial dimensions, how close to understanding it can we get if we only perceive three of those dimensions. If our abilities to comprehend the world are limited by this lack of perception, how should it influence the ways we look at and think about the universe?
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