The observation of a visible object.

[eldios]

When you observe visible objects such as a tree from your perspective, are you observing the tree in two dimensions or more then two dimensions?

[Neatras]

The human eye perceives light on a plane, so to speak. Light from further away hits the eye later than light nearer to the eye (though we aren't precise enough to notice the difference). That aside, our ability to pick up light from objects at a different distances from us is an advantage in that it gives us the ability to perceive depth. This is not perfect, as hyper-realistic 2d art can and has fooled the eye into perceiving depth on a 2d surface. But our ability to interpret depth based on visual clues lends to us seeing 3d objects via a medium that is at least able to be replicated via 2d stimuli.

In short, you are observing 3 dimensions, but depth is a dimension which can be imitated or misinterpreted due to depth running orthogonal to our observer, as opposed to the other dimensions running parallel to our observer.

Since sight has limitations, it is important to use other senses or instruments to verify observation. While this may seem like a distraction from your question, no sense exists in a vacuum. They have all developed quite complementary as a means to confer an advantage to us: namely, consistency, which most highly corresponds with a consistent reality.

[eldios]

The human eye perceives light on a plane, so to speak. Light from further away hits the eye later than light nearer to the eye (though we aren't precise enough to notice the difference). That aside, our ability to pick up light from objects at a different distances from us is an advantage in that it gives us the ability to perceive depth. This is not perfect, as hyper-realistic 2d art can and has fooled the eye into perceiving depth on a 2d surface. But our ability to interpret depth based on visual clues lends to us seeing 3d objects via a medium that is at least able to be replicated via 2d stimuli.

In short, you are observing 3 dimensions, but depth is a dimension which can be imitated or misinterpreted due to depth running orthogonal to our observer, as opposed to the other dimensions running parallel to our observer.

Since sight has limitations, it is important to use other senses or instruments to verify observation. While this may seem like a distraction from your question, no sense exists in a vacuum. They have all developed quite complementary as a means to confer an advantage to us: namely, consistency, which most highly corresponds with a consistent reality.

So when you see a tree in your consciousness, you're saying you're looking at a 3 D image.

How old were you when you realized that a tree was a 3 D object?

Did you have to learn what 3 D is before you could talk about what a 3 D object is?

Do you actually know what 3 D means?

I studied drafting and had to draw 3 sides to an object with all the correct measurements in order for a carpenter or welder to know how to build the object. I also had to learn how to draw perspective drawings to give the owners of the object a sense of what it would look like from their one perspective standing away from the object. However, all those drawings were done in 2 dimensions, height and width.

Before I drew those objects, I had to see the object within my consciousness and walk around it or rotate it before I knew how to draw it out on paper. If it was a house, I had to imagine in my mind walking around in the house and outside and all the details before I could do any drawings to get the client satisfied.

So is that object I observe in my mind a 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional object?

[Divine Insight]

How old were you when you realized that a tree was a 3 D object?

As soon as I was old enough to crawl around the base of a tree and realize that it was more than just 2D. And I no doubt didn't even have a clue what 2D or 3D meant at that time.

In fact, I may have recognized the 3D nature of a tree even before I was old enough to crawl if my mother or a nurse just happened to carry me around a tree when going for a walk.

So the fact that we live in a 3D world was pretty obvious as a young baby. In fact, why limit ourselves to talking about trees? I probably noticed long before I saw a tree that my own hands have fronts, backs and sides that are thicker than zero.

I probably also noticed "Depth Perception", by recognizing that when I look at my hand held sideways with my thumb close to my eyes and my little finger far away from my eyes that when I focus on my thumb my little finger goes out of focus, and vice versa.

In other words, I was probably a 3D specialist whilst I was still in my crib without even realizing it or being granted a degree from a university for my expertise in 3D geometry.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 3 by eldios]

Don't pull that crap with me. Your first statement warped my words to suggest I claimed I was looking at a 3D image in my mind, and all the rest of your questions were about 3D objects. I stated that I was looking at a 3D object. I did not state I was looking at a 3D image anywhere in my post. Do NOT misrepresent my words. Ever.

I don't know how you construct models in your mind. It doesn't matter to me.

[Divine Insight]

Did you have to learn what 3 D is before you could talk about what a 3 D object is?

Yes and no. This all depends on how much language dependency you put onto concepts.

Clearly I understood the concept of 3 dimensional objects long before I ever learned the word "dimension" or it's "technical definition".

In the early going I also may not have recognized that there were necessarily only 3 basics directions required to describe the object and no less than 3 were sufficient. That more formal and precise quantitative analysis and understanding requires more advanced reasoning. But clearly even that doesn't require extreme knowledge to grasp these underlying concepts as very young children are taught the concept of dimensions quite easily. Obviously when we come to a 4th dimension it becomes much harder to describe and explain, and often quite difficult for many people to even imagine abstractly.

Do you have any explanation for why almost anyone, including young children can easily grasp the concept of 3 dimensions, but then might have difficulty trying to imagine anything higher than this?

Other than the obvious explanation that we live in, and experience, a 3 dimensional world on a daily basis why should it be the case that we have difficulty comprehending dimensions higher than 3?

[eldios]

[Replying to post 3 by eldios]

Don't pull that crap with me. Your first statement warped my words to suggest I claimed I was looking at a 3D image in my mind, and all the rest of your questions were about 3D objects. I stated that I was looking at a 3D object. I did not state I was looking at a 3D image anywhere in my post. Do NOT misrepresent my words. Ever.

I don't know how you construct models in your mind. It doesn't matter to me.

Everything we experience is in the mind but scientist's haven't figured that out yet. They have no clue what the mind is.

[eldios]

Did you have to learn what 3 D is before you could talk about what a 3 D object is?

Yes and no. This all depends on how much language dependency you put onto concepts.

Clearly I understood the concept of 3 dimensional objects long before I ever learned the word "dimension" or it's "technical definition".

Yes. 3 D awareness is something that has to be learned because we can only observe images in 2 D, width and height. That's it. It's impossible to see the distances from other perspectives unless we walk around the objects but all the while, observing 2 D.

In the early going I also may not have recognized that there were necessarily only 3 basics directions required to describe the object and no less than 3 were sufficient. That more formal and precise quantitative analysis and understanding requires more advanced reasoning. But clearly even that doesn't require extreme knowledge to grasp these underlying concepts as very young children are taught the concept of dimensions quite easily. Obviously when we come to a 4th dimension it becomes much harder to describe and explain, and often quite difficult for many people to even imagine abstractly.

It's much harder to grasp the idea that we always observe objects in 2 D, yet by walking around the object, we perceive ourselves as living in a 3 D world, very similar to the way we play video simulation games on a 2 D screen.

Do you have any explanation for why almost anyone, including young children can easily grasp the concept of 3 dimensions, but then might have difficulty trying to imagine anything higher than this?

Most people cannot grasp the idea that we can only observe objects in 2 D, width and height. We cannot observe the dimensions between objects that are closer then other objects. That is a learned experience that most people cannot grasp.

For example: While I was farming, I could observe a space between trees 100 yards away from the tractor and implement I was pulling behind it and know that I would be able to get through that space without hitting any trees. This would be impossible for someone with no experience. So everything beyond our 2 D observation has to be learned but only because of motion which is a whole other topic to discuss later.

Other than the obvious explanation that we live in, and experience, a 3 dimensional world on a daily basis why should it be the case that we have difficulty comprehending dimensions higher than 3?

The question I started out this thread was whether or not you observe an object in 2 dimensions or 3.

When I observe an object, I can only see 2 dimensions which are width and height. My depth perception is a learned experience because of motion. If I woke up in this world without the ability to move my eyes, my body or even seen an image move, I would only observe 2 dimensions all the time. But because of motion, we learn that we're living in a 3 D world.

Artists can paint 2 dimensional drawings on a street and from a certain perspective your mind tells you there's distances between the objects that give you depth perception. These illusions can be used to help people understand that we can only observe images in 2 dimensions. It's the sense of motion that gives us the ability to learn we're in a 3 D world.

[eldios]

How old were you when you realized that a tree was a 3 D object?

As soon as I was old enough to crawl around the base of a tree and realize that it was more than just 2D. And I no doubt didn't even have a clue what 2D or 3D meant at that time.

In fact, I may have recognized the 3D nature of a tree even before I was old enough to crawl if my mother or a nurse just happened to carry me around a tree when going for a walk.

So the fact that we live in a 3D world was pretty obvious as a young baby. In fact, why limit ourselves to talking about trees? I probably noticed long before I saw a tree that my own hands have fronts, backs and sides that are thicker than zero.

I probably also noticed "Depth Perception", by recognizing that when I look at my hand held sideways with my thumb close to my eyes and my little finger far away from my eyes that when I focus on my thumb my little finger goes out of focus, and vice versa.

In other words, I was probably a 3D specialist whilst I was still in my crib without even realizing it or being granted a degree from a university for my expertise in 3D geometry.

But it takes a lot of knowledge to understand that we can only observe objects in 2 dimensions and not 3. The illusion that we get from the sense of motion teaches us that we're living in a 3 D world.

If you understood how we were created, then it would be very easy for you to understand how we observe images within our mind. The dreams we have at night are no different than what we experience in our mind when we believe we have woke up from those dreams.

[Divine Insight]

Yes. 3 D awareness is something that has to be learned because we can only observe images in 2 D, width and height. That's it. It's impossible to see the distances from other perspectives unless we walk around the objects but all the while, observing 2 D.

I disagree that it needs to be "learned" especially in the sense of having someone else teach you this. You should be able to figure it out yourself from the very simple fact that you can walk all the way around things. Don't forget all so, if you see a tree in front of your house and you walk around the tree you'll notice that sometimes the house is in "front" of the tree, at other points in your walk the house is "behind" the tree. Do you think that someone would need to "teach" you that the world is actually 3 dimensional at that point? Or do you think you could figure that much out on your own?

So just the experience of walking around a tree should be enough for you to "learn" that the world is indeed 3D. In fact, you can do this by placing one hand in front of the other as well, so again, no trees required.

In the early going I also may not have recognized that there were necessarily only 3 basics directions required to describe the object and no less than 3 were sufficient. That more formal and precise quantitative analysis and understanding requires more advanced reasoning. But clearly even that doesn't require extreme knowledge to grasp these underlying concepts as very young children are taught the concept of dimensions quite easily. Obviously when we come to a 4th dimension it becomes much harder to describe and explain, and often quite difficult for many people to even imagine abstractly.

It's much harder to grasp the idea that we always observe objects in 2 D, yet by walking around the object, we perceive ourselves as living in a 3 D world, very similar to the way we play video simulation games on a 2 D screen.

Actually humans have a slight stereo vision because we have two eyes that are separated by some small distance. This allows us to see depth of field and judge distances to some degree.

So technically you are actually wrong to claim that we always observe objects in 2D. Actually we always observe them in 3D. You may just not be fully aware of this.

Do you have any explanation for why almost anyone, including young children can easily grasp the concept of 3 dimensions, but then might have difficulty trying to imagine anything higher than this?

Most people cannot grasp the idea that we can only observe objects in 2 D, width and height. We cannot observe the dimensions between objects that are closer then other objects. That is a learned experience that most people cannot grasp.

I disagree. In fact, biologists are pretty convinced that our 3D stereo vision is quite an aid in judging distances. In fact, if you lose the sight in one eye you'll also begin to recognize that you aren't able to judge distances as well as you could before.

For example: While I was farming, I could observe a space between trees 100 yards away from the tractor and implement I was pulling behind it and know that I would be able to get through that space without hitting any trees. This would be impossible for someone with no experience. So everything beyond our 2 D observation has to be learned but only because of motion which is a whole other topic to discuss later.

It's not worth discussing later. Even people who fully understand the 3-dimensional reality of our world can easily misjudge distances. In fact, I've done carpentry work for decades, and even to this very day I find that measuring distances works far better than trying to guess at them (even in 2D). So as a matter of fact, this has absolutely nothing at all to even do with how many dimensions are involved.

So why would we discuss this topic later? Clearly whether the world is 2D or 3D makes absolutely no difference in this regard. Although if the world truly was 2D then everything would always need to be on the same plane. I'm not even sure if we can truly imagine what it would be like living in a 2D world.

You aren't suggesting that we actually live in a 2D world are you?

By the way, you have already made a GRAVE MISTAKE by referencing video games that are displayed on 2D monitors. Those games are actually represented in computer memory as 3D. So those games actually are 3D, but they can only be viewed as 2D on the computer screen.

Trust me, I know because I had done some 3D video programming at one point in my life, and it's all done in 3D in the programming.

So you are wrong if you think those computer games are actually 2D. They aren't. They are actually 3D as far as the computer code is concerned.

So you seem to be making a lot of your reasoning based on false premises.

Other than the obvious explanation that we live in, and experience, a 3 dimensional world on a daily basis why should it be the case that we have difficulty comprehending dimensions higher than 3?

The question I started out this thread was whether or not you observe an object in 2 dimensions or 3.

That's fine, but now you seem to be trying to expand this to asking how we can tell that the world is actually 3D and that information has been given to you, but you seem to be arguing against it.

When I observe an object, I can only see 2 dimensions which are width and height.

But you'll only get that single perspective as long as you remain perfectly still and don't move. As soon as your start to move you'll quickly notice that things "Behind" the object are moving relative to that object. Therefore the world itself cannot be 2D. So you already have your proof the moment you move your vantage point that you are living in a 3D world.

And remember your video game analogy failed because video games are actually programmed in 3D which allows the background to move as you move your vantage point. So pointing to video games as examples of a 2D Perspective fails. A video game actually produces a 3D perspective.

My depth perception is a learned experience because of motion. If I woke up in this world without the ability to move my eyes, my body or even seen an image move, I would only observe 2 dimensions all the time. But because of motion, we learn that we're living in a 3 D world.

Exactly. So unless you are claiming that we can't move what's your point?

Artists can paint 2 dimensional drawings on a street and from a certain perspective your mind tells you there's distances between the objects that give you depth perception. These illusions can be used to help people understand that we can only observe images in 2 dimensions. It's the sense of motion that gives us the ability to learn we're in a 3 D world.

You have just answered your own question.

"It's the sense of motion that gives us the ability to learn we're in a 3 D world."

So you agree that we are living in a 3D world?

So what's the point that we can only see a 2D image if we remain perfectly still?

I don't think anyone would disagree with this.

Still even in a 2D world, if you are looking at a tree that's right in front of you and a deer walks by between you and the tree, how are you going to explain how the deer did that? How did a deer fit between you and the tree if the world is only 2D?

In fact, if you are looking at a tree and you raise your arm to point at the tree but cannot touch the tree, how do you explain that your extended arm fits between you and the tree?

I just don't see the point in your entire discussion here.

Wouldn't we need to be starting out a pre-kindergarten level to even consider these kinds of ideas? And even at that level shouldn't we be able to resolve them rather quickly?

If you are trying to argue that we might actually live in a 2D world I don't think you are going to have much luck.

Even a computer simulation is simulated in 3D in code. You seem to have either forgotten that fact, or never realized it to begin with?