Heaven and Hell

[Nimiza]

At the risk of sounding stupid I would like to share an idea I formulated. It's an odd notion but who knows?

Heaven: An ascension to a higher dimension.
Hell: A decension (are these even words?) to a lower dimension.

Imagine what Fred sees through his eyes, it is a series of lines and dots from up to down and nothing else. Even if these were in colour it would still be a horrible existence. In the war idea Alkaline mentioned "seeing the back of your friend's head" and "seeing your enemy's ugly face" when infact all Fred is seeing is a series of lines and dots running from top to bottom which he must interpret.
To Fred if he could see in 3d, see 3d objects, turn around freely, etc it would be a massive step up in his existence....heaven?
To Bob if he could only see lines and dots then his existence would be severely incapacitated.

So maybe Heaven could be an ascension to tetraspace. I know we'd all love that because using the same indirect approach Alkaline used you can only imagine (in a distorted dreamy way) what tetraspace would be like, and how much "better" it would be to us.
Hey maybe Emily is good she will go to pentaspace....

New incentive to be nicer to people who are stupid....you might go 2d.

[whiteonriceboy]

That's an interesting idea 'Nimisia', but the Bible clearly says that hell is a lake of fire in Revelation 20:14, and fire probably isn't feasible in 2D.

If you believe in God, or any other deity, you might think about if God is a 3D entity, or if He is in tetraspace, or even in some infinite dimension. Just a thought.

[4dlayman]

Don't forget that the bible was written by 3D people !!
Humans always attribute unexplainable things to god. To us 3D people, a 4D being might as well be our god because it is all-powerful, knows all about us, etc. And I might as well be Fred's god, he is on my wall, I can do anything to him, I am all-powerful as far as he is concerned....

[Geosphere]

Equating theology to math is a bad idea. They never intersect. That does not mean that heaven and hell do not exist, but due to their nature, it is impossible to describe them in mathematical terms.

[Geosphere]

I am all-powerful as far as he is concerned....

Unless he lives a life span of 1/50,000 of a second, in which case your actions will not affect him.

[RQ]

I would have to agree with geosphere on this one. Although it would be interesting, since we cannot observe any such events, we must use Occam's razor and cut them out. For all we know hell might be the 4th dimension, but your theory says lower dimensions, so let's say the first dimension. I don't really think that would be hell though. Always imagined a world with no pizza as a hell.

[Hafermehl]

Though it does not work mathematically, it is a good analogy. To 4-D (God) a 3-D would seem totally helpless and somewhat pathetic; just as we would look on 2-Ds.

[PWrong]

Equating theology to math is a bad idea. They never intersect.

This isn't true. A mathematician (I think it was Euler?) once proved mathematically, using game theory, that it was in everyone's best interest to be a good Christian.

The argument was that heaven represents an infinite reward, and hell represents infinite punishment. Conversly, the probability that Heaven and Hell exists is extremely small, but still finite. Infinite risk/finite possibility = infinite reason to be Christian.

[RQ]

This seems right, but somewhat misleading. I think it was Descartes though, he said that if there was a god and you didn't believe in him that made you a sinner, but if there wasn't one you weren't. So it's a 50-50. However, he said if you did believe, then whether there is one or not, you're not a sinner. Anyway, I still don't see what the 4th dimension has to do with God.

[4dlayman]

I don't think that dimensions have anything to do with god....my point is if we can interact with a lower dimension then we would be god-like to them.
RQ: I have read something about whether or not one should believe in god (was it by Descartes?) running something like this: I don't know if there is a god, however if there is a god and if I don't believe in him then the consequence is infinite doom (hell). I can mitigate this by believing in god (which doesn't cost that much effort) and if god doesn't exist I haven't lost that much (its like buying insurance).
I think we have done enough "god-talk" here; if we do any more Alkaline will be kicking us out....

[RQ]

Yes, that was the flawless arguement, pretty sure it was Descartes, stated.
Anyway, yes, in fact I think that we would be god-like to the 2D people if we could interact with them, things appearing out of nowhere and disappearing.

[alkaline]

there's no problem with this discussion, the topic of god is kind of related to dimensions, since they are both philisophical. I just have problems with discussing things in no way related :-P i don't want to be communistic or anything!

[whiteonriceboy]

i don't think God is limited by any dimensions. being omnipresent means that He is everywhere at all times. do you really think that the creator of all dimensions and everything in them would be limited to the restrictions of one of them?

[4dlayman]

Well, it depends on your definition of god. Some people doubt his existence, some think that he is the set of physical rules of this universe and some think that he is someone(thing) in the 4th (or higher) dimension. Regardless one would be god-like to beings of a lower dimension, assuming the different dimensions can interact.

[RQ]

Yes, God would not be limited to any dimension, he is all not one.

[Polyhedron Dude]

Concerning Heaven and Hell, I picture hell to be more like a black hole (i.e. outer darkness, no escape, extreme heat (think compressed star)). Heaven is likely the omniverse, which includes all dimensionalities. People who go to heaven may have access to universes with different number of dimensions. I hope to one day (when in Heaven) to walk the shores of a four dimensional beach as well as build polychoron models.

I believe that God is the omniscient source of all truth, existence, and essence. He gives 3 it's "threeness" and truth its trueness, and a tesseract it's essence for example. In this light, even infinite dimensional space isn't grand enough to fully contain him.

Polyhedron Dude

[Ryush806]

i don't know if this is correct (mainly because i heard it from my high school physics teacher who sometimes cannot even get his algebra right) but my teacher told me that pascal said the whole thing about buying God-insurrance.
Ryan

[RQ]

Oh, yes, it was pascal, never mind.