clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

appendix g
evolution of four-dimensional beings
The brain acts as a filter of reality, reducing our perception to what is
necessary for survival. Therefore, we have developed sensory organs
that only perceive 3-D. As our neural pathways form in the first years
of life, our brains are programmed to see reality in accord with these
organs, and hence we limit it to 3-D. Given all that cannot be understood
in three-dimensional terms (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox,
or even just the simple wave-particle duality), it seems that we are
functioning in a reality composed of more than three dimensions. God
may be a being in the infinite dimension, or perhaps a being that can
conceive of all dimensions easily.
—Lindy Oliver, personal communication
The presence of God, the side of this Power which is turned towards
us—and indeed with our human thinking we can never penetrate into
the essential nature of this Power—is in fact a space. A space, of course,
is not a self-contained whole, with definable boundaries separating it
in the objective sense from something else.
—Karl Heim, Christian Faith and Natural Science
Surface Area and Volume
It is likely that 4-D beings would possess internal organs with some vague similarities
to their Earthly counterparts because 4-D creatures will have to perform functions
that are carried out most efficiently by specialized tissues. For example, 4-D
beings may have digestive and excretory systems, a transport system to distribute
nutrients through the body, and specialized organs to facilitate movement. Evolutionary
pressure would probably lead to familiar ecological classes of carnivores,
herbivores, parasites, and beneficial symbiotic relationships. Technological 4-D
beings will have appendages comparable to hands and feet for manipulating
objects. Technological beings must also have senses, such as sight, touch, or hearing,
although the precise nature of senses that evolve on another world would
depend on the environment. For example, some 4-D aliens may have eyes sensitive
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