It sounds like we have a similar sense about higher dimensional dynamics with regard to consciousness. Looking at the 4D as a block, a simple act of kindness or meanness may have a reach far into the future which cannot be known to us in the 4D worldview but is instantly apparent in the higher dimension!
I like your idea for the “What is man?” discussion! And I thank you so very much for suggesting me to field the Christian worldview. I humbly accept the challenge.
I assume we’ll wait to hear from the others to see if we have a “deal” first, but would you care to author the base article for the discussion?
I got to thinking a bit more about that Kaluza-Klein Gravity article I was telling you about. Specifically, how the authors categorize the various approaches to higher-dimensional dynamics, and the assumptions behind the approaches. What they had to say was very interesting.
Basically they said there are three approaches: the compactified models (e.g., 11D Superstring theory), the projective models, and the uncompacted models.
It seems to me the root assumption of the compactified approach is that higher dimensions are "hiding from us." Therefore, this approach basically tries to explain this "hiding" by assuming extra dimensions are microscopically tiny (compact, curved back onto themselves), and that's why we never "see" them.
The projective approach basically denies the reality of extra dimensions, but finds them "algebraically useful."
The uncompactified approach, unlike the compactified, very interestingly says that the fifth dimension is not hiding from us. it's plainly there, and always has been, if one has "the eyes to see it" (so to speak). That is, it has always been conceptually "available" to the human mind in a fairly straightforward way.
This assumption may be what makes uncompacted 5D theory so simple and straightforward as compared to the compactified approaches. Among other things, it appears explaining the "hiding" requires the compactifiers to "put in matter by hand," or to have resort to extraneous algorithms to make their explanations "work." (Hence the seeming "overwroughtness" of compactified theory on my view at least.) Often they do work, depending on the problem being demonstrated. But the simpler approach of 5D works too, and the authors suggest it does so more often than the compactified.
The translation from 5D theory to 4D experience is practically a given with 5D noncompactified theory: It's like the 4D description comes along "for free." Perhaps this is because it is primarily based on Einstein's 5D field equations, and takes Newton's first law seriously.
I like it! We'll have to see how these various approaches all turn out. What an interesting time we live in! :^)