The Truman show and a Quantum Daydream

I recently watched “The Truman Show,” a movie about a man named Truman Burbank whose entire life is a meticulously crafted illusion, broadcast to the world as a reality TV show.

This got me thinking: what if my life were a similar illusion?

Furthermore, what if instead of entertainment for other humans, it was created for the entertainment of a creature from a higher dimension? Imagine being observed by a 4D being, much like we watch 2D cartoons like Tom and Jerry.

Okay, let’s do an experiment – a thought experiment.

In this thought experiment, let’s explore what it would be like to be Truman in a 4D universe. We’ll dive into the mind-bending concept of higher dimensions and the nature of time-space, inspired by the pioneering work of Albert Einstein.

Get ready for a deep dive into the few fun parts of quantum physics that will stretch the limits of your imagination.

Again, for those who haven’t seen “The Truman Show,” Truman’s life is a fabricated reality, controlled and observed by others without his knowledge.

Now, take this scenario and imagine it in a higher dimension.

A (hypothetical) 4D creature, existing in a higher dimension, would have a perspective so vastly different from ours that the concept of entertainment might not even apply. They would perceive and interact with the fabric of reality in ways we can’t even fathom.

But for our understanding let’s try to comprehend what it might be analogous to some of our entertainment.

Just as we find entertainment in 2D animations like Tom and Jerry, a 4D creature might find amusement in observing our 3D lives. To them, our world would appear as a flat projection, and they could perceive all aspects of our existence simultaneously – past, present, and future – much like flipping through the pages of a comic book.

See, the 4-d world (or any even higher dimensions) is not something that is something hard to visualize; it is literally impossible for us, just as how it might be for a 2D character to jump out of the page.

To grasp the idea of higher dimensions, we need to first understand the nature of time-space. In our everyday lives, we experience the universe in three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height) and one temporal dimension (time). This four-dimensional continuum is known as spacetime.

Now, let’s venture into the realm of higher dimensions. In theoretical physics, particularly in string theory, it’s hypothesized that our universe may have more than four dimensions. These additional dimensions are not easily perceivable because they could be compactified or curled up at incredibly small scales.

To understand what I mean by ‘curled up’ Imagine a garden hose: From a distance, it looks like a one-dimensional line, but up close, you can see it’s a two-dimensional surface with both length and circumference. Similarly, higher dimensions might exist but are hidden from our everyday perception.

Just how we flick through a comic/fast forward a cartoon, So can a higher dimensional creature ‘flick’ through our dimension’s past, present and future.

In a higher-dimensional universe, time might not be a linear progression as we experience it. For a 4D being, time could be another dimension to move through, just like we move through space. And this is where a comic book reference is helpful.

A 4D being would perceive our world in its entirety, making our concept of entertainment irrelevant to them. Their experience of reality would be so fundamentally different from ours that our daily dramas might seem as trivial as the antics of Tom and Jerry.

So the next time you face an embarrassment in life, think of how trivial it would seem to a 4D being observing us, and move through life with ease 😉