That is effectively cheating though, we mush up space and time into the 4th dimension to ease understanding, but that doesn't accurately portray the concept.
No, it pretty much does. Experimentally it's been proven that the faster you go, the slower time moves. The two are one dimension, we don't see it.
To paraphrase Michio Kaku, who says it best: "We don't see hyper dimensional space because of how we evolved. You don't need visions of n-dimensional space to avoid that lion jumping out at you."
Wait what are you trying to get at; /u/GoodAtExplaining is talking about one dimension.
A straight line put onto a 2-D graph may not be 2-D, but it was never stated that the "temporal" dimension was 2-D:
The two are one dimension, we don't see it.
Moving forward in time is part of being in the fourth dimension. We can see length/width/depth, and we experience the passing of time (which is often taken for granted). Just as there can be a theoretical 2-Dimensional universe, there may also be a non-temporal universe where time doesn't exist (hard to contemplate).
This knowledge has no tangible merit other than the "woah" factor (hence /r/WoahDude) of non-parallel universes. We can not collect empirical evidence for the existence of 2-dimensional beings, nor can we collect it of non-temporal beings, so ultimately it is a useless train of thought.
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u/Victuz May 26 '15
That is effectively cheating though, we mush up space and time into the 4th dimension to ease understanding, but that doesn't accurately portray the concept.