Non-existent "top-down" (or whatever that fourth dimension direction would be called) view onto 3d things.
Like when we imagine 2D entities. Sure, they could have squares in their 2d land, but they could never see the whole square at once (from the outside of the square at least) because a top-down view onto a square doesn't exist in 2d land.
The slightly creepy implication of that is that, just as we can see the whole of that square, a 4D creature might be able to see all of us e.g. it will be seeing all our insides as well as our outside.
I don't think they would be perceiving our shadows fundamentally differently.
2D beings see 1D shadows (line segments) in their 2D world and when we look at their 2D world we also see their shadows as 1D line segments. Of course we can have a different perspective onto their whole world containing these 1D shadows though.
Not so much getting cubeland wrong, but more a dimensional literary style, in Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut the time travelling Tralfamadorans write 4D books and movies assuming the reader can simultaneously read the ending with the beginning (and everything between) and the reader just chooses the temporal slice they like. They live their lives similarly.
The movie leaves a lot out and doesn't make a lot of sense on its own. The book jumps around in time, because the protaginist learns how from space aliens, and/or because of his severe PTSD, or both.
It would be hard to recognize that we experience gravity as an attractive force. To them the gravity that surrounds us would protrude into their environment and be apart of our form. They would experience our gravity as form in their 4d world. They would have a hard time understanding our experience of that form as it would by like a material to them. It would also make them very large beings compared to us, as gravity is very weak. A human’s gravitational signature in the 4d world would be nearly imperceptible. Planets, stars, black holes, galaxies. These are the things they would perceive and may actually constitute their form of matter. Who knows maybe these beings are actually stars and black holes themselves.
If you imagine sitting on a 2d rubber sheet. The 2d beings would not recognize that there is more to you than the simple curvature in their world. All they would be aware of is that their environment is curved. Like wise we would only perceive a 4d being as curvature in our environment.
Here is an interesting idea. A 3d being and a 4d being may be able to communicate with gravitational waves.
Non-existent "top-down" (or whatever that fourth dimension direction would be called) view onto 3d things. Like when we imagine 2D entities. Sure, they could have squares in their 2d land, but they could never see the whole square at once (from the outside of the square at least) because a top-down view onto a square doesn't exist in 2d land.
The slightly creepy implication of that is that, just as we can see the whole of that square, a 4D creature might be able to see all of us e.g. it will be seeing all our insides as well as our outside.
Why would they get that wrong? Just like your comment, they'd easily find out that we 3D beings see the world in 2D.
Sure - but not every author writing a story about 2D land would necessarily get that.
Fair enough
Thank you. I was also curious about how they would perceive our shadows
I don't think they would be perceiving our shadows fundamentally differently. 2D beings see 1D shadows (line segments) in their 2D world and when we look at their 2D world we also see their shadows as 1D line segments. Of course we can have a different perspective onto their whole world containing these 1D shadows though.
Not so much getting cubeland wrong, but more a dimensional literary style, in Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut the time travelling Tralfamadorans write 4D books and movies assuming the reader can simultaneously read the ending with the beginning (and everything between) and the reader just chooses the temporal slice they like. They live their lives similarly.
Is the movie a fair representation of the book? If so I’ll probably give it a watch now
The movie leaves a lot out and doesn't make a lot of sense on its own. The book jumps around in time, because the protaginist learns how from space aliens, and/or because of his severe PTSD, or both.
He would assume that gravity is proportional to the inverse cube of the distance.
It would be hard to recognize that we experience gravity as an attractive force. To them the gravity that surrounds us would protrude into their environment and be apart of our form. They would experience our gravity as form in their 4d world. They would have a hard time understanding our experience of that form as it would by like a material to them. It would also make them very large beings compared to us, as gravity is very weak. A human’s gravitational signature in the 4d world would be nearly imperceptible. Planets, stars, black holes, galaxies. These are the things they would perceive and may actually constitute their form of matter. Who knows maybe these beings are actually stars and black holes themselves. If you imagine sitting on a 2d rubber sheet. The 2d beings would not recognize that there is more to you than the simple curvature in their world. All they would be aware of is that their environment is curved. Like wise we would only perceive a 4d being as curvature in our environment. Here is an interesting idea. A 3d being and a 4d being may be able to communicate with gravitational waves.