http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
People are 3 dimensional entities and can only perceive and observe in 3 dimensions. In addition when a 3D object is observed in 2D the only way to have it fully realized in 2D is a series of cross sectioned frames throughout its entire volume. So in other words if all those 2D planes were combined/extruded you would get that 3D shape. So consider if we extrude 3D shapes on a plane of spacetime we get a shape extruded on that plane with each 'slice' of this shape being a 3D view of this 4th dimensional object as a 4D object would have a 3D shadow (And a 3D object has a 2D shadow).
It is however still beyond our 3D perception as while a 3D cube can be extruded perfectly from a single 2 dimensional square the same does not hold up when trying to do the same for a 3D Pyramid which would only appear as a square with 2D perception and when extruded with 2D perception still come out as a cube.
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| Is this how 2 Dimensional beings would see people? |
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Is a person over time a 4D shape? |
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| A model of a 4D shadow of a 3D Cube extruded to the 4th dimension. |
Oddly enough, reading Flatland really helped me develop my drafting skills. Particularly with vertical sections and elevations in which a curved or angled object must be represented on a 2D plane, devoid of perspective. In Flatland, they "cannot 'see' angles, (but) 'infer' them" (p. 16 in my copy), and shapes can be distinguished "by comparative dimness or clearness".
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