Is the idea of switching to another physical dimension possible?

Hey, first post here (yay).

So I'm working on a sort of supernatural fantasy/sci-fi novel. It takes place in another world similar to ours. In the story, a few of the characters have a sort of out of body experience that places them in a somewhat abstract spiritual world.

After more brainstorming I realized that for the plot to work, there would need to be uncharted territory that was physical, where the characters could physically tread the earth in their own bodies. They would get to this place using a portal of some sort.

For anyone familiar with the game Metroid Prime 2, it'd be pretty much like that.

There'd be another world that shares the same planet and the same original landscape, and the characters could step into portals that will switch dimensions, where they would be able to physically walk around with their own bodies and whatever they take into the portal.

Now unlike my original idea of a spiritual world, I can't ask readers to suspend disbelief for this-- I need a scientific explanation.

Is something like that possible?


(And just a side note, I know this stuff has been done before, and this is not what my novel is about-- it's just an element of the story)

 

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You're looking for a scientific rationale for people entering a spiritual world?
I'm sorry, but why?
Do you have a scientific explanation of this world and how it works? Of what "spiritual" means?

And the concept of "switching to another physical dimension" is itself science-fiction. A dimension (in this sense) is not what science means when it uses the term.

In other words: use the "Star Trek method[sup]TM[/sup]" and just invent stuff.

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Anything is possible when you write science fiction because that's what you are writing about not science facts.

 

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cosmictraveler, Post #3:

. . . but isn't it curious how a lot of science fiction writings become science 'fact'? Perhaps the fiction spurs (further) imagination, when cojoined with human intellect and creativity (plus man's ability to use tools), results in new science 'fact'. e.g., Jules Verne's "To the Moon" and "Off On a Comet" ---> actual trips to the moon.

 

While what you say sometimes happens, science fiction is just that, fiction. Creative writers can really come up with some fantastic things that, for the most part, aren't possibe due to the physics behind what they are saying.

 

No it isn't a spiritual world. That's the whole point. I was explaining how originally I was going to have a spiritual "dimension" but I decided I wanted a physical one.

And I'm just using the word 'dimension' to describe it. You get what I mean though.

 

What you describe is not exactly original. I assume if you are trying to write SF you must have read a bit of it. The dimension theme has a lot of variations. If you've done much reading I can't believe you've missed them all. Some of them make for some fun reading. But I've never seen anything to believe any of it could be true. You might try asking Michio Kaku, he likes to speculate on those off the wall topics.

 

Ok thanks.

And of course I know it's been done before-- I said as much in the first post. Are you saying that since it's been done before I shouldn't use it in my novel?

 

Dossonance Post #8:

. . . . hey! why not? . . . . I heard that the movie producers are getting ready to remake "The Thing", for a third time . . . . so why not reuse previous story lines to one's benefit, and add a little spin? That 'little spin' can be interpreted as progress . . . that's how a lot of scientists do it!

 

No I'm not, and when I read SciFi, if it's got an interesting plot, I'm happy.

 

Lol, if I remember correctly, Jules Verne's method of going to the moon involved constructing a capsule out of material which shielded out gravity, then opening holes in this material to "let in" gravity from whichever direction you liked. Thus you open a gap in the side of the capsule pointing towards the moon and the moon's gravity just pulls you over there.

It strikes me as something of a stretch to say that has become "science fact"

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. Also wasn't there a race of giant insects that inhabited the moon or something?

I do however find that the best science fiction works are those that are based as thoroughly as possible on actual science, for example Contact is very solid scientifically, for the most part (it gets a bit wacky at the end but still vaguely plausible). You'd hope so, being written by an eminent scientist...

And at the time no-one could say that Jules Verne's magic gravity blocking material was impossible

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.

 

"My point, and I really do have one" (borrowed from some lesbian femi-form's book title) . . . . is . . . well, didn't we finally get to the moon? . . . . if folks like JV hadn't fantasized about it, we would never have even tried!

Yeah . . . I admired Carl Sagan too . . . and I'm certain he now has figured-it-all-out! . . . . too bad for us guys that the movie's star is another femi-form.

 

Lol yes, I don't deny the importance of thinking outside the box. I just think that writers should do their utmost to know where the box is and not introduce concepts that screw up things already well inside the box. Jules Verne did that so I'm cool with it, although he couldn't get away with it now

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.

 

Sarcasm? You should know that everything has been done before in fiction. That doesn't mean that nobody can be creative anymore.

And as I said, this isn't the plot. It's an element of it. Should I not have any romantic subplot? Or any sort of conflict? Those have been done before too.

You are very ignorant and I sincerely feel sorry for you.

(unless by some chance you were not being sarcastic-- in that cast ignore this post

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)

 

No sarcasm intended - you just assumed so . . . it was actually meant to be a compliment to your efforts . . . however . . . my spouse often thinks I am very ignorant and feels sorry for me . . . . you two may have met in a former life!! (HUMOR . . not sarcasm!!)

 

A supernatural world grounded in the natural order would no longer be such, just a facade label that didn't really mean what it appeared to. A philosophical critique of cognition, perception, and speculative reason -- like Immanuel Kant's -- is an original source for any kind of framework that might subsume both the natural order and the possibility of anything else, without conflicts, via entities being two-aspect[Footnote]. Current attempts in books and movies to "naturalize" (The Matrix, etc.) such critical meta-systems will take you again to such "spiritual realms" being bogus, supernatural in name only (just another hidden stratum of the natural order). You have to concoct a scheme that is a pre-condition for both nature and the "possibility" of its counterpart, to escape that.

[Footnote] That is, entities are represented as outside themselves in the cognitive processes of human agents -- they are thereby made part of a conditioned world of space, time, relation, quality, quantity, modality. But the perception independent existence of these entities also requires them to be things in themselves, by themselves (existing minus those general properties that conscious experience gives them). The "things in themselves" aspect is unknowable in Kantianism, however, due to the absence of those forms of the sensibility and the understanding in the purely figurative "noumenal world". Figurative because a nonspatial circumstance would compactly have all entities interpenetrating each other due to there being no degrees of freedom available to be "separated" (so hardly a world in any traditional sense). Yet things as they exist outside of human representation still retain their distinctness or identity, as well as their own "internal laws" that Kant ascribes to them from some logical necessity. This state of interpenetration also allows them to affect each other without the category of causation (cause and effect relations) grounded in the forms of time and space, which is only a universal characteristic of that natural order exhibited in the experienced world.

 

Well, this is certainly not something that has been done before:

In order to "swap realities" or whatever, have the characters shoot themselves in the head. A universe where quantum immortality works for certain people. Suddenly, they and everything they have on them are transported to a world where the gun didn't go off. Now, granted, they won't be going back and forth to the same two worlds (since in the previous world, they died), but otherwise everything they have on them would remain with them (and, possibly, they might be able to acquire something that they need).

I'm reminded of the time the heroes of the DCU kept killing Multi-Man so that he would eventually resurrect with the power they needed to escape where they were.

Not exactly what you were going for, but an amusing notion and jumping off point.

 

So Schroedinger's Cat is science fiction? As is its interpretation?
Lie.

Yet you can't actually refute my point.

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I also write sci-fi. I can recall one "daydream" type thing where my character said," becoming invisible is easy you just need to adjust your phase".

He then when on about a few ingredients for a device that included some batteries from the local market.

That would be a "science fiction" type answer, and you could make the phase shift your other reality, but there is no currently scientific method.

-Some quantum physicists have theorized that we all exist as probability waves, especially when we are alone or in smaller groups. Our reality does not become concrete (particle) until we have psychically agreed as a group to match our group expectations.

-This would mean we could also be altering our past, and only the present is real if it is particle. (see double-slit experiment on youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

-This quantum theory would explain why life can have such coincidences. For example; You could be talking about shark attacks at work in the afternoon, and when you go home that night you end up seeing "shark attacks" prevalent in the evenings television line-up. A hospital show with a shark victim, and a 60 minute episode on shark attacks, etc.
Some wilder interpretations of Quantum mechanics make people think our past can be affected as well as our future.

The quantum thought experiment that is commonly associated with similar theories is the "schrodingers cat experiment"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
So if you can grasp it.. The cat exists as a probability wave as both alive and dead until the act of viewing from our particle self makes the decision final (kind of).. The past of the cat remains in flux until it is observed.. OMG quantum mechanics are fun.

-Quantum world can get pretty interesting, and the currently most accepted interpretation of the double slit experiment is "The coppenhagen interpretation". That is a messed up view. It's scary!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

If you can grasp what they are saying here; it's that measurement is required to collapse wavefunction. This means that if no consciousness is in your bedroom/bathroom/kitchen to see it (measure it), then it ceases to exist.

Very matrix movie type stuff, but that is what the quantum mechanics are saying anyways.

If you are looking for scientific answers then maybe you could farm a "probable reality" and then snap back into normal reality somehow. Perhaps easiest done by isolation from others, as you would have the greatest amount of probable realities.

Anyways.. food for thought.. good luck with your story.

 

Incorrect.