Comment by readhn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by readhn | Hacker News Reader

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how do you know that "hallucinations/strange visions of light" are not real effects that he did observe?

if one person is more receptive to certain things than the other .. it does not make him or her crazy...

"The mathematics of string theory suggests that the world we know is not complete. In addition to our four familiar dimensions - three-dimensional space and time - string theory predicts the existence of six extra spatial dimensions, "hidden" dimensions curled in tiny geometric shapes at every single point in our universe. "

"Don't worry if you can't picture a 10-dimensional world. Our minds are accustomed to only three spatial dimensions and lack a frame of reference for the other six, says UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu, who led the new study. Though scientists use computers to visualize what these six-dimensional geometries could look like (see image), no one really knows for sure what shape they take."

"According to string theory mathematics, the extra dimensions could adopt any of tens of thousands of possible shapes, each shape theoretically corresponding to its own universe with its own set of physical laws. "

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070203103355.h...

The new work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Research Corp.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. You're asking if Tesla had the power to see extra-dimensional structures? I guess I'm fairly secure in assuming that Tesla was experiencing hallucinations, in ways that are common among people experiencing hallucinations (unexplained lights are fairly standard), rather than possessing extra-dimensional superpowers that would, as far as we know, be completely unique to him.

Unless you're positing that anyone experiencing these types of symptoms are in fact viewing extra-dimensional objects. In which case, good luck with that.

He is just obsessed over Tesla and is making wild claims. Has no way to back up with any data except saying that this is coming from Tesla - so, who knows, it may be true.

huh? not sure how you arrived to these conclusions. but good luck.

Not trying to back up his/her argument but the idea isn't entirely obsurd:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

"as far as we know". typical westerner body of knowledge is extremely limited.

its easy to throw out a baby with the bathwater..

Ockham's razor, maybe? Mental illness is a thing we have observed; magic 10 dimensional eyeballs aren't.

But is it really that far-fetched?

I mean, I don't think Tesla was some kind of super-wizard or anything; extremely intelligent and precient on certain things, lacking in other areas (it's interesting to compare and contrast Tesla and Edison, for instance - but that's OT).

But how often have we heard of, or read about, people able to come up with solutions to, say, complex mathematical problems, seemingly in their head - where they claim to "see" the patterns or formulae or whatever - and it just "comes together" for them correctly?

A kind of "synesthesia" for mathematics, you might call it?

So would it be any less possible that someone could "see" higher-order dimensional visualization and understand them, without need intermediary constructs or simulations?

Also - at least according to his closest biographer (so some bias there, I grant) - Tesla could supposedly "see" how something was supposed to be constructed; it's dimensions, it's workings, it's weight, etc - exactly. It was described as if he could visualize it existing in front of him, before it actually existed, and see everything about it. He could then build it - without needing engineering drawings or such.

Not sure where the truth lies with that, but it was fascinating to read about, if true.

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