Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

http://plus.maths.org/content/lower-dimension

SNIP "...We're all quite happy to accept that the world might be more complicated than our senses suggest — but could it be simpler? It's a possibility that Sanjaye Ramgoolam of Queen Mary, University of London, is exploring: he is developing a two-dimensional description of the world. So far the theory only applies to a toy Universe, but his results may one day give us important insights into the real world..."

"But what if it finally turns out that the real world can be fully described using a 2D topological field theory, just as in Ramgoolam's toy example? What would that mean for the four space-time dimensions we perceive? Presumably it would mean that our senses somehow present us with an overabundance of dimensions. Not that the usual four space-time dimensions are not really there, but that the briefest and most elegant description of the world doesn't need it. Mind boggling indeed!"

It has always seemed to me a violation of Occam's razor to multiply dimensions or universes in order to explain reality. It seems that would be going from a simpler to a more complex scenario, which is the opposite of what we want from an explanation. Not that reality IS simpler than we experience it as. It may very well be beyond our capacity to understand it. It's just that the abstract model or map we construct has to be simpler than the territory if it is going to be of any use to us in finding our way thru it.