The 'division' of three dimensional entity and four dimensional entity. Say what?

I asked this in another thread and it didn’t go far.
Maybe if I give it its own thread, some might be willing to explain this concept and its implications.
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I’ve always been fascinated by the flow of time - and I can hardly think of buildings or people or events
without considering the evolution that brought them to this point and of future changes.
Perhaps that’s why I tend to try to soak up as much of the moment as I can.
Perhaps it’s why the reality of global warming and the inevitable future radical climate changes we’ve initiated
has always had such a visceral hold on my imagination and concerns.
In any event this division of three-dimensional being and four-dimensional beings seems off to me and
I’m curious what its utility is. Although I might be getting ahead of myself because I don’t think I even understand
the intellectual concept… well as least as it relates to our real living world.
If anyone had any thoughts about this odd classification of ‘three dimensional entity" vs “four dimensional entity"
I’d love to hear about it.


My original question:
By four dimensional I’m assuming they’re referring to Time.
In which case, I’m confused by what a three dimensional being would be?
Although, I guess the proclivity of some to put all their faith in the writings of some ancient texts to the exclusion of
today’s realities might be an example of it.

StephenLawrence offered the following :
Three dimensional is how we see the world.
So we see a teapot as three dimensional and the whole of the 3 dimensional teapot travels through time.
A four dimensional teapot doesn’t travel through time in the same way.
It is spread over time, a part of it being in this time and other parts of it existing in other times.

But in it didn’t help me much - travels through time v. spread through time. What’s the distinction?

Try reading Flatland or its successor Sphereland. I do think you’re just thinking too hard about this. StephenL had it right…3 dimensions, in the context of human senses, is all we can perceive, and that’s it. Physicists have posited extra dimensions, but we don’t perceive them through our senses (or maybe we do but don’t realize it). And then “time” is just the thing that gets tacked on to explain change. Some ancient philosophers said change was actually an illusion, and relativity does treat it like that (sort of). But really it all boils down to what effect is there in the reality that we can perceive. I can say Hey buy my book about the 13 dimensions and 9 types of time. But it’s just a buch of hooey unless I can point to some specific, measurable, repeatable observation or action.

------------------------------- But in it didn't help me much - travels through time v. spread through time. What's the distinction?
If you're 3d the whole of you moves through time and gets from today to tomorrow. But if you're 4d the whole of you consists of you today, you tomorrow, you when you were born and so on. All these parts make up the whole.

Have you read Hawking’s A Brief History of Time?
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help non-scientists understand fundamental questions of physics and our existence: where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how?
Hawking attempts to deal with these questions (and where we might look for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time and physicists’ search for a grand unifying theory.
This is deep science; the concepts are so vast (or so tiny) that they cause mental vertigo while reading, and one can’t help but marvel at Hawking’s ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions.