4-Dimensional Universe and Determinism

Abstract

In the connection with the problem of determinism it will be interesting to analyse some modern theories of the universe, those of Einstein, Minkovsky, Uspensky which try to reduce time to the fourth spatial dimension and to consider the universe as a four-dimensional unity-continuum. But, to reduce time to the fourth dimension of space means to reducc ipso facto “dynamic” to “static,” because, as I already tried to show in my doctor’s dissertation “Psychological Analysis of Time,” time is the psychological equivalent of cosmic dynamics as it is reflected in and through our consciousness. So it is not in vain that the measure of time is its cosmic dynamic equivalent, “motion” (motion of earth, of light, etc.). But, if reducing time to the fourth spatial dimension is really justifiable, and time and thereby dynamics, too, are only an illusion of our consciousness, then the existence of man (the existence of all living beings, too) is nothing but some kind of a cosmic motion picture-film. On this cosmic picture-film all cosmic positions, situations and actions of man are foreordained and fixed already from eternity in the same way as they are on our motion picture-films¹ in which the illusion of the dynamic development of the situations and actions of persons participating in this motion picture is created by the motion of this motion picture-film through a projector.