On flatland and its implications on perspective

[Eugalaz]

Hello everybody, for my first post let me start by saying I love the show. I have so far only listened to almost a quarter of recorded podcasts however I like the banter.
I have however heard David speak of flatland as an analogy to our perception of another dimension. David has on two occasions said that our perception of another dimension is akin to how a flatlander perceived a sphere landing on or travelling through flatland. He stated that a flatlander would see a circle as he would not be able to perceive the concept of a sphere. However this is not correct, the flatlander (two dimensional creature) could not understand the concept of a circle, this would require the perspective of height (a third dimension). In fact if a ball did bounce on or travel through flatland, the flatlander would see a point that slowly spread into a line that grew larger and then smaller before it dissapeared altogether. In fact the flatlander could not even conceptually visualise a circle because even in his minds eye he would have to visualise it from a 3rd dimension. This ability would be like us being able to visualise somthing from the forth spatial dimension, clearly impossible.
Sorry for being a smart ass David

 

[Kevin Daly]

I keep wondering about this one.
Don't forget that Flatland is an intellectual exercise, it's not meant to be indicative of any kind of reality that anything would inhabit. Existing in however many dimensions may exist sort of comes free as part of um, existing. Wherever you can perceive them or not is of course the issue.
But it's a much better question than when people talk about other dimensions as if they were actual places you could go to - that one drives me up the wall as much as hearing New Agers talk about "Energy" (one of many perfectly valid reasons to take up a petition to have Whitley Strieber dropped down a mineshaft. But I digress)