Post by MikeO on Jul 24, 2011 17:38:23 GMT -5
juan,
Now, regarding your earlier comments, I had a hunch the following might possibly help, even before I have had time to thoroughly digest these same comments.
In the earlier threads here, when the notion of isodirectionality came up, I would use words like “face” or “forward.” These kinds of words are be used in describing a location on an object or on the human body, and can also be used to indicate relative directions in space. In all of these usages I would quiz myself as I wrote about the need for pinning these ideas down better. In every instance I eventually decided that it did not matter, that it was arbitrary.
I still think this is correct. I contend that it does not matter which location on a body (like a human or an automobile) is designated its “face” as long as it was consistent. The same holds for naming the directions in space. They all "come out in the wash" once the two conflicting human strategies for examining subtle object differences are identified and examined.
I’ve often observed people theorize on this mirror riddle, and I sometimes see them feel a need to pin down some things that are distracting them from the mirror riddle's heart, those two conflicting strategies . I also see that these things can later be subtracted from the analysis at the end.
In the intermediate stages, though, definitions of direction and faces and such may be useful in helping a theorist sort things out. They look like scaffolding to help in construction, that should later be removed.
I vaguely remember myself going through these stages many years ago. My early years studying this mirror riddle were devoted to finding and explaining the answer. Nowadays I find a new subject of study is that of people in the throws of trying to solve the riddle and the methods they resort to in the process.
I still want to look into this further. There's a Physics professor from Japan who may have more on this. I need to do some reading.
Now, regarding your earlier comments, I had a hunch the following might possibly help, even before I have had time to thoroughly digest these same comments.
In the earlier threads here, when the notion of isodirectionality came up, I would use words like “face” or “forward.” These kinds of words are be used in describing a location on an object or on the human body, and can also be used to indicate relative directions in space. In all of these usages I would quiz myself as I wrote about the need for pinning these ideas down better. In every instance I eventually decided that it did not matter, that it was arbitrary.
I still think this is correct. I contend that it does not matter which location on a body (like a human or an automobile) is designated its “face” as long as it was consistent. The same holds for naming the directions in space. They all "come out in the wash" once the two conflicting human strategies for examining subtle object differences are identified and examined.
I’ve often observed people theorize on this mirror riddle, and I sometimes see them feel a need to pin down some things that are distracting them from the mirror riddle's heart, those two conflicting strategies . I also see that these things can later be subtracted from the analysis at the end.
In the intermediate stages, though, definitions of direction and faces and such may be useful in helping a theorist sort things out. They look like scaffolding to help in construction, that should later be removed.
I vaguely remember myself going through these stages many years ago. My early years studying this mirror riddle were devoted to finding and explaining the answer. Nowadays I find a new subject of study is that of people in the throws of trying to solve the riddle and the methods they resort to in the process.
I still want to look into this further. There's a Physics professor from Japan who may have more on this. I need to do some reading.
