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> The words “up” and “down” are absolute, but the words “left” and “right” are relative to you. I disagree. In this sort of conversation, "up" refers to the di
by quietbritishjim 6y ago
> The words “up” and “down” are absolute, but the words “left” and “right” are relative to you.
I disagree. In this sort of conversation, "up" refers to the direction from your feet to your head, not away from the ground. If you do a handstand and hold your piece of paper up to the mirror then you'll still find it flipped left-to-right but not top-to-bottom if you turn it the instinctive way, and still find it flipped top-to-bottom but not left-to-right if you turn it vertically.
- yeellow 6y agoAnd what if you stand on a mirror?
- quietbritishjim 6y agoI'm not sure if you're joking but that doesn't change what our perception of up and down are.
- yeellow 6y agoI am not joking. When you stand on the mirror the direction from your feet to your head is different than for the guy in the mirror. It shows that the mirror changes only one axe, orthogonal to its surface. It does not rotate anything nor change up/down or left/right. So when I look at the mirror en face only the direction of y axis is changed, x and z is not affected.
- quietbritishjim 6y agoI agree, and that doesn't contradict what I said in my original comment. I think we are just getting tangled in semantics rather than fundamentally disagreeing on anything.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 6y ago> In this sort of conversation, "up" refers to the direction from your feet to your head, not away from the ground. I disagree. To me, "up" is opposite the direction of gravity. If I were doing a handstand on the ground and someone told me to look up, I'd look toward my feet.