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If two flatlands are embedded in 3d space, there's only three dimensions, and one dimension shared between the two flatlands, or one common 3rd dimension if the
by lupire 3y ago
If two flatlands are embedded in 3d space, there's only three dimensions, and one dimension shared between the two flatlands, or one common 3rd dimension if the flatlands are parallel.
What they may disagree on is which the third dimension is. But, so what? subjectivity isn't wrong. You can make the same argument to say that "right" and "left" don't exist because they are subjective.
- JdeBP 3y agoNo, one couldn't; because roywiggins isn't arguing that the directions don't exist. Given that the ideas of there being no privileged frame of reference and the universe being isotropic are fairly basic concepts of modern physics, it is quite surprising how many people don't grasp the quite simple argument that "the" is the wrong article to use. It was even wrong by 1884 standards, although one could excuse a treatment of it at the novice level from explaining that not all subspaces of 4-dimensional spaces are necessarily parallel.
- lupire 3y agoIt's pointless linguistic nitpicking. I have 4 children. You've met Amir, Carrie, and Dan. Benji is the 4th child you haven't met yet..