It wasn't me. You can't prove anything.


2004-09-11

9-11
My God. It's September eleventh. Two years ago today the U. S. changed a little bit for ever. I noticed a tribute in New York. They put two huge spot-lights pointing up through the spaces where the towers were. The photo looked nice.

Request
Some people requested the high res version of the Chris and Sarah's wedding pictures. So, here they are. These are the full 5 megapixel photos.
Links: Main Page or Directly to the page

More on Mirrors
--- Adam's Comment ---
About the mirror. The reason left is right and right is left in a mirror, but up is always up is because right and left are dependent on facing, while up and down aren't. If you were facing away from the the mirror then as you move right, your image moves right. If you are facing toward the mirror then the reverse is true. Facing, however, does not change up and down.
--- End Adam's Comment --
I must not have presented my point very well.  The debate is about the difference between my (every one's) perception of up and down vs right and left. When I turn away from the mirror the reflection does have the same left and right. (That is getting back into the physics of the conundrum). However, Up and down are the same whether or not you look into the mirror. There must be a fundamental difference between the way the mind looks at up and down vs left and right.
A caveman running through a forest would pick the path between two particular trees on the fly. The decision would be based on whatever the caveman determined was the easiest path. Like water choosing the path of a river. The path up and down, however, is a different set of needs. The ground has allot to do with it. I picture apes jumping from limb to limb. Now, we are talking some real differences between up and down vs left and right. The need for different on the fly conceptual realization and prediction come into focus when you start thinking of the needs as encountered through out evolution. A caveman may think "I need to step over that root." An ape needs to calculate the three dimensional position of his hand that needs to catch that branch over there. I read somewhere that during batting practice people do much better if they have a horizon in the distance to focus their eye on. If it is just a wall, they loose some visual focus. Pitchers do better when they have a  live person standing in front of the plate than when they have some box or target.
Its that I always thought I was just pointing in a different direction. It turns out the process of thinking and moving up and down vs left to right is fundamentally different.

2 comments:

obiwanchunn said...

Okay, more about the mirror thing. This, BTW, is making my head hurt.

Anyway. I understand there is a difference (maybe) between up & down and left & right. Looking at a mirror in front of you inverts the left/right with respect to your reflection's left/right. If you look at a mirror above or below you, your reflection now has its up/down inverted with respect to your reflection.

But its not the same thing. Somehow up/down mean something different than left/right. I just don't know what.

And there is a third dimension, front/back that no matter how you look in a mirror, your reflection's front/back always remains the same relative to the reflection.

This confused the fuck out of me an Ken all day I want you to know.

Thanks. ~:|

obiwanchunn said...

Okay, more on the mirror stuff. The difference between left/right and up/down & front/back is that left/right is dependant upon the up/down/front/back orientation. Up/down/front/back are not.

This means, when you look at any object you apply an up/down/front/back orientation first and then once that is settled, you apply a left/right orientation.

Looking straight into a mirror, the up/down is pre-determined and the front/back is reveresed (the image's reflection's front is pointing in the opposite way your front is pointing.) Since left/right is dependant upon the up/down, front/back orientation and because the front/back orientation is reversed, left/right is also reversed.

This is why, no matter what you do, when you look into a mirror, your left and right are always reversed.

I sent Kelly a google search on all this left/right/mirror rubbish. He can decide what should be posted in the blog.

Now I can get some sleep. I want you to know, Kelly, you confused not just me, but Ken, Woody, Rebecca and Laurie.

Again, Thanks. ~:{