an interesting book

I once read a book called Flatland by Edwin Abbott. The story was about a 2-dimensional world. It was actually pretty boring in the beginning; it described this 2d world in great detail giving the history of it (wars and such) and all the laws of the world, the social structure. All of the people were 2d shapes - triangles, squares, octagons, circles and such. I suppose it was pretty creative. And then it focused on a square, or some shape. I actually don't remember the book very well; it was a long time ago.


So let's say this square then discovered or was shown 1-dimensional worlds. So these were just lines with dots or other line segments on it. And the square observed how primitive these 1-dimensional worlds were. Each member could only ever come in contact with two other members, the one on its right and the one on its left. And news travelled up and down the line or something like that. And there would be an entire other world right across from it, parallel, and one after that and after that, but they could never know of these other worlds because they could never travel in that other direction. So the square thought they were poor and ignorant and he pitied them.


Then the square discovered or was shown a 0-dimensional world. That means a point. There's obviously only one member in this world, the point itself. This was the poorest of all creatures. It never knew ANYTHING other than itself. And whenever something happened to it, whenever light fell upon it or it heard a sound or smelled a scent it relished in its own assumed intelligence or magnificence or power which must have brought this wonder upon itself. Or if it heard an idea it thought itself to be so full of creative wisdom. So this creature was the most depraved of all but yet the most proud, and so the square decided that it was more miserable than anything he'd ever seen.


At some point this square met another square. Let's say square 1 is our friend who we've been talking about and square 2 is this new one. Square 2 told square 1 of a new dimension, a third dimension. Of course square 1 thought square 2 was crazy, but eventually square 2 brought square 1, let's say up, up to this third dimension. And they started flying. Only then could square 1 see that square two was actually not a square at all, but the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Square 2 was actually a cube. So they flew around and square 1 could see the 0-dimensional wretched soul and all the 1-dimensional slightly less wretched souls and then he could see his own 2-dimensional now understandably wretched world. And the third dimension was so wonderfully beautiful.


Then some more stuff happens and the book ends. I actually recommend it. It's a fairly easy and interesting exercise in thinking differently, as far as I can remember. I probably came away with more than one impression from this book, but what I've remembered is what the 0-dimensional creature made me think of. When it was being described in the book, I couldn't help but think that we as people are a little bit like this. On the surface, most Japanese are not going to fit this description, maybe subconsciously you do, but most of the Western world I think most definitely falls into the same trap as this creature. When we achieve something we love to take full credit for it. And we become drunk on pride. We forget about all the help that we have received along the way. Or we love to think ourselves better than others, completely ignorant of the fact that if only born in a different country we would find ourselves starving and without shame. Ok, maybe this is a little extreme. But at the least I think we can all agree that we are excessively inwardly focused. (Please count the amount of mirrors you look in during one day.) At least this is what I thought of myself when I read this book. And I think, if it's even possible, when we truly take our eyes off ourselves it must be one of the most liberating feelings. Maybe like flying in a new dimension - as long as we wouldn't feel proud of ourselves for getting there ; )




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・【Something Interesting】2008.10.22 (Wed)

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