Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Linearity and Dimensionality

Whitehead is among those who have argued that a zero-dimensional point is an abstraction.  But, a one-dimensional line, too, is an abstraction.  Thus, Newtonian Motion, which is given as either rectilinear or curvilinear, is likewise an abstraction.  Direction, too, is linear, and it is because expansion is a motion that cannot be reduced to one-dimensionality that attribution of direction to it seems problematic, as has been previously discussed.  Furthermore, insofar as the very notion of 'dimension' is correlated with linearity, then all dimensionality is abstract, including three-dimensionality, as well as 4- or any n-dimensionality  In other words, the characterization of lived experience as 'three-dimensional' is a geometrical abstraction.

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