🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BuC9F9.KIn@world.std.com>, jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman) writes:
|> Right!  Here is another web of words:  Mirrors do not reverse left &
|> right *or* up & down: they reverse forward & backward (or, more precisely,
|> they reverse the direction perpendicular to them: a horizontal mirror
|> *does* reverse up & down).  But people in real life exchange their
|> front & back sides by rotating, not by popping thru themselves; therefore,
|> we say "the person in the mirror has raised his left hand, whereas I
|> have raised my right hand", rather than "the person in the mirror has
|> his face on the back of his head, rather than...".  In the case of a
|> printed page, if the page is transparent, so that you can read it in the
|> mirror without turning it over, then it appear unreversed both in the
|> real world and in the mirror; if you have to turn it over, then *you*
|> make the choice of reversing left & right or top & bottom, and you
|> choose the former because you have the person in the mirror in mind.

The key point here is how we do the decentreing trick of imagining 
ourselves being the person in the mirror, so that we can compare 
ourselves with them. The way that we would get to where that person
is, is by walking around the mirror, making a half turn on the way.
We would not normally make the journey by diving over the top of the
mirror. If we did we might say that mirrors reverse up and down, but
not left and right. 

Likely the first generation of children brought up in zero G will go
both ways depending on which is more convenient and will not be able 
to believe that mirrors sometimes reverse left and right and sometimes
reverse up and down. They will simply realise that mirrors do not
reverse anything at all, and will regard their groundhog ancestors'
beliefs on this matter as more evidence of what gravity does to the brain.

   Alan

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   Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the
   river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy
   hotels, patronized chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. 

   Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome, 1889
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