When a body meets a body
  • Arkady
    760
    Imagine an ovoid, bilaterally symmetric, deterministic universe. The universe is symmetrical in its terrain, landscape, and all other material physical features, as well as in its laws of nature. The same events which have transpired on one side of the ovoid have also transpired on the other side for the entirety of the universe’s history.

    Yourself and a physical duplicate of yourself, each starting from one pole of the ovoid on its long axis (equidistant from the center) begin walking towards each other at the same velocity. Is it possible for you and your duplicate to walk past each other, or even to engage in meaningful verbal interaction? It seems not: every move you make would be countered by your duplicate, and vice-versa. It seems that it would be like trying to walk past your reflection in a mirror. Likewise, every utterance you make would be made simultaneously by your duplicate, making effective communication impossible.

    I don’t know if anything philosophically important really hinges on this; it’s just an interesting little thought experiment that occurred to me.
    Arkady Options
  • Pierre-Normand
    2.3k
    This experiment has been done before. You could try using a rubber band and a hat.
    Pierre-Normand Options
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    The reflection of the image of the self,

    The echo of the sound of the self,

    All occurring in the absence of an embodied community.

    More so, when a body never meets a body and it becomes normal... what then?

    Narcissus poeticus which grows in Greece, has a fragrance that has been described as intoxicating. — Wikipedia: Narcissus (plant)

    I get the same problem when I reach out to try and touch all those porn stars. I hit a flat screen.
    Nils Loc Options
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1k
    ↪Arkady

    Fun. I can think of one "move" that would not be the same, if we use the term generally to mean things like events and outcome: I raise my right hand and say "I am raising my right hand". The difference between me and my duplicate is that I am telling the truth, where as my duplicate is lying.
    A Christian Philosophy Options
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    But then in your duplicate's world the semantics of the word "right" might be reversed. He'd simply be using a foreign dialect of English, which is true on his cultural side of the divide .

    Everything on the other side of whatever side your on is could be affected by whatever the mysterious rules are.
    Nils Loc Options
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    Mirrors don't actually reverse anything. You're just imagining that if you were standing over there, and facing the other way, that the reflected hand would be your left raised rather than your right, but you aren't standing over there, it's a reflection. So it's your concepts that reverse things, not the mirror.
    Wosret Options
  • noAxioms
    1.3k
    Mirrors do reverse things, else the image would not be left handed.
    It reverses front to back.

    That said, I think my mirror image would be antimatter possibly? Don't know enough physics to say one way or the other.
    noAxioms Options
  • Nils Loc
    1.3k
    Non-reversing mirrors do reverse the image as if you were turning around to meet your duplicate. Reversing mirrors don't reverse the image.

    Already getting nauseous about perspective.
    Nils Loc Options
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    untitled.jpg

    Where is the reversing? Isn't it that because mirrors don't reverse things that you think that they do? Because if you were to take obi wan, and turn him around (reverse him) that his sword would be in the other hand? It's not an expectation based on how you think things ought to look if things were ways that they ain't?
    Wosret Options
  • Arkady
    760
    Fun. I can think of one "move" that would not be the same, if we use the term generally to mean things like events and outcome: I raise my right hand and say "I am raising my right hand". The difference between me and my duplicate is that I am telling the truth, where as my duplicate is lying. — Samuel Lacrampe
    Interesting point. Would it change anything if the duplicates each said, for instance, "I am raising my western-most hand" as opposed to right/left? How would one define directional coordinates in such a universe?
    Arkady Options
  • Pierre-Normand
    2.3k
    How would one define directional coordinates in such a universe? — Arkady

    Mirrors reverse chirality. Here is Groucho Marx negotiating a common understanding of chirality with his own mirror image. (They're starting to reach an agreement at the 1:55 time mark.)
    Pierre-Normand Options
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1k
    It is true that for a mirror, our right becomes its left and vice versa, and I think the same would apply for coordinate systems.

    Alright, new attempt to find a difference, by involving free will. In this universe, my duplicate necessarily replicates my every move, or vice versa. Therefore if I have free will, it does not. If I am the master, it is the slave. Or vice versa, but we cannot both have free will or be the master. Kind of like the characters in
    ↪Pierre-Normand
    's Youtube videos (hilarious by the way).
    A Christian Philosophy Options
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    ↪Arkady
    You've defined the universe in such a way that precludes any such possibility.

    However...I do see a solution so far as communication is on the menu.


    When we think in solitude, we are in a sense communicating with ourself.

    So, your mirror image may do exactly what you do, but we could make progress in this self-reflection.
    TheMadFool Options
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The philosophical question that arises is...

    How does one recognize oneself? What gives us a unique identity that can be percieved to allow the distinction self - notself?
    TheMadFool Options
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    ↪Pierre-Normand
    Thanks for the Marxiste, tendance Groucho, views on this :)

    ↪TheMadFool
    One might say: I wasn't feeling myself that day. (Of course Groucho replies: Who were you feeling then?)

    I'm interested in how preoccupied we sometimes are by these identity questions. All that logic that puzzles over Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain or Clark Kent / Superman.

    And yet before the turn of the 19th-to-20th century it wasn't that uncommon to leave one life, travel over mountains or an ocean, say, and begin again under a new name. Until Bertillon and the fingerprinters and photographers got organized, who was to know who had been who?
    mcdoodle Options
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Actually I think it would be sort of like real Banno and English Banno walking to the center of the earth from opposite directions. They would meet each other and each would raise his right hand in greeting.
    Sir2u Options
  • A Christian Philosophy
    1k
    ↪Sir2u
    Way better universe. You can actually shake hands.
    A Christian Philosophy Options
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