Ambrosia Software Web Board: Define "Left" - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Shlimazel, on Jan 21 2008, 12:03 PM, said:

Left.

I disagree. I east to the west.

Everyone in my family failed to come up with a satisfactory answer except my dad, who said:

"If you're facing the sunrise, left is the direction of the north star, of Polaris."

Everyone here agrees on that, i'm waiting for you guys to poke holes in it.

PiSketch, on Jan 21 2008, 12:58 PM, said:

Does it work in the Southern Hemisphere? I wouldn't know, being at, oh, 48.9 degrees north.

Democrat.

Pufer, on Jan 15 2008, 02:20 AM, said:

As the old adage goes, "Dress left to impress."

the left side is the side I do not wear my watch on. It is also the side of my dominant eye.

Also, Jacabyte's interpretation only holds up when both hands are supinated and held out in front, at a 90/90 angle from the shoulder.

Same here.

zurdo, on Jan 21 2008, 07:30 PM, said:

Can't see the north star if you're far enough away from the equator, so not in the same way, but the southern cross works well enough, according to him.

This post has been edited by PiSketch: 21 January 2008 - 09:04 PM

Destroyer E, on Jan 21 2008, 11:29 AM, said:

Your left hand is usually defined by where it is attached to your body, not where you're holding it at the time, though surely if your left hand was over to the right side of your body you would say it was on the right side of your body (still a left hand, just on the right). I suppose if somebody was able to turn their head all the way around then either one of their hands could be left or right, but doesn't that actually make sense? If our heads were on backwards, I think left and right would be switched around for that person.

Your left hand is still your left hand no matter where it is in your field of vision, because in your field of vision it is always attached in the left side of your body within your field of vision.

The very idea of having a left hand is rather limited, I would say. Somebody without any thumbs still has a concept of left and right. Presumably an alien intelligence will divide their field of vision into six directions regardless of their anatomy (up, down, left, right, near/backward, far/forward). Leftness is more universal than mere tricks we teach little kids.

Again, you can have a hand to the left of you without being a left hand, and a hand to the right of you without being a right hand. What it's called is based on it's attachment and configuration, not its location in your field of vision. But your field of vision determines what you call its location relative to yourself.

Leftness is entirely based on point of view, that's why people ask the question "your left or mine" when facing different directions. It's about perspective, and no sense is more important to our sense of place and relation to other objects than our vision.

PiSketch, on Jan 21 2008, 03:58 PM, said:

It only applies to a planet with our axial tilt, rotation, and general locality in the universe, which pretty much rules out almost everywhere other than Earth. If you're someplace without a sunrise, you aren't in view of Polaris, your sunrise is at a different angle, or the large body you're standing on is rotating in the opposite direction, left doesn't magically disappear or go off in some wildly different direction (like up or right).

Left defines itself. Just like something I looked up a while back:

Sport - <watered-down definition> see athletics
Athletics - people doing sports, see athlete
Athlete - person who does sports or athletics, see sports

Those are plainly inaccurate definitions. Sports and athletics are not the same.

Well when it says "see this" it doesn't mean that they're synonymous, just that they're similar.

Okay, so we're looking for a truly universal way to determine which direction is left. We'll assume the situation is that it would have to be usable by a being with completely different physiology than us in a different galaxy with no common objects in the night sky to use as reference.

I think our best bet would be to use something from science - something as universal as the laws of physics or chemistry. If they had a knowledge of chemistry, perhaps some asymetrical molecule could be used, but some means of orienting it would be necessary.

We can define up and down using gravitational pull. (I think that we can assume that our far-off being exists on a spherical planet)

Well if you use a 3D coordinate system, left is the -z axis.

You can rotate perspective in 3D space and represenations thereof if you're so inclined.

-Pufer

Rebelious, on Jan 23 2008, 11:16 PM, said:

How would you define a 3D coordinate system? How do you define which is the Z axis? How do you define which direction is the negative direction?

The 3D coordinate system has already been defined, although I don't know how, and so all its parts have been also.

Rebelious, on Jan 24 2008, 09:29 AM, said:

By this logic, I could define left as "the direction that isn't right". Right has already been defined, but I don't know how.

Mispeled, on Jan 24 2008, 01:36 PM, said:

What I meant by "I don't know how" is that it's out there, I just didn't have enough time to go out and look it up. But it's out there.

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

Quote

Ahh, yes. The dictionary.

Rebelious, on Jan 24 2008, 08:18 PM, said:

But to define which direction is negative and which direction is positive would require definitions of left and right.

<-- It's over there.

Wikipedia said: