The Universal Sense of Space, Time, and Number
John L. Waters
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The Universal Sense of Space, Time, and Number
John L. Waters
May 10, 2001
Copyright 2001 by John L. Waters. All Rights
Reserved
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Submission 3
May 10, 2001
The Universal Sense of Space, Time, and Number
The non-physicality of space and time has
made this subject very difficult to study. Take away
physical objects, and the space and time in which
physical objects are embedded is invisible. People
who have no difficulty in seeing are accustomed to
think in terms of what is visible. Moreover, those
persons who concentrate their attention on what is
visible only see physical objects at varying
distances. In compensating for a chronic handicap,
blind or partially blind persons can develop a keen
kinesthetic sense of space and time. The thesis of
this paper is that a blind or partially blind person's
perception of space and time is valid.
To go deeper into this subject, think about
the way persons move in a physical space having three
dimensions. We can move forward or backward, left or
right, and up or down. As our bodies move, we feel
the movement profoundly.
In addition, humans can look forward or
backward, left or right, and up or down. We can see
in these three different directions or dimensions.
However, some people pay a lot more attention to what
they see than what they feel in their muscles, bones,
and nerves as they travel through space.
Traveling in a car going fifty miles an
hour, we feel our bodies being moved by centrifugal
force. When the car turns to the right or to the
left, we feel the turning movement. However, many
individuals don't pay much attention to body movement.
While riding in or driving a car, normally sighted
people often concentrate on what they are looking at.
In school, young children are taught to look
at pictures, letters, and words, and to look at the
teacher. Body movement is a distraction to the other
students, so children are taught to sit still. This
training continues throughout all the twelve grades.
When bodies are not permitted to move, the sense of
body movement isn't cultivated in the children.
Eyesight is emphasized year after year after year in
school. It's important, however, to cultivate
children's body movement as well, because subtle mind
movements and subtle body movements both are subtle
intelligence in action.
Likewise, most children who see well quickly
learn to identify their peers by sight. These
children soon recognize the letters and the numerals
just by looking at them. Nearly all children develop
stereopsis, i.e., depth perception, so that they
readily judge distance by using both eyes at once.
Stereopsis makes their visual perception of distance
automatic. For example, a boy who has stereopsis
quickly learns to catch a ball by looking at the ball
with both eyes and making the appropriate body
movements. But a boy who has no depth perception
can't tell where the ball is in space as it moves
rapidly towards him. Even so, the same space exists
for the visually impaired boy as it does for all the
good ball players.
When a boy isn't blessed with stereoscopic
vision, he has to judge distance in some other way.
This requires extra effort. For example, a boy can
turn his head from side to side and observe how much
the distant object appears to move in relation to what
is behind it. The closer an object is, the more the
background seems to move behind it. A distant object
is part of the background and doesn't appear to move.
Another example judging distance without stereoptic
vision is this: the boy can remember how large a car
is, so when he sees a car that looks no larger than a
pill bug on the ground four feet below his chin, he
knows that the car is far away. When he sees a woman
that looks taller than a mature pine tree, he knows
that the woman is close by.
At every moment, vision for this boy is a
puzzle he must solve. With every scene the puzzle
changes. Therefore, a lot of the young man's brain
activity is devoted just to making sense of what he is
looking at. As long as he is awake and moving about
and interacting with other people, this puzzle-solving
activity dominates the boy's mind and body activity.
Even as a man, this person has less brain energy
available for activities which normal people enjoy and
learn to do quickly, easily, and well. The reason is
because this handicapped man's brain is having to work
so hard just so that he can avoid a serious accident.
Most objects in nature are blind. Rocks,
trees, clouds, and bodies of water have no eyes. They
can't see at all. Furthermore, the planets and the
stars are totally blind. Even so, all these objects
exist and move in space-time. Reflecting on this, we
realize that an object doesn't need eyes to exist and
move in space-time. However, normally-sighted humans
are accustomed to thinking in terms of what they can
see.
In view of the foregoing, we should realize
that there is an alternative way to think about
space-time. To experience this way, we can experiment
with ourselves. We can spend six hours wearing tight
bandages over our eyes so that we can't see at all.
We can move in spare the way a blind person does, by
reaching out with a hand or with a cane, and feeling
our way along carefully. Or we can move a long stick
back and forth in front of our feet.
It's easy to imagine a straight line
connecting your right eye to a distant flag or to a
distant star. But why is this so easy to imagine? We
observe that light travels in a straight line, and we
observe that a person can walk in a straight line
directly towards an object. We are accustomed to
judging distance by using our eyes. But a blind
person moves through space kinesthetically and is
attentive to this non-visual means of reckoning
distance.
To get from place to place, a totally blind
man rides a vehicle driven by someone else, or he
walks using a cane and perhaps a seeing eye dog. The
man can judge the distance he has walked by counting
his steps. Similarly, if we count the number of ticks
a clock makes, we can estimate the time. The walking
man and the clock are both counting numbers of units.
Both are time-keepers.
By shifting our attention to the movements
and the kinesthetic sense perceptions of a blind man,
we have arrived at the idea that counting a number of
units is the common way of perceiving and reckoning
both space and time. The idea is that number unites
both space and time.
When it comes to judging space and time, you
are an expert. You can count the number of steps you
walk from your home to the bus stop or to the market.
Furthermore, you can count the number of times the
second hand of your watch goes around the dial, and in
one minute that hand will sweep over sixty tiny marks
placed at equal intervals. You can verify this fact
again and again. Moreover, you don't need to see
stereoptically to perform this experiment.
A lot goes on inside your eyes and your
brain when you see stereoptically. Stereopsis is so
automatic that you do it without conscious effort.
However, when a person is blind in this sense, this
vision is no good for him. As far as space and time
are concerned, he is body-oriented like the Earth and
other sightless objects. And, the blind man isn't
distracted by eyesight.
Setting aside vision and depth perception by
eyesight, and considering how body movement is used to
gauge space, we begin our study of space, time, and
number. We realize that nearly everything in the
universe functions without seeing anything visually,
and so to really feel in tune with the universe, and
cultivate the sensations we feel in our whole bodies,
we stop using our eyes in the way people taught us to
use our eyes. For a time we can even put bandages
over our eyes so we don't see at all. Or we can just
learn to get around in a darkened room. This
experiment will help us become more aware of our own
body movement and experience the kinesthetic sense
more keenly.
A totally blind boy might compensate for his
sightlessness by becoming unusually sensitive in his
body. He would move his body often to keep track of
where he is in space. A boy who lacks stereoscopic
vision might compensate in the same way for the same
reason. Normally-sighted people show body movements
but people who see don't need to pay special attention
to the kinesthetic sense.
The need is to produce a model of space-time
which works for both blind objects and objects that
see. After all, binocular vision does detect distance
in physical space. Furthermore, you can see the steps
that a person takes in walking a mile. You can see
the second hand as it swings round and round the dial
of a watch or a clock. You can verify that reckoning
both space and time requires that a person count using
the natural numbers which are also called counting
numbers. Moreover, you can recognize that physical
bodies move in space-time whether they are human
bodies or not and whether they see or not. And you
can let your body move freely without preoccupied with
what is visible.
In defining space and time, our kinesthetic
sense is as valid and useful as our sense of vision.
By carefully observing the way human bodies move, and
applying the precision language which scientists use
to accurately perceive and define other phenomena, we
use both our visual sense and our kinesthetic sense to
help us define space and time in a way which is more
comprehensible and useful to people.
John L. Waters
johnlwaters@yahoo.com
The information on this page represents that of John Waters and not
necessarily that of Humboldt State University. John Waters takes full
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