[ExI] [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re: Virtual Reality is where the aliens are

Mike Dougherty msd001 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 28 15:22:28 UTC 2015


On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:
> I read Flatland for the first time in fourth grade. I was so enamored of the cool idea of multiple dimensions, that when we had an English assignment to “describe an alien,” I made my alien from the forth dimension. It appeared as several seemingly distinct yet shifting 3D forms in our space, but they were all connected in a way the human couldn’t see in hyperspace. A pretty straight-forward application of the concepts in Flatland, but apparently my fourth grade teacher had never read this book, and couldn’t comprehend what I was talking about. He tried to flunk me on the assignment because I was supposed to only describe “one” alien, not several. I kept trying to explain that in hyperspace, it was a single creature…. sigh.
>
> Later, of course, looking back on it, I realized that the teacher just wanted us to practice using descriptive adjectives and adverbs, not to actually hypothesize about alien lifeforms, never mind hyperspace. But how was I supposed to know that as a forth grader? I took the assignment at face value!

that's fantastic.

I would suggest that a teacher should be more careful bounding the
solution space when they ask children to use those powerful
imaginations to complete assignments.  :)

If a 4th grader conceives of hyperspace as a first-effort at "alien"
then we should expect something truly bizarre could well be beyond
recognition.  maybe?




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