Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
But although these spaces do not have to one another the same kind of
spatial relations as obtain between the parts of one of them, it is
nevertheless possible to arrange these spaces themselves in a
three-dimensional order. This is done by means of the correlated
particulars which we regard as members (or aspects) of one physical
thing. When a number of people are said to see the same object, those
who would be said to be near to the object see a particular occupying
a larger part of their field of vision than is occupied by the
corresponding particular seen by people who would be said to be
farther from the thing. By means of such considerations it is
possible, in ways which need not now be further specified, to arrange
all the different spaces in a three-dimensional series. Since each of
the spaces is itself three-dimensional, the whole world of particulars
is thus arranged in a six-dimensional space, that is to say, six
co-ordinates will be required to assign completely the position of any
given particular, namely, three to assign its position in its own
space and three more to assign the position of its space among the
other spaces.
There are two ways of classifying particulars: we may take together
all those that belong to a given "perspective," or all those that are,
as common sense would say, different "aspects" of the same "thing."
For example, if I am (as is said) seeing the sun, what I see belongs
to two assemblages: (1) the assemblage of all my present objects of
sense, which is what I call a "perspective"; (2) the assemblage of
all the different particulars which would be called aspects of the sun
of eight minutes ago--this assemblage is what I define as _being_ the
sun of eight minutes ago. Thus "perspectives" and "things" are merely
two different ways of classifying particulars. It is to be observed
that there is no _a priori_ necessity for particulars to be
susceptible of this double classification. There may be what might be
called "wild" particulars, not having the usual relations by which the
classification is effected; perhaps dreams and hallucinations are
composed of particulars which are "wild" in this sense.
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