When you look at flat picture where are you? I say you are where you are, and your looking at a picture. A 2 dimensional picture is a representation of space that is usually false. Up,down,left,and right are the only directions that have any meaning in a 2 dimensional world. In a 2 dimensional world your trapped on the surface of the picture. It's like reading a book. Pictures are the part that feed your imagination like words do. Pictures fill in more of the blanks than words. Because of this, I think that pictures are worse for the imagination than words. Until just a little while ago these 2 dimensional pictures were the closest thing we had to reality. Some people even thought that pictures were real, like a little kid does the first time they see a picture. Now we have ways to document all 3 dimensions. There's no excuse for people who think that normal photographs are real. Using regular gif files and a quicktime vr movie I'll demonstrate this point without a doubt.
Look at picture 1. Before you read on look at the picture and think what it looks like to you. Most people will say it looks like a red circle in a green circle. Now do the same with picture 2. Most people will say it looks like a yellow circle inside of a green circle. No-one could be confused by these answers. Even I look at those pictures and say that's what they are. But when I ask you which picture can you see a cone in, you will tell me neither. When I ask you which picture has a cylinder visible, you'll probably get confused. Actually, each of the pictures has one of those shapes visible. The 2d photographs are taken of a 3 dimensional model that consists of one cylinder ,one sphere, and one cone. You can't tell that in the 2 d picture of that model. Maybe you will be able to accept that that could be true, but can you tell what shape is where based on these pictures. You couldn't do it scientifically. You could only guess. Since the quicktime vr object isn't done yet you will have to wait until my next installment to learn what is where. It's a pretty cool coincidence that the waiting reinforces the lesson.
