clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

THE DIVINITY OF HIGHER DIMENSIONS 39
Figure 2.13 Sally lifts a 2-D human into the third dimension. If he were truly twodimensional,
with no thickness, Sally might lift up only his skin, leaving some of
his guts behind. (Rudy Rucker in The Fourth Dimension discusses this scenario
among many others relating to creatures interacting between dimensions. Drawing
by Brian Mansfield.)
"I'm thinking about how it would feel to be lifted into a higher
dimension."
Sally draws a picture of a 2-D human on a plane.
"Cute picture. What's his name?"
She shrugs. "I call him Tdh. It stands for 2-D human. What if I were
to lift up Mr. Tdh from his 2-D universe. Would I kill him? He would
survive if he had some thin membranes sealing off his upper and lower
faces against the third dimension, otherwise when I pulled him, I might
get only his skin!" (Fig. 2.13).
You nod. "However, if we think of your 2-D man as residing in a
plane with some thickness, we could lift him off without much harm."
Sally draws a digestive system, with a tube extending from the man's
mouth to his anus (Fig 2.14). "It seems to me that 2-D humans can't
have a complete digestive system running from one orifice to another
because this would separate the being into two pieces that fall apart.
Maybe only primitive creatures would evolve on Flatland, like planaria
flatworms or hydra that only have one opening for the digestive system.
They eat food and expel wastes from the same opening" (Fig. 2.15).