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by 4ggr0 1345 days ago
I had the same question and this answer didn't really do it for me.

Granted, I am bad at math/trigonometry/geometry etc., but in my understanding, 2D can only work from our perspective, because we're looking at it from a perfect angle.

Mario shouldn't see anything, because his viewing angle does not exist. Or is the rule about 2D that his perspective just has a width of at least more than nothing?

My lack of understanding can probably be explained with high-school material, but I can't imagine it myself.

2 comments

Oh, you mean the physics of "seeing"? I thought the question was about why the vertical line is not 1-pixel wide.

As for "seeing": the real world is 3D. The physics of seeing work in 3D. I don't think there are true 1D or 2D objects in the universe, so we must use our imaginations when we say "Mario is seeing" in 1D or 2D.

We must, like others argued, imagine Mario possesses a way of sensing/seeing that works in 1D, something that doesn't exist in the real world.

PS: alternatively, the line is 2D in the sense that it's made of physical 3D pixels, and Mario can see those. But the line is also 1D in the sense its width offers no additional information because it's a single pixel wide; so it's physically 2D but "informationally" 1D.

His perspective is essentially the same as ours would be of four-dimensional space: The space can exist, we can move through it, but we can only ever see three dimensions of it at a time. It is the same for mario and the way that makes sense to you is as a line. Even if it is a line with no inherent width, that doesn't mean that Mario cannot see it.
> Even if it is a line with no inherent width, that doesn't mean that Mario cannot see it.

Yeah, that's the part I don't really understand. I'll probably have to watch some videos to get it.

You are right human (animal) eyes wouldn't be able to see a true 1D object. Then again, true 1D objects don't exist.