Tradition
Flatland
Overview
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English theologian, Anglican priest and schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884 by Seeley & Co. of London. Written pseudonymously by "A Square", the book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to satirise the class and gender hierarchies of Victorian society, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions.
A sequel, Sphereland, was written by Dionys Burger in 1957. Several films have been based on Flatland, including the feature film Flatland (2007). Other efforts have been short or experimental films, including one narrated by Dudley Moore and the short films Flatland: The Movie (2007) and Flatland 2: Sphereland (2012).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Fechner's imagination, insisting on the differences as well as on the resemblances, thus tries to make our picture of the whole earth's life more concrete. He revels in the thought of its perfections. To carry her precious freight through the hours and seasons what form could be more excellent than hers--being as it is horse, wheels, and wagon all in one.
William James, A Pluralistic Universe
Close in meaning to Flatland; the term itself is not named.
Thus, the ideas of a twofold beyond and of a twofold soul mutually reinforce each other. Henceforth the heavenly realm is the abode of the pure and blessed spirits; the underworld, that of the wicked, who retain their sensuous natures even in the beyond, and who must, therefore, suffer physical pain and torment in a heightened degree. The thought of a spacial gradation corresponding with degrees of merit, though…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Close in meaning to Flatland; the term itself is not named.
Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the…
Henri Bergson, Laughter
Close in meaning to Flatland; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- General relativity
- Internet Archive
- Monarch
- Stephen Hawking
- Satire
- Nobility
- Theology
- Victorian era
- Class struggle
- Nature (journal)
- Thought experiment
- Point (geometry)
- Circle
- Albert Einstein
- Solipsism
- New York (state)
- Evolution
- Euthanasia
- Decree
Place in the tradition
Part of Shamanism.