The evolution of 3-D space

[Magical Realist]

Evolution understood long ago, before there was anything like human beings, that the world is better experienced from two spatial perspectives at once instead of just one. Hence the universality of two eyes, two ears, and even pairs of limbs. Even ants have 2 eyes and 2 antennae. The cognitive dissonance or error produced by experiencing these slightly offset perspectives at the same time gets remedied by the brain as the illusion of depth--a single perspective on a now 3-D environment. Our brains literally merge the two 2D scenes each eye is seeing into one immersive experience of a 3D world.

Hence there arose the perception of space not as an objective thing in itself but as the ability to predict accurately the varying distances and directions of things and other creatures we see and hear around us. It was in essence an illusion that helped us to survive and hunt and better navigate our environment. It's why animals that are typically predators have their eyes in the front of their heads and animals that are typically prey have their eyes on both sides of it. One to better hunt with and one to better see around itself.

Space then not as an abstract continuum existing outside of us but as the dialectically-revealed mobility among and proximity to things and creatures either for use by the physical body or else threatening to its own life. Space, or more precisely spatiality, is deeply interwoven into the fabric of our being-in-the-world.

“The world and Being hold together only in movement; it is only in this way that all things can be together. Philosophy is a reminding of this being.”― Maurice Merleau-Ponty

[Magical Realist]

"The fallacy of simple location, coined by Alfred North Whitehead in Science and the Modern World, is the mistaken belief that a material object exists solely within a definite, finite portion of space and time, independent of its relationships with the rest of the universe. It ignores that entities are essentially related processes rather than isolated, self-contained bits of matter.

Key Aspects of the Fallacy of Simple Location:

Misplaced Concreteness: This fallacy is a form of "misplaced concreteness," which involves taking abstract concepts (like a fixed spatial location) and mistaking them for the complete, concrete reality.

Neglect of Relation: It assumes an object's nature is fully described by its internal properties at one moment, ignoring its vital relationships with other times, places, and objects (the "togetherness" or prehensive character of spacetime).

Definite Location: The error is thinking a piece of matter can be said to be "right here" in a way that requires no reference to any other region of space-time or any other time, past or future.

Critique of Mechanism: Whitehead used this concept to critique the scientific, mechanistic view that the world is just matter in motion through absolute, separate points of space and time.

The Moving Object: Treating a chair or an atom as "simply located" in a specific spot ignores that its existence is defined by its interaction with the room, the observer, and its history and future.

Historical View: It assumes that nature is composed of particles that exist independently of their context, a view that Whitehead argued was flawed.

Instead, Whitehead proposed a relational view where entities are processes that are intrinsically connected to and defined by their environment and relations."

PubMed Central (PMC) (.gov)