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08816_Field_TCGG T581.txt
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1996-03-19
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world which is neither flat, nor straight, nor uniform.
Now Dantzig is quite wrong in supposing that Euclidean
space, linear, flat, straight, uniform, is rooted in our minds at
all. Such space is a product of literacy and is unknown to pre-
literate or archaic man. We have seen earlier that Mircea Eliade
has recently devoted a volume to this theme (The Sacred and
the Profane ), showing how the Western notions of space and
time as continuous and homogeneous are quite absent from
the lives of archaic man. They are equally absent from Chinese
culture. Pre-literate man conceives always of uniquely
structured spaces and times in the manner of mathematical
physics.
The invaluable demonstration of Dantzig is that in order
to protect our vested interest in Euclidean space (i.e., literacy)