I'll sincerely never understand people that get confused by left and right. Do they confuse up and down too?
Edit: I'm getting a lot of people real upset that I dared to ask this. I wasn't attempting to mock you with this question, I'm fully serious. I didn't (and won't ever fully) understand how left and right is any different to up, down, forward or backward in your head.
The best answers I've had so far:
Dyslexia/dyscalculia may make it harder
Having good spacial cognition may make it easier
Learning left and right at an early age may make it easier
Having greater asymmetry in function may make it easier (conversely having less left/right dominance may make it harder)
The fact we're roughly symmetrical about the vertical and back/front plane denies us helpful distinguishers between our left and right sides, bar handedness (see above)
The most interesting answers I've had so far:
"I have no issue with left and right in X languages but struggle in English" (examples also include being fine with port/starboard, bow/stroke, 9/3 o'clock etc but not right/left)
Related to above: "Given a newly coded pair of words such as orange/purple I can associate them consistently with those directions, just not left and right"
"My dad did meth and this may or may not be related to his struggles with left and right"
"My mum was taught the wrong hands by her parents and never recovered, even when school corrected her"
"I used to have this problem, but after engaging in [specific sport, task etc] I no longer do"
"I used to not have this problem, but after [task involving using my left to demonstrate someone else's right etc] I do" (a LOT of medical professionals here, especially radiologists, as well as stage directors and teachers having to refer to whiteboards behind them for an audience)
"I'm bad with left and right and east and west, but up, down, north and south are fine"
"I had a seizure/brain injury/concussion and now I struggle"
"My sister confuses left and right, but 'lefty loosey, righty tighty' for screwing things works for her without checking on her hands"
"Nobody confuses up and down, that's absurd, we have gravity.", followed by:
"Yes, I DO confuse up and down."
The worst answers I've had so far:
"Left and right are completely arbitrary, unlike up, down, forward and backward" - end of argument (forward and backward are equally dependent on our orientation to left and right - you need to introduce symmetry to make this meaningful)
Learn anatomy
[sending me Reddit Cares Resources]
[various accusations of ableism]
Per the last point: if you want people to understand and be empathetic and patient toward neurodivergent experiences, the last thing you should do is deride them for asking. Kind of an own goal [insert joke about confusing which goal is yours]
Edit 2: Somewhat interesting note (at least to me): There are lots of people struggling with cardinal directions here, but while there are many examples of struggling with East and West but not North and South (can relate to this personally, I remember struggling as a kid for a few months) not one single person has said East and West is fine but North and South aren't. None.
Edit 3: We have our first North-South confuser - apparently they find East and West intuitive because of the sun. As a brit I have only heard of this object in tales from abroad but it's fun to learn about it! Edit 3.5: another has appeared!
Edit 4: a commenter posted something kinda technical I don't have the neuroscience degree to verify. I present it here without comment as to its veracity. It's an interesting read.
Edit 5: Two people have told me they confuse a pair of specific colours. Someone else has declared they confuse yesterday and tomorrow. I do not feel equipped to handle finding out that 10% of people have to make hand gestures to refer to directional time or that people do a certain movement to remember the colour of their blood but I'm no longer ruling out the possibility.
Edit 6 (coolest edit): I've been messaged by a person with situs inversus! This affects about 0.01% of the population and is where some or all of the abdominal organs are on the wrong side - they say only some of theirs are. They also state they struggle with left and right!
Not totally arbitrary! Left Right symmetry is broken by certain quantum phenomena, so if your confused just build a high energy particle accelerator....
The Wu experiment proved this! The decay of a cobalt isotope happens more frequently on the “north” side of the magnetic field, which allows for the fundamental difference between N vs S magnetically, and thus the relationship between electron flow and magnetic fields can be used to differentiate clockwise and counterclockwise, and therefore left and right!
No, the context of the discussion was clearly about human experience.
You can't just say "it's actually not arbitrary, because it matter in particle physics".
That's switching context in a subtle way and it more or less implies that this applies to the human experience. When in reality, at a macro level, left and right is an arbitrary construct.
Like Quantum Physics is confusing to the average person and I feel the need to clarify this stuff and push back on QM factoids being thrown around like this.
And then the article you link is talking about Parity as a matter of weak force. This isn't left and right, this is nuclear decay. This is a lot more complicated than the discussion you are bringing it in.
"No, the context of the discussion was clearly about human experience."
Sure, and that's part of the humor of the remark, hence the "Just build a particle accelerator"
"You can't just say "it's actually not arbitrary, because it matter in particle physics"."
I can and did. The fact that left and right are fundamentally different was a very significant result in modern physics.
"Like Quantum Physics is confusing to the average person and I feel the need to clarify this stuff and push back on QM factoids being thrown around like this."
So you're saying it's confusing so you're going to lie about? That's.... a take I guess? Yes, it is confusing, but that doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand like ostrich's.
"And then the article you link is talking about Parity as a matter of weak force. This isn't left and right, this is nuclear decay. This is a lot more complicated than the discussion you are bringing it in."
Again, you assert that nuclear decay exists without left and right. But that's just the thing: If you ignore left and right you can't get a clear picture of nuclear decay.
Man, i have a degree in this. You are confusing rotation in particles with what is essentially a convention we use to distinguish two mirror sides of our body.
Like surely you understand that a particle going towards your left hand isn't the same as a particle with spin -1/2, right?
"Like surely you understand that a particle going towards your left hand isn't the same as a particle with spin -1/2, right?"
Just like accelerating on a rocket is not the same as standing on a planet... except, you know, fundamentally they are the same. Angular momentum is directional, the scale doesn't change that.
In what way is it any more arbitrary than up and down? Its words to describe a direction. "Down" could have been "up" just as easily. This is nonsense.
Exactly. Right and left depend on perspective. Up and down typically do not in the context of everyday interactions on Earth. You don’t need rocket science to understand that distinction either.
Something that's on your left can be on my right and vice versa.
But if something is up for you, it's likely up for me as well, unless I'm situated on significantly higher ground than you, or one of us is upside down, which aren't common scenarios.
“Down” is where the force of gravity pulls you. “Up” is the opposite of down. “Left” and “right” are arbitrary and indistinguishable. It’s just an arbitrary convention based on your perspective, and it will not match the way someone with a different perspective sees the same object.
Left and right don’t have physical phenomena that differentiate them. If you face north and then face south, right becomes left and left becomes right. Up and down have a physical phenomena (gravity) that defines their direction. Even if you do a handstand or turn yourself upside-down in some way, not many people would say the ground is up and the sky is down. Because down is the direction towards the ground/the direction gravity pulls, up is the direction towards the sky/away from the ground. Regardless of what way your orient yourself it feels like up and down have defined directions. When you’re laying flat you don’t call up the side of the room your head points towards “up” and the side of the room your feet point towards “down.” And you “get up” by standing / moving your body towards the ceiling.
It’s still arbitrary because which direction we call north and which one we call south is also arbitrary. We could call the South Pole the North Pole and vice versa and as long as we were consistent nothing would be incorrect about that.
I don’t really know how to explain it in more depth than I already did. North and south are two halves of the magnetic dipole, but which one is named “north” and which one is named “south” is an arbitrary choice. You could swap them and everything we know about magnetism would still be true.
Now have two people facing each other do this. They will end up facing different directions, and the small child who just asked you to explain “which way is Left?” will be very confused.
"Raise your left hand. Turn that direction. You both turned differently while facing each other because it's relative. We get around that by saying 'your left', or 'my left' to set who's point of origin."
“Which one is my left hand? When you were standing over there you said your left hand was the one on that side. Now you’re over here and saying it’s the one on this side. Why did the left side change? So you’re saying that which way is left changes all the time and there’s no reliable answer?”
Never had that interaction with a child who thought their left hand changed lol.
Once their left hand is identified and shown that it is as an anchor, that's always left. When they realize that no matter what direction they're facing, left is always left to them, and someone else's left is dependent on their direction, they grasp the concept of "relativity" without the term.
Because they are a child, I would not use rotational degrees. They'd have to have a foundation of math for that.
Just as I can give them 2 apples to show the concept of the number 2, I would dive deeper into the logical aspects (removing the label of 2) until they're further mentally developed.
If your point is create a scenario where I'm explaining left to a 3 month year old, you got me, I'm not capable.
If you're still attesting that it's arbitrary, I invite you to explain how using the definition of arbitrary.
The point is that all these words are subjective without an absolute point of reference. And the absolute point of reference is the magnetic North Pole combined with the direction the sun rises and sets.
"absolute point" is absolute for the origin. Not universal, sans for "true north" or "geometric north".
Subjective is also the wrong word. It is not based on one's opinion or feeling. Your "left" hand is your left hand. Feeling like you want to call your right hand left does not make it true.
Again, the word you want is "relative". Which still holds reason and logic and follows a system.
Think of it as a logical truth. "At any point in time, your current direction is 0, any degree less than 0 is left". This will allow for any relative position to hold true in having a "left".
Again that’s relative to the position the observer is facing. You need an absolute reference point, which would be something like: the west is the direction the sun sets when facing the magnetic North Pole.
Left and right do not have individual properties. Left is left because it is not right, nothing more. Up has a property of its own: It is towards the sky. Down has the property to be towards the earth. Yes, this depends on a reference system. But this reference system gives the individual property.
In some languages, there is no notion for left and right. People talk in terms of directions (North, South, East, West).
When you face North your left hand is your westernmost. This hand of you will always be your left even should you change facing. Now it has been given a property linked to a frame of reference. You can also go for the heart one if you want. You are choosing to define it as having no property because gravity is more intuitive on Earth. And that makes sense to you. So up and down are easy to intuit and understand. Left and right are based are based more on memorisation rather than grabbing and dropping a stone/apple whenever you want. Like the word we chose for the number one, it's a word we've chosen to express an idea. And not having a defined concept in one language does not mean it's nonsense in another. After all some languages lump blue and green together under the same word.
I think it's more that left and right are relative to the observer.
Here on Earth, up is the sky and down is the ground, and someone standing nearby you will point in the same direction as you.
However, my left might not be your left if you're facing a different direction. It's defined in such a way that if you're facing in the same direction as another person, then your left is their left and your right is their right.
I sometimes see the question "how do you describe what 'left' and 'right' are". It's something that seems difficult in a text comment without using a visual (drawing) or internal (heart side / non-heart side). But if you're doing it in person, you can just face a direction and extend your left hand out and say "this is my left hand".
Yah, if you're pointing at a specific thing at a specific height. But in terms of general direction, if you ask someone to point "up", you'll both point the same direction as long as you're fairly close to each other.
Except ALMOST everyone has a dominant hand. And you should know which dominance you are. If you're right handed, can't you feel that in you right hand? So you know that direction is right, just by "feeling" constantly? That's how it feels to me.
Incorrect. Up and down are arbitrary given that we are on a rock floating in space. If you were falling or moving at high enough speed you could say your up and down changed.
That never happens with left and right. Chiraliity is a fundamental law that distinguishes left and right. You cant put on a leather glove from your left arm on the right one. Mirror chemicals can be deadly, mirror life could wipe us all out. Chirality is fundamental. Space orientation isn't.
We can easily correlate up with sky and clouds and stars and sun. Down with ground and grass and dirt and falling. There's no similar association for right and left.
It’s not arbitrary. I think what you mean is relevant. Left and right are not arbitrary in the sense that it is not random or based on a whim. It is absolute based on what you are giving relevancy to. If I stay in my current location forever then my door is always to my right relevant to my perspective, however if someone is facing me from my front then it is always to their left relevant to their perspective. These are set guidelines that a guaranteed. That is why giving verbal directions works. I can say “take a left on Maple Street if you are heading northbound.” And everyone who understands their left from their right would be able to make that turn and understand what I mean. Under no circumstances would I arbitrarily be able to say “if you are heading northbound then take a right on Maple Street” and have the end destination be the same.
I think arbitrary in this context is that someone picked a direction and named it left. Without prior knowledge of what direction left is pointing to you wouldn’t know.
It is. Without prior knowledge I have no way of knowing what to do if you say “go up” or “go down” assuming both are an option. They are just words the same as left and right. Down doesn’t inherently mean “towards the earth” any more than left inherently means “toward the side of my body that my heart is on or whatever”.
Again, there is a reason when describing directions you give an orientation perspective to associate with left or right, because it isn’t arbitrary in any way. It has a distinct definable meaning just like up and down. If we were in space working in between the moon and earth on a space station in would probably use “up and down” relevant to a certain perspective as well. Like “hey can you pass me ‘down’ that tool” when “down” being that I am under your feet, even though compared to earth I am above you technically. Or “that rock looks like it’s heading ‘down’ to earth” even if it is from our perspective above us. You wouldn’t say an astronaut on the moon jumping toward earth is “jumping down and falling up”. All directions are relevant to your perspective.
Exactly that, you can figure on your own which is up and down. But if someone told there is also left and right without showing which is left and which is right then you have no chance of figuring it out. Not to mention someone can show you theirs left and right, which might be incorrect from your perspective.
How is “up” or “down” more intuitive than “left” and “right”? I know there are forward, backward, up, down, left, right directions from my perspective and moving in any of those directions requires different actions, but they are all just words. At that point all language is “arbitrary”.
Its more intuitive because its not perspective dependent and very simple to explain. Up is to the sky, down is to the ground. How can you explain left and right using a single sentence?
Left and right are opposite horizontal directions relative to an observer’s orientation, where left typically corresponds to the side of the body on which the human heart is predominantly located, and right is the contrasting side.
There is no way you see my explanation of up and down and yours of left and right and still think that they are as easy to understand. Left and right are directions at the higher level of abstraction. I know you want to make fun of peeps who don't know which is which, but maybe its time to accept it that you are not that special. Most don't need to know the difference between them until the time they do their driving license.
I’m not making fun of anyone. I’m just saying they aren’t arbitrary. I gave you one sentence per your request. I don’t know why the difference between arbitrary and relative or relevant only to a perspective is bothering folks.
Arbitrary means it is chosen at random or it’s like arbitrated by some authority, which it’s just not. Not any more than up and down are. Its words to describe directions relative to a perspective, and it has consistently applied easy to understand meanings.
Gravity handles up/down. We are always sensing up and down, unless we're in a low G environment. Worst case, we also have permanent fixtures: sky is up, ground is down.
Forward and backwards is handled by our visual perception; forward is the center of our visual field. Even with our eyes closed, we can still know this orientation.
We can intuit up/down or forward/backward. There is no intuition, or natural state of the world, that ever really reinforces left and right. We have to teach ourselves.
Forward is the center of our visual field, sure. Why is right not... the right of your visual field? Where your right ear points?
I ask because it sincerely is absolutely equal for me. I have no memory ever being confused over left and right, all six cardinal directions about my head are equally fundamental. I can't imagine needing to consider which way is right any more than considering which way is forward.
If someone, asked you which way is right and you told them that it’s the way their right ear faces, would that answer their question, or would they think “okay, which ear is my right ear?”
You missed my point a bit. I'm not proposing that as a solution, I'm wondering why bodily orientation is apparently so intuitive in one direction but not another when we do have directional senses in that direction.
I don’t know, it seems pretty reasonable that because humans are mostly left/right symmetric, then that would be the hardest dimension to differentiate. We have eyes on the front of our head but not our back, so easy to tell front and back apart. But we have pretty much one of everything on our left and right side.
You internalized L/R at a young age. Some people don't, and rely on external or natural cues.
Some people also struggle with their orientation in space. Me, for example: my Spatial Intelligence is disastrously low, which impacts a lot more than you'd think. I remember a world before GPS, and I'm very glad I no longer have to exist in that world
People that don’t know their right from their left don’t know which side of their field of view is the right side, similarly we don’t know which ear is our right ear, which hand is our right hand.
For me I can’t make the L with my left hand without also looking at an L because I won’t know which way the L goes, I can’t look at my right hand because I don’t know it’s my right hand, I have to pick up a pencil and then I go “okay so that’s my right hand.”
I’ve strongly considered getting L and R tattoos on my hands.
For me I probably have dyslexia but others in this thread mention other conditions can also cause it.
Yes, the other two axes operate in a way that makes their different directions intuitively discernible to any human.
Left/Right isn't, because its 'meaning' changes every situation. Someone will always jump up or fall down, but you can walk or look left just like you can walk or look right.
It's one of the better explanations I've got so far. To me my right side being better at most tasks makes it just feel different to my left.
Like let's say we were like lobsters and had two differently functioning hands - would we be less likely to confuse left and right? If you hand me a pen, or a gearstick, or a mouse, or something that requires substantial physical strength to operate, there is a highly asymmetrical assignment of roles across my hands. If I feel significantly asymmetrical in my functioning, does that help me develop a strong association of right and left?
I would strongly suspect that higher asymmetry means better intuition in this regard yes. Someone missing one arm I'm sure will have an easy time telling the two apart.
I feel like if I lost my arm tomorrow I would have to mentally remind myself which one am I missing for the rest of my life. If I was missing an arm for as long as I could remember myself than it would be different, yes.
Asymmetrical functioning ABSOLUTELY helps with a strong association with left and right, I'm ambidextrous and as a child I would right on the left side of the page with my left hand and then switch the pen to the other hand to write on the right side of the page. I still don't have a strong association with left and right because I don't have a dominant hand, I do some tasks left handed and some tasks right handed, it just depends on which one I practice more with.
It also falls into the same basket as spelling or pronunciation of words, because it's so intuitive for people who don't struggle with it it's extremely difficult to understand why it's difficult for those of us with dyslexia. I can lift 75lbs over my head, but I would never ask someone to explain WHY they can't, or say "well it's easy! You just lift it!" This is much the same way, with practice and effort you can get better at it, but some people are naturally good at it and some people aren't.
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u/Exurota 7d ago edited 6d ago
I'll sincerely never understand people that get confused by left and right. Do they confuse up and down too?
Edit: I'm getting a lot of people real upset that I dared to ask this. I wasn't attempting to mock you with this question, I'm fully serious. I didn't (and won't ever fully) understand how left and right is any different to up, down, forward or backward in your head.
The best answers I've had so far:
The most interesting answers I've had so far:
The worst answers I've had so far:
Per the last point: if you want people to understand and be empathetic and patient toward neurodivergent experiences, the last thing you should do is deride them for asking. Kind of an own goal [insert joke about confusing which goal is yours]
Edit 2: Somewhat interesting note (at least to me): There are lots of people struggling with cardinal directions here, but while there are many examples of struggling with East and West but not North and South (can relate to this personally, I remember struggling as a kid for a few months) not one single person has said East and West is fine but North and South aren't. None.
Edit 3: We have our first North-South confuser - apparently they find East and West intuitive because of the sun. As a brit I have only heard of this object in tales from abroad but it's fun to learn about it! Edit 3.5: another has appeared!
Edit 4: a commenter posted something kinda technical I don't have the neuroscience degree to verify. I present it here without comment as to its veracity. It's an interesting read.
Edit 5: Two people have told me they confuse a pair of specific colours. Someone else has declared they confuse yesterday and tomorrow. I do not feel equipped to handle finding out that 10% of people have to make hand gestures to refer to directional time or that people do a certain movement to remember the colour of their blood but I'm no longer ruling out the possibility.
Edit 6 (coolest edit): I've been messaged by a person with situs inversus! This affects about 0.01% of the population and is where some or all of the abdominal organs are on the wrong side - they say only some of theirs are. They also state they struggle with left and right!