I was rummaging through the archeology/anthropology file and came upon an interesting article that makes the very valid point that although we are three-dimensional creatures, we do NOT think in 3D. Nothing brings this home like science fiction. I’m a Star Trek aficionado and there are multiple examples of this lack of 3D thinking in that series and in other science fiction as well.

For instance, why do all encounters between spaceships occur with both ships (or all ships) in the same orientation? There is no up and down in space. The odds of your meeting another ship with both your keels pointed the same way are not infinite of course, they are 1 in 360 because that pretty much defines the number of ways your keel can point. And why are planets always below the ship? Or to the left or to the right? Above makes just as much sense.

But my favorite “We do NOT think in 3D” example is the Star Trek Next Generation episode “Final Mission.” Although this was Wesley Crusher’s final mission (a matter of great glee for many ST fans) as a sub plot, the Enterprise was forced to deal with a barge emitting highly toxic radiation. The only way to get rid of it was to tow it into the system’s sun (plausible) and the only way to get it there was through a very densely packed “asteroid belt.”

There are two things that are badly wrong with having to tow that barge through an asteroid belt. First of all, the number of ‘asteroid belts’ in the galaxy that are full of big rocks that must be avoided using all our piloting skills (think Star Wars for this one too) is vanishingly rare for a very simple reason.

Over a very short period of time (thousands of years, which IS a very short period of time on a galactic scale), gravity causes all the rocks in an asteroid belt like that to smash into each other and create an asteroid belt like the one we have in our own solar system. Asteroid miners of the future will lead very lonely lives because the rocks in our asteroid belt are so far apart you could live your entire life on Ceres or Vesta or a smaller one like 4659 Roddenberry or 2309 Mr. Spock without ever seeing another asteroid. Yes, asteroids, unlike stars, really are named for people, even fictional ones!

But those whizzing rocks that must be avoided by the best piloting skills aren’t the only problem with “Final Mission.” The very first time I saw the episode (where it’s specifically stated that this is an asteroid BELT and not an asteroid SPHERE), I found myself screaming “GO UP” or “GO DOWN” because all you have to do to escape from all those implausible rocks hurtling toward your ship is to think in three dimensions and leave them all behind!

In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists studied cells in the hippocampus of rats. The hippocampus, which forms the brain's map of space, was studied to see whether these cells were activated when rats climbed up or down.

The researchers found that these cells were activated only when the rats climbed up and the activation level was very low. Professor Kate Jeffery, lead author from UCL Psychology and Language Sciences, said: “The implication is that our internal sense of space is actually rather flat – we are very sensitive to where we are in horizontal space but only vaguely aware of how high we are.”

Perhaps the satirical novella “Flatland” written in 1884 by Edwin Abbot wasn’t so satirical after all. But one thing is for sure. When we actually do move out into space, we’re going to have to lose our 2D thinking pretty fast!