[mod.ai] inside and outside

PHayes@SRI-KL.UUCP (05/15/86)

Dr. Who's Tardis seems to have a larger interior than exterior.  People find
this not outrageously unintuitive, and I am trying to understand why. Which
of the following 'explanations' do people find intuitively satisfying?

1. the inside is just larger than the outside, thats all. 
2. there is a different kind of space inside the Tardis, so more can
be fitted into it.
3. the 'interior' isnt inside the police box at all, its somewhere else,
and the door is a transporter device.
4. the door changes sizes, shrinking things on the way in and magnifying
them on the way out, and the interior is built on a small scale. ( As in
Disneys 'fantastic voyage' )
5. something else ( what? )

This particular idea recurs in folklore and childrens fantasy, whereas other
equally impossible concepts are met with less often ( something being in two
places at once, for example ).  This suggests that it might illustrate a 
natural separation between different parts of our spatial intuition. 

Send intuitions, explanations, comments to  PHAYES@SRI-KL.  Thanks.
Pat Hayes
SPAR
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