A little kid would probably think of it as one hole.
Imagine you start with a solid plastic cylinder. How many holes would you have to drill through that cylinder to make it into a drinking straw? One.
You also dig one hole that goes all the way to China if the recess lady doesn’t catch you first. That one hole has either one or two openings or mouths or entrances, depending on whether the recess lady catches you.
Imo little kids cut through a lot of the bullshit that we fill our heads with and think is smart.
I like to try to keep the kid thinking and just make it stronger as I go. For instance, a teacher might ask a class if the tunnel to China didn’t have two holes in the ends: one in Kentucky and one in China. And most kids would probably agree with her if she said that. But then if one kid was smart enough to say no, it’s one big hole with one opening in Kentucky and one opening in China, he’d probably change the teacher’s mind as well as the other kids.
I think @Sparky285 ’s “two holes in your yard” example is a little misleading unintentionally. In that scenario you still have only one hole in your yard. You just have two holes in your lawn, which is only the surface of your yard and is a different object topologically. Or else you could say that both lawn and yard mean the surface plane by primary usage, and both words have a 3D secondary usage, but we need to be careful about thinking everything that’s true when using that primary definition is also true when using that secondary definition.
The biological analogy is murkier because there are so many sphincters involved. But basically it boils down to the same issue, topologically. We think of our bodies as composed of separate objects: face, butt, stomach. So we’re tempted to say there are at least two holes: my face has a hole and my butt has a hole. But there you’ve got two (or more) objects sharing a hole, one hole through two (or more) contiguous objects. And that hole has two openings. Which I know is the opposite of what @drcats2013 said. I do think he was on the right track; I just think he got the hole and opening roles switched.
Think of it this way. Say I convinced all the other first graders to dig a hole to China and we got 99.9999999999999999999% of the way there before the recess lady caught us and made us all go home. Then you climbed into it and scrambled down…up…to the bottom. And you could hear Chinese kids just over your head. Would you say you were in an opening and it needed another hole? Or would you say you were in a hole and it needed another opening? I think pretty much all little kids would say they were in a hole. And I’m going with them.
Imagine you start with a solid plastic cylinder. How many holes would you have to drill through that cylinder to make it into a drinking straw? One.
You also dig one hole that goes all the way to China if the recess lady doesn’t catch you first. That one hole has either one or two openings or mouths or entrances, depending on whether the recess lady catches you.
Imo little kids cut through a lot of the bullshit that we fill our heads with and think is smart.
I like to try to keep the kid thinking and just make it stronger as I go. For instance, a teacher might ask a class if the tunnel to China didn’t have two holes in the ends: one in Kentucky and one in China. And most kids would probably agree with her if she said that. But then if one kid was smart enough to say no, it’s one big hole with one opening in Kentucky and one opening in China, he’d probably change the teacher’s mind as well as the other kids.
I think @Sparky285 ’s “two holes in your yard” example is a little misleading unintentionally. In that scenario you still have only one hole in your yard. You just have two holes in your lawn, which is only the surface of your yard and is a different object topologically. Or else you could say that both lawn and yard mean the surface plane by primary usage, and both words have a 3D secondary usage, but we need to be careful about thinking everything that’s true when using that primary definition is also true when using that secondary definition.
The biological analogy is murkier because there are so many sphincters involved. But basically it boils down to the same issue, topologically. We think of our bodies as composed of separate objects: face, butt, stomach. So we’re tempted to say there are at least two holes: my face has a hole and my butt has a hole. But there you’ve got two (or more) objects sharing a hole, one hole through two (or more) contiguous objects. And that hole has two openings. Which I know is the opposite of what @drcats2013 said. I do think he was on the right track; I just think he got the hole and opening roles switched.
Think of it this way. Say I convinced all the other first graders to dig a hole to China and we got 99.9999999999999999999% of the way there before the recess lady caught us and made us all go home. Then you climbed into it and scrambled down…up…to the bottom. And you could hear Chinese kids just over your head. Would you say you were in an opening and it needed another hole? Or would you say you were in a hole and it needed another opening? I think pretty much all little kids would say they were in a hole. And I’m going with them.
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