Comment on Open Thread, May 4 - May 10, 2015

Wed, 06 May 2015 15:55:32 GMT

I have an anecdote related to the understanding of historical mindsets.

Firstly, I have spent the majority my evenings the last ten years either inside buildings or along well lit streets in cities. I.e. my description of the night sky would basically go: "it's mostly black, sometimes cloudy". Whenever I have read about celestial navigation, I've thought: "That's clever, but how did they figure out they could do that?"

Come last winter, I took part in a cabin trip. The air was very dry, and the sky was cloudless. When we arrived in the evening, more than an hour's drive from the city, it was pitch dark (you couldn't see your feet). What struck me -- the way a brick strikes one's face -- when carrying stuff from the car to the cabin (walking back and forth, turning around, etc.) was this: "Of course humans have looked at the stars since forever. The stars (and moon and planets) are the only things anyone can look at at night. My eyes are drawn to them whether I want to or not."

And: "When I turn around, the stars stay the same. Of course people could navigate by looking at them --- they should navigate by looking at them!"

And: "Of course the ancients believed the stars were stuck to a celestial sphere. To my eye, the stars appear equally distant, and they appear fixed relative to each other. So when the earth rotates, it is the celestial sphere that turns. This is a model that corresponds to my observations."

Edit to include:

This is an instance of Scott Alexander's "What universal human experience do you lack?". When I put myself in a situation which the ancients would have shared, I gained an increased appreciation of their mindset.

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