[ExI] Dark Matter

Anders Sandberg anders at aleph.se
Wed Nov 13 14:38:27 UTC 2013


On 2013-11-13 10:11, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:00 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se 
> <mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
>
>
>     In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales. I cannot
>     intuitively think about the distance from Oxford to Stockholm or
>     even London. I can compare it to known distances, I can play
>     around with imagined maps, I can remember what the trip is like,
>     but I don't *feel* it like I feel the distances within the towns
>     where I have walked.
>
>
> But it's not incomprehensible... Just slightly out of our daily 
> experience level.

Kind of. I just arrived in Plzen in the Czech republic (world capital of 
the letter 'Z'!) I have been here before, I know where it is on the map, 
but I do not *feel* like I am 1,051 kilometres away from home. I *feel* 
that walking to the university from where I am now is a long walk. But I 
cannot *feel* how much longer walking to Oxford would be compared to 
walking to Prague, despite a sizeable difference.


>     I suspect the reason is that in order to go between these places I
>     have to take a vehicle rather than wander.
>
>
> But if you have ever walked to somewhere you normally drive to, it 
> gives you a sense of how to scale.

What happens is that your local place cell maps get joined up. London is 
typically first experienced as a "mole map", where you get to know 
regions around tube stations. Gradually they join up, forming a larger 
map of neighbourhoods. Scale shows up about now, except that it only 
covers the central parts you deal with.

Human movement is somewhat fractal: lots of local movement in small 
clustered regions (home, work, museums, strolls), fewer longer trips 
(commutes, visit to remote office) and even fewer very long trips (the 
median UK business traveller makes 7 flights per year). Only the local 
movement produces sensible senses of scale.


>     In between these target places there is an awful lot of places
>     that would feel big to me if I were in them, but since I have
>     never been to Ipswich I do not have any feel for it. It is just a
>     point on my mental map (with a sticky note saying it was used in a
>     Monty Python joke).
>
>
> I can't say that I have ANY feeling for Great Britain, despite having 
> flown over it once or twice.

Exactly! The American Midwest is an abstraction or TV setting for me, 
despite having seen it ("flyover country") from the airplane window many 
times.


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

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