5 ms·
I've read somewhere that part of the method they intuited their way was to read the waves. As faraway land masses can affect the shape of waves, supposedly thes
by btbuildem 3y ago
I've read somewhere that part of the method they intuited their way was to read the waves. As faraway land masses can affect the shape of waves, supposedly these navigators could "see" beyond the horizon due to how the swell was behaving.
I can sort of see that in a mind's eye, with rings of waves spreading as they bounce off obstacles in water. But that's bird's view of a miniature -- and seeing that from the surface would be a very different story.
- bix6 3y agohttps://worldhistorycommons.org/marshall-islands-stick-chart https://worldhistorycommons.org/marshall-islands-stick-chart It’s amazing they can read such nuance.
- Akronymus 3y agoLook at something long enough, and you begin to intuit the patterns instinctively.
- sneak 3y agoInstinctive things are things the entire species are born with. Things you pick up via experience (“nurture”) can never be “instinctive”.
- resolutebat 3y agoInstincts are not limited to natural instincts. > 1. A natural or inherent impulse or behaviour. > 2. An intuitive reaction not based on rational conscious thought.
- dhosek 3y agoI’m reminded of something that I heard someone say once in an interview—intuition is just memory in disguise. Certainly, in some areas of my life, my strategy is to learn things and forget them to be able to use them. It doesn’t work in all arenas (mathematics really demands explicit remembering much of the time, but I find programming and writing both work well with forgotten remembering).
- Akronymus 3y agoIt seems I was mixing up instinctive and intuitive.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoI think more than viewing a ring of waves bounce of objects in the water, they observed waves diffracting around an island
- ljf 3y agoAs a young child I went mackerel fishing on a small boat in Shetland with my father and a local he knew. The man steered the boat with one had in the water, until he announced we were near a shoal of mackerel - he said he could feel the grease of their bodies in the sea water. We threw some lines in and sure enough we caught plenty of fish for dinner.
- buildsjets 3y agoI used to fish for salmon quite a bit. Herring schools release enough oil into the water to visibly affect the wave action at the surface. You can also smell it.
- andai 3y agoI heard that polynesians, when asked (in the context of setting out on deadly journeys in wooden boats) "how did you know there would be land there" said "we read the waves". They could see from the patterns in the waves, thousands of miles away, where the land masses were. >insert joke about training neural networks (If anyone knows the original quotes, please post below.)
- sdwr 3y agoThese two comments together explain what was mysterious and spooky.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]