When A Leaf Turns » Mind

Change Blindness

Venture Free — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:44:52 +0000

One might be tempted to read more into this than can be legitimately claimed. I certainly am. Whatever you think, it is most definitely an interesting phenomenon.

More Scale

Venture Free — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:42:15 +0000

I’m not sure that this is related the way that I think it might be, but the latest Radio Lab Podcast had a segment on the fact that very young children think of numbers logarithmically. Perhaps our difficulties with scale and magnitude are a reflection of this natural understanding of numbers (rather than our “unnatural” understanding of numbers as serial).

Scale

Venture Free — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:07:11 +0000

I think people automatically think on a kind of logarithmic scale when contemplating extraordinary distances simply because the analogies used by our intuition cause magnitude to be lost. The moon orbiting the earth is roughly analogous to the earth orbiting the sun and so our minds map the moon to the earth and the earth to the sun, and the difference in magnitude is lost. We look at a galaxy and it appears roughly similar to the solar system. We can tell ourselves that the galaxy is incomprehensibly larger, but in our heads we see a solar system and the size difference is reduced to “It’s like this, but bigger.” We look at the universe, at all of the galaxies out there, and it appears roughly similar to the stars in our own galaxy. “It’s like our galaxy, but bigger.”

My hope is that these resources might help you get a grip on the actual sizes involved when thinking about the universe.

First, this website (http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/solarsystem/) shows the solar system to scale. According to the site: “This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here [approximately 6 inches]. The planets are shown in corresponding scale.”

Next a comparison of celestial bodies, including the planets and various types of stars.

Finally, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D.

All this really does for me in the end is highlight just how bad I am at imagining the sizes and distances involved in the universe. Even knowing it I find myself unable to do any better.

Agnosiophobia*

Venture Free — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:42:17 +0000

Roughly translated, agnosiophobia means “fear of not knowing” or “fear of a lack of knowledge”. Specifically this means the irrational fear of something not being known, not only personally but in general. This often results in an irrational assertion that in fact the thing being considered is actually known. When pressed the sufferer of this phobia will claim that they don’t have the knowledge themselves, but that they know where to get such knowledge. Most commonly this assertion refers to a deity of some sort, though in some cases the assertion that it is known is enough without also having to assert where and with whom such knowledge exists. In all cases contemplating the idea that the answer is not known by anyone is cause for great anxiety and is to be avoided at all cost.

_{*I “invented” this word, though I’m guessing it’s already been made up many times in the past already, so I make no actual claim of originality. A quick Google revealed the existence of the word (namely as a blog), but no concrete definition.}