Jammer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> well said, and yes; what you said is a universal
> truth in a way, the flexibilities of ideas.
>
> Lets take the idea of the wheel.
>
> The concept was probably discovered the first time
> someone tried to take firewood to a cave and
> noticed the big logs roll down hill.
>
> But to take it from that to a solid round tree
> section,
> to a multi-layered plank ply construction,
> to a rim cover to protect the edges,
> to a hollowed out (spokes) wheel for speed and
> maneuverability;..
> That took millennia.
>
> Concepts don't spring fully developed from the
> mind's womb.
> I wonder how long it took to go from a eye-level
> view of the horizon (as "we" see the world) to an
> aerial view (as Pharaoh sees it looking down from
> the Du'at).
>
> I wonder if that wasn't also millennia.
>
>
> Jammer

You're right that there are cultural differences in the way things
are thought. Women tend to navigate by landmarks for instance. They'll
tell you to turn right at the Levin's Furniture sign and another quick
right at the Jiffy Lube. Men are more likely to describe something like
an aerial view.

No pun intended but a lot depends on perspective. A person who is accus-
tomed to moving about in the nearly one dimensional world of the Nile Val-
ley would be much more inclined to seek and describe landmarks. Still I
have difficulty imaging that thinking in terms of an overhead view wasn't
a very natural thing by the time paper was invented. Even before papyrus
people would have to desribe three dimensional things in either concepts or
on a two dimensional medium.




____________
Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.