Relativities (1)…following a path you can’t see

Torrey Orton

December 5, 2013

When looking where you are going is misleading

Telling direction by sun reckoning

We were out bushwalking a known path which became more and more uncertain as we ambled along uphill within decreasing earshot of the lightly gurgling rapids of Olinda Falls. The path had been much clearer two years ago when we walked into an ant colony territorial scouting party thereabouts in spring. I was sure we were on the right one (mapped in the walk book we were carrying), but Jane was not. And I understood her doubt. Many parts of our passage were unrecognisably the passage of before.

What grounded my certainty this time was direction. I knew from the previous walks, and the map, that we had to be heading north-westerly and we were. The sun told me we were actually doing so. It was assisted by the fading stream gurgles to our right and down 50 meters or so, which positioned the map in the place we actually were walking.

The sun has noticeably more consistency in its shifting daily passages than the flora on a bush trail year to year. This consistency does a reasonable job of being the truth for that setting. That is we can safely proceed with life as if it were true, and behaviourally we treat it as really true – that is, we act on it. For this practical purpose it is and was certainly true. Sure that certainty is only as good as this walk, though generally within our life spans the broad contours of maps do not change too much, climate catastrophes so far notwithstanding.  The sun is even more likely to endure for our reconnoitring purposes.

Plato’s cave

Plato probably knew about this level of certainty, but demanded, as philosophers do, something a little more reliable, more certain, more definite and picked up on the idea that an idea has a longer life than any particular sunray…though not than the sun, perhaps.

Those who have only lived in either the northern or southern hemisphere believe that the sun always runs in the same part of the sky characteristic of northern and southern exposures. They have to be told vigorously to check their natural directional guessing when changing hemisphere…somewhat as right side drivers have to be told vigorously to check their natural look to the left before crossing a road, and vice-versa for left siders. Of course, the sun is running in the same place, it’s only our perspective that makes it not look so.