How very interesting—I would find north to be unhelpful as it’s not intrinsically relevant to me. compared to say—which direction my house is from here.
Can you use sun or shadow based heuristics? (the sun rises in the east and sets in the west—give or take a correction factor for how far towards the poles you are). And maybe note the direction of a few star signs for night-time. cloudy-time is a bit harder to manage.
Question: I have a strong sense of a “dominant” direction (often, but not always, west). This direction is self-apparent in virtually every memory or mental visualization of any location I can think of. So, for example, captain’s chair on the USS enterprise “obviously” faces “east”, and the library on Myst island is obviously on the north side. I’m not going to forget which direction is down, and I’m not going to forget which direction is (usually) west.
Does anyone else here have oriented spacial memories?
There are (indigenous) languages/cultures which give directions in absolute (compass) terms instead of our usual left/right/front/back terms. I’d guess that implies that memory gets tagged with that a lot.
I’d also guess that some people are more naturally predisposed to deal with that. Like you.
Neat-o. I don’t have any particularly strong sense of directions in my memories but I always know where I am in relation to other places I know. It will occasionally bother me when I walk into a maze-like building and lose my orientation. But I usually re-orientate when I leave such a building.
I don’t have a very good “native” sense of direction, and there are lots of times I find I’ve gone to two different places from my home or work often and think I know where they are, but then get surprised when they’re very nearby each other.
With cognitive effort, I can usually get directions right, but it’s based on landmarks and reasoning rather than any type-1 sense.
I have been building a streetmap in my head for the past 15+ years of my life. at some point (before smart-maps) I realised it would be good to have a sense of location. from then on I started “building” the map in my head of where it “feels” like everything is.
Now days when I travel (drive) somewhere I recognise the main arterial roads of my city; and the common traffic conditions of them. I usually set a smart-map to outsource estimating my time of arrival, but I can also look at a map and recognise the nearness of a new place to a place I have been to previously and guide myself via “known routes”
Thanks for such an extensive answer. I can orient myself using Sun, so outdoors it’s not really a problem. I could use watch, but I find it rather intrusive as well and it doesn’t feed the data—I have to look at it to get information.
To my knowledge there are no internal-magnet systems that impart a north-knowledge by having them inside your body.
I am imagining the creation of such a device; it seems to be a tricky one. most compasses work on a needle-like object being able to float in the direction of the earth’s magnetic field. So to make something like that which can be used internal to the body and provide feedback about where it is; seems difficult.
I have been wearing a magnetic ring for several weeks and plan to write about my experiences, but essentially it would also not do what you want it to do.
North paw is the only thing I can think of. I can suggest more wearable devices but they require you to access them. I wonder if you could wear something near your ear that could somehow hint at which way it was facing (possibly with sound) or something in your mouth. Part of the problem is that we don’t have a lot of methods of finding magnetic north. its basically just using needles or magnets.
How very interesting—I would find north to be unhelpful as it’s not intrinsically relevant to me. compared to say—which direction my house is from here.
Can you use sun or shadow based heuristics? (the sun rises in the east and sets in the west—give or take a correction factor for how far towards the poles you are). And maybe note the direction of a few star signs for night-time. cloudy-time is a bit harder to manage.
There are probably compass devices you can probably get as a bracelet. as an example http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Tactical-WRIST-COMPASS-Military-Outdoor-Survival-Watch-Strap-Band-Bracelet-/121644526398?hash=item1c52942b3e Try camping stores also for similar devices? There is probably a watch with a built in compass.
To my knowledge there are no internal-magnet systems that impart a north-knowledge by having them inside your body.
I have a natural sense of direction (I assume nearly everyone does) can you train yours?
Question: I have a strong sense of a “dominant” direction (often, but not always, west). This direction is self-apparent in virtually every memory or mental visualization of any location I can think of. So, for example, captain’s chair on the USS enterprise “obviously” faces “east”, and the library on Myst island is obviously on the north side. I’m not going to forget which direction is down, and I’m not going to forget which direction is (usually) west.
Does anyone else here have oriented spacial memories?
There are (indigenous) languages/cultures which give directions in absolute (compass) terms instead of our usual left/right/front/back terms. I’d guess that implies that memory gets tagged with that a lot. I’d also guess that some people are more naturally predisposed to deal with that. Like you.
Neat-o. I don’t have any particularly strong sense of directions in my memories but I always know where I am in relation to other places I know. It will occasionally bother me when I walk into a maze-like building and lose my orientation. But I usually re-orientate when I leave such a building.
I wonder if this is a branch of synaesthesia?
Neat-o for both of you!
I don’t have a very good “native” sense of direction, and there are lots of times I find I’ve gone to two different places from my home or work often and think I know where they are, but then get surprised when they’re very nearby each other.
With cognitive effort, I can usually get directions right, but it’s based on landmarks and reasoning rather than any type-1 sense.
I have been building a streetmap in my head for the past 15+ years of my life. at some point (before smart-maps) I realised it would be good to have a sense of location. from then on I started “building” the map in my head of where it “feels” like everything is.
Now days when I travel (drive) somewhere I recognise the main arterial roads of my city; and the common traffic conditions of them. I usually set a smart-map to outsource estimating my time of arrival, but I can also look at a map and recognise the nearness of a new place to a place I have been to previously and guide myself via “known routes”
Thanks for such an extensive answer. I can orient myself using Sun, so outdoors it’s not really a problem. I could use watch, but I find it rather intrusive as well and it doesn’t feed the data—I have to look at it to get information.
This is useful.
I am imagining the creation of such a device; it seems to be a tricky one. most compasses work on a needle-like object being able to float in the direction of the earth’s magnetic field. So to make something like that which can be used internal to the body and provide feedback about where it is; seems difficult.
I have been wearing a magnetic ring for several weeks and plan to write about my experiences, but essentially it would also not do what you want it to do.
North paw is the only thing I can think of. I can suggest more wearable devices but they require you to access them. I wonder if you could wear something near your ear that could somehow hint at which way it was facing (possibly with sound) or something in your mouth. Part of the problem is that we don’t have a lot of methods of finding magnetic north. its basically just using needles or magnets.