I had a new dog, a husky a year or two old I picked up at the pound. We went for a walk among the old lava flows south of Pocatello. At one point I left the trail and climbed a vertical lava face (class 5 climb) about 20 feet high; I wanted to see what the dog would do. I saw a silver streak flash upward and the dog was waiting for me when I topped out. We walked on for a mile or so, then headed back by a different route. Soon we picked up the trail, and as we neared the place where we had climbed up the lava the dog broke from my side and beelined for the exact spot where we had gone up. He wanted to do it again.
My question is about the astrology of the mental map in the dog's mind, and in mine and yours.
Neither the dog nor I had been in that country before; it was a totally new landscape. We approached the spot of the climb, when the dog asked to do it again, from the northwest; our first approach had been from southwest, a different perspective.
All animals, even bacteria, carry within them a mental map of their territory. It is a matter of survival. The map contains the pinpoint location of everything within its compass, as well as the lay of the land here and there, ease of travel....memories associate with place....there is a sense of time as well. I have seen it in Blue Crabs in the Gulf of Mexico.
I think we can call this "an acute sense of spacetime". Because it exists and is well-developed even in the most primitive sorts of life, it must be hard-wired. The mental map moves easily into a drawn map, between the actual situation on the ground and the paper map in your hand. The mental map is closely tied to what I call the intuitive mind; I have watched them cooperate within me. The map seems to be stored in a region of the mind that is below consciousness, but readily available to it.
I have a hunch that the same processes involved in the mental map also conspire to guide us in our daily lives, leading us to be in the right place at the right time so that we can meet our fate. Maybe we could think of this mental power as "the power of orientation".
My question is about the astrology of the mental map in the dog's mind, and in mine and yours.
Neither the dog nor I had been in that country before; it was a totally new landscape. We approached the spot of the climb, when the dog asked to do it again, from the northwest; our first approach had been from southwest, a different perspective.
All animals, even bacteria, carry within them a mental map of their territory. It is a matter of survival. The map contains the pinpoint location of everything within its compass, as well as the lay of the land here and there, ease of travel....memories associate with place....there is a sense of time as well. I have seen it in Blue Crabs in the Gulf of Mexico.
I think we can call this "an acute sense of spacetime". Because it exists and is well-developed even in the most primitive sorts of life, it must be hard-wired. The mental map moves easily into a drawn map, between the actual situation on the ground and the paper map in your hand. The mental map is closely tied to what I call the intuitive mind; I have watched them cooperate within me. The map seems to be stored in a region of the mind that is below consciousness, but readily available to it.
I have a hunch that the same processes involved in the mental map also conspire to guide us in our daily lives, leading us to be in the right place at the right time so that we can meet our fate. Maybe we could think of this mental power as "the power of orientation".
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