I wonder what other qualities or continuums are analogous to this? Hearing doesn’t seem to be the same in that unlike heat it scales up logarithmically (what is the scale between perceived temperature and the actual energy per part?). Nor does colour partly because we perceive colour through the combination of Red, Green (to which we are most sensitive) and Blue (to which we are least sensitive), although if you think about light as a narrow window of electromagnetic radiation then perhaps there is some comparison to be made between gamma rays and fight jet exhausts, and Terrestrial Radio signals to liquid nitrogen for example.
What about distance? I’m thinking in particularly about how in English use Deixis words like “here”, “there” (and in the past: “hither”, “thither”, and “yonder”) - I wonder if nomadic peoples have a more nuanced even if non-numeric standardized way of describing proximity which is very anthropic in measurement? “1,000 miles” is not a tangible distance to consider.
What’s interesting about those examples is the domestication of the Horse and the mass production of the motor vehicle have changed the (intuitive?) intelligibility of distance, perhaps in a way that is not comparable to our interpretation of heat? But also that both are measured in days which implies rest and sleep.
I wonder what other qualities or continuums are analogous to this? Hearing doesn’t seem to be the same in that unlike heat it scales up logarithmically (what is the scale between perceived temperature and the actual energy per part?). Nor does colour partly because we perceive colour through the combination of Red, Green (to which we are most sensitive) and Blue (to which we are least sensitive), although if you think about light as a narrow window of electromagnetic radiation then perhaps there is some comparison to be made between gamma rays and fight jet exhausts, and Terrestrial Radio signals to liquid nitrogen for example.
What about distance? I’m thinking in particularly about how in English use Deixis words like “here”, “there” (and in the past: “hither”, “thither”, and “yonder”) - I wonder if nomadic peoples have a more nuanced even if non-numeric standardized way of describing proximity which is very anthropic in measurement? “1,000 miles” is not a tangible distance to consider.
The imaginary nomad in my head would describe 1,000 miles as “sixteen days ride.” That‘s humanly comprehensible.
An American would say “Day and a half drive, if you’re not pushing it. You could do it in one day, if you’re in a hurry or have more than one driver.”
What’s interesting about those examples is the domestication of the Horse and the mass production of the motor vehicle have changed the (intuitive?) intelligibility of distance, perhaps in a way that is not comparable to our interpretation of heat? But also that both are measured in days which implies rest and sleep.