VB THEMES

The human brain learns and orientates itself by forming mental maps of familiar places and situations. Similar to a physical map, these mental maps not only shows the perception of the maker, they form landscapes in their own rights.”Looking at a map can teach us more with our eyes in an hour than we can learn from our ears in an entire day”. This valuable insight was expressed in 1605 by the cartographer Thomas Fuller. By looking at a historical map, you will get an idea of how strongly a particular image of the world can determine people’s thoughts and actions. For many thousands of years, most Europeans believe that the world was flat and therefore had no idea of the real position of the continents and the oceans in relation to one another. This conviction imposed considerable limitations on how far seafarers were willing to travel. It obviously hindered any endeavours for discovery. This was because people believed that they would fall off the edge of the Earth if they traveled far enough. They had a limited idea of the vast expanse of the oceans and the lands beyond the horizon.Before sea adventurers could venture into new lands and uncharted seas, a new picture of the earth had to be thought of. Once this gained gradual acceptance, the speed with which exploration took place took off. Bit by bit, mile by nautical mile, the whole world gradually opened up to explorers and discoverers. If the Genoese seafarer Christopher Columbus (1451 to 1506) had not had the audacity and vision to imagine that the earth might be round, and that new land might be discovered by sailing westwards, sea exploration might have been held back by decades or centuries. Later generations of Europeans would have held on to the erroneous opinions that Asia was on the eastern part of the world and cold therefore only be reached by crossing the eastern oceans. Read the rest of this entry »