Comfort zone navigation

[st599]

http://www.motivation-tools.com/liki_tiki/navigation.htm

Comfort zone navigation is how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Ocean. Facts were extremely limited. They did not know if they were making the right decisions until they arrived. This form of navigation is explained in Polynesians folk chants and folk stories. They tell how they were guided by various forms of sea life. This was the best explanation they could give of comfort zone navigation.

Mutiny on the Bounty

The comfort zone navigation concept was well documented 200 years ago by Captain William Bligh after the mutiny. Before the mutiny, Captain Bligh micro managed the crew and wanted everyone to know he was the boss. As a result, everything went wrong. The crew finally had enough, mutinied, and cast Captain Bligh and eighteen of his loyal crewmembers adrift in a lifeboat. Without navigation tools, they sailed the open boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony Timor, near Java. This outstanding achievement is only possible with comfort zone navigation.

And there was I thinking he was a hero of navigation finding his way 3600 miles using a sextant, tables chronometer and his knowledge gained as Cook's sailing master.

Feel cheated to know he did it all relying on an inate sense which will return you to your comfort zone.

 

[Grumpybear]

http://www.motivation-tools.com/liki_tiki/navigation.htm



And there was I thinking he was a hero of navigation finding his way 3600 miles using a sextant, tables chronometer and his knowledge gained as Cook's sailing master.

Feel cheated to know he did it all relying on an inate sense which will return you to your comfort zone.

The link presents no evidence to support its claim about Bligh. It seems that this is yet another piece of speculation presented as fact in which the Internet abounds. And I'm not sure that the evidence is really convincing in respect of the Polynesians.

 

[Rossynant]

Oh, important to remember that so called "intuition" we can use, in fact stores so many experiences that 'intuitive' decisions are better than any thinking and reasoning. Provided those experiences are there. Bligh was an experienced sailor, as Polynesians are.
Not so difficult, for instance, to find a lone island in the ocean, even hindreds of miles away: fishes move around, birds fly some directions more often, clouds form, sky gets bit different shade some place at sunset, and the like. Not noticing, nevertheless brain gets into what we see.
And then call this instinct, for lack of better word.

That's how my niece is a chess champion. Tell her to think and she will lose. She just remembers every possible move and scenario there is, like a computer. No need for thought.
Only she was trained this way, purposely.

 

[LittleSister]

The opening bit about Polynesian navigation - that facts were extremely limited and they didn't know where they were going until they got there is complete tosh. Presumably the rest is, too.

Read David Lewis's fascinating and entertaining 'We, the Navigators' for an insight into traditional Polynesian navigation and the amazing knowledge and skills they had. They used a different system of knoweldge to us, and approached navigation in a very different way, but knew plenty of facts, and knew where they were going and how to get to places.

For instance, they knew the positions of stars in the other hemisphere they had never personally seen , and the location of far distant places unvisited for generations, all without benefit of maps or charts. They were better able to judge their progress and how much longer journeys would take than Lewis, who had circumnavigations and numerous ocean crossings under his belt, and 'they' were old men who were demonstrating to him a dying art that had been little used for decades.

 

[Rossynant]

But this they knew when they got there already. Granted, they come from people who sailed around Pacific for millenia. But when going into unknown?
Ask Maori how their ancestors got there.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Oh, important to remember that so called "intuition" we can use, ....

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Gladwel describes studies and the principles behind 'gut feelings' in the book linked above.

From Amazon

In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within.

Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police.

Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

http://www.motivation-tools.com/liki_tiki/navigation.htm



And there was I thinking he was a hero of navigation finding his way 3600 miles using a sextant, tables chronometer and his knowledge gained as Cook's sailing master.

Feel cheated to know he did it all relying on an inate sense which will return you to your comfort zone.

And the Polynesians used elaborate charts showing swell patterns (which I'm told are quite relaible and consistent in the Pacific), position of islands and doubtless other useful information that I don't know about. They had a VERY extensive set of lore that was passed along from navigator to navigator. Barring the (few) expeditions where they set of into the blue, they knew where they were going, how long it was going to take them and what they'd find when they got there!

And as others have said, Bligh (whatever his other failings) was a consummate scientific navigator, taught by THE master of navigation, and with access to the very latest (18th century) methods of navigation. The voyage was a triumph of seamanship - how many of us could sail an over-loaded open boat over those kinds of distance - but the navigation was what Bligh was good at, and I'm quite sure that wasn't any kind of problem for them. At any point, they knew where they were (close enough) and they knew where they were heading. He could handle lunar observations for longitude, latitude no problem at all, and they would have kept up their dead-reckoning between sights far more rigorously than we usually bother with I doubt many of us would fare as well without a time source or GPS!

 

[st599]

And the Polynesians used elaborate charts showing swell patterns (which I'm told are quite relaible and consistent in the Pacific), position of islands and doubtless other useful information that I don't know about. They had a VERY extensive set of lore that was passed along from navigator to navigator. Barring the (few) expeditions where they set of into the blue, they knew where they were going, how long it was going to take them and what they'd find when they got there!

And as others have said, Bligh (whatever his other failings) was a consummate scientific navigator, taught by THE master of navigation, and with access to the very latest (18th century) methods of navigation. The voyage was a triumph of seamanship - how many of us could sail an over-loaded open boat over those kinds of distance - but the navigation was what Bligh was good at, and I'm quite sure that wasn't any kind of problem for them. At any point, they knew where they were (close enough) and they knew where they were heading. He could handle lunar observations for longitude, latitude no problem at all, and they would have kept up their dead-reckoning between sights far more rigorously than we usually bother with I doubt many of us would fare as well without a time source or GPS!

I was being facetious.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I was being facetious.

I realized!