Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: nntp.gmd.de!Dortmund.Germany.EU.net!main.Germany.EU.net!EU.net!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!erkyrath
From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Directions in space
Message-ID: <erkyrathE1soFK.K1G@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <sourcerer.0a90@starbug.49.249.155> <32966751.575@-.-> <Pine.LNX.3.95.961123013209.27717H-100000@adamant.res.wpi.edu> <E1DDnE.62@ladle.demon.co.uk> <Pine.LNX.3.95.961125190623.30593A-100000@adamant.res.wpi.edu> <E1LFw8.CA@ladle.demon.co.uk> <32A215E0.7045@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> <Pine.LNX.3.95.961201222913.7240A-100000@adamant.res.wpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 16:28:31 GMT
Lines: 17
Sender: erkyrath@netcom.netcom.com

George Caswell (timbuktu@adamant.res.wpi.edu) wrote:
>    ...Bottom line being, nothing on board a spaceship can -really- make a
> person think to themselves 'this way is east' or 'this way is north'...  they
> are really very Terran concepts.  Any inclusion of them must be arbitrary,
> whether or not it follows some convention the person may not even be aware of.

How does this differ from directions on the Earth? As you spent much time 
pointing out, almost nobody pays any attention to spin effects, or even 
compasses. A modern human's idea of "north" is entirely arbitrary, and we 
get it from maps that have a "north" arrow printed on them.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
