I just noticed tonight that Orion is rising differently than it was when I saw it last year up in Kiruna. Around 11PM in January Orion appears upright on the horizon. That is, his “feet” are on the horizon, rather than at an angle. It’s kinda weird to me that the stars change depending on where you are. The Southern Hemisphere would be even worse, I imagine.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how much I like Sweden’s landscapes and climate. I suspect some of it may have to do with nostalgia or some cultural ideal I’ve imprinted on. I’m guessing that’s why I like the idea of a two-story house with wooden floors (though I missed carpet so much while I was actually there), a green yard, trees and the like. But I wonder why I like green and forests so much over other landscapes. I’ve had a theory that maybe people have imprinted ideals of beauty and aesthetics for landscapes and environments which might be optimal for them. While I might think a tundra is pretty to look at I definitely wouldn’t consider it a place to live, but an Inuit certainly would. At the same time, would the Inuit consider the Sonoran Desert habitable? At first I didn’t really have much to support my idea but if you think about it, it would make some sense. People all over the world are adapted to environments which their ancestors evolved in and it would be only natural that they would prefer that environment. Now I’m not saying this is anything absolute or that white people can only like European climates, but a subconscious preference might still exist. In some cases it might be prudent for people to heed that preference. For example, Africans will get rickets in northern latitudes if they don’t have a dietary source of Vitamin D, plus melanin increases one’s risk of frostbite. I wonder if Africans would find Sweden as aesthetically pleasing as I would, or might they prefer Tucson?
Also, along the lines of subconscious desires and instincts I learned that shepherd dogs will exhibit shepherding behavior without any actual training to do so. So one can evidently breed a specific behavior into animals, that’s pretty damn impressive considering humans only domesticated dogs around 17,000 years ago. What’s more impressive is that we managed to single out a behavior that is totally against a wolf’s natural instinct. They would rather isolate an animal from a herd and then kill it, but somehow we managed to get dogs to group animals into a herd and protect them. Now, nature can’t account for this entirely, nurture plays some role. I don’t think that feral shepherd dogs would herd their prey like that, but otherwise they act quite differently than dogs bred for other purposes.
I wonder if you could genetically select for a certain instinct in humans. It couldn’t be anything really drastic since our self-awareness can override our natural tendencies. I wonder if you could, say, breed humans to break fall instinctively without having to be taught. I have no idea how you would do that, but it would probably be easier than breeding wolves into shepherd dogs.