Quote:
|
Originally Posted by I, Brian As an addendum to that - even different human cultures have very different ways of perceiving the simplest things. For example, here in the West we are very used to the idea that time "flows" forwards (and backwards in SF!). However, in Chinese thought, time moves up and down. A simple but important example of how thought can diverge across cultures on even the commonest principles of the human experience. |
My point actually derived from that. If I remember right, when the Conquistadors passed through certain islands the natives, unused to such large sea craft simply could not see their ships - instead, they saw the foreigners mysteriously appear from nowhere in a boat and vanish from the boats in the same way. It would be more realistic to see some of this sort of cultural gap in a fantasy story, rather than these huge continents with their 'common tongue' and so forth.
In my culture time is essentially seen as cyclical, btw.
