Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists • Hacker News Board

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#101

Post by atwebb » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

cornellwright wrote: post #73

atwebb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caving can be incredibly fun as well, tight squeezes can come with the territory but there's plenty of horizontal walking/borehole opportunities. It is pretty geographically dependent. This one always gets me a bit: https://gfycat.com/responsibleboweddalmatian-exploration-cav... I'm wondering if there's not a second entrance or something that sumped and connects, in the US some tracks are a mile or so back but severa…

It's funny - I've only caved a bit, but I watch that video and think "wow that looks fun." There's something so exciting about getting right up to the edge of what's possible for a human to do.

I know what you mean, I went through a fairly simple cave except for ~90 feet with 3 90 degree turns in between which required me to be completed stretched out (Superman style) and push with only my toes/fingertips. It was terrifyingly exhilarating.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#102

Post by paulddraper » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:16 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #99

paulddraper wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool idea, but what drone would you actually be able to use for spelunking?

That is the actual question: Why aren't there spider-like (or some other suitable form) drones by now, for exploring enclosed environments with uneven terrain? Or are there?

Nothing AFAIK. And that's not surprising to me; the locomotion requirements are very tough.

It has to be able to fit anywhere a small adult can fit. It has to be able to climb anything an adult can climb. There has to be a workable communication strategy (wirless, wired) through tunnels of solid rock. And it has to all that well enough not to need frequent retrieval.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#103

Post by dTal » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

peterlk wrote: post #59

elpakal wrote: post #55

I was born and lived for some time in the nearby state of Chiapas. Currently a coder working in a big city, fighting traffic and pollution every day, away from wife and kids, worrying about production issues, health, etc. When I see articles about discoveries like this it always brings me back to my childhood days driving around the Palenque ruins, seeing the miles and miles of hills which were obviously ruins that h…

"... We need wilderness preserved--as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds--because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it. It is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and res…

"Also, without it, all the insects die and the food chain collapses."

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#104

Post by xaedes » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 12:24 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #79

xaedes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your visualization experience sounds very interesting! I actually believe it is possible to consciously 'do' what you describe to at least some degree. It would be nice to hear more about your experience in detail, may I ask you some questions? Was it as vivid and sharp as daylight open eye view or was it rather blurry / fuzzy? Where the colors saturated or rather gray? Was every action instant or was there a time la…

Well, it's not like I didn't perceive stuff with my eyes, it's just that I also internally had another view (I still have some fragments fairly vivid in memory), where I could kinda rotate my view, e.g. being inside a tunnel with irregular slopes hinting at some abyss through cracks at the bottom and I viewed it inside as a certain irregular shape I could rotate, localize me (where "me" was some uncertain blob and my…

Thank you that was a very interesting read. It sounds similar to how I imagined it.

Sometimes I ask myself if this is similar to how blind people visualize their world. I remember reading from Hellen Keller (deaf-blind from birth) that she also had a visual representation of the world around here. Something along the lines of the human brain is just build for this kind of representation.

I think that there is some common underlying representation that everyone uses. When seeing something through the eyes this representation is overlayed with salient visual sensor input in eye fov and our internal fov just focuses on this for convience and because it is so damn salient. I think it is possible to detach the internal fov from the eye fov and see how the brain models the other regions.

Your suggestions that sensory deprivation brings out the underlying internal representation is very intersting. It makes a lot sense! Really gotta try that sensory deprivation chambers some time =)