Dear Gimmy:

If I understand it well, when you refer to navigate to a place on foot, you are thinking of walking through water, be it a sea, river, or lake. When I navigate though water I feel relaxed when its deepness is at my reach. This is not the case when I become aware that water's deepness or high is beyond my reach. If am can swim, I continue to be calm and relaxed. If I cannot swim I became anxious and even terrified.

I am not sure that I gave an answer related to your question or questions. Are you studying one's phenomenological experience when one finds a difficult-to solve situation.

As my previous considerations show, my mental or conscious state differ from one environment to another.

Best regards

Haven't given a thought of navigating in water. I'm generally referring to land/pedestrian navigation. I cannot swim very well.

When you spoke about navigating what came to my mind was navigating in water. Now, I know that you did not intend that. It seems relatively obvious our mental or conscious state differ from one environment to another. When, for example I travel through I known area I feel more self-confident and calm than when I travel through an unknown place. I think that this is also true for you. It is certainly the case that if I traveled through your country, Georgia, I would feel less self-self confident and relaxed than travelling through my country, Portugal. Even so, I think that an open-minded person considers himself/herself a citizen of the world, not only Georgian or Portuguese. In this vein, we might think that we feel good, calm, and relaxed when we walk from one place to another one, be it in Georgia, Portugal, and so on. I truly apologize for not having understood what you mean while speaking in navigating. I cannot swim very well either. This is not very important at all. What it is important is that we live in harmony with others, ourselves and nature. When this is case, we make part of a cosmic order that seems to govern the universe. I am convinced that you, as a citizen of the world, not only from Georgia, agree with me on this idea.

Best wishes

That seems a very open ended question, Jimmy. And do we have reason to think we can be sure we are qualified to answer it? Maybe what is remembered is not what is experienced - or is repackaged in some new format. I think the only thing I can be sure of is that my knees often hurt.

A less open ended version might be easier to tackle!

Dear Jo, I bet to digress. It's NOT open-ended at all but is a direct reiteration of the SAME questions that many psychologists -- who are not familiar with the research works on human and animal navigation -- have asked me. Your knees hurt principally because of the attainment of seniority, which similarly applies to the elderly members of my family.. 

I appreciate that it may be an often asked question but does that make it any less open-ended? One might write that book by Proust in answer. 

And does the question reveal the illusory nature of public language meaning? If you ask me what my mental conscious state is when I walk through Hyde Park or to Half Dome at Yosemite all I can offer is a set of words that you will interpret in terms of your mental conscious state when you do such things. You might as well not have asked, because you have to rely on what you already know.

But I am sure you have a good reason to ask, just as solicitors asking me to help with a patent case have good reasons, but reasons that if divulged might skew my answer. I am just intrigued to know why you ask.

To Jo: I'll send you a private message. There are many reasons. However, I prefer to keep them private. :-) 

Wait for my message!

Absolutely fine, Jimmy, you would make a good patent attorney.

Debbie, I think I'm referring to both instances. The latter account pertains to spatial updating of optic flow information that used to be a debate in the past before some papers in Science came out to show that humans can use optic flow for orienting and distance judgement pretty well.

Debbie, do you have these two papers? It'll be good if you could send them to me. Thanks in advance!