Mon 27 Nov 2006
How many continents are there?
Posted by David under geek, philosophizing
[5] Comments
A week or two ago, Priscilla and I were chatting about continents. I was telling her the story of participating in a “get to know you”-type game at a party, where I was to tell one truth and one falsehood about myself. I was on the spot, but pretty quickly came up with a good truth that sounded like a falsehood, but was having trouble coming up with a lie that might be true. Quite lamely (in my opinion), I eventually said “I’ve been on three separate continents in my life.” (I’ve actually never left North America, except for Hawaii).
Anyway, she started counting the continents she’d been on, and I was surprised to hear her list “America” as one. I’m mildly ashamed to admit now that I mocked her about this at the time, laughing at the idea that she might consider North and South America to be the same continent. I felt very proud of my recollection since childhood that there are seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.
It didn’t take long in our conversation, though, before I realized that I – uh – didn’t have much ground to stand upon. Sue, Beth, and other geology-educated people with whom I’d discussed things like this talk a lot about “plates” and stuff, but I’m not sure how much geologists even believe in continents anymore. And, certainly, I’ve pretty much given up thinking that there’s any geological reason to consider Europe and Asia separate continents. And, as these thoughts were going through my head, Pri was telling me that in Brazil they are taught that North and South America are the same continent. Hmmm…
Well, she later sent me two links to Wikipedia pages, one in Portuguese and one in English. Sure enough, it seems that there is not global consensus on this matter. The English page offers a list of different models of the number of continents that are taught world-wide. It claims that the “geographic community” prefers the six continent model that considers Eurasia to be one continent.
I don’t really have any knowledge that would make me feel comfortable even having an opinion on this subject. (Actually, I do take issue with the Portuguese page’s inclusion of “Artico” as a continent. I don’t think there’s any land there, and whatever we call a continent, I think it should involve land.) However, it does highlight two deeply held beliefs of mine:
- What’s real is the world, when we describe it we are just trying to model it with words and concepts.
- No matter how simply something was taught to us, it might not true. There might not even be any consensus on the matter. Or, the expert consensus might be contrary to what we learned.
So, don’t be quick to make fun of someone who learned something different than you did. And… question everything.
(Kynthia told me that she once gave an impromptu speech with “question everything” as the subject. Maybe even the title. In any event, it might be one of the extremely rare phrases that would fit on a bumper sticker that I’d be willing to wear on my car.)
First, the simpler the thing you were taught in school, the more likely, since it’s a simplification, it’s not correct. Except maybe addition.
Next, I have two things to say about “what’s real” or “what’s right” or “being sure” about something.
First (this is the second first, not the first first), ask someone what time it is. They’ll tell you. Then ask if they are sure. They’ll say they are. Except, they’re not (unless they’ve got an atomic clock calibrated to Universal time). Because the clock you look at is wrong. All time is an approximation. Even if you were hooked up via radio signal to the atomic clock, there’s still a millisecond difference. You’re still wrong.
To support this hypothesis:
In my kitchen you can see no fewer than 4 items that display a digital time, plus the phone in your pocket, plus the watch on your wrist, plus the computer if it’s on. That’s seven. They each state very specifically, some to the minute and some to the second, exactly what time it is. And they never agree, ever, ever, ever. Even if you try to set them all together, at some point, the amount of time between setting one and setting the next one is more than zero, and so, the times disagree.
More support:
Have you ever heard the old riddle about which clock is more accurate, a clock that loses a second a day or a clock that isn’t running at all? The clock that isn’t running at all, because it tells the exact right time twice a day and the one that loses a second a day is only right once in, oh, I don’t know, a bazillion years.
Second (and this is the first second, related to the second first, not the first first), last year I had a discussion with my dentist about my wisdom teeth. I have them, and they don’t need pulled. This made sense to me, because as a kid, I had several adult teeth pulled to make room for other teeth. My mouth was too crowded. Something like that. So, I told him that.
He told me, no. I had all my adult teeth, a full compliment of 32 gnashers.
See, up until I was 35, I believed I was missing adult teeth. They had been pulled. If you asked me how many teeth I had, I’d tell you I’d never counted, but I have less than 32, because I’ve had some pulled.
This was my reality, and I lived completely in it, believing I had fewer than 32. But, I was wrong.
Now, it’s not as earth-shattering as finding out you were adopted or that you have a long lost twin or that God wasn’t really talking to you but to the guy next to you, but it stuck with me because it reminded me that everything you take for granted is subject to change. Reality isn’t fixed. Always consider the fact that you just might be wrong.
Except on Deal or No Deal, where it’s all guessing anyway. In that case, just go for it.
For the record, I’ve always thought that dividing Europe and Asia was useful historically, but not so useful geologically.
Also, it makes Risk more interesting.
I remember seven continents from my youth. America(N), America(S), Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antartica. Clearly Europe was only there for imperiallistic reasons, it starts with an “E” for heck’s sake! Eurasia indeed! Best make it Euramerica(N), Euramerica(S), Eurasia, Eurafrica, Euraustralia, and Eurantartica if we are going to support imperial europe.
Wait… Peter, was there ever a second second? I was with you but then suddenly, not so much…
I’m still with you on the Deal or No Deal thing, though. When the guy stands there and says “Now, let’s see if you were SMART to take the banker’s offer or if you just made a terrible, life-altering mistake that I will mock you about until the seventh generation…” I smack my forehead.
But I still keep watching. :)
Pangea 4eva! Represent!
I just discovered this myself recently! In the software Colin and I are writing, we were trying to come up with all of the kinds of geographical divisions we wanted to track for our mushroom database. On the small end, we knew County was a small as we wanted to go. So, Counties are in States, and States are in Countries. But then this is where we ran into trouble. I was totally sure that Continents were legitimate political geographical divisions (since I learned them in school, like you), and Colin was arguing that Continents had no real meaning.
Wikipedia searches led me to the same shock and awe you experienced. Oh well – our database stops at Countries!
And of course Countries, States, and Counties (which some countries don’t even really divide further than State/Province level) are all controversial too. But not quite as much so as Continents.
So there you have it. The World is all that’s really discrete, but then again that’s not going to help you much to find your favorite species of mushroom again :).