this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
357 points (96.6% liked)

Showerthoughts

29728 readers
601 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics
    1. NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
    2. Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
    3. Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct-----

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Think about it. Isn't light+eyes and ears+sound just the same in terms of their "influence at a distance"? We don't feel that as abnormal or magic - simply because we've sensors for them and are used to it. But physically speaking light and magnetism are based on electromagnetic forces.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

because we don't have biological sensors for it

Honestly. The evidence for or against this is still far from certain.

New evidence for a human magnetic sense that lets your brain detect the Earth’s magnetic field

[–] swnt@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fair point, I didn't know about that. But even then, most of us don't feel like we can feel it - and in the modern city living spaces it gets even less important to train such a sense.

[–] oo1@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

source of sorts

Earth's field is very large and very weak compared to small strong household magnets.

Whatever senses we've evolved for navigation could be dealing in a completely different scales so as to be useless.

It might be like trying to use a 5ml teaspoon to measure the volume liquid in a of a bathtub.
or using an alcohol thermometer to measure the temperature of molten iron