Inner Navigation: Why We Get Lost in the World and How We Find Our Way

I like to go on hikes and when I go alone I take small sized books with me to read at various way points on the trail. I bought this book because its basic idea seemed to reference some of the experiences I have had while on these hikes. In the forward, written by noted cognitive scientist and Apple Fellow Donald Norman we find out that the author, Erik Jonsson is the kind of person who takes extension courses at the local college in order to better understand himself and the world he lives in. While taking such courses he meets Prof. Norman who encourages Jonsson to turn his essays into this book. Jonsson begins with his personal experience while hiking or traveling. He relates that he creates cognitive maps based on feature in the environment, but more importantly he discusses confusion errors and how they create a sense of disorientation, only to be suddenly reversed when some new factor comes into account. This is something that I can relate to. I live in Toronto where "Lake" is "South", but when I visit downtown Chicago I intuitively use this rule and often get lost - unless I actively realize that Lake Michigan is to the North and consciously sort out left/right/east/west. Similarly on a loopback trail just this past weekend I experienced a sense of disorientation trying to get back to the trail head until I recognized a pair of trees as I approached them from the opposite direction and understood where I was in terms the the route and the last two minor trail crossings. The book is rich in other examples. Jonsson looks at the literature and discussed the problems of navigating in the Sahara or of using the prevailing winds to find one's way in the Arctic. He even comes up with an interesting suggestion as to why animals and people tend to run in large circles rather than in a straight line. But perhaps the most fun example (for me) is the apparently common problem of navigating in San Francisco. If you come from some other coastal town one can use the smell of the sea to orient oneself - yet San Francisco is on a peninsual with the sea all around - a literally disorienting experience! What is truly inspiring is the Eric Jonsson was born in 1922 and so would have been about 80 in 2002 when the book was published. We are (unfortunately) unlikely therefore to hear from him again. I find it uplifting that a man in his twilight years was able to contribute something significant to the advancement of science. All of us should be so fortunate. I recommend this book for one's personal library. I've lent it out a couple of times and others have agreed that it contains some excellent insights. Should it ever be lost I would buy it again in an instant!

Erik Jonsson's lively discourse on the sense of direction comprising Inner Navigation, begins with several stories from personal and colleague experience to demonstrate the idea of cognitive maps, then moves into the science realm to explain how such 'maps' work. How humans and animals get lost, navigate, and recover from being lost makes for an intriguing discussion which should interest nonscientists as much as scientists.