Brain Food #751
Explorations and discoveries
Thoughts of the day
In a random act of synchronicity, I read that today was the day when Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, was discovered by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen in 1722. Though I am always suspicious of the exact dates on which historical events are reported, especially if these occurred centuries ago, the specific one triggered an interesting train of thought.
I had recently been thinking about Columbus, when I had written in my notes, “If truths exist universally and are waiting to be discovered, then that makes us explorers, but not necessarily truth-seekers. Columbus was looking for a new route to Asia.” Similarly, Roggeveen had, in fact, been looking for Davis Land, a phantom island that was allegedly sighted by a pirate called Edward Davis in 1687.
In a further act of synchronicity, after yesterday’s post on following one’s curiosity, I began to think that the beauty of discoveries is that you do not always know what you will find; the most important thing is to keep looking.
The Dutch named the island Paaseiland, or Easter Island, to commemorate the day of their arrival. This anniversary, of course, is the day on which the island was first discovered by a European - an interesting fact, which implies it had already been discovered by someone else, or that it was still to be discovered by other continents. Not every discovery has to be new.
Map including Davis Land, from 1750. The phantom island can be seen west of Chile, in the Pacific ocean, to the left of the letters C I. The map is not the territory.
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