Conference hydra::dejavu

   If snow suddenly came to my tropic island I'd probably be more
   concerned with where the COLD that preceded it came from..
    And when I picked up the snow in my hand and it turned to water
    i'd probably figure it out..
    
    Now if someone were trying to explain it to me
    
  I suppose I would have to assume that you were making it up.
At least until you could explain/demonstrate  how temp changes
produce state changes, water to ice etc. Then again I might just
assume the world is a bigger place than I had known..

 My reaction to a persons attempt to alter "my" perception of reality
is usually influenced by two things,

	1. the magnitude of the change - if you told me snow is real
           and it's coming to my little tropical isle next week I
           might get upset.

	2. their reasons for enlightening me. - If you were trying
	   to sell me a parka and snowblower, just in case this
           "snow" stuff ever happens here...

 If you want to read an old (50's) (short)story about something similar,
 check out Isaac Asimov's  "NIGHTFALL". It's about a world with
 two suns. Night(darkness/stars etc) only occurs once every
 thousand or so years. The reaction is .. well I won't tell..

 Brien

                                  

    I was actually present when someone saw snow for the first time.
    I was in a classroom, and one of the other pupils was a young woman
    from Bangaledesh.  She had, of course, heard of snow and seen it
    in paintings, photos, and movies, but she had never seen it in
    "person."
    
    While the professor droned on, I happened to notice the first flakes
    of the first snow of the year.  I kept my eye on Ms. Gulshan.
    Eventually, her attention wandered from the less-than-rivetting
    lecture and she noticed the white flakes outside.  Her eyes grew
    very round.  After a few seconds, she leaned toward me and stage-
    whispered, "Is that snow?"  I assured her it was.  I don't think
    she looked back at the professor for the rest of the lecture.
    
    A few days later, she came limping into the graduate office.  By
    now we had about six inches on the ground.  "I don't like the snow
    anymore," she declared.  "I fell down three times on my way over
    here and the more careful I was, the more often I fell!"  I admitted
    it took getting used to.  "It will all melt before it snows again,
    won't it?" she asked nervously.  I said there was no guarantee.
    "But how will I get out of my dorm?!" she asked anxiously.  I explained
    that we would shovel the stuff away.  The light dawned in her eyes
    as she realized we had a whole technology for coping with snow --
    something she'd never contemplated.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Interesting question...I've tried before to convince people of the
    existence of things they haven't seen before, and the usual reaction
    is "if I can't see it right here in front of my own eyes, then it
    can't possibly exist...not only does it not exist for me, but since
    *I've* never seen it, it can't possibly exist for you either; you've
    been halucinating"...I think it's enormously arrogant to assume
    that your own personal field of experience is so wide and
    all-encompassing that you are aware of everything that exists or
    could possibly exist in the universe, and if you don't know about
    it, it can't possibly exist.
    
                                    :^)
    
    Doug                        

RE .-2

I recall the Asimov story referenced.  I also recall the ending but will
not give it away here.

But now picture this.  It is from an old TV story that I recalled.

Missionary is sent to the middle of Africa.  Has difficulties converting
natives since they can not picture his God.

He has some old Currier and Ives prints including one of people ice skating.
Natives can not beleive this either.  Water solid enough to support a person?

Missionary obtains cooling unit and freezes box filled with water.  He strips
away the outer box and is left with one giant ice cube.

Natives who watched the freezing consider it magic when he then steps up
onto the ice cube.  But they are then much easier to convert.

I make no further comment.


	Ed Permon

    required reading:  Ezra Jack Keats (?) - The Snowy Day.
    
    enchanting children's book, w/lovely illustrations
    
    -Jody
    

    
    
       I feel that, fr the "first time of seeing or hearing of snow"
    would probably cause the school, jobs, and everything else to be
    closed and that, everyone is not to leave their homes for any reason
    at all until the science researchers find out what it is, where
    it came from, and what harm it could be to the human body. funny
    it may seem; I think there would be "religious" people began to
    worship it, or they might think that the end is here:-) (That's
    if a Nation experience snow for the first time) Could you imagine
    everybody walking around with chemical suits/gloves and boots on;
    scared to let the snow touch their skin? I think it would be pretty
    comical:-)
    
    
    LORENZO
    

    I was present when a five year old Mexican boy saw snow for the
    first time.  He had heard of it and perhaps had seen pictures of
    it, but he obviously hadn't given it much thought.  Upon seeing
    it on the front lawn, he asked if it would stay there forever. 
    His mother explained that it would melt once the weather was warmer.
    He seemed to ponder that for a while.  He knew what it was for
    something to melt, because he had seen ice cream melt and ice cubes
    melt.  He gazed out the window without saying a word for a while
    and then asked "When it melts, will it become ... milk?"
    
    Marion
    

    When I was in Barbados last year I was trying to explain the
    concept of snow to some locals.  They absolutly did not believe
    that such a thing as snow could possibly exist.  No matter how hard
    I tried they did not believe that anything frozen could possibly
    fall from the sky.  They also refused to believe the concept of
    changing seasons where all the leaves fall off the trees.  I wish
    I had some pictures.....
    
    Another concept they had difficulty with was the fact that I lived
    and worked on an Island about the size of theirs (NYC) except instead
    of 200,000 inhabitants NYC had over 8 million!
    
    Paradise?????
                  

    Sure, we can experience snow, but what about experiencing tropical
    things, like seeing your first palm tree, or jungle, or desert.
    The world is full of fun and strange things, what makes it stranger
    is that we've never seen it before.

    Its all in the perspective.  I once heard that an "eskimo" language
    had no word for snow...
    
    It did have about a hundred words for the various different things
    that we uninformed folk from the "tropics" call snow.
    
    The things we encounter and which we think we understand can be
    well described, things infrequently encountered are another matter.
    
    dave pierson

        I was born in Syracuse (yes, that's correct, Lorenzo) but
    only spent about 3 years there before moving to Miami, then Cuba.
    I have no early-life memory so I had no conscious memory of snow
    at the time that I finally saw it at age 15.
        For me, one of the things I found most interesting was that
    snow was so tiny (in school we had cut out snow flakes and they
    were always 6-12" big.)  I will say that adapting to the cold was
    more difficult than adjusting to the snow.  Also, it was very
    easy to get into "snow things" (my sister and I built a snowman
    right away.)  
        I don't know what this has to do with psychic phenomena but
    an earlier response said it fairly well...we all create different
    realities and what is "truth" for one is possibly "fantasy" or
    "conjecture" for another.
      
    Frederick
    

    Yes, how do you convince someone of something they've never
    experienced which you know is true?  Add the urgency of a
    need to prepare for the unforseen/unexpected and we can see
    how a prophet is labeled a maniac.  Very good topic.
    
    It reminds me of trying to educate production managers to the
    fact that a mysterious concept called 'quality' will actually
    save them expense and aggrivation.  If they havn't experienced
    it they have absolutly no basis for belief!    ;-}      MWR
    

.6  LORENZO

>   ............................................... Could you imagine
>   everybody walking around with chemical suits/gloves and boots on;
>   scared to let the snow touch their skin? I think it would be pretty
>   comical:-)

I laugh at how alien my daughter looks every time she dresses to go out
and play in the snow. I bet she would look scary to someone who has no
concept of snow and cold.

Jay

    One winter I lived in Ohio and had a friend from Lousiana.  We were both
    in our 20's.   One evening after the first snowfall of the year we were
    walking down the street and he kept running off the sidewalk into the
    snow and jumping around like a child.  I asked him was wrong and he
    said that he had never seen snow before.  By the end of the winter
    he wasn't so happy.

    I remember the first time I saw the ocean.  I was in the second grade.
    My family had moved from the midwest to the east coast.  One weekend we 
    went to the beach.  The movies and pictures did not prepare me for the 
    actual experience.  I remember wondering if they shut the waves down at 
    night or let it run constantly.

    Mike

    RE:14
    
    
      Seeing the Ocean for the first time reminds me of when I saw a
    swimming pool for the first time: when I was in about the 1st grade,
    we all (my class mates and I) went to the swimming pool; I watched
    all the other kids run and jump into the pool, and started swimming,
    so, by it being my first time ever seeing a pool, I ran and jumped
    in, AND SUNK!! If the teacher wasn't there, I WOULD HAVE DROWNED8-}
    
    
    LORENZO
    

    Re "seeing the ocean":
    
    The writer, Isaac Asimov, mentioned anecdotally that when he was
    (a deaftee) on a troop ship, the ship ran into a rainstorm in transit
    between ports.  He was astonished that it rained on the ocean. 
    "It's such a _waste_!" he indicated he'd said.
    
    Funny how preconceptions can trip us up, isn't it?
    
    Re .15 (Lorenzo):
    
    You were lucky!
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    When I was at boarding school we had a student from Guatamala who had
    never seen snow. He had heard all about it of course but had never
    seen it. When we got our first snow he said he had been ready for
    the cold and the white wet water falling from the sky but no one
    had prepared him for the fact that it crunched under his feet when
    he walked. He thought it was the strangest neates thing he had ever
    heard. By the end of the winter he had become a fairly accomplished
    skier
                                                                 
    
    						Geoff

    Since we only see maybe one snowfall a year, the Atlanta people
    act like it's the first one ever.  It's comical really, everything
    shuts down, you risk your life driving because the ones on the road,
    can't.  And just try to get any work done...
    I could imagine a snowstorm in Florida! ;^o
    
    Theresa.

    
    As a matter of fact, I was living in Jacksonville, Florida about
    12 years ago when they had a light dusting of snow.  Got a big kick
    out of the kids - they had socks on their hands in place of mittens
    to wipe the little bit of snow off the cars.  They're really innovative
    huh?
    
    
    Rosemary