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In 2012 my collaborators and I showed that the Yupno of Papua New Guinea understand time according to topography, in terms of uphill and downhill.
But there was a question we couldn’t answer, and it’s haunted us since: Why is the future uphill?
[thread]
![In 2012 my collaborators and I showed that the Yupno of Papua New Guinea understand time according to topography, in terms of uphill and downhill. But there was a question we couldn’t answer, and it’s haunted us since: Why is the future uphill?[thread]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0PEk3zXIAUJ72M.jpg "In 2012 my collaborators and I showed that the Yupno of Papua New Guinea understand time according to topography, in terms of uphill and downhill. But there was a question we couldn’t answer, and it’s haunted us since: Why is the future uphill?[thread]")
But there was a question we couldn’t answer, and it’s haunted us since: Why is the future uphill?
[thread]
The question is not why the Yupno understand time in terms of topography. The answer there is fairly clear: it’s their favored way of understanding space.
And why they favor topography for understanding space is also not hard to figure out…
And why they favor topography for understanding space is also not hard to figure out…
The question, rather, is: why is the future *uphill* rather than downhill? What’s the motivation for the specific mapping?
For every other spatial metaphor for time yet described, the motivation is pretty clear. The Yupno case stands out...
For every other spatial metaphor for time yet described, the motivation is pretty clear. The Yupno case stands out...
In our original paper ( https://bit.ly/3e6Sz7C ), we offered up a then-reasonable-seeming idea: The Yupno hold that their ancestors came up into the valley from the coast. So the direction of the coast (downhill) becomes metonymic for past times.
But we’ve since learned of other cases of the future-uphill mapping (never future-downhill). It’s found in four other groups in PNG, in Tzeltal (Mexico), etc., as discussed in D. Forker’s paper below.
So there’s probably a more general explanation… https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01712/full
So there’s probably a more general explanation… https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01712/full
So what are some alternative, more general explanations?
A first possibility: the mapping could be based on growth. Things grow “up” as time goes on, which could motivate a general idea that time moves up, whether vertically or uphill.
A first possibility: the mapping could be based on growth. Things grow “up” as time goes on, which could motivate a general idea that time moves up, whether vertically or uphill.
A second is about seeing/traveling in mountainous terrain. You can’t see very much when facing uphill—what lies ahead is obscured. If you look down, you can see much further.
Perhaps this is like the experience of looking into the future, compared to looking back on the past.
Perhaps this is like the experience of looking into the future, compared to looking back on the past.
A third: Maybe the future-uphill mapping is a future-in-front mapping in disguise! There are reasons to think walking uphill might be considered the canonical form of walking in mountain communities. (Basically, because you spend more time walking up- than walking downhill.)
A last one I’ll throw out (and then throw out):
Going through life is hard, just like walking uphill. Don’t love this one—I think probably springs to mind because of common idioms in English (“uphill battle"). Smacks of ethnocentrism to me.
Going through life is hard, just like walking uphill. Don’t love this one—I think probably springs to mind because of common idioms in English (“uphill battle"). Smacks of ethnocentrism to me.
To my mind, none of these explanations emerges as a clear winner. I could have listed several weaknesses of each. A couple other ideas have been suggested to us over the years—but none has that "aha! has to be it!" vibe.
If you have other ideas, would love to hear them!
If you have other ideas, would love to hear them!
Not sure I forgot the lede exactly but I did forget a tidbit: We have a new paper on the Yupno understanding of time, in which we present new observations & revisit the question of why the future is uphill.
Coming soon to a preprint server near you!
Coming soon to a preprint server near you!
