Sunday, March 11, 2012

Message of a thousand years

A study, published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology, suggests our brains subconsciously use a simplistic strategy in order to filter out options when faced with a complex decision. However, the research highlights how this strategy can lead to poor choices [ link ].
Message: “..a thousand years ago a massive earthquake and tsunami had all but wiped out Murohama, a fishing village on an island off the coast of Japan. The residents, knowing they were going to be inundated, sought safety on the village's closest hill. But they had entered a trap. A second wave, which had reached the interior of the island through an inlet, was speeding over the rice paddies from the opposite direction. The waves collided at the hill and killed those who had taken refuge there. To signify their grief and to advise future generations, the survivors erected a shrine ..a simple clearing by the side of a hillside road, with stone tablets and roughly made figures.”

This shrine continues to serve as a warning of where not to go in the event of an earthquake. On March 11, 2011 ..the locals heard the echoes of that message. “We all know the story about the two tsunami waves that collided at the shrine.” Instead of taking refuge on the closest hill, the one with the shrine, they took the time to get to high ground farther away. From the safety of their vantage point they saw two tsunami waves colliding at the hill with the shrine, as they did long ago. A message sent by ancestors over 1,000 years ago, traveled the distance and saved their children.

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