Dream #11
— December 20, 2025 at 5:30 am
Limerick
There once was a yachtswoman named Pip
Who sailed with some onions to skip
Past a station now closed
Where a sea snail dozed
While Metallica covered "The Trip"
Who sailed with some onions to skip
Past a station now closed
Where a sea snail dozed
While Metallica covered "The Trip"
Haiku
Railway tracks rusting—
Go Away Green paint hides what
Disney doesn't want
Go Away Green paint hides what
Disney doesn't want
What If
What if the cognitive mapping strategies used by solo ocean racers like those in the Vendée Globe could be applied to understanding how abandoned transportation infrastructure affects collective memory in post-industrial landscapes?
Feasibility Assessment
Based on my search results, I can now evaluate this speculative hypothesis about connecting cognitive mapping strategies from solo ocean racing to understanding how abandoned transportation infrastructure affects collective memory in post-industrial landscapes.
The hypothesis proposes linking cognitive mapping strategies used by solo ocean racers like those in the Vendée Globe, who must choose their own way around the world with navigation primarily defined by weather rather than geography, to understanding how abandoned transportation infrastructure affects collective memory in post-industrial landscapes, where material assemblies embody, record, and preserve collective identity.
**Assessment:**
**1. Is this hypothesis testable or purely speculative?**
The hypothesis is partially testable. The cognitive map hypothesis proposes that brain builds a unified representation of the spatial environment to support memory and guide future action, and recent studies indicate that the human hippocampus and entorhinal cortex support map-like spatial codes. Meanwhile, research on post-industrial material memory shows that residents use absent objects, specifically industrial transportation infrastructures, in their narratives of place and meaning. However, the specific connection between ocean racing navigation strategies and collective memory formation around abandoned infrastructure remains largely untested.
**2. What existing research areas intersect with this idea?**
Several active research domains intersect: spatial-processing principles that might form 'maps' of nonphysical spaces, with spatial codes potentially mapping information domains for high-level cognition; preservation research showing how structures grant collective memory new meaning, with sites considered as palimpsests retaining layers of cultural history alongside physical infrastructure; and post-industrial landscape studies examining how redevelopment should encapsulate intangible elements such as memories, narratives, and experiences of individuals who inhabited these spaces.
**3. What would be the key obstacles or required breakthroughs?**
The main obstacles include bridging vastly different spatial and temporal scales—from individual real-time decision-making under extreme conditions where skippers must decide positioning relative to weather systems to community-scale collective memory formation where cultural erosion manifests through abandoned landmarks and lost communal spaces that once anchored collective memory. Current spatial navigation research is mostly limited to two or three dimensions, while processing complex, multidimensional concepts vital to high-level human cognition represents an intriguing challenge for future research.
The hypothesis is genuinely novel—no existing research directly connects solo ocean racing cognitive strategies to collective memory formation around abandoned infrastructure, though both domains are actively studied separately.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Speculative]**
The hypothesis proposes linking cognitive mapping strategies used by solo ocean racers like those in the Vendée Globe, who must choose their own way around the world with navigation primarily defined by weather rather than geography, to understanding how abandoned transportation infrastructure affects collective memory in post-industrial landscapes, where material assemblies embody, record, and preserve collective identity.
**Assessment:**
**1. Is this hypothesis testable or purely speculative?**
The hypothesis is partially testable. The cognitive map hypothesis proposes that brain builds a unified representation of the spatial environment to support memory and guide future action, and recent studies indicate that the human hippocampus and entorhinal cortex support map-like spatial codes. Meanwhile, research on post-industrial material memory shows that residents use absent objects, specifically industrial transportation infrastructures, in their narratives of place and meaning. However, the specific connection between ocean racing navigation strategies and collective memory formation around abandoned infrastructure remains largely untested.
**2. What existing research areas intersect with this idea?**
Several active research domains intersect: spatial-processing principles that might form 'maps' of nonphysical spaces, with spatial codes potentially mapping information domains for high-level cognition; preservation research showing how structures grant collective memory new meaning, with sites considered as palimpsests retaining layers of cultural history alongside physical infrastructure; and post-industrial landscape studies examining how redevelopment should encapsulate intangible elements such as memories, narratives, and experiences of individuals who inhabited these spaces.
**3. What would be the key obstacles or required breakthroughs?**
The main obstacles include bridging vastly different spatial and temporal scales—from individual real-time decision-making under extreme conditions where skippers must decide positioning relative to weather systems to community-scale collective memory formation where cultural erosion manifests through abandoned landmarks and lost communal spaces that once anchored collective memory. Current spatial navigation research is mostly limited to two or three dimensions, while processing complex, multidimensional concepts vital to high-level human cognition represents an intriguing challenge for future research.
The hypothesis is genuinely novel—no existing research directly connects solo ocean racing cognitive strategies to collective memory formation around abandoned infrastructure, though both domains are actively studied separately.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Speculative]**
Sources:
Pip Hare's guide to racing in the Southern Ocean as the Vendée Globe fleet continue south
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Le Vendée Globe : décryptage d’une course mythique, ses stratégies et son vocabulaire technique - Mer & Océan
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Vendée Globe : Le défi ultime de l'endurance mentale
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Vendée Globe - Wikipedia
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Vendée Globe: Guide to the Atlantic race home - Yachting World
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C-MAP | Vendée Globe 2024
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The Vendée Globe Race 2024
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Keeping track on the high seas: how fans can interactively follow the Vendée Globe
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Logbook of ocean racing: Tour Voile, Ocean Race Europe, Vendée Arctique...
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Map tracker - globe40
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Speaking of Infrastructures: Industrial Transportation Infrastructure Decline as Symbol of Changing Place Meanings in the American Rust Belt - Amanda McMillan Lequieu, 2025
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Preserving identities in post-industrial Rust Belt cities: reconsidering Buffalo’s material memory | City, Territory and Architecture
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How Can Transport Infrastructures Take On a New Lease of Life? | ArchDaily
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Full article: Fragmenting, filling and forgetting: the making of a post-industrial landscape
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Why Did Boomtowns Become Ghost Towns? - United States Ghost Towns
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Transforming post-industrial landscapes into urban parks: Design strategies and theory in Seoul, 1998–present - ScienceDirect
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Layering Connections: Reclaiming Abandoned Post Industrial Infrastructure
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"Memory Traces of an Abandoned Set of Futures": Industrial Ruins in the Post-Industrial Landscapes of East and West Germany | U-M LSA Germanic Languages and Literatures
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Post-industrial landscapes as drivers for urban redevelopment: Public versus expert perspectives towards the benefits and barriers of the reuse of post-industrial sites in urban areas | Request PDF
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10 Landscape Design Projects That Turn Damaged and Neglected Spaces Into Healthy, Beautiful Environments
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The cognitive map in humans: Spatial navigation and beyond - PMC
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The cognitive map in humans: spatial navigation and beyond - PubMed
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The cognitive map in humans: spatial navigation and beyond | Nature Neuroscience
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(PDF) The cognitive map in humans: Spatial navigation and beyond
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Navigating cognition: Spatial codes for human thinking | Science
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The cognitive map in humans: spatial navigation and beyond
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MAGELLAN: A Cognitive Map–Based Model of Human Wayfinding Jeremy R. Manning
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Hippocampal spatio-predictive cognitive maps adaptively guide reward generalization | Nature Neuroscience
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Structuring Knowledge with Cognitive Maps and Cognitive Graphs - PMC
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[PDF] The cognitive map in humans: spatial navigation and beyond | Semantic Scholar