Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Hans M. S. Schulman with Kip Wagner Treasures. |
Hans Schulman was one of many who profited from the salvage efforts of the Real-8 salvage company and the auctions that made numismatic history in 1969 and 1972.
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The St. Augustine Monster is the name given to a large carcass, originally postulated to be the remains of a gigantic octopus that washed ashore on the United States coast near St. Augustine, Florida in 1896. It is sometimes referred to as the Florida Monster or the St. Augustine Giant Octopus and is one of the earliest recorded examples of a globster. The species that the carcass supposedly represented has been assigned the binomial names Octopus giganteus (Latin for "giant octopus") and Otoctopus giganteus (Greek Prefex oton = "ear"; "giant-eared octopus"), although these are not valid under the rules of the ICZN.
A 1995 analysis concluded that the St. Augustine Monster was a large mass of the collagenous matrix of whale blubber likely from a sperm whale.
Here is that link.
St. Augustine Monster - Wikipedia
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A Minnesota teen thought he caught a big fish but it was actually a wallet with $2,000. He found a business card inside and returned it to the owner — an Iowa farmer who lost it a year prior...Here is the link for more about that.
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In the above illustration, you can see either two faces or one vase. It is an example of a figure -ground problem. What you see depends upon whether you focus on the white or black areas. Although we assume that our senses passively take in what is out there in the world, perception is an active process. The world is not simply impressed upon our senses or taken in by our sensory systems, it is an active process. This is an illustration of that.
People are not really very precise in their thinking. Precision and accuracy is not really the goal. Here is another example.
People say that the earth is round and if you disagree you are thought to be crazy, but take a look at the following.
On the left it is how the earth is often shown and how we often think of it. On the right, however, is a more realistic picture. People don't care too much about being accurate or precise.
I used to say, "You can only be accurate to the extent that you are inaccurate." In other words, we constantly settle for some level of approximation. Of course, the earth as shown on the right above is not round - at least not perfectly round. In daily life, you can see clearly enough the hills and valleys, but stepping back and taking a look at it from a much greater distance, it is very "not-round" and very different from how it is normally represented and thought about.
It is easier to follow the crowd and adopt the commonly accepted level of approximation and inaccuracy, and fit in. Individual preferences, of course, play a role as well. And experiments have shown that sensory thresholds can be improved by providing incentives.
There is always a point at which it becomes too difficult or not worth the time and effort to be more precise, so you end up saying, in essence, "that's good enough." A lot of the time it is done without being aware of the processes involved or the consequences.
You might be wondering what this has to do with metal detecting?
Just to stick with an example I've been using frequently, I'll refer to the Dan K's mystery figure. Although I didn't conclude it was a corpus for a crucifix, I did consider the possibility. My interests and previous experiences had a great deal to do with that.
One thing I haven't mentioned yet, is sometimes referred to in Gestalt psychology as smoothing. When I you look at a figure, you attempt to match it mental representations of known objects that you have stored away in your mind as categories. When the figure fits one of those categories, you feel you have an ID.
When you try to fit the figure, you will seldom have what you feel is an exact match. You will try to fit the figure into a general category. That process can result in some bending or distortion. For example, you might see the figures bent arms as not being as bent as they are, as you try to fit them to a satisfying mental schema. That can result in some distortion of the perception and memory of the object, as you try to fit it the schema. For example, the bent arms, which didn't fit the typical crucifix schema, might be straightened to some degree in your perception and memory. That is similar to how your mental image of the earth might be smoothed out to fit how it is typically described in language and how it is stored in a schematic form in your memory.
Mystery figures are ambiguous. We don't know what they are, and so we try to fit them into categories. Similar processes are involved when we try to determine the identity of a buried object from the sound of the signal and or digital readouts. And we can miss signals that are masked by environmental, as well as sensory/mental noise.
I've said this before, but understanding your metal detector is a good thing. Understanding the operator (yourself) is also a good thing. The operator is a part of the system. Yesterday I referred to getting out in the field after a time off and renewing the relationship with my detector and the beach. I was talking about the relationship between a detector and the operator (or detectorists) as parts of a system, though I wasn't actually thinking about it in those terms yesterday.
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| Small Cut at Sebastian Wednesday Evening found by DJ. |
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov. |
Franklin will head north and a bit to the east, staying pretty far from us. You'd think it would generate some north/northeast winds for us, but it doesn't look like it will give us anything more than east/northeast winds, which will remain pretty much perpendicular to the Treasure Coast beaches.
It looks like we'll have those east/northeast winds for a few days and then oddly, more southerly winds as Franklin gets up to our latitude.
Here is how it is modeled for early next week.
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| Source: windy.com. |
Notice the southerly winds next Tuesday despite Franklin being to our north. They will be affected by the developing system that will be entering the Gulf.