I was just re-reading moby dick last week, and I remembered an idea I had for a post the last time I read it. The basic idea was this: whales can communicate with other whales half way around the globe, and so their knowlege of the finiteness of the earth might be almost intuitive. Also, owing to a lack of distant horizons underwater, the idea of the infinite in geometry might not have arisen in their case in as fundamental way as it did for ours, if they practised geometry.
I tried to wrap this up in several different ways; one of them involved St. Francis going to preach to the whales, another was trying to write a chapter that might fit in to moby dick somewhere, and a few other methods. I even wrote out three different versions, but none of them worked. Hence: this post. Hope ye’re happy; nothing but the best for you guys.