THE YUPNO AS POST-NEWTONIAN SCIENTISTS - THE QUESTION OF WHAT IS NATURAL IN SPATIAL DESCRIPTION

Cognitive scientists were induced by the (European) cultures and (Indo germanic) languages already known to them to formulate over-hasty gene ralizations about the intrinsic structure of human thinking. They beli eve, for example, that it is natural and consequently universal to vie w the space around us from a relative, egocentric and and anthropomorp hic point of view. However, this way of seeing the world - with one's body at the centre of the universe from which spatial co-ordinates rad iate out - is just one of the possible ways of viewing space, as the c ultural conception of spatial order among the Yupno of Papua New Guine a illustrates.