Tobler's First Law of Geography: A Big Idea for a Small World?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments This Forum on TFL was originally conceived during my sabbatical stay at UCSB in 2001. Informal conversations with Waldo Tobler and Mike Goodchild sustained my interest in TFL. I would like to thank all the contributors for their enthusiastic participation in this forum. In particular, I'd like to thank Professor Waldo Tobler who met all the deadlines while enjoying his retirement. Thanks are also due to five anonymous reviewers whose perceptive comments have enriched this forum. Notes 1. TFL has been discussed in an introductory GIS textbook by CitationLongley et al. (2001). As of June 2003, if one tried to search for "Tobler's First Law of Geography" in Google on the Web, there would be at least 150 returns. Most of these links are related to GIS and GIScience, in general, and spatial interpolation methods, in particular. 2. The idea of putting spatial heterogeneity as the first law of geography is conceptually consistent with the worldview of a Darwinian evolutionary theory as championed by CitationGould (1996)—directionless change without necessary betterment, haphazardly tuned mechanisms, multiple ties between process and result, and catastrophic change. CitationVale (2002) documented that the development of physical geography is mixed with these four theses and antitheses. 3. This idea is undeniably one of the primitive religious doctrines. In fact, the root of the word "religion" can be traced to the Latin religare (re: back, and ligare: to bind), so the term is associated with "being bound." To be religious literally means to be bound with/connected to other things. 4. In the East, the unity of man with nature/cosmos is also a dominant worldview (CitationNeedham 1954). Recent cognitive studies further reveal that Asians tend to think more holistically than Westerners (CitationNisbett 2003). 5. The development of quantum physics spawned the undivided universe interpretation on the one hand (CitationBohm 1980, Citation1993), and the development of many-worlds/parallel universes interpretation on the other (CitationDeWitt and Graham 1973). Is this a reflection of the nomothetic versus the ideographic dichotomy at the cosmic level? 6. The skepticism as embodied in the core argument of postmodern/post-structural arguments is not new. Historically, human intellectual pursuits have been oscillating between order and skepticism (CitationSzymanski and Agnew 1981), which is a reflection of the dualistic mode of human thinking at a deeper level. The dominance of one mode inevitably leads to its opposite (CitationMaybury-Lewis and Almagor 1989). Such a seemingly paradoxical process has been captured vividly by Blaise Pascal when he wrote, "We have an incapacity for proving anything which no amount of dogmatism can overcome. We have an idea of truth which no amount of skepticism can overcome" [quoted in CitationBoorstin (1998, p. 23)]. 7. Skepticism about unified theory of nature or theories of everything has been voiced not only by postmodernists, but also leading scientists such as Nobel Laureate Phillip CitationAnderson (1972). See also CitationHorgan (1996) for a more extensive interdisciplinary review. 8. To what extent is the growing use of the Web as a model and metaphor related to the technological advances in the World Wide Web (CitationWeinberger 2002)? This question needs further investigation. CitationSiegfried (2000) made a persuasive argument that the dominant worldview is always related to the dominating technology of an age. 9. See http://people.cornell.edu/pages/hd11/Pelikan-Faust.html. 10. Examples are abundant. According to CitationLukermann (1963), Bernhardus Varenius expressed in 1650 the idea of interconnected world, although heavily tinted in astrological terms, in his Geographia Generalis. CitationVon Humboldt (1848, vol. 1, p. 2) declared early in his classic Cosmos, "Nature, considered rationally, that is to say submitted to the process of thought, is a unity in diversity of phenomena, a harmony blending together al created things, however dissimilar in form and attributes, one great whole animated by the breath of life." Even CitationHartshorne (1939), whose work has often been misconstrued as advocating an ideographic approach to geography, stated explicitly that "the separation of things natural from things human is possible only in theory, in reality they are interwoven" (p. 368). 11. By making this statement, I am not denying the fundamental differences among these four metaphors. The point I am making is that behind the four metaphors is the fundamental idea that everything is related to everything else. Of course, "how" everything is related to everything else depends on the metaphor we choose. CitationHarvey (1997) argued that modern geographic thoughts have evolved from Humboldt's holism to Hartshorne's integrative view on areal differentiation as a result of the mechanization of reasoning. GIS-based overlay analysis is conceptually consistent with an integrative view of reality. 12. Harvard economist CitationHausmann (2001) captured this theme by calling people in poverty-ridden regions "prisoners of geography."CitationThe Economist (2003) also presented new evidence on "the revenge of geography": geography and distance have been more, not less, important in the information age. In both cases, evidences were presented to support TFL. 13. Despite some geographers' recent emphasis on the geography of differences (CitationHarvey 1996; CitationFincher and Jacobs 1998; CitationPorter and Sheppard 1998), the architectonic impulses (CitationCurry 1992) to develop overarching frameworks and metanarratives are still very strong in geography. These efforts reflect a very diverse philosophical outlook, as manifested in CitationTuan's (1996) Cosmos and Hearth thesis, CitationSack's (1997) relational framework, CitationWhatmore's (2002) hybrid geographies—just to name a few. 14. Wheeler's "law without law" states that physical laws would not appear in a truly fundamental description of nature. It is interesting to note that this seemingly paradoxical idea by a scientist has a religious precursor by Marcel Proust who once said, "The highest praise of God consists in the denial of Him by the atheist, who finds creation so perfect that he can dispense with a creator" [quoted on http://www.herbalquotes.org/viewherbs.php?herbcat=God]. 15. Similar ideas are also expressed in the so-called Butterfly economics (CitationOmerod 2001) or the wave principle (CitationPrechter 2002). 16. Geographers have expressed the same idea with different terminologies such as the world is shrinking, space-time compression, global village, etc. 17. The Kevin Bacon game involves connections among movie actors; one can play this game online at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~bct7m/bacon.html. See also "Kevin Bacon, the small-world, and why it all matters," at http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Bulletins/bulletinFall99/workInProgress/smallWorld.html.