We have now reached our crusing altitude of 30,000 feet

Ok folks, bear with me on this one.  This one could get a little weird...


Picture your self at Disney World, now I understand if you have never been to Disney World this might be kind of difficult to imagine - all I can ask is that you please try.


Picture being on a ride like Soarin or Mission Space.
These rides were made to simulate traveling.


Here comes the weird thought...


How do we know if we are actually traveling or not?


I thought about this while I was flying back to school after Spring break.  I was flying Southwest and I had a few stops on the way back.  I found myself taking short naps in between takeoffs and landings.  I would wake up and be told I was in Kansas City or St. Louis or Houston.
I believed the captain when he told all the passengers that we were in a new city.  I had no reason to doubt him.  After all, I looked outside the window and saw a different landscape, different people, a different airport, and different planes. 
Then, on one leg of the trip, I sat next to a woman, originally from Texas, but she currently lives in Missouri.  We talked the whole trip.  (It just so happens that when you get two people who like to talk next to each other, they don't stop talking)  We talked about a lot of things: politics, education in the US, military (her husband is a marine who is deployed in Iraq), culture differences throughout the US, her new grandson, mental and physical health (after she learned that I wanted to be a doctor), life experiences, law and government, and lots of other things we touched upon.
While we were conversing, she would refer to Texas many times by saying "here" and Missouri many times by saying "there."  Once she heard the captain of the plane say, "We have begun our decent into Kansas City, [Missouri].  Please put your tray tables up and your seats in the full upright position.  Thanks for flying with us at Southwest Airlines and we hope to see you real soon," she changed her reference points.  She now referred to Missouri by saying "here" and Texas by saying "there."  I do not know if she was aware of this change but I sure was.  I didn't say anything to her about it but I was thinking about it for the rest of my journey back to campus.


I thought, "When was the appropriate time to switch adverbs?"  Technically, it should be when you cross the border, right?  But my airplane buddy (single serving friend) switched the adverbs after she was notified by the captain that we are almost in Kansas City.
The key word there is almost.  We still could have been in Texas for all we knew and in that case she would have "technically" been wrong. 


So where were we?


Did I know exactly where I was?
No
Did I know I was in an airplane?
Yes
Did I know I was in Texas when I walked onto the airplane?
Yes


So I was in Texas before this plane ride.  Where was I now?
I was in Missouri!  How did I know that?
I looked outside my window and did not recognize the sights I saw (skyline, landscape, people) and the captain said, "Welcome to Kansas City, Missouri!"


Well, I've been on both the Soarin and Mission Space rides at Disney World and during those rides I knew that I was not actually soaring over the USA or blasting off into outer space and encountering several seemingly life threatening malfunctions to the space shuttle that always seem to happen at the same time every time I rode that ride.  But those rides were so technically advanced that after thinking about this topic, I realized that I could have easily been fooled into thinking I was flying into space or soaring over the country.  After all, the g-forces on the take off of Mission Space felt so real, because they were, and the smells and wind from Soarin felt so real, because they were.


So if I was told by NASA to be on the next mission to Mars and they put me on that ride, I would think that I was actually in Space for two reasons: 1. I trust the authority that told me where I was. 2. I don't know what traveling to space feels like.  I cannot compare this journey to space to any other space adventure I had in the past that could prove to me that I wasn't actually in space.


Using this reasoning, I have come to the conclusion that I do not know if I have ever gone to a new place after "traveling" on an airplane.


It could be that I was fooled by HD TVs in the windows of the plane, false g-forces put on me by a rotating apparatus of some kind (similar to that of Mission Space), and fooled by the captain and flight attendants who told me I was some place new (different from where I started from).
So, now, when I exit the plane and am told I am in Chicago, I see a "new" airport and new people and a new skyline...


I am obviously in a new place now right?  Well, what if I told you that while I was in the plane a group of workers (whose sole purpose in life is to fool me) rearranged all furniture in the airport that I left in Texas to make it look different, created a type of "Truman Show" environment that made me believe I was in a new place, and gathered actors together to act like people from a different place.


I could apply the same logic to car traveling and now I'm stuck with a new problem...


Ok ok ok...  for all those people out there thinking, "Whatever, I've traveled, I know I traveled, you can't make me think otherwise no matter how hard you try," I get it!
I don't think that I have never traveled.  I believe the captain when he says, "Welcome to Kansas City/Chicago/Houston/St. Louis/Dallas!"  I have every reason to believe him.  This was just me entertaining a thought of mine and seeing where it would take me... philosophizing (is what I like to call it).


Tell me what you think, you guys.  It's a scary thought, I know.