Is the earth round/spherical?

[Marblehead]

Taomeow - do you then agree that your above post leads to the Socratic stance that the only thing we can know is that we know nothing?

Please don't get me started doubting the existence of my chair.

[Miffymog]

different questions for different opinions

 

For you, if you're certain your chair exists, then so am I!

[Taomeow]

Taomeow - do you then agree that your above post leads to the Socratic stance that the only thing we can know is that we know nothing?

 

I don't know that much about the Socratic stance.   

 

No, I don't think that "we know nothing" is a stance to assume -- I believe however that "we know everything" is a stance to avoid.  Taiji has taught me that this latter stance is extremely unstable, despite its illusion of firm solidity.  A master of superior skill can knock you out of this stance with one finger.  Of course you have to have the humility to acknowledge that it happened.  If you pick yourself up and shake yourself off and pretend it didn't...  well, I've seen it.  Especially when the opponent is perceived as weaker, due to being much smaller, or much older or much younger, or a woman.  Even when they land hard on their ass, they pretend they didn't.  Or that you just got lucky this one time, but it doesn't mean your skill is superior, it just means they didn't care to give it all they got.  Don't let me digress too far into taiji metaphors though.

 

But back to what we know via our sense of sight.  We know some nice things, e.g. the rainbow with its beautiful colors.  This is something no other animal on earth has ever seen though.  It is fully created by the peculiarities of our, human, visual apparatus, by those features of it that even our closest primate relatives don't share with us.  Does it mean the rainbow "really is" and all those animals and insects and reptiles and fish are an illusion?  and their opinion of what they see is "unscientific?.."

 

They have something on us though.  They can see what we can't, many of them.  All "visible world" we see occupies less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum, our "visible light" is just that -- 1% of what's there to see in the overall assortment of wavelengths of light.  Many animals have no trouble seeing what we don't -- ultraviolet, infrared, even the light disturbed and refracted by things that were there before but aren't anymore -- for instance migrating birds take a seemingly unnecessary detour around mountains that blocked their way a few hundred thousand years ago but are no longer there.  The mountains aren't but the electromagnetic field still remembers them, and the birds still don't want to fly smack into that even though it's no longer solid and, to us, no longer visible.  A page from a book saying "the earth is round" does not exist for us from a distance of 12 miles, but an eagle not only sees it clearly but could read it if he ever needed to learn to read in order to find out what we learn when we read our books.  It wouldn't mean much to him though.  The earth of an eagle is not the same planet we live on.

 

Occasionally the earth of a human whose senses have been augmented by taoist training isn't either.

[Nungali]

TTB has no policy against cattle-prodding dissidents back in line.  No wait...  there's no dissidents anymore.  Now there's only conspiracy theorists. 

 

How do they tell the difference?  Oh, that's easy.  If it doubts what CNN says, it's a conspiracy theory.  If it's not on CNN at all, it's a conspiracy theory.  And if it's on CNN but is happening elsewhere and is color coded (e.g. Green) or has a season assigned (e.g. Spring), then it's a revolution.  Elementary, Watson. Your information is not color coded, is not assigned a season, and is not on CNN.  Ergo it's a conspiracy theory.  Ergo the cattle prod.  Any questions?

 

 

Sure, I have some    

 

Why does a ship, when it passes , over the horizon  disappear from the bottom up and the last bit to 'sink' is the top of the mast ?

 

And another question ; Why does Moonie  continue to ignore this question, and a whole array of info put to him, ( that he seems not to want to believe ) with detailed and rational explanations offered by many  ?

 

And when did you two become a moderation team ?    (  Meaning, you guys are able to magically and subtly detect trolling what other mods dont seem to notice? )

 

Superpowers of troll detection is it ?   Or is the 'troll blanket' trying to thrown as a weak effort to dismiss the persistance of some opposite viewpoints ?

[Nungali]

Taomeow - do you then agree that your above post leads to the Socratic stance that the only thing we can know is that we know nothing?

 

 

If one is going to degrade every conversation with that stance, what is the point of even having one ?  This view can be projected on to anything .... this forum doesnt exist (or that we can no nothing about it ), Taomeow doesnt exist , and her opinion that we are so silly we dont understand this very basic principle of philosophy ....  does not exist.   ..... Or ....   I assert   it  does ! 

 

Or that we perceive things not as they are  ( like when we used to think the earth was flat )  ...   the argument can be applied either way , and projected on to all things .... but still, this grand illusion we observe  does seem to have some internal rules ... the earth is calculated to be round ....    and somehow ... all the other stuff works (  orbiting space station, satellites, your mobile phone etc .......  

[Nungali]

Please don't get me started doubting the existence of my chair.

 

 

I think your illusions are in order , as is your  understanding of their own internal logics and systems   ( ie.  at least you  have faith when you sit in your chair, you will be safe against the illusion of gravity smacking your illusory rear upon the illusion of the ground  ?  Or if gravity is an illusion, In that case, you might float up off the chair ? 

 

What a confusing world it would be if our illusions were so  inconsistent  ?  or I might say ... using the 'method' of a poster here ;  the  illusions are selective   ......  meaning  selected to demonstrate a point of argument  . 

 

 Unless of course , your doubt the function and ability of the chair ... maybe its rickety and you never got around to fixing it ? 

 

That is still part of the consistency of your illusion though  ?  

Edited November 8, 2015 by Nungali

[Taomeow]

Sure, I have some  

 

Why does a ship, when it passes , over the horizon  disappear from the bottom up and the last bit to 'sink' is the top of the mast ?

 

And another question ; Why does Moonie  continue to ignore this question, and a whole array of info put to him, ( that he seems not to want to believe ) with detailed and rational explanations offered by many  ?

 

And when did you two become a moderation team ?    (  Meaning, you guys are able to magically and subtly detect trolling what other mods dont seem to notice? )

 

Superpowers of troll detection is it ?   Or is the 'troll blanket' trying to thrown as a weak effort to dismiss the persistance of some opposite viewpoints ?

 

Nungali, if you keep messing with my respectometer, I will have to turn on my ignoremeter. 

 

To your questions: 

"Why does a ship etc." -- there's more than one possible explanation, far as I know, of which you choose one, and I choose none, since I've never made myself interested enough in this subject (I just have enough interests as it is).  Two of the possible ones are:

 

1) the earth is round

2) the horizon, which scientifically speaking is an optical illusion, strictly follows the logic of optical illusions.  Which, if you've looked at some of the good ones, you would know not to take as evidence of anything in particular.

 

"Why does Moonie continue to ignore etc." -- sorry, I can only answer for myself. 

 

"And when did you two become a moderation team?" -- well the "you two" is not a valid grouping just because we agree on the subject of someone trolling -- what else do you call bringing up the subject of flat earth in Moonie's thread on Osama bin Laden?  Not trolling, no?  Then what?  Moderation team, incidentally, exists today in the shape and form we all know and love  due to,  partially, my investment of a few mod years in the past, brainstorming with a wonderful team of back then (no less wonderful than the current one) and Sean on numerous occasions and arriving at some conclusions as a result.  I resigned a long time ago but my conclusions didn't -- you have a problem with me sharing them?  Respectfully?  Well lose it, please.  And stop trolling already.  You have so much better stuff to offer.  I can't wait till you snap out of it. 

[Marblehead]

Two of the possible ones are:

 

1) the earth is round

2) the horizon, which scientifically speaking is an optical illusion, strictly follows the logic of optical illusions.  Which, if you've looked at some of the good ones, you would know not to take as evidence of anything in particular.

How about a third possibility?

 

The ship has a leak and is slowly sinking?

[Apech]

How about a third possibility?

 

The ship has a leak and is slowly sinking?

 

Time to rearrange the deck chairs and play Abide with Me.

[AussieTrees]

The earth may have started off square like a brick,a cube straight from the factory.All six sides flat and square.

 

Then over time and many meteor impact over the millennia it has had all its corners chipped off,now well rounded in her maturity.

 

Some say spherical,what's in a name.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Aussie

[Marblehead]

The earth may have started off square like a brick,a cube straight from the factory.All six sides flat and square.

 

Then over time and many meteor impact over the millennia it has had all its corners chipped off,now well rounded in her maturity.

 

Some say spherical,what's in a name.

You have a TTC concept in that post.

[Apech]

Earth is square , Heaven is round.

 

On the earth we orientate ourselves using compass points - essentially a square.  In the heaven we orientate ourselves with arcs and circles - orbits of sun and moon and stars.  

 

In terms of the square earth - there is a qualitative difference between the directions.  North and South form a pair based on (for the northern hemisphere) North being the 'fixed point' (ignoring precessional wobble) around which everything turns - and South being the area of maximum brilliance ( Sirius and Orion).  For the Southern hemisphere this is reversed which is one proof for the spherical earth of course

 

East and West form a pair as they have a different relation to the background sky - and are orientated principally as the beginning and end of the plane of the ecliptic (the arc of the sun and planets).  For instance West astronomically has no real meaning as in 12 hours the direction of west in terms of stars about by 180 degrees.

 

So North and South - stellar background.

East and  West - sun, moon, planets.

 

Squaring the circle or circling the square.

[Marblehead]

Earth is square , Heaven is round.

I'm glad to see you are still capable of fertilizing the gardens.

[Taomeow]

My house is on the hill which rather steeply descends toward the ocean, terminating in a bluff, which in its turn sharply drops to the shore.  When I drive down this hill, the ocean and the horizon are in full view, but when I'm about a quarter of a mile away from the beach, both start rising up -- visually -- and there's a stretch, about a block long, where the view appears to be of the ocean standing vertically like a great wall of water in my way, touching the sky very high up above my head, with the line of the horizon looking like the top of the wall.  If there's clouds, they sit on the wall like salt on the rim of a glass of Margarita.  If they are massive, they form another wall on top of the wall of water, rising high into the sky.  If there's ships, they appear to slide off the wall like Humpty-Dumpty.  If I were to go by the visual assessment of the shape of the earth based on the view I see every time I drive westward, I would have to conclude that it is a box, with one side of it made of water. 

 

Only in California though. 

Edited November 9, 2015 by Taomeow

[Apech]

I'm glad to see you are still capable of fertilizing the gardens.

 

 

Since you mention it I am collecting urine over the winter for fertilizer.

[Nungali]

I'm glad to see you are still capable of fertilizing the gardens.

 

 

Now now Marble head   ... stop trolling  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

Since you mention it I am collecting urine over the winter for fertilizer.

 

 

I can help you with that   

 

 

[Marblehead]

Now now Marble head   ... stop trolling 

 

But that's the only way you can catch the big fish.

[Marblehead]

I can help you with that   

And where did your dog land after the cat swatted it?

[mostly_empty]

Of correct evidence there is a dearth,

we are missing the correct description of the earth.

Night and day

She goes gallantly on her Way,

carefully ignoring the sound 

while this discussion goes round and round...

[MooNiNite]

Maybe we wont be on this earth much longer. I hear the guy/girl ratio is changing...girls are taking over!

[MooNiNite]

Earth is square

 

Finally someone understands the truth!

[Taomeow]

In one of my favorite sci-fi novels, the inhabitants of a certain earth-like planet visited by us humans (coming from a remote and bright future) believe that they live on the inner surface of the "world sphere," with the whole of existence contained in that sphere, and with the World Light -- the local sun -- occupying its center.  The earth scientists of the future trace this weird belief to the peculiarities of the atmospheric refraction on that planet, which creates this particular illusion for the observers -- one of many possible ones, all depending on the properties of a particular planet's distance from its source of light and refractive peculiarities of the gases and vapors in the atmosphere and so on.  (One of the two authors of the novel is an astrophysicist, I have this thing for astrophysicists and their fantastic ideas rooted in their fantastic knowledge...) 

 

One side effect of this belief system in that thoroughly technological but morally dysfunctional world (modeled on ours of course) is that they never bothered to explore "the cosmos" because they have no notion of the cosmos due to the optical illusion they all are born into.  They think the stars are just fragments of the World Light, all located on the inner surface of the "world sphere," and there's nothing "out there" and no "out there" to begin with.  Which poses a great difficulty for the main protagonist who is unable to explain where he comes from because where he comes from does not exist and cannot exist in the scientific, technological, but optical-illusion-misguided minds of the locals.

 

Reminds me of our situation with other-dimensional beings.  "We" don't believe in them because we are locked in our 3D world by our beliefs. 

Edited November 10, 2015 by Taomeow

[Marblehead]

And I, on the other hand, being the hard core materialist that I am, believe that if I can't touch it, it doesn't exist.

[Apech]

And I, on the other hand, being the hard core materialist that I am, believe that if I can't touch it, it doesn't exist.

 

So the thoughts and feelings which caused you write that don't exist?