Is the earth round/spherical?

[Marblehead]

 

Answer yes, no, yes and no, no and yes, neither, something else, or what earth?

I have no idea.

[AussieTrees]

Perspective seeds our point of view.

[Brian]

We have been here before:

 

1. There is no 'up' on a sphere in space .

 

2. 'You northerners' have a natural southern orientation towards the path of the Sun, where our's is northern ... the same as all the maps (including yours ).

 

3. So you have to do 'map rotation' to find your way around.

 

4. And we dont

 

5. So if anyone is 'upside down' or down underneath ... it is you guys.

 

6. Which is why you are all so confused ( I mean ... look at the post above this one .... tisk tisk ) .

Assuming both the sphere in space and the observer have mass, there is definitely an "up" -- it just has no relation to the magnetic field or orientation of the axis. "Up" is the opposite of "down" and down is the direction of the net gravitational pull on the observer. Up is a gravitational phenomenon.

 

Up is also an animated movie with a funny talking dog. Gravity was significant in the movie, too.

[Nungali]

DOH ! 

 

I should have said there is no 'underneath' on a sphere in space. 

 

 

....       ......  next time . 

[Taomeow]

Taoism 101 to the rescue.

 

Up and down are always possible to determine by taoist methods.  Give me any space in the universe that contains any form and substance, I'll tell you where its up is and where its down is.  I promise.

 

Because taoism deals with spacetime rather than space separated from time (unlike our idealistic sciences separated from reality),

"round" and "flat" are meaningless for describing space without time alone, because there's no such thing in existence as space without time alone.  (We leave the realms of no-shape and of no-substance and of no-shape-no-substance out of it for the moment...  there we can have no time, no space -- but nowhere can we have space without time or time without space.)  So when we say "round" and "square," "flat" and "spherical," etc., we don't mean "like a ball" or "like a pancake."  We mean the vector of change in spacetime. 

 

So when we say "the earth is square," we mean it exists in four seasons, the changes of the earth are seasonal and since the major ones are four -- Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, aka Conception, Growth, Fruition, Consummation -- we assert it is square in spacetime.  Its changes are fourfold, "square" is a shortcut to saying "its changes arrive at one of the four consecutive destinations, like the corners of a square, before making a turn toward a new direction."  Or as I put it before, the spirit and the math of earth in spacetime of changes are square.

 

So a snapshot of the earth is a ball?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I've no idea.  I haven't observed it first hand.  Does it matter?  Can it predict anything about November, July, harvest, planting time, Monarch butterfly migration, the Santa Ana season and the sirocco, the bikini or the fur coat to buy, the mosquito bite or the frostbite, the flooding of the Nile or the availability of persimmons?  No.  But if I know the earth is square, does it?  Oh yes.  Every earth year -- and with periodicity that's squarely in your face if you are making appropriate observations and calculations, every earth-heaven cosmic year. 

 

That's because the earth is square regardless of the shape of the physical planet earth.  That's because Earth is not a lump of space inside an idealistic illusion of no-time.  Earth is a spacetime phenomenon of changes in reality itself.  Earth is real in spacetime only. 

 

Make a very good note of it and don't bother a taoist with this pointless idealistic nonsense about its physical shape in some time-purged change-removed space that does not exist in reality.  It's not the physical shape of your body on a selfie taken right now that is "you."  You were a little thing with gills and a tail once, swimming in water in someone's round belly -- remember?  Was that shape not the real scientific you as opposed to the picture you just took with your phone?..  And if that picture you took  today attests to your obesity but by next year you lose 49 lb and your belly that is round as a ball becomes flat as a pancake, does it mean you lost your scientific definition of what "you" means?..  So which shape is "your real one and only shape?"  And which one is Earth's?...  Huh?..

 

Did it ever matter, for a million years, whether the snapshot of this place is a flat picture of a ball?  No.  Did it ever matter, for a million years, that the spacetime of this place behaves in a square fashion, with four turns every time, a million times in a row?  Yes.  We wouldn't be here if we hadn't learned to notice.

 

The path is steep and narrow and sharp as a razor blade, the sage said.  Did he mean the shape of the path in space?  No.  And if they showed him a snapshot of a smooth, flat, eight-lane wide highway, would he reconsider his assessment?  No.

 

Neither do I. 

 

Spacetime rocks.  Yin and yang rock (they are your clue as to how to tell up from down anywhere in the universe.)  Taoism rocks.  Modern science is flat as a pancake.  I hope it grows out of its time-less diapers soon or it will follow the reading the I Ching gives me whenever I ask about this or that "scientific breakthrough": 

"It flares up, dies down, gets thrown away."      

Edited October 27, 2015 by Taomeow

[soaring crane]

So a snapshot of the earth is a ball?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I've no idea.  I haven't observed it first hand.  Does it matter?  Can it predict anything about November, July, harvest, planting time, Monarch butterfly migration, the Santa Ana season and the sirocco, the bikini or the fur coat to buy, the mosquito bite or the frostbite, the flooding of the Nile or the availability of persimmons?  No.  But if I know the earth is square, does it?  Oh yes.  Every earth year -- and with periodicity that's squarely in your face if you are making appropriate observations and calculations, every earth-heaven cosmic year.     

 

 

Well, I think the rotating ball of fluid, with its own rotating spherical satellite, both of them orbiting around a source of heat/light does a pretty good job of predicting exactly those things. 

 

But that's the lovely post I was waiting for from you :-)

 

Heavenly stems, Earthly branches, timespace, says it all, yes.

[thelerner]

As long as my youtube recommendations are mostly on flat earth videos and probably will be for the coming future .. I thought this was an unusually thoughtful video on the subject.  Examining both sides with the most respectful sensibilities.   <its short too which is both welcome and unusual for this subject>

 

Spoiler alert, the earth is flat.. if you're a muon- The muon (/ˈmjuːɒn/; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with electric charge of −1 e and a spin of ¹⁄₂, but with a much greater mass (105.7 MeV/c²).

 

 

Likewise this is strangely informative.  How do We know the Past existed?  What rules do we need to sort out basic knowledge.  There's a good explanation of philosophical razors from Occams to Newtons Flaming Sword which help us sort it out.

 

Edited October 28, 2015 by thelerner

[Taomeow]

As long as my youtube recommendations are mostly on flat earth videos and probably will be for the coming future..

 

On your youtube page, you can go to History ( the left upper side of the screen), click on that, then you get an option "Clear Watch History."  Click on that.  It will ask you if you're sure, confirm it.  Flat earth recommendations will go away.  I clean up this way after watching anything at all -- I never once got a recommendation I cared to follow, they ain't no mind readers, those artificially-intelligent/naturally-dumb applications.

[Marblehead]

Thanks Thelerner.  I'm going back to continue listening to Big Brother and The Holding Company now.

[AussieTrees]

Our planet may be round or spherical,similar in shape to all the other planets.

 

Is the universe round,does it have a boundary,what's the view like from the other side.

So many questions.

[Miffymog]

Damn it! I don't have the down-load capacity to watch youtube videos. Any one able summarise what thelerner's links were about???

[Taomeow]

Damn it! I don't have the down-load capacity to watch youtube videos. Any one able summarise what thelerner's links were about???

 

I didn't watch the second one, but the first one is about

 

1) offering a very incorrect picture of the behavior of gravity in case of flat earth -- a model that ignores the motion of the earth in space (let alone spacetime) and its rotation around its own axis, and 

2) adding a rather prudent view of the facts that are the standard set used to prove the earth is round, correctly pointing out that the facts and the theory that uses them toward its own proofs are not the same, and that a different theory -- that of the flat earth -- can successfully use the same observable facts to prove its own points.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Taomeow

[AussieTrees]

This crimson halo appeared during this mornings storm,enjoy.

Apologies can't upload picture.

 

Yea managed something.

Edited October 31, 2015 by Aussie

[Miffymog]

Thank you very much Taomeow.

 

(Also glad to hear that your cat is getting better, I'm also a cat person as they were the pets I grew up with)

 

(edit. hence my on-line name)

Edited October 30, 2015 by Miffymog

[Nungali]

Damn it! I don't have the down-load capacity to watch youtube videos. Any one able summarise what thelerner's links were about???

 

The earth may be flat and history may not have happened . 

 

next week ... how to play the flute ; blow in one end and move your fingers up and down the outside. 

[Nungali]

Our planet may be round or spherical,similar in shape to all the other planets.

 

Is the universe round,does it have a boundary,what's the view like from the other side.

So many questions.

 

like a big snowflake 

 

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Urantia+superuniverse&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIz9ObmofryAIVIeSmCh1jKQW7#imgrc=_

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

Our planet may be round or spherical,similar in shape to all the other planets.

 

Is the universe round,does it have a boundary,what's the view like from the other side.

So many questions.

 

Try the work of physicist Nassim Haramein.  He's unafraid to be unorthodox even though he's paid all his dues to the standard "peer reviewed" science before climbing out of that box.  And he asserts (and proves) everything is a torus -- galaxies, stars, planets, all the macrocosm and all the way down to the microcosm. 

 

His theories dovetail nicely with the Russian torsion fields field and the taoist cosmology of yin-yang and wuxing and bagua and ganying, as well as with quite a lot of the sacred-geometrical goodies that folks like Isaac Newton and Niels Bohr alike kept in their back room, away from the prying eyes.  I've listened to hours of his lectures a few years ago, you can probably find something of interest on Youtube.  He also has a DVD for lay folks -- http://www.amazon.com/Black-Whole-Nassim-Haramein/dp/B004CYVZ18/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1446251753&sr=1-1&keywords=black+whole+book

[Taomeow]

The Earth's axis rotates (precesses) just as a spinning top does. The period of precession is about 26,000 years. 

 

I got this from a friend who teaches astrophysics.  This is "really" modern science -- however, Hipparchus first proposed the precession of the axis in 130 B.C., and estimated the period at 26,000 years. 

 

If you lived off planet and the saccadic movements of your eyes had a periodicity of 26,000 years instead of 200 milliseconds that is their current rate, you would clearly see a spinning top-shaped Earth.

 

 When you watch a movie, you see a smooth lifelike sequence of motion on the screen -- however in reality it all consists of still frames with gaps between them.  Synchronizing the sequencing of these frames and gaps with your visual perceptions is what makes you believe you are watching a movie, rather than the 16 still frames in each one foot of 35 mm film, with 16 gaps of nothing per every foot of it you are really watching every second of it.

 

Any shape you perceive that is not time-tuned with your perception apparatus appears to be what your perceptions make it appear to be.  And if it is time-tuned with your perceptions, it appears to be something else.  Yet neither one is "reality."  The still frames on the 35 mm film don't move, contrary to the evidence of your vision.  And by the same token, the pictures of earth on the film don't rotate, contrary to the evidence of your mind.  What is real?  

 

The real question is, what is real?.. 

[MooNiNite]

The north and south poles are interesting to me, the governments dont want people over there, and the images on google earth are visibly tampered with

[Nungali]

The Earth's axis rotates (precesses) just as a spinning top does. The period of precession is about 26,000 years. 

 

I got this from a friend who teaches astrophysics.  This is "really" modern science -- however, Hipparchus first proposed the precession of the axis in 130 B.C., and estimated the period at 26,000 years. 

 

If you lived off planet and the saccadic movements of your eyes had a periodicity of 26,000 years instead of 200 milliseconds that is their current rate, you would clearly see a spinning top-shaped Earth.

 

Whaaat !   ?   

 

Hipparchus was around late enough to compare old manuscripts and observations with current ones ... he didnt go 'off planet' or speed or slow up his vision.  And if that isnt what you mean .... I dont see why you introduced the two concepts together .

 

And any such 'time vision' or precession doesnt turn the earth into a spinning top shape ?   Thats absurd - unless you postulate that the 'top' in question is already 'round / spherical' shaped. 

 

 

... I mean ... I do like the casual adamancy  of your above assertion  .... bu it doesnt make the post sensible or correct . 

 

(ETA ; unless you meant to say .... you would see the earth wobbling like a spinning top does  as it slows down  ? ) 

 

 When you watch a movie, you see a smooth lifelike sequence of motion on the screen -- however in reality it all consists of still frames with gaps between them.  Synchronizing the sequencing of these frames and gaps with your visual perceptions is what makes you believe you are watching a movie, rather than the 16 still frames in each one foot of 35 mm film, with 16 gaps of nothing per every foot of it you are really watching every second of it.

 

Any shape you perceive that is not time-tuned with your perception apparatus appears to be what your perceptions make it appear to be.  And if it is time-tuned with your perceptions, it appears to be something else.  Yet neither one is "reality."  The still frames on the 35 mm film don't move, contrary to the evidence of your vision.  And by the same token, the pictures of earth on the film don't rotate, contrary to the evidence of your mind.  What is real?  

 

 

That is is really stretching an analogy ! 

 

How does what you say explain why the mast of a ship is the last thing one sees as it passes below  (as they say - for a reason ) the horizon ....  (actually, why would we even have such an horizon  if the earth was flat ! )  ? 

 

The real question is, what is real?.. 

 

Sorta.  I define that a bit more accurately ...  the question is what defines 'human reality'

 

Now that changes over time .   The recent definitions are pretty different from the old ones, which collectively, have been around much much longer .   One problem is , much of the collective human experience , doesnt fit into modern definitions of 'reality' . 

 

'Confusing the planes'  ,  that's where a lot of the problems lie. 

Edited November 1, 2015 by Nungali

[Nungali]

The north and south poles are interesting to me, the governments dont want people over there, and the images on google earth are visibly tampered with

 

Because they dont want you to see them morphing into this shape  :

 

 

[ralis]

The north and south poles are interesting to me, the governments dont want people over there, and the images on google earth are visibly tampered with

You are saying governments do not want anyone on the poles? Are you making this up? There are major international research stations on Antarctica with research facilities and personnel. A very good friend of mine spent three months on Antarctica which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Edited November 1, 2015 by ralis

[MooNiNite]

Because they dont want you to see them morphing into this shape  :

 

 

who knows why. A large oil company was going to do some work there, but recently "changed their mind"

[MooNiNite]

You are saying governments do not want anyone on the poles? Are you making this up? There are major international research stations on Antarctica. A very good friend of mine spent three months on Antarctica which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. 

 

yeah im saying that. I have seen videos on youtube of the research facilities. 

[ralis]

yeah im saying that. I have seen videos on youtube of the research facilities.

You stated that governments want no one there. Your post makes no sense to me.

 

What proof can you offer that the Google images are being tampered with?

Edited November 1, 2015 by ralis