That's what governments are for- get in a man's way...what's so hard to understand here?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, April 10, 2008 21:15
VIEWED: 4817
PAGE 5 of 6
Quote:Really? Because I could more easily forgive the mistake of assuming the earth flat, then I could that the moon appears to rotate. One can make fun of the earth being flat since one lives in a world where such knowledge is widely excepted based on a lot of solid evidence to be false, but the logic itself is not as “simple” as you think. The truth is that the flat earth idea can be explained by the fundamental theorem of calculus, or basically that any sufficiently small region of any real surface will always appear flat. If, given our minute physical comparison to the enormity of the earth, we could simply know that the earth was spherical that would tend to cast doubt on the entire field calculus.
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:In a time long ago I would have STRONGLY suspected the Earth was round for my stated reasons, just as I STRONGLY suspected the WMD thing was a hoax, er, I mean, error.
Originally posted by Hero:
Things are not so obvious until they are established fact, explained by science, and accepted into the collective knowledge of everyone.
Some of us are blessed with gifted insight to go along with simple logic, I suppose.
On the other hand, one can in fact examine the moon and see quite clearly with one’s own eye that lunar features remain constant on the lunar disk. The same side of the moon always faces the earth.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:That’s refreshingly honest. Yes, we all find ourselves defending inflexible opinions sometimes. I have done it more then once, often to my own discredit.
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:It's the "Earth is round" effect. It's difficult for some (including me) to argue something we believe so fiercely in a way that allows for the possibility that we're wrong...pizza is the best food, Bush is a bad President, the Earth is round, period, no discussion except for you to agree.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I think what some of us are sick of are the arguments that preclude any disagreement.
Some ideas, such as the flat earth, we can postulate. We know it’s a fact - we don’t have to keep redefining the wheel, but one must be careful about what one postulates. When you start taking subjective views, such as ‘Bush is a bad president’ and insisting them to be fact regardless of the evidence, then you are doing exactly what you are now criticizing others for.
Quote:Well, I generally don’t take offense unless offense is intended, but even then only rarely - I don‘t have a very thin skin. It has nothing to do with the administration. The last time I took offense at something someone directed at me or about me on this board was concerning sex education, not the administration. Most of the time, I find the audacity and fruitcakeisms of Bush-haters more funny then offensive.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
One thing though, I don't fault (or care, even) peeps here for bashing Clinton for his many flaws, why do you take such umbrage in the case of the present administration? It's like y'all take it personally or something.
Quote:The point is that certain people will only read as much of what I say, as they need to support their twisted views of me.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Seriously, I'm not perfectly clear on that part of your post, but I wouldn't call you a lackey in ANY case.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I've strongly suspected that Al Qaeda was not primarily responsible for 9/11 since 9/11/01. For me there are clues in abundance, just like the curvature of the horizon and the shapes of the moon.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
In a time long ago I would have STRONGLY suspected the Earth was round for my stated reasons, just as I STRONGLY suspected the WMD thing was a hoax, er, I mean, error.
Some of us are blessed with gifted insight to go along with simple logic, I suppose.
--------------------------
If the earth were round, then why don't we fall off when we get to the other side?
--Round Earth Skeptics
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"Unless you've gone all the way around then you can't prove this to be true. How do you know that just one mile more you wont see the edge?"
Why is this getting to be like dealing with Rap ? Oh yeah --- simple facts - and logic - just aren't enough to do the job.
How do you know you won't see the edge ? How about because you've been cresting a hill in the ocean for the last 5,000 miles ? Now maybe it's just me, but I don't think you could make a big enough mountain out of ocean water to make that happen. DUH ! (Same goes for gravitational effects and earth's spin - which you forgot Kirk'ules' (is that like a variation of picayune kirks? you know globs, globules ... kirks, kirkules) - jeez - the effect is in the order of a few meters over thousands of miles. Now somehow - don't know why this idea came to me, but here it is - I don't think that effect - which is only visible from space or from doing highly sensitive measurements - is enough to create a false illusion of roundness where it doesn't exist.)
***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Actually I believe some Greeks figured it out with a star and a very deep well. It's not blindingly obvious though, otherwise supposedly intelligent people wouldn't have thought the earth was flat into the 16th century.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Other sailors figured it out from the common experience of climbing up the mast to see further - to actually see a different horizon.
***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
and earth's spin - which you forgot
What makes you think the Earth spins? It seems obvious to me that no matter were I am on Earth the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. If you just used simple logic it would be obvious to you, like it is to me, that the Sun revolves around me. Since the Sun clearly revolves around me, I think we can assume the entire Universe does.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
That's utter foolishness. Anyone with any sense at all at any time in history can tell that the Earth is round.
Okay, I think many of you have served to demonstrate my original point very well. That point was this: People (and by that I mean you) tend to believe that they know things for reasons that aren't valid. For instance, I believe that the world is spherical, but the reality is that I believe that not because of all the supposed evidence, but because people would call me crazy if I didn't. Why would they call me crazy? Because everyone knows the world is spherical! In most disciplines, there are only a limited number of people who actually have access to the tools and specialized knowledge to actually know something with a sense of reasonable certainty. Everyone else, inluding in many cases respected "authorities," just believe what they are told, believe the evidence that is presented in its finished, sometimes sanitized, form. They don't really know anything, but they have the satisfaction of believing they do. And that's the point I was originally making. The problem is that most people are quite happy to be told, and feel secure in a false sense of knowledge. And this is most evident when they say things like "It's common knowledge! Why would you even need to argue it?" This is almost a sure sign that they don't really know why the thing is supposed to be true, they've just always assumed it was. Here's one I like; next time you're talking about the War Between the States, and somebody says something like "Slavery was the cause," or "Slavery was bad and had to be stopped," ask them "Why is slavery bad?" They'll give you all kinds of obvious answers born of the Age of Enlightenment, but ultimately no one seems to be able to answer a question like that without assuming the "right" answer a priori. Similarly, we're all "Oh, any idiot can see that the Earth is round!" when what we really mean is "Anyone, that is, living in the 21st century with the benefit of over 2,000 years of research on the subject and the gloss of hindsight." Greek physicians used to believe the brain was simply an organ for cooling the blood, for Pete's sake. How would you go about demonstrating definitively that it is the seat of consciousness instead, despite how obvious it appears to you? So that's all, I'm telling you not to assume ultimate truths where there may only be conditioning and egocentrism.
Thanks to Hero and MacCool (haha, Gaelic fun!) for reasoned and informative posts; Fletch, I'm sure you know that the unseen side of the Moon gets just as much light as the seen one, albeit there's no one there to hear it fall. Thanks to the rest of you for leaping on this digression like rapid dogs and often with similarly subtle reasoning ability.
Moving on, Chrisisall, I believe I apply the same standard to administrations and legislatures of both parties. I don't like anyone spending money stupidly or frivolously, and even less do I like politicians creating issues where there needn't be any. It's simply that more often than not it's the Democrats who do these things; that may simply be their legacy as the "opposition" party in late 20th century American politics. Their whole raison d'etre is to disagree with the core principles of the nation, and to pander to those who lack the self-respect or intelligence to actually function as citizens. Their platform, as with any socialist party in an affluent society (go figure that one), is to promise to redistribute the wealth and resources of those who are doing things right to those who are doing things wrong; that is, to the populus mobile, the moronic, lazy, and self-indulgent, the wheedling children who make up an alarming proportion of today's America. So, I'm sure somebody will have something to say about that, and try to throw in something about the role of government in all this. Ta ta...
This may be all a dream, but at least mine was consistently erotic.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
At at certain point no one can 'know' anything - not even their own existance. So one has to make some assumptions somewhere. If you draw the line at no assumptions can be made anywhere, then you are nowhere.
***************************************************************
Also, just to point out - no where in the constitution does it say capitalism or god. So I guess the founders were godless socialists and those are the core ideals of the country. 
Ta ta ...
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I think you assumed too much about a keystroke there, Socrates
Originally posted by LightBringer:
Thanks to the rest of you for leaping on this digression like rapid dogs
.Fast canine Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME