troly@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/28/87)
Keywords:platygaeanism, creationism, astrology In article <1313@quad1.quad.com> oleg@quad1.quad.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >In article <132@gt-eedsp.UUCP> sjreeves@gt-eedsp.UUCP () writes: >>Anyone can see that nothingness causes nothing. > >"Anyone"? If YOU can't understand an idea (because your education did not >include a good course in quantum mechanics and your reading list did not cover ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >any modern particle physics theories), it does not necessarily mean that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [I flame these below] >everyone else operates with the same handicaps. > >"Anyone can see that rocks don't fall from the sky"... >"Anyone can see that the Earth is flat"... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >-- >Oleg Kiselev -- oleg@quad1.quad.com -- {...!psivax|seismo!gould}!quad1!oleg >HASA, "A" Division > >DISCLAIMER: I don't speak for my employers. Unfortunately you probably do speak for your employers and most other people. "Everyone knows" that the earth is round because they've been told so since childhood. Did you know that this belief has the same origin as the "creation science" that you condemn? Namely, the medieval Church, which appropriated the idea with a whole lot of other classical philosophical paraphenalia during the Scholastic period. Much of our early education is really "education by intimidation". Small children have a great deal of trouble accepting the associative law of addition. They are just browbeat into accepting it. In adult life some of our best and brightest ask the question again but they are usually satisfied when they are convinced that the law is mathamatically consistent. Yet I believe that something is to be gained by questioning authoritarian dogma. Our beliefs should rest on reason and firm evidence, or on divine revelation (allowing for the revelation that we ourselves are divine). But revelation is less sure. Divine as we may be, we see reality as through a glass, darkly. We must validate both our experience and the reasoning which is based on experience. An error may be handled for a while by ingenious ad hoc arguments but sooner or later the error will spread like a disease (or a dysfunction of the fourth chakra) throughout our entire belief system. That is why we must be so careful with the roots of our beliefs. Anything may be proved from a false premise. That is the reason for the spectacular success of the ad hocquery which constitutes modern science. But we are reaching the point where ad hocquery will no longer serve. Historically the round earth theory is the taproot of modern science. Yet it starts off with a logical flaw. We accept it in childhood because of intimidation, and in adulthood because of habit or because of demonstrations of its mathematical consistency. MATHEMATICAL CONSISTENCY DOES NOT IMPLY TRUTH. The first question any child asks is: why do the people at the antipodes not fall off? The "answer" is that `down' means `toward the center of the earth'. THIS CONTAINS TWO FALLACIES (maybe more). Firstly, `down' already has a *physical* meaning, it cannot be simply redefined. I cannot just redefine `up' to mean `north' or `blue' to mean `heavy' either. Second- ly it *assumes* that the earth has a center. This is circular, and more... . The earth does not have a center. In Frege's terminology, the name `the center of the earth' has a sense (Sinn), but no denotation, (Bedeutung). Thus the "answer" above does not denote a truth-value. It is *meaningless* (bedeutunglos). Originally the round earth theory gained support not only because of theocratic backing, but because of geometrical difficulties. But these difficulties cropped up later in round-earth based physics with a vengeance. In 1905-1910 physicists decided that the universe was four-dimensional, with a funny metric that wasn't even positive-definite. In 1915 they decided that the funny metric changed from point to point. Then they decided that the behavior of objects depended on how they were observed, that no path could be assigned to the motion of an electron not under observation, for example. Recently they've started to claim (String Theory) that elementary particles may have 10 or 26 dimensions wrapped up inside them! I do not advocate the elimination of modern science. With all its ad hocquery, it is invaluable for the maintenance of our technology. But it is clear that the theory is disintegrating into nonsense. Hard as it may seem, science will have to return to the wrong turn it took in the middle ages and take a new path. Now for the part you alt.flamers have been waiting for! It should be clear that my presentation of platygaeanism is *much* more cogent and intelligent than anything creationists or astrologers have been able to come up with. DO NOT LUMP PLATYGAEANISM IN WITH ASTROLOGY OR CREATIONISM. IT MAKES MUCH MORE SENSE. Thanx Bret Jolly, Mathemagus, LA platygaean society.
oleg@quad1.UUCP (12/01/87)
[Why t.r.newage alone, troly? The group you are looking for is rec.humor!
Follow-ups to alt.flame]
In article <9477@shemp.UCLA.EDU> troly@CS.UCLA.EDU (Bret Jolly) gives us
a defense of Flat Earth theory and tries to show that his arguement is better
than that given by Creationists. That is almost true...
I can appreciate a finely crafted arguement, Bret. But you err. It is easier
to prove that the earth is round than to prove that it is flat. Next time try
argueing in defense of phlogistons, ether wind, or fluidum vitae... Those are
far more amusing subjects.
--
Oleg Kiselev -- oleg@quad1.quad.com -- {...!psivax|seismo!gould}!quad1!oleg
HASA, "A" Division
DISCLAIMER: I don't speak for my employers.
dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60aC) (12/15/87)
Bret Jolly makes an interesting argument for platypism, the theory that all crackpots posting to the net have flat heads. Actually that's not true, some have pointed heads. >Now for the part you alt.flamers have been waiting for! It should be clear >that my presentation of platygaeanism is *much* more cogent and intelligent >than anything creationists or astrologers have been able to come up with. >DO NOT LUMP PLATYGAEANISM IN WITH ASTROLOGY OR CREATIONISM. IT MAKES MUCH >MORE SENSE. Thanx At least 10 times as much sense. Of course, 10 * 0 = 0. You remind me of an Arts major at school who tried to convice me that classical Newtonian mechanics was no longer valid because it had been superceded by Special Relativity. My reply was that he better be careful the next time he drove his car; the engineers who designed it didn't make any relativistic corrections in their calculations. There is one difference between his ideas and yours; he was technically correct. --- Dan Tilque dant@tekla.tek.com or dant@tekla.UUCP P.S. Be careful on your next plane trip; the navigator is probably a round-earther and you'll probably land in Poughkeepsie instead of Pocatello.