The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Debate => Topic started by: jmguy on March 13, 2009, 12:29:38 PM
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Let me preface by saying I am not a crazy, flaming troll. I stumbled upon this site (which was by pure randomness; another topic for another time) several weeks ago. Since then, I have read countless threads and read the FAQ multiple times; so I do understand what is going on. I have also gotten a pretty good sense of the regular posters' personalities from reading so many posts. I have also been over to the .net site and lurked over there. I read Tom Bishops' references of the 100 proofs (all of them) and have finished about half of Earth Not a Globe. I try to be as informed as possible before making a conclusion.
I believe in a round Earth (not the topic for debate but I wanted to clarify), however I do respect what I believe to be the premise of this place for most users which is to question what is presented to you instead of blindly accepting it as fact.
Anyway, on to my topic which I think is just a different form of "'why is the Earth flat?" It relates more to a philosophical viewpoint than a scientific one. I didn't want to put it in the Religion and Philosophy section since I think it pertains more to debate (also the same reason I didn't introduce myself in the General Discussion section).
My opinion (which may be completely wrong) is that the Earth is not special in any way. My beliefs follow along an existentialist, slightly nihilist point of view. Everything I have read and studied seems to indicate that we are just the product of probability of an expanding universe filled with trillions of objects (meaning that life was bound to happen somewhere, we just happen to be it so far). I believe that there is no ultimate consequence, but that the only thing that matters is what we do here on Earth. "Existence before essence" is how Existentialists like Sartre put it. To me, it seems the only reason to truly believe the Earth is flat is to believe that it is "special" and part of some bigger picture. Now, I realize that most people on here aren't particularly religious, which is why I am putting this question forward. I am having a hard time rationalizing the Earth being different from every other celestial body unless there are metaphysical attributes to it.
Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
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First I'd like to congratulate you on a well written, intelligent, and logical first post. Something I've only seen a handful of times on this forum.
As for your thoughts on us not being special. Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special, or that it was created just for us. We believe the Universe's layout is due to certain rules and laws, and the flatness of the Earth is a result of these laws. If you stay a while you may even find that the FE hypothesis has less mysteries to it than the RE one. I hope that you stay and debate and maybe even learn some things about most models that you never knew.
Have fun, be civil, and don't take crap from the trolls.
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I believe in a round Earth (not the topic for debate but I wanted to clarify), however I do respect what I believe to be the premise of this place for most users which is to question what is presented to you instead of blindly accepting it as fact.
You know, bored people nothing to do. They were presented one thing in childhood and they did have no way doubting it. It was not blindly accepting but they were taught that way and it seemed reasonable. Now, they grew up and were presented other view and because of their ignorance about physics and other things they cried - hey, it seems plausible. There is even nice pictures and "experiments" in book. And so they blindly accepted other view and now are searching reasons for justifying it. In short, I don't see these true flat earth believers nothing more than people who blindly accepted other view. Not as people who question what was presented for them. They don't question round earth, they just search desperately for some evidence to support their view.
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I believe in a round Earth (not the topic for debate but I wanted to clarify), however I do respect what I believe to be the premise of this place for most users which is to question what is presented to you instead of blindly accepting it as fact.
You know, bored people nothing to do. They were presented one thing in childhood and they did have no way doubting it. It was not blindly accepting but they were taught that way and it seemed reasonable. Now, they grew up and were presented other view and because of their ignorance about physics and other things they cried - hey, it seems plausible. There is even nice pictures and "experiments" in book. And so they blindly accepted other view and now are searching reasons for justifying it. In short, I don't see these true flat earth believers nothing more than people who blindly accepted other view. Not as people who question what was presented for them. They don't question round earth, they just search desperately for some evidence to support their view.
What?
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What what? Seriously, all I see here is desperate search for something that would show that the earth may be flat.
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What what? Seriously, all I see here is desperate search for something that would show that the earth may be flat.
My what was at that paragraph that was possibly in an english dialect.
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This thread should have been a pimp slap to the face of any FET and yet it is only one page. I approve of this post.
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This thread should have been a pimp slap to the face of any FET and yet it is only one page. I approve of this post.
I agree (not with the pimp slap part). I don't want to seem like an attention whore, but I thought more people would talk about this. It has a lot of views, but few posts. I am jealous of your ability to start a 6.023x10^23 page long thread with a closed, one-sided, one sentence statement...
You have to be meaner.
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
I read the faq long long ago. The faq is not a complete guide of FE theory and does not represent the views of the majority of its members. Check the edits, I've never changed/written in the faq.
The reason they say it is "special" is simply because it is different. The big bang relied on a giant mass of matter that started the universe, doesn't that make that mass of matter special?
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
I read the faq long long ago. The faq is not a complete guide of FE theory and does not represent the views of the majority of its members. Check the edits, I've never changed/written in the faq.
The reason they say it is "special" is simply because it is different. The big bang relied on a giant mass of matter that started the universe, doesn't that make that mass of matter special?
Of course, the FAQ isn't correct. It is incomplete, inconsistent and not representative of the current FET. Let's all agree that it's worthless and stop referring people to it.
Of course, I might be wrong now. I can never tell what FEers want: Debate the FET as outlined in the FAQ (Why else insist that everyone read it before posting?) or the FET of the mainstream (Why would we debate anything else?)
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This thread should have been a pimp slap to the face of any FET and yet it is only one page. I approve of this post.
I agree (not with the pimp slap part). I don't want to seem like an attention whore, but I thought more people would talk about this. It has a lot of views, but few posts. I am jealous of your ability to start a 6.023x10^23 page long thread with a closed, one-sided, one sentence statement...
You have to be meaner.
Or in your case, stupider.
Nice post jmguy
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I read the faq long long ago. The faq is not a complete guide of FE theory and does not represent the views of the majority of its members.
Not only is it "not complete". It directly contradicts the claims of the highest members in this site. *sigh*
Check the edits, I've never changed/written in the faq.
If you feel that strongly about it why not start your own Flat Earth Society with your own FAQ? If you don't want to, feel free to step down. You clearly have no faith in the FES here. :(
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My opinion (which may be completely wrong) is that the Earth is not special in any way. My beliefs follow along an existentialist, slightly nihilist point of view. Everything I have read and studied seems to indicate that we are just the product of probability of an expanding universe filled with trillions of objects (meaning that life was bound to happen somewhere, we just happen to be it so far). I believe that there is no ultimate consequence, but that the only thing that matters is what we do here on Earth. "Existence before essence" is how Existentialists like Sartre put it. To me, it seems the only reason to truly believe the Earth is flat is to believe that it is "special" and part of some bigger picture. Now, I realize that most people on here aren't particularly religious, which is why I am putting this question forward. I am having a hard time rationalizing the Earth being different from every other celestial body unless there are metaphysical attributes to it.
Simple truth is, the "theories" of Flat Earthers absolutely require us to be special.
There could be other patches of inhabited Flat Earth beyond the "Ice Wall", complete with their own Sun and stars, but this would destroy the already incredible explanations on how we cannot travel past the "Ice Wall".
In both Science and Philosophy the idea that we are not special is very important, even though it has not been demonstrated yet. It puts us in the right perspective. If we see a super-nova, chances are it was not the only one in the universe. If we have water and DNA, chances are many in every galaxy have them also.
But in a flat Earth there is no space for "intelligent beings" anywhere in the known universe (patches mentioned earlier would not be in the "known" universe). Gravitational pull has to be "special" on Earth and "unspecial" over us. Whatever accelerates us upwards has to affect a special barrier under us, but not us. The "spotlight Sun" has to be meticulously designed to fool us into believing it is a sphere at about the same distance from every human observer, and so is the Moon. Every single piece of the FE theories screams "designed to fool you idiot earthings".
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I like this post, it highlights my biggest problem with this whole FE thing, can't quite bring myself to say theory, I might generously go for postulate. There is something very anthropic about the FE postulate. It requires the Earth to special to a degree not even considered by Catholics in the 11th century. More disconcertingly it is not only highly anthropic but also suggests a misleading deity. Looking at data at face value one would expect the world to be round. A massive conspiracy combined with utterly bizarre physics needs to be called upon. World leaders deceiving the general public would not surprise me thought I still can't think what they have to gain from this. What really bothers me is the conspiracy that is being carried out by a deity responsible for making a universe with a flat Earth but has strange physical anomalies that make it appear spherical.
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I read the faq long long ago. The faq is not a complete guide of FE theory and does not represent the views of the majority of its members.
Not only is it "not complete". It directly contradicts the claims of the highest members in this site. *sigh*
Check the edits, I've never changed/written in the faq.
If you feel that strongly about it why not start your own Flat Earth Society with your own FAQ? If you don't want to, feel free to step down. You clearly have no faith in the FES here. :(
I don't mind the faq, it is a useful reference material for new people that want to ask questions such as "if the earth is flat how did columbus circumnavigate the Earth?" Though the faq should also include such little details as "columbus did not circumnavigate the Earth" and which year he did so.
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Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
Welcome to FES! An excellent opening post, if I may say so - I hope you have many interesting and entertaining debates here.
In response to your post, it is a very seductive position of modern science (and, indeed, prior science and philosophy) to say that the Earth is 'nothing special' when the most obvious piece of evidence - ourselves - implies otherwise. The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind. FET gets around this, of course, by saying that the Earth is special in that it seems to behave differently to other celestial bodies.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe? We haven't been looking for them and have not seen any direct evidence to support this, but there are unexplained phenomena in the Universe which could all be symptoms of the same cause. Could it be that bodies accelerated by the UA/DE are unable to directly observe each other? Could these bodies be responsible for the 'dark matter' in the Universe? These are interesting possibilities worthy of debate, but often get lost in a sea of trolling and incoherent attempts at derailment.
You seem to be the type to enjoy a rational, reasoned discussion, so I hope you may help us to get to the bottom of the mysteries still present in FET (and RET) without getting trolled too much :)
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Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
Welcome to FES! An excellent opening post, if I may say so - I hope you have many interesting and entertaining debates here.
In response to your post, it is a very seductive position of modern science (and, indeed, prior science and philosophy) to say that the Earth is 'nothing special' when the most obvious piece of evidence - ourselves - implies otherwise. The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind. FET gets around this, of course, by saying that the Earth is special in that it seems to behave differently to other celestial bodies.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe? We haven't been looking for them and have not seen any direct evidence to support this, but there are unexplained phenomena in the Universe which could all be symptoms of the same cause. Could it be that bodies accelerated by the UA/DE are unable to directly observe each other? Could these bodies be responsible for the 'dark matter' in the Universe? These are interesting possibilities worthy of debate, but often get lost in a sea of trolling and incoherent attempts at derailment.
You seem to be the type to enjoy a rational, reasoned discussion, so I hope you may help us to get to the bottom of the mysteries still present in FET (and RET) without getting trolled too much :)
Tip of the hats... Great response.
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The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind.
THe anthropic principle is used to state that the (our) universe is special. Not the (our) earth.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe?
How would we see them? We're accelerating at 99.9999999% the speed of light remember.
We haven't been looking for them
Given that FE'ers have difficulty drawing basic world maps, and has great difficulty in establishing any kind of scientific rational, I really think you're trying to run before you can walk here.
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THe anthropic principle is used to state that the (our) universe is special. Not the (our) earth.
It can be applied to both.
How would we see them? We're accelerating at 99.9999999% the speed of light remember.
Relative velocities only change apparent positions (by relativistic aberration), not whether something is visible or not. The explanation I am working on is that each of these bodies may be trapped within its own event horizon of sorts, although as with other details I am still working on tying them together.
We haven't been looking for them
Given that FE'ers have difficulty drawing basic world maps, and has great difficulty in establishing any kind of scientific rational, I really think you're trying to run before you can walk here.
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I was using "we" to mean "humanity", rather than "FE'ers", but it's a fair point that this would be a task beyond the resources available to a small community such as ours.
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How would we see them? We're accelerating at 99.9999999% the speed of light remember.
Relative velocities only change apparent positions (by relativistic aberration), not whether something is visible or not. The explanation I am working on is that each of these bodies may be trapped within its own event horizon of sorts, although as with other details I am still working on tying them together.
We haven't been looking for them
Given that FE'ers have difficulty drawing basic world maps, and has great difficulty in establishing any kind of scientific rational, I really think you're trying to run before you can walk here.
I was using "we" to mean "humanity", rather than "FE'ers", but it's a fair point that this would be a task beyond the resources available to a small community such as ours.
"We" (humanity) have looked for everything we have managed to devise a sensing machine for, including every electromagnetic wave we can sense, every subatomic particle we can trap, gravitational waves, and more. The only things I can think of that we are not sensing from space are sound and smell. The lack of evidence for those other flat Earths is not the result of lack of trying.
It is hard for anyone to take you "FE'rs" seriously when you cry a lot about the size of your community but refuse to do the experiments that are within your capabilities, refuse to "do the maths" for any hypothesis or model of yours, or even accept that overwhelming evidence against your "hypothesis" is an indication of failure.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible? Otherwise you are getting into the same argument as before, declaring us special and at the very least the fastest "Earth" in this side of the universe.
There is no escape clause in FE models: if any of them is close to the truth, we are the very special, unique beings that somebody worked feverishly to deceive into believing in a round Earth.
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It is hard for anyone to take you "FE'rs" seriously when you cry a lot about the size of your community but refuse to do the experiments that are within your capabilities, refuse to "do the maths" for any hypothesis or model of yours, or even accept that overwhelming evidence against your "hypothesis" is an indication of failure.
They don't "do the maths" itself and when you ask where I can find other people who have done that then answer is - you can't, because they are hidden, buried, killed and their work is burned and erased from everywhere by conspiracy.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible? Otherwise you are getting into the same argument as before, declaring us special and at the very least the fastest "Earth" in this side of the universe.
Not necessarily. There might be an infinite number of them, but spaced so far from each other that they are not visible to each other. Even modern astronomers agree that there's a limit to what we're capable of observing from our point of view in the universe. I don't think there's anything "special" about the Earth at all.
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"We" (humanity) have looked for everything we have managed to devise a sensing machine for, including every electromagnetic wave we can sense, every subatomic particle we can trap, gravitational waves, and more. The only things I can think of that we are not sensing from space are sound and smell. The lack of evidence for those other flat Earths is not the result of lack of trying.
As a point of interest, are you aware that the vast majority of matter in the Universe is unaccounted for? That then pales in comparison to the total energy, when that not tied up in matter is taken into account. There is evidence aplenty that we don't know what is out there.
Consider then further, that large experimental searches for new physics such as the LHC at CERN generate so much data that they have to discard most of it without ever analysing it - you have to have some idea of where to look in the first place and even then your chances are slim. There could be clues to the strangest, most fundamental aspects of nature being generated all the time in these experiments and we would throw them out with the statistical noise and cosmic rays, oblivious.
Given all that we know and all that we don't know, I personally believe it is a massive case of self-delusion if anyone even thinks we're close to understanding what makes the Universe tick - don't be so arrogant as to write off seemingly incredible unknowns because you feel like there's nothing left to discover.
It is hard for anyone to take you "FE'rs" seriously when you cry a lot about the size of your community but refuse to do the experiments that are within your capabilities, refuse to "do the maths" for any hypothesis or model of yours, or even accept that overwhelming evidence against your "hypothesis" is an indication of failure.
There is a mass of evidence which supports both models, but FET does so while taking account of the conspiracy while classical RET implicitly relies on falsified data. There are holes in both, but that's why we're here - to fill in the gaps.
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THe anthropic principle is used to state that the (our) universe is special. Not the (our) earth.
It can be applied to both.
Not really. The conditions which allow life on earth to exist (carbon, water, oxygen, stable orbit, large satellite) are strongly believed to exist elsewhere in the universe. From that respect there is nothing special about the earth.
There is a mass of evidence which supports both models, but FET does so while taking account of the conspiracy while classical RET implicitly relies on falsified data. There are holes in both, but that's why we're here - to fill in the gaps.
There isn't a mass of evidence for FE. And I like it how you turned having a groundless conspiracy into some noble cause.
I guess this means you're a FE'er now huh Matrix? Look, I'm sorry I have to do this.
*Swings double handed axe across Matrix neck. Instant decapitation. Blood up the walls*
Remember: You have to seperate the head from the body. It's the only way.
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Not really. The conditions which allow life on earth to exist (carbon, water, oxygen, stable orbit, large satellite) are strongly believed to exist elsewhere in the universe. From that respect there is nothing special about the earth.
And yet the Fermi paradox still has no other resolution: "If they existed, they would be here".
I guess this means you're a FE'er now huh Matrix? Look, I'm sorry I have to do this.
*Swings double handed axe across Matrix neck. Instant decapitation. Blood up the walls*
Remember: You have to seperate the head from the body. It's the only way.
You may take my head, but you'll never take my FREEEEDOOOOOOOMMMM!!!
Also, I thought the only way to be sure was to withdraw and nuke the site from orbit... pity that's impossible under FET :-\
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Not really. The conditions which allow life on earth to exist (carbon, water, oxygen, stable orbit, large satellite) are strongly believed to exist elsewhere in the universe. From that respect there is nothing special about the earth.
And yet the Fermi paradox still has no other resolution: "If they existed, they would be here".
Of course that assumes that the aliens are smart enough to perfect faster than light travel and that the earth is interesting enough to be worth the bother.
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Not really. The conditions which allow life on earth to exist (carbon, water, oxygen, stable orbit, large satellite) are strongly believed to exist elsewhere in the universe. From that respect there is nothing special about the earth.
And yet the Fermi paradox still has no other resolution: "If they existed, they would be here".
A resolution might be: "If we existed, we would be there." ("There" being a colonised alien world) Clearly untrue.
We are after all, "typical", yet we've not visited every planet, and our radiowaves have barely scratched the galaxy. Isn't it too much to expect aliens to have exceded "typical"?
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We are after all, "typical"
I believe you are performing statistics on a sample of one...
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We are after all, "typical"
I believe you are performing statistics on a sample of one...
Erm... yes. Which statistics sample are you using?
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Erm... yes. Which statistics sample are you using?
The anthropic principle performs statistics on effectively infinite sample sizes - the inverse doesn't work so well.
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Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
Welcome to FES! An excellent opening post, if I may say so - I hope you have many interesting and entertaining debates here.
In response to your post, it is a very seductive position of modern science (and, indeed, prior science and philosophy) to say that the Earth is 'nothing special' when the most obvious piece of evidence - ourselves - implies otherwise. The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind. FET gets around this, of course, by saying that the Earth is special in that it seems to behave differently to other celestial bodies.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe? We haven't been looking for them and have not seen any direct evidence to support this, but there are unexplained phenomena in the Universe which could all be symptoms of the same cause. Could it be that bodies accelerated by the UA/DE are unable to directly observe each other? Could these bodies be responsible for the 'dark matter' in the Universe? These are interesting possibilities worthy of debate, but often get lost in a sea of trolling and incoherent attempts at derailment.
You seem to be the type to enjoy a rational, reasoned discussion, so I hope you may help us to get to the bottom of the mysteries still present in FET (and RET) without getting trolled too much :)
you say that the reason earth is different is because of the fact that we have life here, when we know of no other plantets that do
actually, there are bound to be other planets in the multiverse that support life.
do you know what allows life? 2 things. temperature and atmosphere. earth is just far enough away from the sun to gain enough heat for not everythhing to freeze, and not enough to burst into flames. pure luck that earth formed in the sweetspot of the solar system.
the second is also a result of luck. there is gas in space. albiet not much, but earth also managed to end up with a mainly oxygen based atmosphere, which life needs to survive. earth formed the same way as every other planet in space. there is nothing to say earth is "special" just "LUCKY" for the position it is in. but when you say earth is specail because of life, so it must be special in other ways, that is just stupid. life=/=flat earth. they have no effect on eachother, so do NOT use that argument. it is illogical and simpleminded
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Consider then further, that large experimental searches for new physics such as the LHC at CERN generate so much data that they have to discard most of it without ever analysing it - you have to have some idea of where to look in the first place and even then your chances are slim. There could be clues to the strangest, most fundamental aspects of nature being generated all the time in these experiments and we would throw them out with the statistical noise and cosmic rays, oblivious.
I am extremely curious as to where you got this information. especially since the LHC isn't even up and running yet and likely won't be running until the fall.
perhaps you are talking about one of the other particle accelerators, such as the one at Fermilab, the most likely accelerator to find the higgs boson, atleast until the LHC is up and running.
even if you are talking about other accelerators i would like to see a source for your statement that data is being thrown out.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
What on Earth is your point?
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
What on Earth is your point?
A visible fish in a clear pond falsifies Ski's post. (See what I mean?)
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Erm... yes. Which statistics sample are you using?
The anthropic principle performs statistics on effectively infinite sample sizes - the inverse doesn't work so well.
Yes, but we were talking about the Fermi Paradox. Remember? It was you that raised it.
The fermi paradox makes so many demands on what alien civilisations can or should have done, without any real evidence or reason for making such assumptions.
The only basis we have for such assumptions comes from our own world. Hence we demand radio contact because we have radios.
My answer, using the same assumption, was "they are not here, because we are not there"
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
What on Earth is your point?
A visible fish in a clear pond falsifies Ski's post. (See what I mean?)
why would another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, need to be below the earth, why not parallel, above, or anywhere in between.
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Yes, but we were talking about the Fermi Paradox. Remember? It was you that raised it.
The fermi paradox makes so many demands on what alien civilisations can or should have done, without any real evidence or reason for making such assumptions.
The only basis we have for such assumptions comes from our own world. Hence we demand radio contact because we have radios.
My answer, using the same assumption, was "they are not here, because we are not there"
The Fermi paradox works on the principle that we have gone from hitting each other with sticks to in-system space flight within 4000 years. If you imply that life must happen elsewhere due to the roughly infinite number of planets supposedly capable of supporting it, then it stands to reason that it could have happened billions of years ago - more than enough time for 'them' to get here. The reason your argument fails is that you are once again performing statistics on a sample of one, rather than 'everything else minus 1'.
There are other resolutions to the paradox, of course, and I personally feel that there is intelligent ET life, but that's just me.
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I am extremely curious as to where you got this information. especially since the LHC isn't even up and running yet and likely won't be running until the fall.
perhaps you are talking about one of the other particle accelerators, such as the one at Fermilab, the most likely accelerator to find the higgs boson, atleast until the LHC is up and running.
even if you are talking about other accelerators i would like to see a source for your statement that data is being thrown out.
It surprised me when I heard that so much data gets rejected before it even gets to the distributed analysis network, but it's true. This is a quote from this paper (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1096430/files/NOTE2008_002.pdf) related to the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of the detectors which will be working at the LHC when it becomes fully operational:
The high segmentation of the detector and the ten digitized time samples collected for each crystal imply that a reduction factor of close to twenty is needed to attain these requirements.
The filtering they refer to in the paper is performed by a bank of dedicated electronics which looks at the data and passes what it thinks is the relevant data to the computers for analysis - as I said, if you don't know where to start looking you could accidentally throw out some strange new physics. Guess it's inevitable with the amount of data they generate per second, but a shame nonetheless.
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The reason your argument fails is that you are once again performing statistics on a sample of one, rather than 'everything else minus 1'.
There are other resolutions to the paradox, of course, and I personally feel that there is intelligent ET life, but that's just me.
Yes and as I've said, all our expectations of aliens are based on humans. The Fermi paradox is subjective. It is itself relient on a sample of 1 for all its definitions of what aliens should and shouldnt do. (Build spaceships, build radios, explore universe...)
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Yes and as I've said, all our expectations of aliens are based on humans. The Fermi paradox is subjective. It is itself relient on a sample of 1 for all its definitions of what aliens should and shouldnt do. (Build spaceships, build radios, explore universe...)
It doesn't assume that at all though - it allows for there being totally weird unknown antimatter blob-monster aliens, but since the sample size is supposedly infinite, at least some of them must be something like us.
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Yes and as I've said, all our expectations of aliens are based on humans. The Fermi paradox is subjective. It is itself relient on a sample of 1 for all its definitions of what aliens should and shouldnt do. (Build spaceships, build radios, explore universe...)
It doesn't assume that at all though - it allows for there being totally weird unknown antimatter blob-monster aliens, but since the sample size is supposedly infinite, at least some of them must be something like us.
but it does take the behavior of an intelligent speciese again from a sample size of one. another race might not have the same desire for exploration that we do, and won't want to spend the extremely large amount of resources required for intersteller travell.
the other point to make about the fermi paradox is we've been sending out any indication that we exists since the 1936 olympic games when hitler sent out the first television signal strong enough to be received outside of our solar system, so our signals are only a little more than 80 light years away so far, and intersteller travel in that short a period of time is completely infeasable. lorentz contraction and time dialation would let someone travel great distances and only experience less time than that, but much more time would have transpired while on this trip. so if there is an intergalactic federation of planets it will still time untill we are contacted
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but since the sample size is supposedly infinite, at least some of them must be something like us.
Exactly, so if they're "something like us" then they've barely begun to explore space, and their radio waves have barely begun to penetrate the universe.
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Except that 'something like us', in an infinite Universe, would have happened a very long time ago and had a very long time to wander around exploring. In fact, very very many things 'like us' would have done so in a very large sample size. Very many things much more aggressively expansionist than us would have done so as well, also long, long ago.
Why don't we see them?
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Except that 'something like us', in an infinite Universe, would have happened a very long time ago and had a very long time to wander around exploring.
Right, so now you're using both the subjective "something like us" and extrapolating what the future "us" will be capable of. Isn't that too much of an expectation? Fermi Paradox seems to say no, yet it leaves a hollow ring, perhaps because we're putting all the effort on the part of the little green men, then getting cross when they don't turn up.
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i don't think any life form would travel to any planet unless there was some sign of life there or some other reason to travel here.
but in the end, just like the drake equation, there are far too many variable that we just don't know to make anything other than a guess. how long does the average civilization last before destroying itself, or being destroyed by some catestophic event, how many civilizations develop radio astronomy, or use radio comunications, it won't be much longer before we may not use them ourselves.
carl sagan did a great job of aplying known astronomy (generously) to the drake equation.
but of course the best we can do is guess, till anything is found the default scientific position should be we live on an average rock, around an average star, in an average galaxy, in an average galaxy cluster in a universe we don't fully understand yet.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
What on Earth is your point?
A visible fish in a clear pond falsifies Ski's post. (See what I mean?)
Have you completely given up trying to make sense? ???
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RET has finally lost what few marbles it had left. :-\
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Right, so now you're using both the subjective "something like us" and extrapolating what the future "us" will be capable of. Isn't that too much of an expectation? Fermi Paradox seems to say no, yet it leaves a hollow ring, perhaps because we're putting all the effort on the part of the little green men, then getting cross when they don't turn up.
i don't think any life form would travel to any planet unless there was some sign of life there or some other reason to travel here.
but in the end, just like the drake equation, there are far too many variable that we just don't know to make anything other than a guess. how long does the average civilization last before destroying itself, or being destroyed by some catestophic event, how many civilizations develop radio astronomy, or use radio comunications, it won't be much longer before we may not use them ourselves.
carl sagan did a great job of aplying known astronomy (generously) to the drake equation.
but of course the best we can do is guess, till anything is found the default scientific position should be we live on an average rock, around an average star, in an average galaxy, in an average galaxy cluster in a universe we don't fully understand yet.
Of course it's an approximation and based on huge levels of assumption. The entire argument behind both the Fermi paradox and the Drake "equation" (if we're being charitable) is based on many unknowns and so is worse than a blind stab in the dark guess in that it implies some form of scientific rigour.
Still, it doesn't stop you wondering, doe it?
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Very many things much more aggressively expansionist than us would have done so as well, also long, long ago.
Why don't we see them?
Because they're in a galaxy far away?
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Because they're in a galaxy far away?
...far far away.
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Because they're in a galaxy far away?
...far far away.
If you wanted them far far away, then they would have only been around a long time ago, but since it's a long, long time ago, then the galaxy is only far away. You can't have it both ways.
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By the way, wouldn't another "flat Earth", pushed by enough energy to light a star, be easily visible?
Anything "below" the earth's surface would be 'in'-visible to the observer on earth's surface.
I take it that you've never looked into a clear pond. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel anymore.)
I'm torn between:
???
and
:-\
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Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
Welcome to FES! An excellent opening post, if I may say so - I hope you have many interesting and entertaining debates here.
In response to your post, it is a very seductive position of modern science (and, indeed, prior science and philosophy) to say that the Earth is 'nothing special' when the most obvious piece of evidence - ourselves - implies otherwise. The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind. FET gets around this, of course, by saying that the Earth is special in that it seems to behave differently to other celestial bodies.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe? We haven't been looking for them and have not seen any direct evidence to support this, but there are unexplained phenomena in the Universe which could all be symptoms of the same cause. Could it be that bodies accelerated by the UA/DE are unable to directly observe each other? Could these bodies be responsible for the 'dark matter' in the Universe? These are interesting possibilities worthy of debate, but often get lost in a sea of trolling and incoherent attempts at derailment.
You seem to be the type to enjoy a rational, reasoned discussion, so I hope you may help us to get to the bottom of the mysteries still present in FET (and RET) without getting trolled too much :)
you say that the reason earth is different is because of the fact that we have life here, when we know of no other plantets that do
actually, there are bound to be other planets in the multiverse that support life.
do you know what allows life? 2 things. temperature and atmosphere. earth is just far enough away from the sun to gain enough heat for not everythhing to freeze, and not enough to burst into flames. pure luck that earth formed in the sweetspot of the solar system.
the second is also a result of luck. there is gas in space. albiet not much, but earth also managed to end up with a mainly oxygen based atmosphere, which life needs to survive. earth formed the same way as every other planet in space. there is nothing to say earth is "special" just "LUCKY" for the position it is in. but when you say earth is specail because of life, so it must be special in other ways, that is just stupid. life=/=flat earth. they have no effect on eachother, so do NOT use that argument. it is illogical and simpleminded
any FET'rs wana try and shed some light on how this works with their beliefs? aside from just saying "your wrong, we are special"; all matter in the universe follows the same laws. earth is no exception
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Anyway, I would enjoy any insight to the topic.
Welcome to FES! An excellent opening post, if I may say so - I hope you have many interesting and entertaining debates here.
In response to your post, it is a very seductive position of modern science (and, indeed, prior science and philosophy) to say that the Earth is 'nothing special' when the most obvious piece of evidence - ourselves - implies otherwise. The easy answers come from the anthropic principle, which you are clearly familiar with, but which leaves a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth of any rigorous inquiring mind. FET gets around this, of course, by saying that the Earth is special in that it seems to behave differently to other celestial bodies.
This causes problems with mainstream science, but is it not possible that the flat Earth is not, in fact, special, but is only one of many similarly accelerated bodies in the Universe? We haven't been looking for them and have not seen any direct evidence to support this, but there are unexplained phenomena in the Universe which could all be symptoms of the same cause. Could it be that bodies accelerated by the UA/DE are unable to directly observe each other? Could these bodies be responsible for the 'dark matter' in the Universe? These are interesting possibilities worthy of debate, but often get lost in a sea of trolling and incoherent attempts at derailment.
You seem to be the type to enjoy a rational, reasoned discussion, so I hope you may help us to get to the bottom of the mysteries still present in FET (and RET) without getting trolled too much :)
you say that the reason earth is different is because of the fact that we have life here, when we know of no other plantets that do
actually, there are bound to be other planets in the multiverse that support life.
do you know what allows life? 2 things. temperature and atmosphere. earth is just far enough away from the sun to gain enough heat for not everythhing to freeze, and not enough to burst into flames. pure luck that earth formed in the sweetspot of the solar system.
the second is also a result of luck. there is gas in space. albiet not much, but earth also managed to end up with a mainly oxygen based atmosphere, which life needs to survive. earth formed the same way as every other planet in space. there is nothing to say earth is "special" just "LUCKY" for the position it is in. but when you say earth is specail because of life, so it must be special in other ways, that is just stupid. life=/=flat earth. they have no effect on eachother, so do NOT use that argument. it is illogical and simpleminded
any FET'rs wana try and shed some light on how this works with their beliefs?
Sure. We disagree.
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There is no reason to assume that there are not other flat worlds being accelerated along the celestial plane, or even more below or above us.
Additionally, even if the Earth was the ONLY flat object in the universe, consider this. Our world has a sun, water, and an ice wall to hold in atmosphere. Could life possibly exist anywhere else? The FAQ is certainly an excellent resource, but assuming that it holds all the answers is naive, if not stupid.
That being said, having illustrated a potential flaw in the FAQ in an elegant manner is more than most new posters can brag about.
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I would point out that there is a flat mars society who's status is nearly as well off as our own, so it is possible that mars and other celestial bodies are flat.
it is also possible that there are other flat bodies outside of our field of vision. (IE. below us)
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
The problem is, FE'ers will claim one thing, then when confronted they'll claim another.
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
The problem is, FE'ers will claim one thing, then when confronted they'll claim another.
Its called science. It happens with evolution and abiogenisis all the time.
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The problem is, FE'ers will claim one thing, then when confronted they'll claim another.
Its called science. It happens with evolution and abiogenisis all the time.
Calling it science is a little overkill. Last time I heard science included also some data/numbers and verifiable experiments not only hopping from one speculation to another. FE seems to lack the data and experiment part.
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The problem is, FE'ers will claim one thing, then when confronted they'll claim another.
Its called science. It happens with evolution and abiogenisis all the time.
Calling it science is a little overkill. Last time I heard science included also some data/numbers and verifiable experiments not only hopping from one speculation to another. FE seems to lack the data and experiment part.
Read Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not A Globe by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham.
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Most FE'ers do not believe that the earth is special
Have you read the FAQ?
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
The problem is, FE'ers will claim one thing, then when confronted they'll claim another.
......... sigh
The faq was written to be intentionally flamboyant to gain interest. I do not endorse it and it does not fairly represent the FE view. The question was why aren't the other planets flat. What the faq means is, they are different from the Earth, the "Planets" in the sky are different from the Earth in the same way that the stars in the sky are different from the Earth. When RE theory claims that the Earth is different from Jupiter does that make the Earth "special"? I wouldn't say so.
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Read Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not A Globe by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham.
And you read - http://www.vidyaonline.net/arvindgupta/earthpix.pdf - Isaac Asimov, How did we find out that the earth is round.
ENaG is old stuff, it does not have any data or experiments which prove anything. I guess some one third of his experiments are failed just because he assumed that he can detect the curvature of earth at the ground level. And another third are failed because of his weird vision about perspective. We live in 21st century. Care to refer me to some material from this century instead of 19th? Yeah, I guess not.
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Read Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not A Globe by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham.
And you read - http://www.vidyaonline.net/arvindgupta/earthpix.pdf - Isaac Asimov, How did we find out that the earth is round.
ENaG is old stuff, it does not have any data or experiments which prove anything. I guess some one third of his experiments are failed just because he assumed that he can detect the curvature of earth at the ground level. And another third are failed because of his weird vision about perspective. We live in 21st century. Care to refer me to some material from this century instead of 19th? Yeah, I guess not.
Last I checked, truth did not have an expiration date.
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Last I checked, truth did not have an expiration date.
If there only were such thing as a truth. But there isn't.
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Last I checked, truth did not have an expiration date.
If there only were such thing as a truth. But there isn't.
Read Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not A Globe by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham.
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Last I checked, truth did not have an expiration date.
If there only were such thing as a truth. But there isn't.
Read Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not A Globe by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham.
I see you like playing broken gramophone. Reading it doesn't help, it leaves me only with bad aftertaste. Give me some modern stuff, from 21st century. Or do you agree that FE science is so pathetic it doesn't have anything other but one book of speculations?