What I don't Understand

What I don't get is that it is very easy to believe that the entire universe is accelerating at the exact same rate and it is accelerating absolutely parallel to each other. especially when everything in nature tends to form a ball. Now I understand the argument that the acceleration caused the earth to be flat but it seems unreasonable that every star that we can see just happens to traveling in the same direction as us and not one has changed course

Now I understand the argument that the acceleration caused the earth to be flat but it seems unreasonable that every star that we can see just happens to traveling in the same direction as us and not one has changed course

Well, if they're somehow fixed to the Earth's reference frame, it is not strange at all. After all, The Earth is unique by its properties in the FE Universe.

That is a little too convenient for reality.

That is a little too convenient for reality.

Well, apparently not.

Quote from: Midnight on June 12, 2007, 01:47:25 AM

That is a little too convenient for reality.

Well, apparently not.

I disagree. You argue that it's convenient for the earth to be attached to hundreds of thousand of star, planets, moons, asteroid, dust clouds,  and comets that are thousands of miles away. You can't see any physical attachments. You can't detect the energy emissions necessary if there are no physical attachments. I don't see that as convenient at all.

it's convenient for the earth to be attached to hundreds of thousand of star, planets, moons, asteroid, dust clouds,  and comets that are thousands of miles away. You can't see any physical attachments. You can't detect the energy emissions necessary if there are no physical attachments. I don't see that as convenient at all.

String theory will be convenient once they figure it out.

Quote from: Gulliver on June 12, 2007, 07:35:01 AM

it's convenient for the earth to be attached to hundreds of thousand of star, planets, moons, asteroid, dust clouds,  and comets that are thousands of miles away. You can't see any physical attachments. You can't detect the energy emissions necessary if there are no physical attachments. I don't see that as convenient at all.

String theory will be convenient once they figure it out.

I do like how string theory starts with just an observation of mathematics. I don't hold out much hope though that we'll ever see string theory "figured out". It's just missing enough predictive power to survive much longer.

It's just missing enough predictive power to survive much longer.

Well, it's still a pretty young theory in terms of actual practice. While it showed up in the 60s, it's been phased in and out over it's tenure. It's essentially the best bet for unifying the 'forces' that there is at this point. I believe Kaku said that String Theory is 21st century physics that dropped into the 20th century.

I found this quote and it's similar to what he put in one of his books I own that I was trying to recall:

"A theory of everything is also a theory of the everyday. Thus, this theory, when fully completed, will be able to explain the existence of protons, atoms, molecules, even DNA. The key is to fully solve the theory and test the theory against the known properties of the universe. At present, no one on Earth is smart enough to complete the theory. The theory is perfectly well-defined, but, you see, superstring theory is 21st-century physics that accidentally fell into the 20th century. It was discovered purely by accident, when two young physicists were thumbing through a mathematics book. The theory is so elegant and powerful, we were never "destined" to see it in the 20th century. The problem is that 21st-century mathematics has not been invented yet."

I disagree. You argue that it's convenient for the earth to be attached to hundreds of thousand of star, planets, moons, asteroid, dust clouds,  and comets that are thousands of miles away. You can't see any physical attachments. You can't detect the energy emissions necessary if there are no physical attachments. I don't see that as convenient at all.

You missed the sarcasm where I was making fun of FE theory.

Quote from: Gulliver on June 12, 2007, 07:35:01 AM

I disagree. You argue that it's convenient for the earth to be attached to hundreds of thousand of star, planets, moons, asteroid, dust clouds,  and comets that are thousands of miles away. You can't see any physical attachments. You can't detect the energy emissions necessary if there are no physical attachments. I don't see that as convenient at all.

You missed the sarcasm where I was making fun of FE theory.

Okay, I agree with your sarcasm. Perhaps we should agree to use blue font when being sarcastic.

Okay, I agree with your sarcasm. Perhaps we should agree to use blue font when being sarcastic.

But it's so much more fun to keep people guessing!

Ok, let's leave God and creation out of this. If we do, then why is the Earth the only known celestial body that is flat. Why, for example, is Mars not flat?

Could there be other flat worlds?

Galaxies are also flat (well, they're certainly not spherical).  I know they're not technically celestial bodies (they are clusters of celestial bodies), but why does it make sense that if everything is spherical because that's the way things naturally gravitate together, galaxies would be different?  You are deploying a logical fallacy when you say "x is spherical, and y is spherical, so z should be spherical as well."

If it's even plausible that galaxies can be different, for any reason, it should be conceded that it's at least plausible that the earth can be different as well.

The line about the other planets, by the way, is that the earth is just of a different nature from what we call planets (literally "wanderers" because they just wander across the sky).  Logically there's no reason to automatically assume this to not be the case.  In FET, after all, the earth is much, much larger than anything we see in the night sky, so it's pretty much different by default.  Different enough that you would reasonably expect it to have different properties.

Well, flat is an exxageration. They're on a plain, ie they are pretty much a flat shape. But the correlation isn't high enough to call them 'flat'.

However I see your point. Kind of. However I mean individual bodies. I mean, the Solar system is technically 'flat'. Is that part of FE? What about comets and planets who defy that plain and go under the Earth's level?

Well, flat is an exxageration. They're on a plain, ie they are pretty much a flat shape. But the correlation isn't high enough to call them 'flat'.

And it would be an exaggeration to call the earth "flat", as it has all these hills and valleys all over it.  It would in fact be an exaggeration to call it "spherical"; the earth is actually in the shape of what they call an oblate spheroid, which I think just means it kind of bulges in an asymmetrical way.

However I see your point. Kind of. However I mean individual bodies. I mean, the Solar system is technically 'flat'. Is that part of FE? What about comets and planets who defy that plain and go under the Earth's level?

No kind of solar system is part of FE.  In FET we don't revolve around the sun.  I'm not sure whether the other planets do or not.

I think the gist of my point still stands.  There is no logical reason to assume that just because everything we observe in the sky is spherical the earth should necessarily be as well.  As I pointed out, in FET the earth is just different, which should be obvious the minute you start reading about the flat earth.  I'm not saying that all they say makes sense, and when you really examine things deeper you find things that work out extremely well with a round earth that just don't work at all with a flat earth, and I don't personally believe this shit.

But on the point of whether or not it makes sense that the earth would be different... of course it does.  As I said, it's simply a logical fallacy to assume otherwise.

Quote from: cbarnett97 on June 11, 2007, 10:41:27 PM

Now I understand the argument that the acceleration caused the earth to be flat but it seems unreasonable that every star that we can see just happens to traveling in the same direction as us and not one has changed course

Well, if they're somehow fixed to the Earth's reference frame, it is not strange at all. After all, The Earth is unique by its properties in the FE Universe.

I still have an issue with giving Frames of Reference too much of a physical reality. Frames of reference are a mathematical concept, more than a physical one. For example, look at me right now, I am doing a triple somersault; well, not really: I am seeing myself with respect to a frame of reference that underwent three revolutions.

A good reference for this is found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_of_reference but please read it in full, not just the first page. You can look at any system with respect to your preferred frame of reference, but then you have to add the acceleration, velocity and forces of the frame of reference to those seen with respect to the frame of reference.

Pseudo-forces are not non-existing forces, they are manifestations of real forces. Any force can be defined as a pseudo-force by playing with the selection of reference frames, but in the end true forces are only those seen from inertial frames of reference. In my case, my velocity doing the somersault plus the velocity of the frame of reference spining in the other direction give the true speed of zero.

I think the gist of my point still stands.  There is no logical reason to assume that just because everything we observe in the sky is spherical the earth should necessarily be as well.  As I pointed out, in FET the earth is just different, which should be obvious the minute you start reading about the flat earth.  I'm not saying that all they say makes sense, and when you really examine things deeper you find things that work out extremely well with a round earth that just don't work at all with a flat earth, and I don't personally believe this shit.

But on the point of whether or not it makes sense that the earth would be different... of course it does.  As I said, it's simply a logical fallacy to assume otherwise.

I think it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that the earth is a sphere just because everything else is. In truth, you could never get a 100% answer from that alone. However, I think it would be a mistake to say the odds are 50/50 that the earth is either flat and entirely unique, or simmilar to the rest of the celestial objects. I think given some observation of everything around you, of all the other celestial objects and how they behave and such, it is reasonable to at least suspect that you too may be simmilar, and to suspect that the probability that you are simmilar to the celesital objects around you is greater than the probability that you are not. Just because it doesn't completelly prove a round earth, doesn't mean by any strech of the imagination mean that a flat earth is as equally likely as a round earth.

Well, we disagree then.  I don't think it's reasonable to assume anything in the absence of real evidence.  That's how religions get started, you know.

Ok, let's leave God and creation out of this. If we do, then why is the Earth the only known celestial body that is flat. Why, for example, is Mars not flat?

Could there be other flat worlds?

Mars is flat.

Well, we disagree then.  I don't think it's reasonable to assume anything in the absence of real evidence.  That's how religions get started, you know.

I'm not talking about assuming anything without evidence. On the contrary, I would say that the few pieces of info I am referring to would count as some sort of evidence, even though it is certainly not definitive. I'm talking about some observations here, the moon, sun, and planets, their motions and behaviours, their surface appearence (moreso in the sense of the moon) etc.  And I am certainly not saying to assume something as true. I am merely saying, that given these observations (hey look, here is a spherical moon with impact craters, here is a spherical mars with surface detail, here is a spherical jupiter with cloud and weather patterns, here are these orbits of planets, here are these orbits of other moons around their own parent planets etc.), one could likely deduce that it is likely the we too are simmilar. Likely is not the same as definitive, or conclusive. But you can make an educated guess (i.e. hey, there's probably a reasonable chance that we're a sphere too, let's investigate this further). In any case, I think it would be a terrible error in judgment to still assume at that point that probablities were still 50/50 for RE vs FE. Keep in mind, we're talking about probabilities and certain indications, no assumptions of how things actually are. Like I said, none of this would prove a spherical earth. Take another example. Evolution, strictly speaking, cannot completely disprove the biblical god. However, the chances that he exists vs. the chances that he does not exist or that a 'higher' intellgence is nothing like the biblical God are NOT equally likely, by any means whatsoever. In as far as reason can tell us, it is far more likely that the biblical god does not exist as described. I know it's a different scenario, but I'm using it to illustrate the principle, namely that with a bit of evidece and reason, you can still make an educated guess or at least shift the probabilities a little.

lol great articles.. but do you not know the difference between what i said ("educated guess" or "at least a small shift in probabilities") and what the hasty generalization article says ("conclusion")? Did I not specifically say that you couldn't draw conclusions? Let me put it another way. You can use that little bit of evidence as a 'springboard' to ask the next question. NOT TO CONCLUDE! Also you could argue what sufficient evidence is. I would argue that the observations of the other celestial bodies as I've described would be enough to allow us to speculate and give us a decent reason to think that we MIGHT be simmilar. I don't know if I can make that any clearer.

As for the false analogy, I didn't mean to use it as a direct analogy, it's apples and oranges, I realize that. And perhaps it was a poor choice because Evolution is not a little bit of evidence but a mountain-load of evidence. I will concede that. However, I was simply trying to illustrate an example that was more obvious, and one I am familiar with. Perhaps it was a poor choice.

I think using probabilities in this case at all, in the absence of other evidence (of which there is a mountain supporting a round earth), is a mistake.  That's all I was trying to say. 

Slappy was just pointing out that it wasn't 50/50 that's all.

Fair enough.. although just so we're on the same page (and I probably wasn't clear enough about this) I didn't mean probabilities in the absolute sense (i.e. 75% vs 25%). I meant it more in a qualitative sense, or rather in a sense that one explanation was at least a little bit more likely than the other (i.e. that they are not a 50/50 split, as Kasroa has pointed out). Personally, I think a 50/50 split only happens in the rarest of instances anyway. But I agree that final judgments should not be made in the absence of adequate evidence.

We're pretty much in agreement.  The crux of my argument is that until some reason is provided for thinking the earth and the other planets (or, indeed, other celestial objects at all) are similar in any way, there's no reason to compare them.  It really is like comparing apples and oranges.  And this (the fact that the earth and other celestial objects are similar in many specific ways) is not immediately obvious.  It just feels that way because it's been ingrained in our consciousnesses for so long, and demonstrated mathematically and scientifically in so many ways.

But someone born in a cave, who lived his whole life in the cave with no contact with the outside world, and who goes out of the cave for the first time and observes these other celestial bodies in the sky would have no reason to even think that they were in any way the same as the earth he is standing on, let alone assume it.

I agree with that. For primitive man it's a different issue. I don't think it's so much that it's been engrained in our minds, but rather that primitive man would not have access to some of the details I mentioned (i.e. weather patters on jupiter). I meant it within the context of what today's techology can show us.

So uh, hey guys when are we gonna start talking about how "The Matrix" is spot on? Seriously you little guys are biologiocal batteries. Just need a good way to plug y'all in.

Okay, I agree with your sarcasm. Perhaps we should agree to use blue font when being sarcastic.

If I can remember, I will.  No guarentees.

Quote from: Gulliver on June 12, 2007, 10:34:55 AM

Okay, I agree with your sarcasm. Perhaps we should agree to use blue font when being sarcastic.

If I can remember, I will.  No guarentees.

Thanks, but you know I love you just the way you write.