Law of Perspective Fallacies

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The Communist

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Law of Perspective Fallacies
« on: July 12, 2007, 07:40:50 AM »
This thread is designed for the FES to question the fallacies associated with Rowbotham's Law of Perspectives.

This diagram shows the supposed perspective of light posts as they diminish to convergence on a flat plain.
Rowbotham states that as the distance between the object and observer increase, a certain portion (i.e. the bottom section) diminishes towards the H point or the Horizon/eye-level.  Other lines equidistant to the eye level/horizon approach a point past the horizon or point W.  Interesting theory, except , as shown in the picture below, the rows of columns that are approximate in size all converge at the horizon rather than W since all the lines are not equidistant to the eye-level.





Notice how the cornerstones of the column diminish in size proportionally with the column as a whole rather than exponentially as described by Rowbotham's diagram with the lamp posts and with the diagram containing the discs (below).

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CookieMonster

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2007, 07:50:56 AM »
Me sure Tom will have his own explanation anyway.
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2007, 08:06:44 AM »
Did Rowbotham do any experiments to show his perspective BS true?

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CommonCents

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2007, 08:09:05 AM »
Drawing pictures is an experiment, right?
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Tom Bishop

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2007, 09:33:23 AM »
Communist; the scene in the picture you've provided isn't nearly long enough to show the effect properly and in full. The corridor seems to be around 200 feet. That amount of space would be equivalent to the distance between any two of Rowbotham's lamp posts. The last column in the image does seem to be sunken regardless. However, with the low detail in the picture the effect is difficult to define.

We can clearly see the sinking effect by observing the distant people in the image you've provided. Notice how the left hand woman in pink with the backpack has abnormally short legs compared to the rest of her body.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 09:42:17 AM by Tom Bishop »

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CommonCents

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2007, 09:42:04 AM »
Notice how the left hand woman in pink has abnormally short legs compared to the rest of her body.

I don't see it...I see a person who is in the distance and appears small, I do not see someone with abnormally short legs.
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Shimakaze

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2007, 09:43:19 AM »
Notice how the left hand woman in pink (the one with the backpack) has abnormally short legs compared to the rest of her body.

LOL nice one. I'm beginning to see what this site about now. I can't even see a person in pink, let alone someone carrying a backpack.
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Tom Bishop

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2007, 09:47:28 AM »
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I don't see it...I see a person who is in the distance and appears small, I do not see someone with abnormally short legs.

Notice the very left hand person; the one with the purple-pink shirt and backpack. You may need to zoom in with an image editor to get a better view. Observe where her shirt ends and her pants begin. You will find that her legs are nothing but stumps; tiny and cut off compared to the rest of her body.

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CommonCents

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2007, 09:50:32 AM »
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I don't see it...I see a person who is in the distance and appears small, I do not see someone with abnormally short legs.

Notice the very left hand person; the one with the purple-pink shirt and backpack. You may need to zoom in with an image editor to get a better view. Observe where her shirt ends and her pants begin. You will find that her legs are nothing but stumps; tiny and cut off compared to the rest of her body.

Zooming in with an image editor?  What, so I see a couple pixels?  Please, Tom, keep in mind I'm a pixel pusher so I know how useless zooming in on a picture will be when trying to find real proportions of things in the distance.
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2007, 09:59:15 AM »
lol Tom, objects don't change proportions as they get farther away. The problem with Rowbotham's diagram is that base section of the street lamp decreases disproportionaly to the rest of the lamp itself. I took a very brief look at it in paint and in the first lamp, the base section is roughly 25% of the total, in the second it is roughly 23% of the total, the third 19% and so on. What Communist is showing that distinctive parts of an object get smaller as the object moves away in proportion with the rest of the object.
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Hmm... A good solid RE arguement and not an FE'er in sight. ::)
Oh, no...they're here. It's just that damn perspective..

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Marinade

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2007, 10:02:40 AM »
Just for fun. Here is the zoomed in image.



What purple-pink shirt (it looks red), whose legs, where does the floor start? Are you an idiot Tom? You actually think there is anything in this that helps support you. In all honesty the person on the LEFT looks like their legs are a more normal length, with the other two it is much harder to tell the bottom of their legs from the reflection on the floor. Nice try but you fail Tom.
Haha Tom is so funny. He can't be serious, no one is that stubborn or dumb.

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Shimakaze

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2007, 10:12:50 AM »
Just for fun. Here is the zoomed in image.



What purple-pink shirt (it looks red), whose legs, where does the floor start? Are you an idiot Tom? You actually think there is anything in this that helps support you. In all honesty the person on the LEFT looks like their legs are a more normal length, with the other two it is much harder to tell the bottom of their legs from the reflection on the floor. Nice try but you fail Tom.

I wonder how Tom could tell where the shirt ends with the backpack on. Also, let's assume his law of perspective is true, the "woman" in "pink shirt" would appear to have a right leg that's ~1/2 the length of her left leg. How would you explain that, Tom?
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2007, 10:35:13 AM »
While we're on the subject, I will add a bit to the criticism that Communist started here by attacking how Rowbotham deals with vanishing points (which I've done before briefly but was ignored).

--

From ENaG:

A very good illustration of the difference is given in fig. 76. False or prevailing perspective would bring the lines A, B, and C, D, to the same point H; but the true or natural perspective brings the line A, B, to the point W, because there and there only does A, W, E, become the same angle as C, H, E. It must be the same angle or it is not the vanishing point.


 
--

Lord have mercy, what a load of crap. The angles Rowbotham describes arise simply as a result of how we perceive the world. A,W,E must not be the same angle as C,H,E for it to be the true vanishing point. Not even close. A,B and C,D must indeed converge at the same point H, and A,B will approach this point at a greater angle because it is farther away from the eye-line than C,D. The fact that our eyes percieve this to be the case is what allows us to perceive depth correctly and to judge our spatial position with respect to other objects accuratelly. If you look at a picture I've labelled:



You can clearly see that the line A (which is farther away from the eye-line) will converge at the vanishing point (H) at a greater angle than the line C. This is to be EXPECTED. It is how we accuratelly perceive the world. In fact only lines which are equidistant from the eye-line will approach the vanishing point at the same angle. All other lines will approach at different angles and rightly so, else the world would appear radically different.
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Hmm... A good solid RE arguement and not an FE'er in sight. ::)
Oh, no...they're here. It's just that damn perspective..

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divito the truthist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2007, 10:42:02 AM »
Am I confusing something? Shouldn't things over a great distance angle away from the observer due to the curvature of the earth?

The hull of a ship shouldn't disappear first. Hold for a sec while I make a picture.
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The Communist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #14 on: July 12, 2007, 10:44:52 AM »
Communist; the scene in the picture you've provided isn't nearly long enough to show the effect properly and in full. The corridor seems to be around 200 feet. That amount of space would be equivalent to the distance between any two of Rowbotham's lamp posts. The last column in the image does seem to be sunken regardless. However, with the low detail in the picture the effect is difficult to define.

We can clearly see the sinking effect by observing the distant people in the image you've provided. Notice how the left hand woman in pink with the backpack has abnormally short legs compared to the rest of her body.

1. Rowbotham's diagram shows that the bottom section of the lamp posts shrink to smaller dimensions compared to the lamp post as a whole.  The columns do not show that even after 200 ft.

2. The woman's legs are approximately 50% of her body. Sounds normal to me for a person close up.

Edit - I caounted the woman's legs to be 7 pixels and here top body 6 pixels.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 10:47:43 AM by The Communist »
On FES, you attack a strawman. In Soviet Russia, the strawman attacks you
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Do you have any outlandish claims to back up your evidence?
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #15 on: July 12, 2007, 10:46:57 AM »
You're absolutelly right Divito. On a sphere that is indeed what happens. That is however over much greater distances than the lamp post argument or the woman in the dress argument or any other Rowbotham puts forward. Rowbotham argues that this is how perspective works on a flat plane. What I'm trying to show is that it is plain bullshit.

EDIT: Remember: he's using these vanishing point laws over what he argues is a flat plane. He's arguing that straight parallel lines as perceived by the human eye should not behave as if they converge on one and the same vanishing point when in fact they do. And things over a great distance angle away because the 'imaginary lines they trace as they move away' are not truly straight parallel lines, but rather curved lines which follow the curvature of the earth. Do you see what I'm getting at?
« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 10:55:31 AM by slappy »
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Hmm... A good solid RE arguement and not an FE'er in sight. ::)
Oh, no...they're here. It's just that damn perspective..

?

The Communist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2007, 10:52:38 AM »
In other words the plane is plain BS
On FES, you attack a strawman. In Soviet Russia, the strawman attacks you
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Do you have any outlandish claims to back up your evidence?
-Raist

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Yeah I love gay porn.

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divito the truthist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #17 on: July 12, 2007, 10:53:53 AM »
You're absolutelly right Divito. On a sphere that is indeed what happens. That is however over much greater distances than the lamp post argument or the woman in the dress argument or any other Rowbotham puts forward. Rowbotham argues that this is how perspective works on a flat plane. What I'm trying to show is that it is plain bullshit.

I wasn't really referring to Rowbotham. I was merely trying to understand why a ship's hull would disappear first on a spherical earth, because that doesn't make sense. Lemme find the numbers for the curvature and try and make a picture to scale.
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #18 on: July 12, 2007, 11:01:59 AM »
You're absolutelly right Divito. On a sphere that is indeed what happens. That is however over much greater distances than the lamp post argument or the woman in the dress argument or any other Rowbotham puts forward. Rowbotham argues that this is how perspective works on a flat plane. What I'm trying to show is that it is plain bullshit.

I wasn't really referring to Rowbotham. I was merely trying to understand why a ship's hull would disappear first on a spherical earth, because that doesn't make sense. Lemme find the numbers for the curvature and try and make a picture to scale.

Hmm.. I think I know what you're asking and how to answer it but I'll wait for your diagram first.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 11:42:49 AM by slappy »
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Hmm... A good solid RE arguement and not an FE'er in sight. ::)
Oh, no...they're here. It's just that damn perspective..

*

CookieMonster

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #19 on: July 12, 2007, 11:47:00 AM »
By the way, me love Communist's avatar
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Me lost me cookie in the boogie music
Me lost me cookie at the disco (ooh-ooh)
Me want it back (I want it back!), me want it back again!

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divito the truthist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #20 on: July 12, 2007, 11:53:03 AM »
Forgive the cheesiness of my picture. Anyways, I was too lazy to bother making it to scale. And I know my red man is standing on water :D



In what is described, should a ship's hull not be the last thing seen? Should it not follow something similar to the black lines instead of simply "sinking" as it meets the horizon. I would assume the ship's mast and such would be the first things to become distorted and affected by the curvature of the earth but this doesn't appear to be so.
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Ferdinand Magellen

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #21 on: July 12, 2007, 12:15:06 PM »
Au contraire, you're complexifying  (yay verbing words) something simple. As you stare out over the ocean, you yourself are looking in a straight line, while the boat is moving on an extremely gradual curve.

o-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
v
 L __________
                    __________
                                     __________
                                                      __________ 

As the curvature increases, the base (in this case the ocean) begins to interfere with your perspective. Much as when you lower your head while staying focused on an object, the ocean will block your vision starting at the lowest part--the hull of the ship. The mast is still visible because the ocean is not blocking your line of sight at a higher level until the angle increases.
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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #22 on: July 12, 2007, 01:00:52 PM »
You're absolutelly right Divito. On a sphere that is indeed what happens. That is however over much greater distances than the lamp post argument or the woman in the dress argument or any other Rowbotham puts forward. Rowbotham argues that this is how perspective works on a flat plane. What I'm trying to show is that it is plain bullshit.

I wasn't really referring to Rowbotham. I was merely trying to understand why a ship's hull would disappear first on a spherical earth, because that doesn't make sense. Lemme find the numbers for the curvature and try and make a picture to scale.
From the RE Primer Version 2.0, page 35:
d (miles)   x (feet)
1   0.67
2   2.67
3   6.00
4   10.67
5   16.67
6   24.00
7   32.67
8   42.67
9   54.00
10   66.67


Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #23 on: July 12, 2007, 01:59:50 PM »
In what is described, should a ship's hull not be the last thing seen? Should it not follow something similar to the black lines instead of simply "sinking" as it meets the horizon. I would assume the ship's mast and such would be the first things to become distorted and affected by the curvature of the earth but this doesn't appear to be so.

Divito is quite right when he says that things should angle away from an obsever due to the curvature of the earth and in fact they do. Schematically speaking, the black lines are the correct representations. However you must consider how slight this phenomenon is in order to realize why things appear as if they're simply just sinking and not "tilting" away. Consider for a moment that you are standing on top of the earth. Your body is normal to the surface and corresponds to a 90 degree position. As a ship sails farther away it will angle away from you such that once it is 1/4 of the way around the earth it will be aligned to 0 degrees. Here's a a basic diagram just to make sure we're on the same page:



Now, the circumferece of the earth is 40,000 km (I'm rounding down a bit here, the approximation is good enough however). This means that from the observer's position to the boat there is a distance of 40,000/4 = 10,000 km. Now 10,000 km correspond to a 90 degree change in the boat's orientation relative to the observer. This means that there is a change of 1 degree in the boat's orientation approximatelly every 10,000/90 = 111 km. Objects 'sink' below the horizon long before this. If you recall, the image of the Toronto skyline showed about 250-300 feet obscured at a distance of approx 50 km. This means that the skyline is angling away at just about under half of a degree in these pictures. Hardly noticeable by an standard. With a ship it would be even less noticeable, since it would "sink" sooner. I hope that answers your question.
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Hmm... A good solid RE arguement and not an FE'er in sight. ::)
Oh, no...they're here. It's just that damn perspective..

?

The Communist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #24 on: July 12, 2007, 04:47:21 PM »
By the way, me love Communist's avatar

Thank you,  I used the same for the Flat Mars Society but it doesn't look right due to size limitations for avatars.
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Do you have any outlandish claims to back up your evidence?
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∂G/∂x

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #25 on: July 12, 2007, 07:47:06 PM »
If you look over a large expanse of flat ground on a semi-cloudy day you will notice you can see the undersides of clouds in the far distance more so than those slightly nearer....i.e. the clouds are tilted 'downwards' as if sloping. I observed this effect yesterday, and saw that the Earth was round with my own eyes.

Why should we ignore the evidence of our senses and presume the ridiculous idea of a Flat Earth to be the truth?
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Tom Bishop

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #26 on: July 13, 2007, 11:54:53 AM »
From the first post image:









« Last Edit: July 13, 2007, 03:37:26 PM by Tom Bishop »

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CommonCents

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #27 on: July 13, 2007, 11:59:47 AM »
How about you post pictures from an editor that doesn't just blur the pixels together.  I don't even know why they do that, it makes it a pain in the ass when you have to mask or paint something.  >_<
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Roundy the Truthinessist

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #28 on: July 13, 2007, 12:21:34 PM »
Tom, was there a purpose to that, besides giving me a headache?
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Ferdinand Magellen

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Re: Law of Perspective Fallacies
« Reply #29 on: July 13, 2007, 12:37:45 PM »
Using a program won't help. You have to use a lens. As a program blows something up, its just reproducing pixels. A lens will actually provide the real picture because its amplifying light, an infintesimal pixel, so to speak.
Ignoring the truth does not make it go away, it just makes you ignorant and disempowered.

Can you change reality by inventing new names for ordinary things?