earth flat

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 09, 2012, 06:43:29 PM

It has been discussed, but it has yet to be understood. Tell me, if you shouldn't trust your senses all the time, when exactly should you trust them?

When your senses are the appropriate tools for the task.

And when exactly is that?

Quote from: markjo on February 09, 2012, 07:38:01 PM

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 09, 2012, 06:43:29 PM

It has been discussed, but it has yet to be understood. Tell me, if you shouldn't trust your senses all the time, when exactly should you trust them?

When your senses are the appropriate tools for the task.

And when exactly is that?

That depends on which sense you intend to use for which task. 

But supposedly all my senses can fool me. For your argument to work, there must be some clear criteria by which I can decide when I should or shouldn't trust them, other than 'when appropriate' (which is more or less the equivalent of saying 'you should use them when you should use them').

But supposedly all my senses can fool me. For your argument to work, there must be some clear criteria by which I can decide when I should or shouldn't trust them, other than 'when appropriate' (which is more or less the equivalent of saying 'you should use them when you should use them').

Well, the criteria would be established by the task that you are trying to perform, wouldn't you agree?  It's like asking a mechanic "when should I use a hammer?".  Without knowing what kind of hammer you have and what sort of task you are trying to accomplish, it's impossible to give you a meaningful answer.  In that spirit, which tool do you think is most appropriate in determining whether you are standing on a 25,000 mile diameter sphere or on a 25,000 mile diameter disc and why?

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 09, 2012, 06:43:29 PM

It has been discussed, but it has yet to be understood. Tell me, if you shouldn't trust your senses all the time, when exactly should you trust them?

When your senses are the appropriate tools for the task.  The biggest problem with human senses is that they are very limited and those limitations must be considered when deciding whether or not they should be trusted.  Seeing as you are a student of philosophy, I'm sure that I don't need to remind you of the Dream Argument, do I.

Can you explain how the Dream Argument exactly supports your argument?  As I read it it seems to suggest that we can't trust anything that our senses tell us.  It doesn't seem to have any relevance to the overall argument you're trying to make in this post.

Quote from: markjo on February 09, 2012, 07:38:01 PM

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 09, 2012, 06:43:29 PM

It has been discussed, but it has yet to be understood. Tell me, if you shouldn't trust your senses all the time, when exactly should you trust them?

When your senses are the appropriate tools for the task.  The biggest problem with human senses is that they are very limited and those limitations must be considered when deciding whether or not they should be trusted.  Seeing as you are a student of philosophy, I'm sure that I don't need to remind you of the Dream Argument, do I.

Can you explain how the Dream Argument exactly supports your argument?  As I read it it seems to suggest that we can't trust anything that our senses tell us.  It doesn't seem to have any relevance to the overall argument you're trying to make in this post.

It goes to the point that it can be difficult to know when you should trust your senses and when you shouldn't.  Even if we aren't dreaming, how can you be sure that your senses aren't being fooled or manipulated at any given time?

Quote from: Roundy the Truthinessist on February 10, 2012, 03:46:22 PM

Quote from: markjo on February 09, 2012, 07:38:01 PM

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 09, 2012, 06:43:29 PM

It has been discussed, but it has yet to be understood. Tell me, if you shouldn't trust your senses all the time, when exactly should you trust them?

When your senses are the appropriate tools for the task.  The biggest problem with human senses is that they are very limited and those limitations must be considered when deciding whether or not they should be trusted.  Seeing as you are a student of philosophy, I'm sure that I don't need to remind you of the Dream Argument, do I.

Can you explain how the Dream Argument exactly supports your argument?  As I read it it seems to suggest that we can't trust anything that our senses tell us.  It doesn't seem to have any relevance to the overall argument you're trying to make in this post.

It goes to the point that it can be difficult to know when you should trust your senses and when you shouldn't.  Even if we aren't dreaming, how can you be sure that your senses aren't being fooled or manipulated at any given time?

It seems to draw a very sharp line between trusting your senses and not trusting your senses to me.  If you're dreaming, obviously none of your senses can be trusted to represent reality.  Your argument seems to suggest degrees, but I see none of that in the dream argument itself.

Certainly it's possible that I'm only hallucinating that I'm typing on my computer right now, but without enough evidence to come to that conclusion why should I assume it?  It's the same thing with FET; if I don't feel enough evidence has been shown to overturn my direct sensorial evidence that the Earth is flat, why should I assume otherwise?

Perhaps the dream argument isn't the best approach.  However, the fact of the matter remains that that human senses are very limited.  When trying to perceive very large or very small objects (for example, the whole of the earth or a subatomic particle), direct human senses just aren't up to the the task and other tools must be employed.  I don't really know of any more plain way of stating something that seems so obvious (well, obvious to me, at least).

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 10, 2012, 07:45:24 AM

But supposedly all my senses can fool me. For your argument to work, there must be some clear criteria by which I can decide when I should or shouldn't trust them, other than 'when appropriate' (which is more or less the equivalent of saying 'you should use them when you should use them').

Well, the criteria would be established by the task that you are trying to perform, wouldn't you agree?  It's like asking a mechanic "when should I use a hammer?".  Without knowing what kind of hammer you have and what sort of task you are trying to accomplish, it's impossible to give you a meaningful answer.  In that spirit, which tool do you think is most appropriate in determining whether you are standing on a 25,000 mile diameter sphere or on a 25,000 mile diameter disc and why?

markjo, that's not quite the same. After all, in terms of external tools, I have a choice of which to use. In terms of senses, I do not. Let's alter your example, and imagine you telling me that it was foolish of me to use my hands to wield the hammer, because my hands aren't always accurate. That would seem pretty weird, right?


All of this is beside the point however. What's important to note is that you have thus far failed to explain when and why we should or should not trust our senses, and more importantly how we can ever not place absolute trust in them. What empirical information can we receive that is non-sensorial?


Also, Roundy is quite right to point out that the Cartesian argument does not support your position. Indeed, it's precisely such solipsistic worries which are the focal point of my position.

markjo, that's not quite the same. After all, in terms of external tools, I have a choice of which to use. In terms of senses, I do not. Let's alter your example, and imagine you telling me that it was foolish of me to use my hands to wield the hammer, because my hands aren't always accurate. That would seem pretty weird, right?

Absolutely, which is exactly why I kept trying to get you to provide context. 

All of this is beside the point however. What's important to note is that you have thus far failed to explain when and why we should or should not trust our senses, and more importantly how we can ever not place absolute trust in them. What empirical information can we receive that is non-sensorial?

Again, context is key here.  If I'm trying to recreate the Bedford Levels experiment and I don't properly account for phenomena such as atmospheric refraction, then my eyes may be fooled into receiving information that could be wrongly interpreted as curvature or flatness.  Sensory illusions and mirages abound and if you don't know how to watch out for them, then you may wind up with an inaccurate world view.

And how will you "watch" out for them without using your senses?

You "watch" out for them by being aware of how they can affect your senses.

You "watch" out for them by being aware of how they can affect your senses.

But what totally non-sensorial alternative should I use to ensure my untrustworthy senses aren't messing with things?

Quote from: markjo on February 11, 2012, 06:13:36 PM

You "watch" out for them by being aware of how they can affect your senses.

But what totally non-sensorial alternative should I use to ensure my untrustworthy senses aren't messing with things?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use your senses.  I'm just saying that you need to be aware of the limitations of your senses and adjust accordingly.  I can't give you a more specific answer because you aren't asking a more specific question.

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on February 11, 2012, 06:16:10 PM

Quote from: markjo on February 11, 2012, 06:13:36 PM

You "watch" out for them by being aware of how they can affect your senses.

But what totally non-sensorial alternative should I use to ensure my untrustworthy senses aren't messing with things?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use your senses.  I'm just saying that you need to be aware of the limitations of your senses and adjust accordingly.  I can't give you a more specific answer because you aren't asking a more specific question.

This issue affects all the senses, so surely there must be some over-arching criteria. Otherwise you're just going to put forward ad-hoc points at which I should not trust my senses, all of which suit your argument. What is the underlying basis for doing so?

This issue affects all the senses, so surely there must be some over-arching criteria. Otherwise you're just going to put forward ad-hoc points at which I should not trust my senses, all of which suit your argument. What is the underlying basis for doing so?

Different conditions affect different senses in different ways.  This is why context is vital. 

But why do you trust your senses in some contexts and not in others? To say that 'my senses are affected sometimes but not other times, and that's how I know when to trust them or not' is tantamount to begging the question. How do you know? How do you tell?

Should you trust that your eyes are not being fooled by these images?

Better yet:

Should you trust that your eyes are not being fooled by this image?



According to FET, you shouldn't. How very antizetetic.

But why do you trust your senses in some contexts and not in others? To say that 'my senses are affected sometimes but not other times, and that's how I know when to trust them or not' is tantamount to begging the question. How do you know? How do you tell?

You are demeaning a whole civilization created around knowledge. It has taken our kind at least 3000 years to get the answer to your question, and you expect ClockTower to give you a one-liner answer? From the Greeks, who more or less created Philosophy as we know it, in good part to answer your question, to Descartes, with his famous "Cogito ergo sum", to Popper and his work on falsifiability,  and beyond, many great minds have done true work towards this answer, but you want something like "it looks flat, my visual sense told me its flat, so its flat".

Don't be lazy. Expect a complex answer, and accept that you have done nothing in the road of humanity towards it. Work, for a change, in the search for better answers to your question, instead of looking for one-liners.

When I look out my window I can see a flat earth.

When I'm given a picture of a round earth from space... I didn't see that. NASA allegedly did.

First hand evidence > Second hand evidence

Quote from: Archibald on February 05, 2012, 09:18:07 PM

Quote from: Noogah on February 05, 2012, 08:59:49 PM

So, if you want to prove to your friend that the earth is flat, the bedford experiment cannot work.

Incorrect.

Here's why.

Refraction is a ridiculous excuse. A refraction effect could in no way cause the earth to appear flat every time the experiment is performed.

For refraction to explain the Bedford Level, objects would have to be suspended at a perfect distance in the air in relation to the distance from the observer, or else the object would appear too high or too low - either hovering above the earth or obscured by it. In order for the earth to appear flat when really a globe, the objects need to be suspended 16 feet above the earth at 5 miles, 66 feet above the earth at 10 miles, and 266 feet above the earth at 20 miles.

In other words the refraction effect needs to adjust itself with regards to the distance the observer is looking across, otherwise the earth would not appear flat. Ridiculous.

Should you trust that your eyes are not being fooled by these images?

I don't know, but I can't go around randomly deciding when I do and when I don't trust my eyes. I want reasons, and I want them to be consistent, not ad-hoc comfort mechanisms.

You are demeaning a whole civilization created around knowledge. It has taken our kind at least 3000 years to get the answer to your question, and you expect ClockTower to give you a one-liner answer? From the Greeks, who more or less created Philosophy as we know it, in good part to answer your question, to Descartes, with his famous "Cogito ergo sum", to Popper and his work on falsifiability,  and beyond, many great minds have done true work towards this answer, but you want something like "it looks flat, my visual sense told me its flat, so its flat".

Don't be lazy. Expect a complex answer, and accept that you have done nothing in the road of humanity towards it. Work, for a change, in the search for better answers to your question, instead of looking for one-liners.

trig, I have read a great deal about this subject, including the authors you mention and a great deal more. The problem is that there are no complicated yet satisfactory answers to the problem of solipsism. That was Schopenhauer's position, and I agree with it. Besides, if ever there was a lazy answer, it's "sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't; depends I guess". No-one in this thread has presented a complex answer, so don't try and paint me as someone unwilling to accept one.

Quote from: markjo on February 12, 2012, 09:18:59 AM

Should you trust that your eyes are not being fooled by these images?

I don't know, but I can't go around randomly deciding when I do and when I don't trust my eyes. I want reasons, and I want them to be consistent, not ad-hoc comfort mechanisms.

Since it's so hard to know exactly when to trust your senses or not, the best solution is to remove your untrustworthy senses from the equation whenever possible.  This is why science tends to be more objective rather than subjective like philosophy.

When I look out my window I can see a flat earth.

When I'm given a picture of a round earth from space... I didn't see that. NASA allegedly did.

First hand evidence > Second hand evidence

Yes, but once again, don't trust your eyes.

You are deceived by:

1. Perspective

2. By what makes sense to your brain

A normal human mind doesn't automatically conclude that the earth is round. Since perspective makes it seem flat, the automatic and natural assumption to make is that "the world is flat"!

But reality is never that simple and expected. It always turns out to be something odd and intriguing, but nothing you would ever guess (though it sometimes seems like we should have been able to).

I am not telling you that you have to trust the NASA images (though, they really do count for a lot). I AM telling you not to trust your eyes. You shouldn't. This is not to say that you shouldn't trust them at ALL. But when better instruments and methods can be employed which are more objective and less easily tricked than your eyes, you should give more weight to them.

In other words the refraction effect needs to adjust itself with regards to the distance the observer is looking across, otherwise the earth would not appear flat. Ridiculous.

Which implies that the Bedford level experiment has always worked every time.

However, it hasn't. (second paragraph)

(more)

I believe that these letters by Alfred Russel Wallace himself should be illuminating.

Anyways. Lets say I performed the Bedford Experiment, and I got results that seemed to indicate that the earth was flat. Guess what? I still wouldn't believe the earth was flat.

Why? Not because I am irrational and unscientific. It would rather assume that I had misinterpreted the data. This is because when you have a single experiment which contradicts practically ALL the other scientific data, you do not immediately jump to the conclusion that it is ALL the other scientific data which is false.

To do so is rash and illogical.

Quote from: trig on February 12, 2012, 01:47:44 PM

You are demeaning a whole civilization created around knowledge. It has taken our kind at least 3000 years to get the answer to your question, and you expect ClockTower to give you a one-liner answer? From the Greeks, who more or less created Philosophy as we know it, in good part to answer your question, to Descartes, with his famous "Cogito ergo sum", to Popper and his work on falsifiability,  and beyond, many great minds have done true work towards this answer, but you want something like "it looks flat, my visual sense told me its flat, so its flat".

Don't be lazy. Expect a complex answer, and accept that you have done nothing in the road of humanity towards it. Work, for a change, in the search for better answers to your question, instead of looking for one-liners.

trig, I have read a great deal about this subject, including the authors you mention and a great deal more. The problem is that there are no complicated yet satisfactory answers to the problem of solipsism. That was Schopenhauer's position, and I agree with it. Besides, if ever there was a lazy answer, it's "sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't; depends I guess". No-one in this thread has presented a complex answer, so don't try and paint me as someone unwilling to accept one.

The answer has been presented many, many times. There is a Scientific Method and a scientific community which have solved a huge amount of partial answers to this question. And they are improving the answer every day. Nobody has come even close to what scientists have to the answer.

If you want to play with Solipsism, be my guest. Rent "Matrix" a few hundred more times and feel like an intellectual because you do understand that we could all be a simulation, or a dream in some alien's mind. But why, then are you discussing Solipsism in this forum? If you believe the Solipsistic view is right, then I do not exist anywhere except in your mind and you are getting very angry, very often, with yourself.

Solipsism does not solve any real problem. If the basic tenets of it are right, then have fun because nothing matters. If you believe that at least some of what your senses tell you is right (that you did have a mother, that the people you know in the flesh at least exist, and maybe even look like you remember them) then Science is your best bet to know the most basic elements of truth that bind you to reality and Solipsism is quite irrelevant.

If there is an even lazier answer than "sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't; depends I guess" it is "always trust your senses". Better start working on the best answer you can get, and that is "it depends; I will have to work all my life finding when they do and when they don't".

No-one in this thread has presented a complex answer, so don't try and paint me as someone unwilling to accept one.

What's your answer to the question of when we should trust direct sensory impressions? Is it "all the time"?

Better yet:

Should you trust that your eyes are not being fooled by this image?



According to FET, you shouldn't. How very antizetetic.

Why is that picture misleading? All I see is some buildings, the bases of which are obscured by fog.

When I look out my window I can see a flat earth.

When I'm given a picture of a round earth from space... I didn't see that. NASA allegedly did.

First hand evidence > Second hand evidence

Please do tell us how you determined that you were seeing a flat earth and not one very slightly curved?

To what accuracy did you measure the flatness?

At what accuracy would you need to measure the flatness to be should that the Earth is exactly flat overall, and not just flat at your observing location?

Second-hand evidence > poorly used first-hand evidence.

When I look out my window I can see a flat earth.

When I look out my windows I see hills in every direction.  Does that mean the Earth is concave?

Quote from: Noogah

Quote from: Archibald on February 05, 2012, 09:18:07 PM

Quote from: Noogah on February 05, 2012, 08:59:49 PM

So, if you want to prove to your friend that the earth is flat, the bedford experiment cannot work.

Incorrect.

Here's why.

Refraction is a ridiculous excuse. A refraction effect could in no way cause the earth to appear flat every time the experiment is performed.

For refraction to explain the Bedford Level, objects would have to be suspended at a perfect distance in the air in relation to the distance from the observer, or else the object would appear too high or too low - either hovering above the earth or obscured by it. In order for the earth to appear flat when really a globe, the objects need to be suspended 16 feet above the earth at 5 miles, 66 feet above the earth at 10 miles, and 266 feet above the earth at 20 miles.

In other words the refraction effect needs to adjust itself with regards to the distance the observer is looking across, otherwise the earth would not appear flat. Ridiculous.

I took some pictures awhile back across 1.08km of calm water at a large rock at a height of a couple inches.  I ran into this effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)