The Earth is flat!

[endlesspursuit]

My only question is what keeps the water from falling off the edge?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I accept that we often don't know what the truth is for sure. We can be mistaken. But to be mistaken, there has to been an (unknown) objective truth.

My take...summarizing practically everything...is that, if we buy into quantum theory, then "for sure" is ~absolutely impossible. I mean, there isn't so much as a theory to explain how "for sure" could even possibly work (*see link at the bottom). The concept of "objective truth" in Western thought seems to be a relic of guys on soap boxes arguing >2,000 years ago that it's possible that there IS an objective truth...and that whatever particular guy on whichever soap box is the guy that has it. Quantum physics says otherwise.
At the same time, it must be recognized, insofar as genetic learning is a thing, that breeding a population from ~2,000 to believe in monotheism, in linear thinking...makes it more difficult for said population to even conceptualize this stuff.

Which top physicists say that there is no objective truth?

Perhaps ~all who are in the many worlds camp? I can google names if you like. See link here for starters, Youtube "PBS Space Time" for some presentations. Sorta kinda many worlds implies that there are many objective truths...about the same circumstances, depending on the reference frame.

We do have some knowledge that doesn't depend on context, called universal knowledge, or objective truth. It's knowledge that applies equally well to all situations. For example, the laws of physics don't have exceptions, depending on which culture you live in.

Most agreed that natural laws govern all regardless of individual beliefs/perspectives. The crux is that, fundamentally...truly fundamentally...those laws are dependent on either probability and/or variables that are not absolutely knowable. We're stuck with spooky at a distance (recently supported/confirmed again with the quasar study).

Gravity is the same, no matter what the historical context, or what your religion is (even if I don't understand it).

As ?Eigenvector above pointed out...gravity is the same to 'same type observers.' Two humans starting to fall from a second-story balcony will have a different discussion about gravity than will two adjacent neutrinos who happen to be zooming by said balcony towards the center of the Earth.

Some people deny there is an objective truth, because they are skeptical that we know the truth. However, I don't have to know the truth, for it to exist.

Consider this paradox-intersection of Eastern and Western philosophy: Covid 19. Western philosophy (ironically!, but true to form) says 'we need more data to find the true best course of management, let's not be rash.' Meanwhile, Chinese ~epidemiology says 'we don't have to know the objective truth of epidemic managment to know that the best course of action is to do what nature does under the circumstance: isolate/contain, extinguish.'

I mean, if the consequences of Western philosophy in it's failure to adequately/appropriately address an workable response in a pandemic can't get people to re-conceptualize objective truths.......then nothing (I submit) can break people away from their ~late Greek "objective truth is out there" paradigm. As Thumbs Up's link(s?) argues......it's modern scientists on soap boxes arguing that there are objective truths in sort of a dumbed-down manner....at best with good intentions...at worst serving to paradoxically reinforce 'objective truth' ideas to get funding, etc. I assert that this same 'must find objective truth' logic that is revered here is...plainly...responsible for hundreds of thousand of extra deaths this year. YMMV.
-------
*Recent Australian team's paper:
A strong no-go theorem on the Wigner’s friend paradox
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0990-x


New Quantum Paradox Reveals Contradiction Between Widely Held Beliefs – “Something’s Gotta Give”
https://scitechdaily.com/new-quantum...gs-gotta-give/

In a paper published in Nature Physics, an international team led from Griffith University in Australia has sharpened those issues into a new paradox.
“The paradox means that if quantum theory works to describe observers, scientists would have to give up one of three cherished assumptions about the world,” said Associate Professor Eric Cavalcanti, a senior theory author on the paper.
“The first assumption is that when a measurement is made, the observed outcome is a real, single event in the world. This assumption rules out, for example, the idea that the universe can split, with different outcomes being observed in different parallel universes.”[[<---many worlds]]
“The second assumption is that experimental settings can be freely chosen, allowing us to perform randomized trials. And the third assumption is that once such a free choice is made, its influence cannot spread out into the universe faster than light,” he said.
“Each of these fundamental assumptions seems entirely reasonable, and is widely believed. However, it is also widely believed that quantum experiments can be scaled up to larger systems, even to the level of observers. But we show that one of these widely held beliefs must be wrong! Giving up any one of them has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the world.”

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Adelie

The world being flat or round does not materially affect their situation or most people’s so it is not important to their general functioning in society nor is it very important to society at large in most situations.

I disagree. One's view on this subject is critical to a general logical understanding of the universe and your place in it. You round-earthers will never understand that your whole life experience and all your biases are promoted and perpetuated, with the intent of controlling you to extract as much economic power as possible, by the DEEP STATE!

[Bullshooter]

Sorry I'm not going to read all 7 pages, but have any of these flat earthers answered the question :

If the earth is flat, where is the edge? Why can't you just go there and peek over?

And then there is Mad Mike Hughes, who was smart enough to build his own rocket, trying to prove the earth is flat, and died when it crashed:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51602655

[waterman46]

I'm pretty sure the earth isn't flat, but there are some misguided souls who think the earth rotates around the sun! Imagine that.

I learned Celestial Navigation years ago. All navigators know that the earth is in the center of the universe, and that these complicated tables just tell us how all the heavenly bodies move around us. Celestial Navigation would be impossible if you assumed that the earth was moving all the time.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

[meirriba]

Everybody of a sound mind knows that the earth is flat, supported by four elephants standing in their turn on a back of a giant turtle. 😁

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

Here you go.

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” -Einstein

A circle drawn anywhere is good for all practical purposes, but you can't find an example of a circle in the natural world. Circles are intrinsically irrational. Consider watching 3-4 minutes of this TED Talk (link starts at the relevant point) where someone with a brain injury can literally see fractals where the rest of us cannot. He's seeing the matrix, we are not.

For those very interested in fractals, the ~quantum physics mathematics of the visual circuit...here is a hour long lecture from Jack Cowen of UChicago describing a good bit of history and mechanics of how we see what we see. Notably 77,000 years ago cavemen recorded fractal patterns (invariably drug induced) while modern people aren't familiar with the subject (as depicted in the TED talk above).

All of this specifically pertains to how we visualize and conceptualize stuff like circles, Earth being spherical, the rest of reality, etc.

[Cadence]

For the local boater the world is flat, draw a straight line from point A to point B. Not so for ocean navigation.

[Sand crab]

What’s underneath the flat earth?

[hamburking]

I was crew crossing the Atlantic from the canaries to the Caribbean. The skipper/owner was aboard. We headed south from the canaries to avoid a large low and found ourselves around 16 degrees north. Our destination in the Caribbean was also around 16 degrees north. So the skipper said...simple...just set a course of 270 degrees...straight west, 2000 miles. But I wanted to head 290 degrees, somewhat north of west. He said I was crazy...that's the wrong direction!!!

The situation was aggravated by the fact that he had a degree in mathematics from a highly reputable university.

I'm sure those here can appreciate, he wanted to take the flat earth route, and I wanted to take the great circle...because, you know, the earth being round and all. Funny as it may seem now, he was quite serious, and we debated this for several days. With no internet and no reference books, I was not able to convince him the earth was round....but the GPS (all 6 we had aboard) agreed with me. This completely befuddled him.

[Kd9truck]

The Earth is not flat.
Vaccines work.
We’ve been to the moon.
Chemtrails aren’t a thing.
Evolution is a fact.
We are all made of stardust.

Stand up for science.______________________

Don’t just blindly trust “Science”

Scientists are human, inherently faulty by design.
Science is a human concept, the universe does not have “science” or need it.
The individuals considered to be a class of intellectuals beyond question lie steel and cheat just like the rest of us.

I believe the earth is round
I believe we are not alone
I believe their is intelligent life on earth that did not originate on earth
I believe all things are temporary
I believe if you search for answers long enough you will find them

Scientists are:
They are motivated by greed
By the need for social acceptance
By emotions
By necessity to provide
By personal aspirations
The “science” societies of the globe have their own elitist exclusive clubs with a social hierarchy.
They have a need to be validated and accepted, they are brutally opinionated when their cause/discovery/truth is coming into the line of question.

When you spend a lifetime finding support evidence and have a concept you believe to be truth debunked you will do anything to reinstate your validation.

“Trust the science” is like saying “trust the priest”

[Joefiss]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Replace "faith" with risk assessment.

It's not faith that allows people to get off the couch, it's having a reasonable assessment of the risk, and making appropriate choices based on this assessment. It's not faith that the vessel is sea worthy. It's that we've worked hard to make it as sea worthy as we can, based on the expected forces we will face. This is not blind faith. This is an assessment of risk. We can always get things wrong, but that doesn't require faith.

This is why I suggest the driving forces here are the rise of fear and ignorance. It's how other civilizations retreated; when they become insular and build walls to keep out the unknown -- that civilizations succumb fall into darkness. I think we are all living witnesses to yet another great cycle of this happening now.

That's an argument over semantics. When I use faith it is actually a probable outcome based on reason. It need not be a theological premise. Despite assessing the risk we know that outcomes vary due to infinite possibilities. Examine our brains. Isolated in our skull. Devoid of any ability to experience the '"real" world directly. It is completely dependent on sensory input from nerves connected to other components of our bodies. It is easily deceived. Optical illusions, extreme cold feeling hot and other sensations reported to the brain are regularly misinterpreted. It usually works quite well but without direct knowledge it is subject to error. Certainty is still as elusive for us as it was for Descartes. Faith is the antithesis of certainty since our only certainty is in knowledge of our existence as a thinking thing. This is also a reductio ad absurdum premise but it is also the basis for the modern scientific method. As my son the PhD Neurogeneticist is fond of saying, science is the process of removing all that cannot be.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

...“Trust the science” is like saying “trust the priest”

As he blinidly accepts the science that is delivering his somewhat hypocritical (not to mention slightly conspiratorial) 'message' to us all....

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

...Don’t just blindly trust “Science”

Sigh... say it with me folks: Science is NOT a thing. It's not a group, a person or a cabal. Science is a process.

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

“Trust the science” is like saying “trust the priest”

NO! "Trust the science" is like saying trust logic. Trust facts. Trust verifiable evidence.

But the great thing is, you don't have to trust anything. Scientific activities are open to everyone willing to put the effort in. If you don't trust what the expert is telling you, then go become an expert and look into it yourself.

Obviously we all can't be experts in everything. But we can all be critical thinkers about sources and reliability. This is what appears to be lacking, and diminishing, in today's culture of faux wiki-expertise.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Joefiss

That's an argument over semantics. When I use faith it is actually a probable outcome based on reason. It need not be a theological premise. Despite assessing the risk we know that outcomes vary due to infinite possibilities. Examine our brains. Isolated in our skull. Devoid of any ability to experience the '"real" world directly. It is completely dependent on sensory input from nerves connected to other components of our bodies. It is easily deceived. Optical illusions, extreme cold feeling hot and other sensations reported to the brain are regularly misinterpreted. It usually works quite well but without direct knowledge it is subject to error. Certainty is still as elusive for us as it was for Descartes. Faith is the antithesis of certainty since our only certainty is in knowledge of our existence as a thinking thing. This is also a reductio ad absurdum premise but it is also the basis for the modern scientific method. As my son the PhD Neurogeneticist is fond of saying, science is the process of removing all that cannot be.

I think it's much more than semantic. Faith requires no assessment. No reason. Nothing. It's faith. Whereas risk assessment requires an understanding the relevant factors involved. We likely never know everything (unknown unknowns), but that doesn't mean we act on faith. We just are humble, and wise, enough to say "I don't know everything".

Yes yes, the world we perceive is mediated through our senses. That doesn't mean we are not percieving the Universe. The brain recieves inputs through its extended physical neurolgical sensors (our sense). Why is that any less a part of the brain? I think what you're confusing is this notion of brain vs mind. This again is a confusion brought about by philosophical navel gazers. The mind is a construct.

Regardless, we might all be in a computer simulation, a matrix. We can't prove we're not. It doesn't change the reality of our perceptions of a Universe that has objective existence outside of our brains.

Whether it really is, or is not, is the realm of philosophers and priests. Science deals with things as they are presented.