I was having this talk with a friend recently. I'm not a flat-Earther.
We don't know what the shape of the Earth is. The term to focus on is 'know'. Ask yourself: how would we (or could we) know what the shape of the earth is? The reason these photographs depict a spherical earth is because they are proximate. They are composite images, not a direct image of the earth, as a whole, from space.
The reason for believing the earth is ellipsoid is not because we see it that way. It's because that shape is a consequence of a web of other theorems that, taken together, are remarkably coherent and explain many phenomena more successfully than alternatives can. That's the best you get in scientific 'proof', which is to say there is no formal proof in science.
Eratosthenes' project is not hard to replicate, and was remarkably accurate for its time.
I do find it odd how rabid the anti-flat-Earther mentality is though. I don't know why the authorities can't be more up front about the limitations of scientific knowledge, or why some people can't admit that flat-Earth is still an interesting idea, even if they disagree with it. The whole 'scene' of that debate is odd to me.
Eratosthenes experiment would have the same outcome on a flat plane with a local sun ~ 3,000 - 5,000 mile height. See, "History of Flat Earth", by Eric Dubay.
I think a lot of people make the theoretical mistake of believing that, between two theories A and B, if B has a plausible answer for every phenomenon explained by A, that B must be as virtuous. But this isn't the case.
One has to consider the breadth of explanation under theory A, the number of phenomena it explains coherently, and with the least necessary commitments (ontological). The most virtuous theory is the most powerful and the simplest.
Flat Earth has an ontological problem. You have a stationary Earth and a moving sun 3,000 - 5,000 miles above it. Explain the lack of movement by the Earth and the movement by the Sun. No matter how one tries to do this, it will require two ontological posits. One to prevent Earth's motion, and one that favors the Sun's particularly (without causing Earth to move). The prevailing scientific theory can accomplish this with one posit: gravitation.
"Flat Earth has an ontological problem. You have a stationary Earth and a moving sun 3,000 - 5,000 miles above it. Explain the lack of movement by the Earth and the movement by the Sun. No matter how one tries to do this, it will require two ontological posits. One to prevent Earth's motion, and one that favors the Sun's particularly (without causing Earth to move). The prevailing scientific theory can accomplish this with one posit: gravitation."
That depends upon the underlying assumptions you have about the argument. I don't see any reason to explain the lack of movement by the earth. I am wondering what unstated assumptions you have that make you think you need to have that explained.
I see no evidence that earth is in motion. I see evidence of relative motion between the any given point on the surface of the earth and several of the noted celestial objects.
In my opinion, people get mad at flat earthers because the position is correct and they cannot muster a defense against the truth.
I don't get mad at Flat-Earthers. I actually think the entire thing is really interesting, like an epistemological project at the social level, trying to answer (implicitly) how we know things.
The relevant assumption of mine is just this: facts require explanation, or rather, that there must exist an explanation for facts. So first, let's define facts.
Things exist. Things have likenesses and/or are doing things. If there is an A, we will describe it as an A (nominalized) or that an A is A-ing (verb). So we can predicate A-ing of any A.
Any fact creates a distinction. If A is truly an A, this is because it is not a B. If A is ~B, then B is ~A.
Therefore, any fact has an explanation, for any A can be explained in terms of why it is ~B (and vice versa).
Consider the proposition, 'Everything that exists is moving.' If it is true, it can only be true because some things move differently than other things (direction, velocity, whatever). If everything was moving in exactly the same way, then no observer would ever know that anything was moving. This means that the proposition must pick out either that some things move differently than others, or some things move and some things don't. But if the proposition is true, then all things are moving.
Why some things move differently than others will have an explanation, whether we know it or not.
Now another: 'Nothing that exists is moving.' This is incoherent. If it were true, it would never be intelligible to any observer. Of course we know empirically that it is just absurd.
Lastly: 'The Earth is stationary, and the sun 3,000-5,000 miles above the Earth is not stationary, but moving.'
Unlike the proposition that says, 'Everything that exists is moving', which is a single fact, this last one is positing two facts.
It is distinguishing between movement and non-movement. If an observer on the Earth observes the sky and finds that everything in it is moving, then for him to know that he (his planet) is not, is to make a distinction resulting in two facts.
This is even clearer if we suppose the universe contains only the Earth (A) and the sun (B).
A is not moving. B is moving.
This means there are two explanations, one for each of these facts. What might that explanation look like? It doesn't necessarily imply that there are two ontologies required. Someone could say there is a Being (a god or something, or a demon) that simultaneously holds Earth steady, while moving the sun (in other words, there is one cause for the two facts).
More likely than that answer, is the answer that A and B is just a 'brute fact'. This is the equivalent of simply saying: "It just is that way."
Nothing stops anybody from making a brute fact claim, but theoretically it is weaker than a causal explanation.
Other than referring to a supernatural entity that could promote two opposite causes simultaneously, the Flat-Earther has no recourse except to posit TWO separate explanations, one for the motion of the sun, and one for the non-motion of the Earth. Else, he simply calls this a brute fact.
The scientific explanation says that everything is moving, and the Earth's and the sun's motion with respect to each other, is explained by ONE thing: gravity. The sun has more of it and has caught the Earth within its field.
Picture now the scientist attempting to explain things if the Earth was not moving and the sun was moving. He'd have to posit either two different causes, or make a brute fact claim.
Comparing Flat Earth with the prevailing scientific theory, it is clear that science not only does not require a brute fact claim, but also that its explanation involves only one commitment (gravity). It is superior to a theory that requires two, and it is superior to a theory that makes a brute fact claim.
I am beginning to understand your positions. I would like to point out a few things.
If everything was moving in exactly the same way, then no observer would ever know that anything was moving.
If everything was not moving, it would be indistinguishable from everything moving in the exact same way. The more likely conclusion is that it is not moving.
Comparing Flat Earth with the prevailing scientific theory, it is clear that science not only does not require a brute fact claim, but also that its explanation involves only one commitment (gravity). It is superior to a theory that requires two, and it is superior to a theory that makes a brute fact claim.
Contrary to your position, the prevailing scientific theory contains innumerable brute fact claims that are unstated. These statements include, but are not limited to - the earth is a sphere, the star field represents a three dimensional expanse of great distances, celestial objects possess physical substance, motions of the earth are undetectable because the instruments used to measure them shrink or elongate in proportion to distance moved, the earth is not the center of the universe, the shadow on the moon during the lunar eclipse is cast by the earth.
Very few of these statements are "proved" in the way you would like, and yet they are to be taken on face as "brute facts" if you are to accept gravity to be true. In particular, you must accept the earth to be a ball before you accept gravity, as the entirety of the calculations made based on measurements to devise it accept the earth has a radius. This is represented in the various r's and r squareds you might read in Principia and later works.
Do you picture the flat earth to be a flat cracker in space? For the sake of argument - I do not; I picture it as being all that there is. Therefore it may be the reference from which all motion is measured.
The more likely conclusion is that it is not moving.
Why is this likelier? A theory which explains the origins of the universe according to the big bang causes the belief that everything is in motion to make much more sense. This is supported not just at the macro scale, but also at the micro scale, since all matter is fundamentally in motion irrespective of whether human perception detects it. This is the kind of coherence I am referring to in a web of belief.
What does Flat Earth say about existence on the micro scale?
These statements
A brute fact is one that claims to require no explanation. Most of the propositions you named have explanations.
Earlier you said that a stationary Earth did not require explanation - it 'just is'. That's a brute fact claim.
Very few of these statements are "proved" in the way you would like, and yet they are to be taken on face as "brute facts" if you are to accept gravity to be true.
Formal proof doesn't exist in the sciences, and I don't require it. If you say there is an apple on the table, I am happy to call that knowledge if (a) the claim means something intelligible, I have a framework for interpreting it, (b) I see an apple on the table, and (c) I can go pick the apple up from the table.
Not all evidence will be empirically ideal like this.
All theories will entail some brute facts. But there is a difference between claiming that gravity is a fundamental force exerted by all matter, and saying that there is something in our universe that does not move, and another local thing that does. The latter statement involves two facts. The more simuktaneous distinctions you try to assimilate to a brute claim, the more strained the brute claim becomes.
That the Earth has a radius is supported by multiple empirical observations. I am not saying it is proven. But ships disappear beneath a horizon. Eratosthenes's experiment worked on the assumption of a radius. There are other observations that suggest the Earth's surface is curved. I have one I consider quite good.
My point is that scientific theory has this feature of coherence and multiple attestation by different observations.
Take Newton's universal equation of gravitation. You object that it includes an object's radius. This doesn't negate the fact that all objects, whether or not they have a radius proper, will have gravity. It's just an approximation useful for things observed in space, which have been observed to be spheroidal.
Furthermore, we can take a pragmatic approach and ask what we've been able to accomplish using an equation for gravity that includes radius. From this equation we can calculate -based on G - the precise times that an object will require to fall from a given height. We have been able to formalize these equations in the language of physics, and they are reliable. How likely is it that the underlying theory is wrong if this predictive power is consistent and provable? If the underlying theory assumes Earth has a radius, then the success of downstream predictions supports we are correct about that radius existing.
I do not; I picture it as being all that there is.
This is interesting. It sounds almost identical with the phenomenological approach in philosophy, which I take very seriously. But I do wonder whether it is good to assume the way the Earth is comported inside our experience is identical with the way Earth is in reality.
Universalizing human perception like this, while it is very attractive even for my theological beliefs, just seems like a stretch that requires supernatural justification. And being a fairly good student of religion, I don't find there is good justification for believing Flat Earth.
It is clumsy. Take the observations made by Galileo and the distances the telescope assumes, if it is the only thing that makes distant objects visible anyway.
The geometry of the universe would start to look very clunky. We have a flat Earth with a massive expanse above, as if we were the very bottom of a Pringles can, with the celestial layers of reality extending upward in a vast cylinder or something.
That's an interesting question, and I don't have a good answer for it.
I think the answer you're likely to get from most is that it is phenomenologically true that earth is flat and comprises the whole of our world. If one just honors the experience he has, straightforwardly, of being an observer on Earth, a flat earth seems apparent.
I think the commonest responses to the video argument are (a) videos are partial and/or (b) faked. I really don't know what the extent of the video evidence is, whether we've got it from the ISS or Apollo Missions or whatever, but things get a little bit hairy in that regard, because then enters the more general space-faring conspiracy. If you don't believe we went to the moon, or that the ISS is a thing, then as a consequence the video evidence they are supposed to have originated is going to be assumed faked.
What the hell is taking photos of other "planets" (which are cgi but you tards don't believe that) and what prevents NASA from taking a photo of Earth in the same way it does with other cgi rendered "planets"?
[ + ]anon
[ - ] deleted 1 point 1.9 yearsJun 3, 2022 03:10:20 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ]anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 1 point 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 11:19:02 ago (+1/-0)*
We don't know what the shape of the Earth is. The term to focus on is 'know'. Ask yourself: how would we (or could we) know what the shape of the earth is? The reason these photographs depict a spherical earth is because they are proximate. They are composite images, not a direct image of the earth, as a whole, from space.
The reason for believing the earth is ellipsoid is not because we see it that way. It's because that shape is a consequence of a web of other theorems that, taken together, are remarkably coherent and explain many phenomena more successfully than alternatives can. That's the best you get in scientific 'proof', which is to say there is no formal proof in science.
Eratosthenes' project is not hard to replicate, and was remarkably accurate for its time.
I do find it odd how rabid the anti-flat-Earther mentality is though. I don't know why the authorities can't be more up front about the limitations of scientific knowledge, or why some people can't admit that flat-Earth is still an interesting idea, even if they disagree with it. The whole 'scene' of that debate is odd to me.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 2817429 3 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 13:05:16 ago (+3/-0)
See, "History of Flat Earth", by Eric Dubay.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 1 point 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 14:05:29 ago (+1/-0)
One has to consider the breadth of explanation under theory A, the number of phenomena it explains coherently, and with the least necessary commitments (ontological). The most virtuous theory is the most powerful and the simplest.
Flat Earth has an ontological problem. You have a stationary Earth and a moving sun 3,000 - 5,000 miles above it. Explain the lack of movement by the Earth and the movement by the Sun. No matter how one tries to do this, it will require two ontological posits. One to prevent Earth's motion, and one that favors the Sun's particularly (without causing Earth to move). The prevailing scientific theory can accomplish this with one posit: gravitation.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1034314 1 point 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 14:54:12 ago (+1/-0)
That depends upon the underlying assumptions you have about the argument. I don't see any reason to explain the lack of movement by the earth. I am wondering what unstated assumptions you have that make you think you need to have that explained.
I see no evidence that earth is in motion. I see evidence of relative motion between the any given point on the surface of the earth and several of the noted celestial objects.
In my opinion, people get mad at flat earthers because the position is correct and they cannot muster a defense against the truth.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 15:20:11 ago (+0/-0)*
The relevant assumption of mine is just this: facts require explanation, or rather, that there must exist an explanation for facts. So first, let's define facts.
Things exist. Things have likenesses and/or are doing things. If there is an A, we will describe it as an A (nominalized) or that an A is A-ing (verb). So we can predicate A-ing of any A.
Any fact creates a distinction. If A is truly an A, this is because it is not a B. If A is ~B, then B is ~A.
Therefore, any fact has an explanation, for any A can be explained in terms of why it is ~B (and vice versa).
Consider the proposition, 'Everything that exists is moving.' If it is true, it can only be true because some things move differently than other things (direction, velocity, whatever). If everything was moving in exactly the same way, then no observer would ever know that anything was moving. This means that the proposition must pick out either that some things move differently than others, or some things move and some things don't. But if the proposition is true, then all things are moving.
Why some things move differently than others will have an explanation, whether we know it or not.
Now another: 'Nothing that exists is moving.' This is incoherent. If it were true, it would never be intelligible to any observer. Of course we know empirically that it is just absurd.
Lastly: 'The Earth is stationary, and the sun 3,000-5,000 miles above the Earth is not stationary, but moving.'
Unlike the proposition that says, 'Everything that exists is moving', which is a single fact, this last one is positing two facts.
It is distinguishing between movement and non-movement. If an observer on the Earth observes the sky and finds that everything in it is moving, then for him to know that he (his planet) is not, is to make a distinction resulting in two facts.
This is even clearer if we suppose the universe contains only the Earth (A) and the sun (B).
A is not moving.
B is moving.
This means there are two explanations, one for each of these facts. What might that explanation look like? It doesn't necessarily imply that there are two ontologies required. Someone could say there is a Being (a god or something, or a demon) that simultaneously holds Earth steady, while moving the sun (in other words, there is one cause for the two facts).
More likely than that answer, is the answer that A and B is just a 'brute fact'. This is the equivalent of simply saying: "It just is that way."
Nothing stops anybody from making a brute fact claim, but theoretically it is weaker than a causal explanation.
Other than referring to a supernatural entity that could promote two opposite causes simultaneously, the Flat-Earther has no recourse except to posit TWO separate explanations, one for the motion of the sun, and one for the non-motion of the Earth. Else, he simply calls this a brute fact.
The scientific explanation says that everything is moving, and the Earth's and the sun's motion with respect to each other, is explained by ONE thing: gravity. The sun has more of it and has caught the Earth within its field.
Picture now the scientist attempting to explain things if the Earth was not moving and the sun was moving. He'd have to posit either two different causes, or make a brute fact claim.
Comparing Flat Earth with the prevailing scientific theory, it is clear that science not only does not require a brute fact claim, but also that its explanation involves only one commitment (gravity). It is superior to a theory that requires two, and it is superior to a theory that makes a brute fact claim.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1034314 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 16:11:15 ago (+0/-0)
If everything was not moving, it would be indistinguishable from everything moving in the exact same way. The more likely conclusion is that it is not moving.
Contrary to your position, the prevailing scientific theory contains innumerable brute fact claims that are unstated. These statements include, but are not limited to - the earth is a sphere, the star field represents a three dimensional expanse of great distances, celestial objects possess physical substance, motions of the earth are undetectable because the instruments used to measure them shrink or elongate in proportion to distance moved, the earth is not the center of the universe, the shadow on the moon during the lunar eclipse is cast by the earth.
Very few of these statements are "proved" in the way you would like, and yet they are to be taken on face as "brute facts" if you are to accept gravity to be true. In particular, you must accept the earth to be a ball before you accept gravity, as the entirety of the calculations made based on measurements to devise it accept the earth has a radius. This is represented in the various r's and r squareds you might read in Principia and later works.
Do you picture the flat earth to be a flat cracker in space? For the sake of argument - I do not; I picture it as being all that there is. Therefore it may be the reference from which all motion is measured.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 18:47:45 ago (+0/-0)*
Why is this likelier? A theory which explains the origins of the universe according to the big bang causes the belief that everything is in motion to make much more sense. This is supported not just at the macro scale, but also at the micro scale, since all matter is fundamentally in motion irrespective of whether human perception detects it. This is the kind of coherence I am referring to in a web of belief.
What does Flat Earth say about existence on the micro scale?
A brute fact is one that claims to require no explanation. Most of the propositions you named have explanations.
Earlier you said that a stationary Earth did not require explanation - it 'just is'. That's a brute fact claim.
Formal proof doesn't exist in the sciences, and I don't require it. If you say there is an apple on the table, I am happy to call that knowledge if (a) the claim means something intelligible, I have a framework for interpreting it, (b) I see an apple on the table, and (c) I can go pick the apple up from the table.
Not all evidence will be empirically ideal like this.
All theories will entail some brute facts. But there is a difference between claiming that gravity is a fundamental force exerted by all matter, and saying that there is something in our universe that does not move, and another local thing that does. The latter statement involves two facts. The more simuktaneous distinctions you try to assimilate to a brute claim, the more strained the brute claim becomes.
That the Earth has a radius is supported by multiple empirical observations. I am not saying it is proven. But ships disappear beneath a horizon. Eratosthenes's experiment worked on the assumption of a radius. There are other observations that suggest the Earth's surface is curved. I have one I consider quite good.
My point is that scientific theory has this feature of coherence and multiple attestation by different observations.
Take Newton's universal equation of gravitation. You object that it includes an object's radius. This doesn't negate the fact that all objects, whether or not they have a radius proper, will have gravity. It's just an approximation useful for things observed in space, which have been observed to be spheroidal.
Furthermore, we can take a pragmatic approach and ask what we've been able to accomplish using an equation for gravity that includes radius. From this equation we can calculate -based on G - the precise times that an object will require to fall from a given height. We have been able to formalize these equations in the language of physics, and they are reliable. How likely is it that the underlying theory is wrong if this predictive power is consistent and provable? If the underlying theory assumes Earth has a radius, then the success of downstream predictions supports we are correct about that radius existing.
This is interesting. It sounds almost identical with the phenomenological approach in philosophy, which I take very seriously. But I do wonder whether it is good to assume the way the Earth is comported inside our experience is identical with the way Earth is in reality.
Universalizing human perception like this, while it is very attractive even for my theological beliefs, just seems like a stretch that requires supernatural justification. And being a fairly good student of religion, I don't find there is good justification for believing Flat Earth.
It is clumsy. Take the observations made by Galileo and the distances the telescope assumes, if it is the only thing that makes distant objects visible anyway.
The geometry of the universe would start to look very clunky. We have a flat Earth with a massive expanse above, as if we were the very bottom of a Pringles can, with the celestial layers of reality extending upward in a vast cylinder or something.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1034314 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 3, 2022 18:29:02 ago (+0/-0)
Why do all the world's cosmological origin stories and myths have some form of a flat earth with a dome over head?
At the moment I'm not sure if you're a robot or if you're five or if you've educated yourself out of all imagination.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 3, 2022 23:39:12 ago (+0/-0)
I think the answer you're likely to get from most is that it is phenomenologically true that earth is flat and comprises the whole of our world. If one just honors the experience he has, straightforwardly, of being an observer on Earth, a flat earth seems apparent.
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1513778 1 point 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 13:25:57 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 1198092 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 13:44:25 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] anon
[ - ] anon 3488088 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 3, 2022 00:39:02 ago (+0/-0)
What the hell is taking photos of other "planets" (which are cgi but you tards don't believe that) and what prevents NASA from taking a photo of Earth in the same way it does with other cgi rendered "planets"?
[ + ]anon
[ - ] anon 3121892 0 points 1.9 yearsJun 2, 2022 19:12:18 ago (+0/-0)