Exploring the Flat Earth subject a lil bit more...steemCreated with Sketch.

in #philosophy7 years ago

I've mostly stayed out of the Flat Earth discussion/debate cause of various reasons.
Yet, recently.. I engaged a bit on my page. And.. It's been interesting! Heh.
I plan to speak more on what I think about my experiences in the future, but today I just wanna touch on a really fascinating example of psychology.

First let me start by saying.. I've never once in my life that I can remember appealed to "Occam's Razor" by citing it.
I don't think the simplest answer is usually the answer.
This gets into weird territory, but.. Me personally.. I just never really liked resorting to using that as a wedge in argument. I think oftentimes the answer is NOT the simplest one.

Well.. To be fair, I can't remember specifically citing Occam's Razor, but I'm sure I have argued for the logic of what makes more sense in a simplistic way at times.
And I guess technically even if you don't cite Occam's Razor, you are still using that principle when you base a logical conclusion on such types of reasoning. So.. I guess I have prolly used it before, but as I said I often think the answers are usually not simple.

ANYWAYS.. I recently found one of the new Flat Earth theories(At least I think it's new) going around is based on Occam's Razor and it's really interesting..
The advocates suggest that.. Because there is no perception or feeling of the earth moving, that the simplest answer is that it is not.

Did you catch that? It's some fascinating logic. The earth is not moving, cause we can't sense it moving.
Of course this rational has to deny all of the empirical historical evidence in history of the opposite but..
It is neat to think about how Flat Earth people can take one of these common debate principles and weave it into their very far fetched theory so effortlessly.

Here's my problem with that theory though. Is that REALLY the simplest answer?
Think about it.. To assume that that is the simplest answer, you almost have to assume that there is a God being out there that created the earth as basically the center of the universe.
The flat earth model in my opinion does not work without some kind of divine intervention, nature does not shape things like that IMO.
You can explain a spherical earth much better in scientific manner than you can a flat earth. No need to necessarily appeal to a God being.

I guess in essence what I'm trying to say is.. What is truly the more simple explanation?
That we don't perceive the earth moving cause it's not cause a God being created a flat earth at the center of the universe for us to inhabit?
Or that science has been decently close in explaining things like Gravity and the Big Bang and how all this order can somehow come from nothing or chaos.

In one scenario, you have to invoke the power of a God being, which just seems totally irrational in so many ways.
And in the other scenario life basically just exploded out of nothing and started forming together in more complex fashion.

To be straight forward, they both sound incredibly unlikely.. But to me, one certainly seem a lot less likely than the other.
I think it seems much more likely there's spherical planets all around the universe and that someday we will explore the stars.
I think it seems much less likely that there's a God being out there who was like.. Ima make you humans the center of the universe! And all that shit in space will forever be beyond your reach, and nothing is really going on out there. It's all going on down here on Earth.
Anyways.. I just thought that was interesting how they were using Occam's Razor, but.. Perhaps didn't take that principle further to the whole concept of God in the first place.
Who out there would argue that a God being creating everything would be more consistent with Occam's Razor than some kind of random self forming construct?

Furthermore, just as an aside.. So far, I think almost every Flat Earther I've seen that I've met has resorted to biblical fanaticism to compel their points.
And if they didn't bring up God in relation, perhaps they still do believe that and just haven't vocalized it.

Are there any Flat Earthers out there who DON'T believe in a God being?
And if so, how do they explain the earth being Flat while virtually all other planetary bodies and stars and moons we see through telescopes are spherical?
Like how does that jive with science and everything we have observed?
Why would this earth be SOOOOOO much different from all the other planets..?

PS Just to be clear, I don't really subscribe to the scientific theory in regards to how we came into existence either if anyone thinks that, but I do think it seems more likely than a "creator god being" .
I'm personally more of a Pantheist in the sense I think that EVERYTHING is "God" and that to me "God" is more of the language behind the universe, the programming, the fabric of reality, a spiritual energy.. Not some actual physical being.
And even in a Pantheistic sense, why would nature create a flat plane with Earth as like the center of the universe? When a spherical object just makes so much more sense based on so many different reasons.

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I can't feel every atom, every protein, every cell work in complete harmony and unison. Does that mean it is completely virtual? Just because I can't feel the earth moving doesn't mean it's not. Looking up to the sky or vice versus the sky looking down upon me makes me feel small and insignificant. But when I look to the ground and see the small teeming creatures, I feel "big". Our perceptions are often wrong and misguided. What's my point! Well, I guess it's gonna have to take a shuttle into the atmosphere to prove these people wrong.

And people have done precisely that, even launching their own weather balloons with cameras attached to them!

There is something to take away from this, and that is we will never be able to describe the system fully because we ourselves are a subset of the system with limited perceptions which limit the way we perceive the world around us.

Moom, so earth is not moving and it's a center of universe?? And Flat Earth people and God.. whaaaaaat

We are told that the earth spins at over 1,000 mph at the equator and yet we never feel a thing. We have been taught to ignore our own senses and accept this nonsense as truth with no scientific proof to back this claim. In 1887 Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley conducted an experiment attempting to measure the motion of the earth by comparing the speed of light in perpendicular directions using a device called an interferometer. The results of this experiment concluded that the earth does not move, based on the expected difference between the speed of light in the direction of movement through the presumed aether, and the speed at right angles. This difference was found not to exist. The Sagnac effect has proven the existence of the aether, which disproves the Theory of Relativity and supports the findings of Michelson and Morley. The fact that the motion of the earth cannot be measured also disproves the Coriolis effect. As it turns out, it is the shape of the basin and the direction that the water enters the basin that determines the direction that the water drains. If the Coriolis effect existed, airline pilots would have to account for the earth's spin during landing, which they do not. Not only that, if the earth were a ball and an airplane is flying 500 mph at an altitude of 35,000 feet, the pilot would have to dip the nose of the plane downward and descend 2,700 feet every minute in order to avoid flying off into space, but again, they do not. The globe model and everything that supports it, including the presumed spin of the earth, has always been and continues to be merely a theory and never proven, yet the majority of people accept these theories as fact when there is no concrete scientific proof!

But actually the globe model and everything that surrounds it is exactly what makes everything work! For example GPS satellites have to take relativity into account to keep accurate track of time down to the nano second scales.

Lol. No, all of the science around the globe has been reverse engineered to support the impossible, not the other way around. GPS is done using ground signals and underwater cables. There are no satellites orbiting the earth in space. And relativity has been debunked with the Sagnac experiment.

So you're saying all of the people who've been to space and all of the explorers in planes who have flown around the world are lying?

I've debunked numerous of your points already in other conversations like the need to nose down in planes, a couple of your points were new to me and I'm unfamiliar with them and time permitting I'll look into them. But, when someone tells me certain things are proved in an absolute way like that, I'm skeptical. I've definitely heard stuff that before.. When people claim reality is a certain way, and it's not. It's very common actually to have people telling me reality is a certain way when after a lil bit of research I find there are alternate more logical possibilities.

There is only one magnetic pole at the center of earth- the North Pole, so flying "around" the world means that the needle of a compass is such that if you set out in either direction it will always point north and thus take you around in a circle. Astro-NOTS are all freemasonic actors. No one has ever been to "space". It's all a theatrical production.

Please watch this video I made....

I don't get why it's still a debate.

For me its not a problem isn't whether the earth is flat as you said. The problem lies with the people who actually still bring up this nonsense.

There is no argument at all. And i dont think we have any obligation to explain things.

Slightly off topic but how do you think the universe came into being if you don't believe in a creator, or the big bang?

I don't pretend to know. I'm open minded to the ideas to an extent.. But I just don't think anyone will ever really know. I think it's probably impossible for us to truly know.

Another possibility is that it's just "always" been here.. Though that doesn't make logical sense either. Once again.. I just don't think we even can know for sure.. But I like thinking about the possibilities! :)

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