further response to reactions to posts on Anasazi roads
To all:
This is not intended to make this thread overlong, but statements made previously do call for rejoinders.
JerryB again insists that his one sentence response to my suggestion that Manhattan streets are long and straight because they fall on ley lines was intended to provoke my "going into more depth", providing "the connection" and saying why there is a connection. Is it so hard to see that the connection was that Manhattan's streets are among the longest and straightest in the world, and ley lines are characterized as being responsible for sites being on straight line paths? He said he was asking for a theory. This is along the lines of only assembling the information! Why does he seem to have so much difficulty in seeing that?
He emphasizes, too, that what is mentioned on this site are only opinions. He may find that some people are more serious about learning about the world than he seems to want to depict them as being. Not everyone sees this as only a way to, essentially, be heard, without saying anything significant. "Any opions [sic] contrary to your own", he continues, "are not any form of attack on you or your intellectual capacity."
Invoking the idea of paranoia does not exonerate the sentiment behind a statement!
And, in fact, contrary views cannot be taken as so minor a thing.
If you say the sun is yellowish, and someone walks around saying it's plaid, there are very few ways that can be taken than as a deliberate attempt to be infuriating. There are, after all, entire groups of people, basically, individuals who never got enough attention in their lives - and often because they were glory hogs, not because people ignored them! - and they go through the day mouthing patently outrageous doctrines. Those do not qualify as "opinions". Opinions are not mere collections of words, strung together grammatically; a genuine "opinion" has to have some background and qualify as at least worthy of consideration. Someone who so characterizes an opinion, generally proclaims their intent to dismiss everything except their own precepts.
But this is, apparently, in keeping with the general attitude of those touting "the party line".
The term "opinions" is, frankly, bandied about as much as Occam's Razor, and, to be frank, usually by those seeking to promote "the party line". Anyone suggesting anything at variance with "traditional precepts" is described as either expressing "only an opinion" or "violating Occam's Razor"! In this way, any disagreement with "traditionalism" is depicted as "reckless", "invalid" or "embarrassing." And this does persist and exist, in many venues. Which is only one reason for being careful about dismissing the idea of "opinion" out of hand, and, frankly, more than enough reason to be careful before apotheosizing Occam's Razor.
It is insulting to term what someone says, necessarily "just an opinion", or to elaborate with the phrase "nothing more, nothing less". There are, likely, many who do contribute to The Fortean Times with the genuine interest of furthering understanding, not with the desire just to mouth off before a room of strangers. And it is not likely that they would be appreciative of having what they say treated as - that is to be said - rantings! And, for those who put full analytical effort into what they say, brushing what they say aside as "just and opinion", and, therefore, unworthy of full investigation, is, because of that, an attack on their intellectual capacity. It is saying that they don't have the ability to think, that their statements can be sloughed over without effect. And, for many, it may lead them to think that, no matter how much work they put into what they say, because it is "just opinion" - not the magical sort of incantation that "traditional science" is credited with! - what they say cannot have any merit!
My reference to Gödel's theorem was taken on by the Fortean board member with the i.d. The Yithian. I invoked the theorem since, essentially, it indicates the existence, in complex logical systems, of statements that are true, but without rigorous proof, in that system. FraterLibre's insistence on "facts to back up" theories that are not "traditionalist" would be, presumably, difficult to arrange for such truths, but, by the nature of unprovability, it would not brand them as "mere opinion"!
It has to be said: note, again, the use of the word "opinion" in what can only be termed a determinedly dismissive manner!
The Yithian proceeds, then, to critique Gödel's theorem as, basically, grounded in a kind of "black or white" dichotomy, namely, that statements have to be "true" or "false". They describe the matter as "more problematic when we speak of 'real' world propositions". They describe statements like "ley lines exist" as "not carrying within them the same kind of rigorous criteria for defining their own truth or falsehoods as statements like 2+2=4". Frankly, "2+2=4" does not carry the "criteria" for proving its own truthfulness. That comes from elsewhere. And, for that matter, even in the Manichean system Gödel is described as ascribing to, the unprovably true statements could not possibly possess it, either, by definition!
To be sure, the uncertainty in analyses of the world, the presence of things not in keeping with accepted theory, does not necessarily qualify as being a case of unprovability. That would suggest at least a significant degree of knowledge of the fundamental principles behind the logical system, against which background, new precepts which have never been disproved, but which do not yield to proof, arise. In fact, it cannot be asserted that all the fundamental precepts of the universe have been firmly established. “Science” is very much a going concern. And, even at that, the world, as we know it, may be, at least to a large extent, controlled by the precepts of a “logical system”, but it cannot, in fact, necessarily be termed a “logical system”. Matter is matter, energy is energy, and what can be considered the ethereal entities in a purely hypothetical “logical system” can be said to be something else entirely. For this reason, matter may, indeed, act in ways not completely bound by the absolute firmness of a “logical system”. The number “5” can only act a certain, way, but The Fortean Times is full of stories like that of people walking into an area they had visited numerous times, and found something completely different there! Indeed, then, a wholesale use of logic and philosophical techniques to analyze matter may be unfounded.
And Occam’s Razor is one of the standard tools recommended by “traditional philosophy”.
The Yithian then questions the pedigree of truth, itself. They critique the use of “correspondence theory”, in which the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by the existence of a correspondence between the statement and an event in the real world. In truth, as The Yithian states, it can be asserted that there are truths that don’t have what can be called facts, to back them up. But, such statements can be said to tend to inhabit the world abstract to “the real world”. That system on which “traditional science” is based does, however, in general, recognize as true only those things that do have facts behind them. If the substance of the real world may transcend standard philosophical systems, by not being definitively and universally dependent on, and answerable to, “logical arguments from first principles”, it seems, too, to lag, in having an attenuated form of “truthfulness”. Pure philosophical arguments may not go very far in defining what matters based entirely on real world interactions yield. It has, for example, been asserted that a fault of Classical Greek reasoning was their insistence that they way things “should be”, based on personal preferences, is what it must be! Aristotelianism, for example, is credited with saying that heavier objects fall faster because they should!
“Hegel’s crows”, to which The Yithian alluded, demonstrates that using deductive reasoning in an inductive sense is, at least, inconvenient, if not eminently nonforthcoming in laying the groundwork for a philosophical system. If “all crows are black”, then, equivalently, “all non-black things are not crows.” Just making an assessment of all non-black things within reach, and showing that they are not crows, then, does not prove that all crows are black, but, supposedly, lends ever more support to that premise. Using such deductive constructs, at least in the context of a system not completely founded on fundamental principles, falls short of the kind of definitive quality which is preferred by at least “traditional science”. In fact, it does not “prove” as undesirable the technique of “proving” a point by excluding all alternative situations, it merely demonstrates how, if nothing else, logistically involved it is. Yet, let’s be frank, that is precisely the method “traditional science” pursues!
With respect to that form of truth controlled by facts, The Yithian goes on to insist that “we don't experience the world as it is”, but, instead, “as it is for us as individuals”.
“Facts ARE NOT states of affairs in the world”, The Yithian goes on to declare, “which can be simply compared to the the [sic] supposed word-pictures presented in propositions formulated through languge [sic], but are rather human, personal, subjective constructs and interpretaions [sic].” The forgiving would say that The Yithian is describing a deep and fundamental disconnect between observations and precepts backed by what can be called metaphysically unassailable tenets.
In fact, they are describing situations little different from machinations of the outlandishly spiteful.
There are people you will meet who will tell you, for example, that all cats have five legs. They will say that they know that for a fact, and have read it in any number of books. And, if you point to a four-legged tabby, crossing the street, they will say: “Oh, that poor animal! It lost a leg!”
And, while you are fuming, they will laugh inwardly at having gotten your goat.
But it goes beyond that. There are those who so deeply invest the spirit of goading in their nature that they will actually believe - that is, they will act, even before themselves, as if they accept - what they say.
There is a man, for example, whose “sense of humor” can lead him to call you, then, when you answer, he will ask why you called him. When you tell him you didn’t call him, he’ll insist that his phone rang, and you were on the line. When you hang up, he won’t even crack a smile. He didn’t “enjoy” this, he did it because he had to! Then, when he sees you, at another time, he’ll ask why you hung up on his phone call to you!
There is another individual who once swore to me, forward and backward, up and down, side to side, that he was his own twin brother! I happen to know that he didn’t have a twin brother, or any other kind of brother!
Be careful when you walk the streets of Orange, New Jersey.
This is the situation The Yithian describes when they speak of facts being “subjective”!
Not necessarily a founded lack of agreement between absolute truth and observation, but, rather, a demonstration of willful self-deception.
And, apparently, misinterpreting the connection of the Latin “facere” - meaning “to make” - to justify the interpretation of “facts” as purely subjective affairs only threatens to de-legitimize any argument you might make in that direction. “Facere” indicates something coming into being, being made solid, tangible, and it is that tangible and demonstrable quality of “facts” which connects them to the Latin root, not the presumption that “facts” represent something “made” by the viewer!
The electrons and protons and neutrons seem to be in enormous concordance about states of affairs. At least, they all tend to act remarkably alike each other in similar circumstances. Because someone with a malevolent ulterior motive decides to say that snow is green, that is not sufficient reason to necessarily justify tossing all observation. If subatomic particles can, essentially “agree”, it would seem that humans could, too. It seems that there is a way, there has to be a way, to ascertain a truthfulness independent of subjective vision. And that is not something so uncommon, necessarily. Terming it as difficult, however, seems either a common ploy of the untrustworthy to exculpate themselves from deliberate deception, or the dodge they use when they peddle a fraud for personal gain and, inevitably, the evidence of the swindle becomes apparent! Defining absolute truthfulness as difficult, if not impossible, to come by is, generally, as much a product of willful, self-seeking connivance as the lying machinations of those deliberately “out of contact” with the world!
Unfortunately, it seems that invoking such things as this eminently corrupt debasement of reasoning is the ersatz that philosophy has been passing off as “intellectual depth” for centuries! To a very large extent, philosophy qualifies as one of the least forthcoming of all human pursuits. There isn’t anyone who can name any great advancement that philosophy has contributed. At least, what passes for, and has, for a long time, passed for philosophy. Embroiling themselves in questions that even they say they cannot have answers for, they have trundled forth an image of “sophistication” - facilitated by five-syllable words, which, in general, have different fundamental meanings to every one of them who uses them! - and have cozied their ways into exalted positions, on the basis of, essentially, convincing fluff!
And the prevalence of, essentially, eminently questionable “thinking” - that is, the institutionalizing of certain theories, for whatever reason, and the systematic cobbling together of apologia masquerading as “sophistry” to sustain them - has demonstrated itself in any number of cases in at least the modern avatar of “traditional science”. In fact, for example, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has never been really proved. There are a number of alternative interpretations that differ only by not having had, essentially, the same amount of press. Innumerable times, patent chinks in the armor of the theory are discovered, and, each time, it is prated that “relativity must be right”, so some new and “previously unsuspected” quality of matter is invoked to cover the hole! They throw a book at you with a lot of equations in it and expect you to take that as “proof”!
A good, recent example of this proclivity in “traditional science” can be seen in the very article mentioned only a few days ago, on the Fortean Times website, about “the oldest planet in the universe” being discovered. Residing in a global cluster companion of The Milky Way is a star with a body circling it, only about twice the size of Jupiter. It cannot be a small star, since there seems no additional radiation coming from the system, and a star that small would, likely, have evaporated from its own heat, long ago. The globular cluster is dated as coming from the time of the Big Bang, before the evolution of the heavier elements - so crucial to planets we know - in stellar furnaces. At the time of the hypothesized Big Bang, there were some heavier elements, but they seemed to make up only about ½% of all the matter in the universe. It is eminently unlikely that, even in a large universe, with many different chances, such a small amount of heavy material would ever get together in one place to form a planet.
There are, however, alternative explanations, which can allow a planet like this to exist. One is that the Big Bang did not occur, and the history of the universe is incorrect!
The gymnastics physicists have been going through to try to make the Big Bang theory fit, frankly, have begun to become embarrassing!
One study declares the universe “too uniform” for matter to have accumulated to forms stars and galaxies. “Traditionalists”, then, have tried everything from microscopic black holes to disembodied gravity “strings” to, frankly, the ludicrously overbloated notion of a massive expansion at hundreds of times the speed of light, just a fraction of a second after the universe came into being!
Other studies, however, and using much of the same data as the first, now declare the universe to have been “too irregular and nonuniform”! Now, they say that the very same early universe shows discontinuities that are too large! “It’s easy”, they say, for random clumping to occur in minute samples, connected almost instantaneously by light signals and natural interactions, but, in such a large region as the early universe, such aggregations should have been nonexistent!
They should get their stories straight!
Or at least admit that, from the start, the Big Bang is flawed!
It is, after all, based only on the fact that light from more and more provably distant galaxies, supposedly, shows a relativistic spectrum shift that suggests they are moving away at greater and greater speeds. But, after a certain distance, astronomers didn’t even try to find actual distance anymore; they just said that the galaxy seemed to be moving away at such and such a speed, so it must be this distance away! Early on, a theory of “tired light”, that is, light somehow acted upon by surroundings, to make it appear reddened, was suggested to explain the red shift, but it was quickly abandoned, in favor of Einstein’s red shift.
It should be mentioned, too, that, if Einstein’s Relativity is flawed, the relativistic red shift measurements can be, too!
In the end, though, there seems little, if any, independent evidence for a Big Bang. What form the universe had, in the eras that precede the present, may be something completely exotic, but the “traditionalists” seem determined not to accept it. Their shibboleth is that the Big Bang must be believed, no matter what! As is demonstrated by the case of the purported planet. As one of the researchers commenting on the existence of the planet asserted, this supposedly indicates that “planet formation processes are quite robust and efficient at making use of a small amount of heavier elements”. Planet formation, as defined, depends only on accretion, and that is not a magical method for acquiring heavy elements that aren’t there! There are alternatives for the Big Bang, and this new planet would seem to legislate for them. But, the “traditionalists” would demand, the Big Bang must be true, therefore, they cobble together ad hoc some gratuitous “explanation” to patch up the hole in the wall!
Again, it depends on one’s definition of “simple”. Acknowledging that the Big Bang has many points in contradiction to it, then scrapping it and developing a new model, based on the observations; or insisting that the Big Bang must be true, no matter what crops up, and proceeding to posit new, hitherto unseen phenomena, to explain all the contradictions!
And that is the face of Occam’s Razor! At least in the “traditionalist” world of science. The “simplest” thing, they seem to insist, is not to invoke a new system, but just keep on chugging with the old system, and keep plugging the holes with new “details”! Whatever validity Occam’s Razor has, it has only when used by the honest and honorable. And, then, it is not likely that it will be used at all!
In the end, what “traditionalists” try to depict as a sober, sensible approach to understanding nature shapes up as little more than a scheme that allows them to “justify” doubting everything except what they are told to believe.
Addressing my references to their comments, Stu Neville accused me of a “direct insult”. They, then, went on to utilize threat to, apparently, try to control my statements, pointing, for example, to their ability, as a moderator, to refuse to post any messages by me on the board. The “insult” referred to my taking issue with Stu Neville characterizing FraterLibre and JerryB as acting with “impartiality and scholarly approach”. I pointed out, for example, that FraterLibre’s “scholarliness” involved, among other things, his approaching the subject of the Modern Antiquarian website by only talking about the music there. No matter what anyone says, a snide and contemptuous attitude does not, generally, indicate any great degree of “scholarliness” or “impartiality”.
As far as that goes, Stu Neville represented me as “demeaning the integrity” of others, simply because “they hold other views”, and as being “uncivil”. That is a direct insult, but, by their own words, Stu Neville seems to think they can engage in that with impunity. It should be mentioned, though, that, if another does not respect truthfulness, yet you do, “demeaning their integrity” because “they don’t believe as you do” is far from a deplorable thing. Indeed, since they will not have integrity, “demeaning their integrity” seems not even to be a matter in question.
I mentioned that I have seen undesirable actions on other sites. Among these is to coat unquestioning acceptance of smirking and snide behavior as “respecting others”; asking those others not to disrespect you is to violate their “freedom of speech”! For one of the forum’s “golden boys” to lie is for them to “express theirs opinion”, to accuse a liar of lying is to “demean their integrity”. And the moderators inevitably facilitate the culture of obsequious acceptance of turpitude by threatening to delete posts of anyone who blows the whistle on disreputable activities on the forum. It is surprising just how hostile many people can be to the truth. The misuse of Occam’s Razor is just another demonstration.
In the end, those who seek the truth cannot allow themselves to be dissuaded by others’ opposition, or by the assertion that seeking the truth is “in bad taste”.
Julian Penrod
Any opions contrary to your own are not any form of attack on you or your intellectual capacity.
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