Philosophy For Us Dummies

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 3:23pm

That’s how atheists like to portray belief. It’s an extreme. Almost always, there is some reasoning and evidence.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 3:29pm

It does not matter whether or not they are talking about facts as they are “known”. If it is a fact, it is what is. If it is a belief of it to be a fact, than it is not a fact.

If what is “known” changes later on and disproves a “fact”, then it was never truly a fact to begin with. So it really doesn’t matter what an individual knows, or think they know.

Did the fact of the world being round ever change? No, it was always round and spherical. Regardless of what humanity thought they “knew”.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 3:33pm

Evidence of an invisible man in the sky of which judges experience of life, through death? The very thing of which we are here to do? Experience? We are the universe experiencing itself individually and subjectively, we contribute to the universes expansion through experience because we are the universe as well. There is no evidence or reasoning behind that at all. Regardless of what people say “Oh god talked to me”. It is obvious some people don’t know “god” from their own delusional minds.

What is the explanation/reasoning for “god” being either not omnipotent or “evil”?

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 3:36pm

So in the era when wise men and women made observations and concluded that the Earth is flat… What did they say? “It is a fact that the Earth is flat.”

What good did it do them that (let’s say) 500 years later, other observations showed them to be wrong about their facts?

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 3:38pm

I’ve been in those discussions, and I’m not interested in another one. :-"

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 3:44pm

There were people in that time and era that did not ‘believe’ the world to be flat. It is not their fault that the majority did not regard what the geniuses/wise men said.

You’re making it revolve around humanity, when nothing does. Other than what we create for ourselves, to revolve around us to help us feel comfortable. Do you think facts care what “good” it does humanity?

Not much of wise men/women then huh? Just because they heard that it was “flat” does not mean they had to accept/believe it.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Aristotle

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 3:53pm

Who do you think sets the standards?
Who do you think determines what is good science, good medicine, good philosophy, etc.? Intelligent rational people. And yes, they can be wrong.

It does revolve around humanity. Nature doesn’t care what is labeled as knowledge, belief, fact, true, false. Nature doesn’t think, humans do. Humans have to decide and act based on knowledge, belief, reasoning.

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 3:56pm

That’s just you looking backwards into the past and patting yourself on the back, saying how clever you are and how stupid people were back then.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 4:07pm

phyllo:

There were people in that time and era that did not ‘believe’ the world to be flat. It is not their fault that the majority did not regard what the geniuses/wise men said.

Who do you think sets the standards?
Who do you think determines what is good science, good medicine, good philosophy, etc.? Intelligent rational people. And yes, they can be wrong.

You’re making it revolve around humanity, when nothing does. Other than what we create for ourselves, to revolve around us to help us feel comfortable. Do you think facts care what “good” it does humanity?

It does revolve around humanity. Nature doesn’t care what is labeled as knowledge, belief, fact, true, false. Nature doesn’t think, humans do. Humans have to decide and act based on knowledge, belief, reasoning.

We can set standards, but this does not stop a regular man from becoming a wise man, by thinking on his own instead of adopting the majority belief of something to be factual/true when in fact, it was not factual/true and never was.

Nothing revolves around humanity except what we create for ourselves to revolve around us. It’s like saying math revolves around us when we actually revolve around it. For example, math existed before we gave it the label of math, it was just not named and given the idea of which we now may study on a human level.

We did not create math, we simply named it.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 4:08pm

No it isn’t, I don’t pat myself on the back. Just because someone is not vastly wise, does not mean they are stupid. Again, not everyone believed the world to be “flat” back then, the ones who questioned without accepting the thought were the ones who were wise. Also the ones who thought/knew the world was round were wise as well.

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 4:18pm

The ones who were wise, were the ones who reasoned correctly from the available observations. Even if their conclusions were subsequently overturned by new observations and reasoning.
The others were lucky if they got the answer that turned out to be correct later on.

It’s not the answer that makes someone wise, it’s the process of reasoning.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 4:27pm

It is obvious some reasoned more than others, hence it lead them to the answers of which were correct/fact. What reasoning did the other “wise beings” do to dominantly accept that it was “flat” rather than questioning/reasoning that it wasn’t?

I don’t think it was luck that lead the wise men to their answers, more so vast reasoning. The wise men used the process of logic in their thinking, of which is reason, more so than some others did.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 4:30pm

So the sun rise during the day and moon at night wasn’t an available observation to logically think the world is round?

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 4:41pm

The conclusions of reasoning will depend on what is observed and the current understanding of how reality works. Perfect reasoning can lead to conclusions that turn out, later, to be wrong.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 4:44pm

phyllo · October 6, 2014, 4:45pm

No, that is not sufficient. Move a flashlight in an arc over a table and think about what you see from the table.

Artimas · October 6, 2014, 5:27pm

Indeed, there are many ancient references to the Earth being shaped like a disc. And if you knew only of the two most important astronomical objects in the sky — the Sun and the Moon — you yourself might reach the same conclusions.
If you go outside during sunset a day or two after the new moon, here’s the sight you’re likely to encounter.
A thin sliver of Moon, where the illuminated portion appears to coincide with the same portion of a sphere that could be lit up by the Sun.
If you were both curious and scientifically-minded, you might go out after sunset during the next few days to see what happened next. In fact, if you were to go outside and look towards the southwest skies (assuming you, like me, live in the Northern hemisphere) during the coming days of September 29th to October 3rd, at sunset (~6:30 PM) each night, you’d notice something changing about the Moon.

Not only does it appear to shift position by about 12 degrees each night, moving farther away from the Sun, but it appears that progressively more and more of it gets illuminated! And you would (rightly) conclude that perhaps the Moon orbits the Earth, and that its apparent change in phase is caused by light from the Sun illuminating different parts of a spherically-shaped Moon.
In fact, this is both the ancient and modern view of what causes the phases of the Moon.
But about twice a year, something special happens during the Full Moon that allows us to determine something about the shape of the Earth: a lunar eclipse! When the Moon is full and the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon, the Earth’s shadow shows up on the Moon’s surface!
And if you look at the shadow that actually shows up on the surface of the Moon, you can clearly see that the Earth’s shadow is curved, and shaped like a disc!
But this doesn’t tell you whether the Earth is a flat disc or a round sphere; it only tells you that the shadow cast by the Earth is circular. In principle, just from looking at the Moon, the Earth could be either flat or round.

But contrary to popular belief, this question wasn’t settled in the 1400s and 1500s (with Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe), but more than 2,000 years ago, in the ancient world! And what’s perhaps most amazing? It was done using nothing more than the Sun. Here’s how.
If you follow the Sun’s path through the daytime sky, and you live in the Northern hemisphere, you’ll find that it rises in the eastern part of the sky, rises up to its apex in the south, and then lowers and sets in the west. And it does this every day of the year.
But it doesn’t take the exact same path every day out of the year; the Sun reaches a much higher point (and shines for more hours during the day) during the summer months, and reaches a significantly lower point (and shines for fewer hours) during the winter. To dramatically illustrate this, here’s a time-lapse photo of the Sun’s path through the sky taken during the winter solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska.
In fact, if you charted out the Sun’s path through the daytime sky, you would find that it takes its lowest path (for the fewest number of hours) on the Winter Solstice — usually December 21st — and its highest path (for the greatest number of hours) on the Summer Solstice, usually June 21st.

If you constructed a camera capable of photographing the Sun’s path through the sky over the course of the year, you would find exactly this: a series of arcs, where the highest, longest arc through the sky was made during the Summer Solstice and the lowest, shortest arc was made during the Winter Solstice.
And in the ancient world, the greatest scholars and scientists from Egypt, Greece, and all over the Mediterranean went to work at the Library of Alexandria. One of these scientists was the Ancient Greek Astronomer, Eratosthenes of Cyrene.
While living in Alexandria, Eratosthenes received some amazing correspondence from the city of Syene in southern Egypt. In particular, it said that, on the Summer Solstice,
the shadow of someone looking down a deep well would block the reflection of the Sun at noon.
In other words, the Sun would be directly overhead at this time, not a single degree to the South, North, East or West. And if you had a completely vertical object, it would cast absolutely no shadow.
But Eratosthenes knew that this wasn’t the case where he was, in Alexandria. Sure, the Sun came closer to being directly overhead at Noon on the Summer Solstice in Alexandria than at any other time during the year, but vertical objects still cast shadows.

And — like any good scientist — Eratosthenes did the experiment. By measuring the length of the shadow cast by a vertical stick during the solstice noon, he could figure out what angle the Sun made with the vertical direction at Alexandria.
And the answer he got was one-fiftieth of a circle, or 7.2 degrees. But at this time, in Syene, the angle the Sun was making with an identical vertical stick was zero degrees! What could be causing this? In perhaps a stroke of genius, Eratosthenes realized that the Sun’s rays could all be parallel, and that the Earth could be curved!
If he could then figure out the distance from Alexandria to Syene, since he knew the angular difference between the two cities, he could figure out the circumference of the Earth! If only Eratosthenes had a grad student, he could have sent one to make the trip, and measure the distance!
Instead, he was forced to rely on the reported distance between the two cities. The most “precise” measurement of his day?

Travel-by-camel. (So I can understand criticisms of his accuracy.) Nevertheless, his results were that the distance between Syene and Alexandria were 5,000 stadia. The question, of course, is how big is a stadium? The answer depends, of course, on whether Eratosthenes, a Greek living in Egypt, was using an Attic stadium or an Egyptian stadium, something still debated among historians. An Attic stadium was used more commonly, and is 185 meters in modern terms. Using this value, one gets a circumference of the Earth of 46,620 kilometers, a number that’s only about 16% bigger than the actual value.
However, an Egyptian stadium is 157.5 meters, and it’s conceivable that’s what Eratosthenes meant. In that case, we get a value of 39,375 kilometers, which is off by less than 2% from the modern value of 40,041 km!
Regardless of what the actual values were, Eratosthenes went on to become the world’s first geographer, inventing the concepts of latitude and longitude that we still use today, and constructed the first models and maps based on a spherical Earth.

Although many things were “lost” during the subsequent millenium, neither the idea of a spherical Earth nor the rough knowledge of the Earth’s circumference were one of them. In fact, anyone can perform this same experiment today with two locations at the same longitude, and with simultaneous measurements of shadow lengths, you too can measure the circumference of the Earth! Not bad, considering that the first direct, photographic evidence of the Earth’s curvature would not arrive until 1946!
Once we knew the shape and size of the Earth — from about 240 B.C. — we were able to figure out all sorts of remarkable things, including the size of and distance to the Moon! So give the credit where credit is due, to Eratosthenes, for discovering the Earth was round, and performing the first accurate calculation of its size!
If there’s anything Columbus should be known for, as respects the size and shape of the Earth, it was using unrealistically low numbers for the circumference of the Earth! His estimates, that he used to convince others that one could sail from Europe directly to India (were the Americas non-existant), were absurdly small! Had the Americas not existed, he and his crew surely would have starved before reaching Asia!

Arcturus_Descending · October 7, 2014, 2:42pm

I don’t know Artimas. I still think that as of that time, that so-called belief was fact. It’s okay though because facts do change. The more knowledge we come to accumulate and learn about, the more our facts, what we think are written in stone, change. Are you saying that back then they did not see it as FACT that the Earth was the center of the universe (as they knew it)? Perhaps Copernicus, as a scientist, did not but the common lay people did.

turtle · October 7, 2014, 3:08pm

Arcturus Descending:

Artimas:

It isn’t necessarily true, turtle, that facts are just a case of WHAT IS…though generally speaking, one might say that. Even facts may change when disproved as in the case of Copernicus proving that it was the Earth and planets which revolved around the Sun - and not vice versa. I’m sure there are a great many more facts which have been disproven over time.

It was never a fact to begin with… Just the interpretation or belief of it to be a fact. So it was not the ‘facts’ changing, but more so the belief of what was to be that changed.

Same goes for the world being “flat” as well, it was never a fact to begin with. It was just believed to be.

I don’t know Artimas. I still think that as of that time, that so-called belief was fact. It’s okay though because facts do change. The more knowledge we come to accumulate and learn about, the more our facts, what we think are written in stone, change. Are you saying that back then they did not see it as FACT that the Earth was the center of the universe (as they knew it)? Perhaps Copernicus, as a scientist, did not but the common lay people did.

how about that 99.9%fact like dna…it could change but I really doubt it…it is something you know… not belief anymore…

Artimas · October 7, 2014, 3:12pm

Arcturus Descending:

Artimas:

It isn’t necessarily true, turtle, that facts are just a case of WHAT IS…though generally speaking, one might say that. Even facts may change when disproved as in the case of Copernicus proving that it was the Earth and planets which revolved around the Sun - and not vice versa. I’m sure there are a great many more facts which have been disproven over time.

It was never a fact to begin with… Just the interpretation or belief of it to be a fact. So it was not the ‘facts’ changing, but more so the belief of what was to be that changed.

Same goes for the world being “flat” as well, it was never a fact to begin with. It was just believed to be.

I don’t know Artimas. I still think that as of that time, that so-called belief was fact. It’s okay though because facts do change. The more knowledge we come to accumulate and learn about, the more our facts, what we think are written in stone, change. Are you saying that back then they did not see it as FACT that the Earth was the center of the universe (as they knew it)? Perhaps Copernicus, as a scientist, did not but the common lay people did.

Facts are, regardless of what humanity claims to know or not know. They can see it as fact, but that does not mean it is fact. It’s the interpretation/belief of fact, which is not always the case of what is.

They believed it to be, which is belief. Not fact. It isn’t the facts that change, it is our understandings/time/place and what not that changes.
Regardless of what anyone thought in the stone age the world was not flat, no matter HOW much of a “fact” they thought it was, does not negate the fact that it was round.

Take an example, not literal of course.

Imagine if Europeans did not know any other continents existed other than Europe, and they believed they were the only continent, but there are other continents of course. So just because Europeans believe that they are the only one, does this negate the indisputable case/fact of Asia being there as well? Regardless of Europeans knowing of their existence? No, Asia would still be, regardless of the Europeans knowing. So the Europeans believing they are the only ones is a belief, subject to change whenever they find or discovered Asia, of which Asia being is a fact.

This is why nothing revolves around us, besides what we create to. Just because the people believed something to be, does not mean it is. Facts are facts, beliefs are beliefs. Belief does not negate fact, belief can be factual sometimes, but not always. Facts are always what is. Just like when they thought the world was flat, it was always round. Facts don’t care what we think we know or not, they are still there. Saying facts change, is like saying the world was flat, then changed to being round. The world did not change, our understanding/belief did.

For example, there are probably things labeled as “fact” today that are probably not even facts at all, but believed to be. It is never the facts that change, because our beliefs aren’t always facts in the first place, we just believe that they are. We do not know and will not know until time tells. Time being the measurement of change.

This is why the quote is true. “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” - Socrates/Plato

Just like how we are/were not the center of the universe, just believed to be. Sure, they can see it as a fact. But this does not mean it is or was a fact. What is, does not care about what we see or know, because it’s just what is.