The Earth is Flat, and you will prove it.

[florida2]

Flat for all intensive purposes..

The saying is 'for all intents and purposes'. What you said makes no sense and is a common mishearing.

In our everyday lives the Earth appears pretty flat. When you start to look at much larger scales you bring the curvature into play. Why is that so difficult to understand?

 

[Shemjaza]

You are tasked with building a runway for the Space X program that will
be used for the next space vehicle. The runway must be 5 miles long
and 500 ft wide. For safety reasons the runway must be smooth and level
so specifications call for it to be "Flat & Level" at any point measured.

To celebrate the "grand opening" you invite 1000 people from around the
world the evening before it's first use. They spread out and for fun you've
given them marbles and a level to test every aspect of the runway.

All at once they spill the marbles and confirm that the slope is perfect and
the marbles spread out evenly for everyone. "Flat and Level!" they all confirm.

You've also invited 10 scientists. They pull out their pocket laser pointers
lay them on the pavement and spend the entire celebration telling people
what idiots they all are for calling the runway flat. They show everyone
how the runway is "crowned" in both directions. They are not satisfied
until every person verbally repeats
"The runway is not flat.
The runway is not flat."

Parallel to the curvature of the Earth is a reasonable approximation of flat for a runway.
Parallel to a beam of light at the surface of the Earth is also a reasonable approximation of flat for a runway.

You could use a laser to show a dot about 15 feet above the ground at the other end. But why haven't your weird hypothetical 10 scientists been asked to leave for annoying everyone else?

 

[durangodawood]

How do you figure you'e going to get water pooling on a flat surface?

See post 72.
The runway edges are higher elevation that the middle.
Look at the diagram he provided.
Gravity would dictate a water surface curvature on the runway thats concentric with the earth.

 

[essentialsaltes]

How do you figure you'e going to get water pooling on a flat surface?

Ironically(?) because the earth is not flat, and the force of gravity points (more or less) to the center of the planet, not perpendicular to the surface you stand on. A blob of water way out on the overhang would want to move as close to the center of the planet as possible. It can get closer by moving to the middle of the surface where it's tangent to the surface of the earth, which is where water would collect (if the runway were sufficiently large).

 

[Armoured]

See post 72.
The runway edges are higher elevation that the middle.
Look at the diagram he provided.
Gravity would dictate a water surface curvature thats concentric with the earth.

Right... which means it would flow away over the sides

See post 72.
The runway edges are higher elevation that the middle.
Look at the diagram he provided.
Gravity would dictate a water surface curvature on the runway thats concentric with the earth.

But the runway isn't particularly WIDE, is it? why won't it just flow over the edges?

 

[durangodawood]

Right... which means it would flow away over the sides

You didnt look at the diagram.
The sides (all 4 edges) are higher in elevation than the middle, if the middle is tangent to the earth. This is true for any size flat surface, though the effects are negligible unless its a very very large plane.

 

[Armoured]

You didnt look at the diagram.
The sides (all 4 edges) are higher in elevation than the middle, if the middle is tangent to the earth. This is true for any size flat surface, though the effects are negligible unless its a very very large plane.

I did look at the diagram. Water spreads out, it doesn't flow in a straight line.

 

[durangodawood]

I did look at the diagram. Water spreads out, it doesn't flow in a straight line.

Water doesnt flow from low elevation to high.
It goes the other way.
All the edges of the geometrically-flat surface are higher in elevation than the middle.

 

[Armoured]

Water doesnt flow from low elevation to high.
All the edges are higher than the middle.

That makes no sense to me in the context of a runway. If we were talking about a square surface, yes, but we're talking something presumably only a few metres wide, right?

 

[durangodawood]

That makes no sense to me in the context of a runway. If we were talking about a square surface, yes, but we're talking something presumably only a few metres wide, right?

Yeah, for a small area like an actual runway, the elevation difference between earth curve and geometrically flat surface is real but negligible in its effect on water, I think. I see what youre saying.

 

[Armoured]

Yeah, for a small area like an actual runway, the elevation difference between earth curve and geometrically flat surface is real but negligible in its effect on water, I think. I see what youre saying.

Glad we could work it out.

 

[expos4ever]

Okay. The problem here is that light and marbles react differently to gravitational forces. Light reacts very weakly to gravity and has its own speed, while the only thing moving the marbles is gravity. So if the pavement curved all the way around the earth, and you lay a marble on each side of the earth, neither will roll, because gravity is pulling them directly orthogonal to the pavement. However, the laser will easily escape the earth's gravity and move (more or less) straight, as its movement is not based on the relative flatness of the slope to the direction of gravity, but on the absolute flatness of the slope relative to a straight line through space.

Indeed, if the earth were flat, we'd expect both the laser and the marbles to show the same slope, as the direction of gravity would be unchanged from location to location. Your argument is not very good.

Excellent explanation, and quite correct I believe.

 

[digitalgoth]

You could do that, causing water to pool in the middle.


I'm not suggesting that the earth is flat.
I'm illustrating that scientists are the idiots
for insisting that everyone describe the
earth by it's almost imperceptible curve.

Generally the problem is when certain people decide that push the runway-is-flat because of their particular belief system, since it was written in an ancient tome claiming that all runways are flat and the earth is not curved at all. And we need to institute prayer in schools about flat runways, because that's what's causing all those gosh-darn homosexuals be having parades.

That's when scientists start to be horrible and prefer people learn actual facts.

 

[expos4ever]

In case there remain people in this thread interested in a respectful, adult conversation about the "are rocks conscious?" question, I quickly found this from philosopher David Chalmers. Granted, he may not believe rocks are conscious, but I suspect that is not really the key issue here. The key issue is whether 'consciousness' can be predicated of things other than humans and animals (things with brains):

Panpsychism, taken literally, is the doctrine that everything has a mind. In practice, people who
call themselves panpsychists are not committed to as strong a doctrine. They are not committed
to the thesis that the number two has a mind, or that the Eiffel tower has a mind, or that the city
of Canberra has a mind, even if they believe in the existence of numbers, towers, and cities.

Instead, we can understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical
entities have mental states. For example, if quarks or photons have mental states, that suffices
for panpsychism to be true, even if rocks and numbers do not have mental states. Perhaps it
would not suffice for just one photon to have mental states. The line here is blurry, but we can
read the definition as requiring that all members of some fundamental physical types (all
photons, for example) have mental states.

For present purposes, the relevant sorts of mental states are conscious experiences. I will
understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical entities are conscious: that
is, that there is something it is like to be a quark or a photon or a member of some other
fundamental physical type. This thesis is sometimes called panexperientialism, to distinguish it
from other varieties of panpsychism (varieties on which the relevant entities are required to
think or reason, for example), but I will simply call it panpsychism here.

Panpsychism is sometimes dismissed as a crazy view, but this reaction on its own is not a
serious objection. While the view is counterintuitive to some, there is good reason to think that
any view of consciousness must embrace some counterintuitive conclusions. Furthermore,
intuitions about panpsychism seem to vary heavily with culture and with historical period. The
view has a long history in both Eastern and Western philosophy, and many of the greatest
philosophers have taken it seriously. It is true that we do not have much direct evidence for
panpsychism, but we also do not have much direct evidence against it, given the difficulties of
detecting the presence or absence of consciousness in other systems. And there are indirect
reasons, of a broadly theoretical character, for taking the view seriously.

 

[The Cadet]

Panpsychism is sometimes dismissed as a crazy view, but this reaction on its own is not a
serious objection.

No, rather, it's a direct follow-up to a response which is a serious objection on its own:

It is true that we do not have much direct evidence for
panpsychism

There you go. This is a downright crippling objection to panpsychism - the complete and utter lack of evidence. There's simply absolutely no reason to believe it is true at all, and this:

but we also do not have much direct evidence against it

Is by no means a counter-argument! If a claim lacks evidence, pointing to the lack of evidence against it does not actually achieve anything. What's more, we have a very good reason to reject the concept that fundamental particles can have consciousness: every conscious entity we are aware of is the product of a complex neural network. Everything about our current understanding of consciousness leaves no plausible mechanism for an individual atom to have consciousness. At best, this leaves Panpsychism in the same camp as breatharianism - no solid evidence supporting it, no plausible mechanism by which it could possibly function.

 

[expos4ever]

While I am very interested in this issue of consciousness, it is simply too complex and time-consuming for me to deal with. Some of you may choose to engage in fantasies that I really have no case to make and am using "no time" as an excuse. Fine, go nuts - believe what you like. The problem with getting into this issue is that it is simply too complex for me to address in what I think is a satisfactory manner.

 

[Alithis]

the earth is not flat ... it's sort of bumpy

 

[SkyWriting]

Generally the problem is when certain people decide that push the runway-is-flat because of their particular belief system, since it was written in an ancient tome claiming that all runways are flat and the earth is not curved at all. And we need to institute prayer in schools about flat runways, because that's what's causing all those gosh-darn homosexuals be having parades. That's when scientists start to be horrible and prefer people learn actual facts.

I've work in science most of my career.
There is no suitable reason to be horrible
except inside closed scientific circles.

 

[SkyWriting]

Parallel to the curvature of the Earth is a reasonable approximation of flat for a runway.
Parallel to a beam of light at the surface of the Earth is also a reasonable approximation of flat for a runway.
You could use a laser to show a dot about 15 feet above the ground at the other end.
But why haven't your weird hypothetical 10 scientists been asked to leave for annoying everyone else?

I encourage open discussion.

 

[SkyWriting]

The saying is 'for all intents and purposes'. What you said makes no sense and is a common mishearing.

Thanks. I've never noticed it in print before.