dayjay posted:

I have had many a long torturous discussion on social media with flat earthers (not the hifi kind) and they always end acrimoniously.  It baffles me that people can believe this in this day and age but each to their own

It baffles me why you would continue to bother.

When someone believes something you find irrational - it is unlikely that your reasoning will persuade them otherwise.

Of course it can be useful (fun) as a form of mental exercise. A bit like running in circles, rather than running to a distant goal.

Adam Meredith posted:

When someone believes something you find irrational - it is unlikely that your reasoning will persuade them otherwise.

So it goes arguing faith-based concepts versus an evidence based approach, except that the faith-based have numbers in others for comfort whereas those relying on evidence have only real numbers. Mathematics hold truth in reality whereas when one has faith any rationalization is possible - hence a desire to seek a time before time began, a concept rather irrational in and of itself.

I think the fun of an argument is that it's a battle with words. As soon as it involves physical aspects it's not fun anymore.  Anybody using violence is guilty and should be charged.

Adam Meredith posted:

dayjay posted:

I have had many a long torturous discussion on social media with flat earthers (not the hifi kind) and they always end acrimoniously.  It baffles me that people can believe this in this day and age but each to their own

It baffles me why you would continue to bother.

 

I think...

... explains a lot!

Some of the conspiracy groups can provide good, if short lived, entertainment and it can be amusing to see how far they will go to prove that the rest of the world is wrong.  I suppose it is a bit like you posting to question why I bother posting to question what they think - it explains a lot 

joerand posted:

Adam Meredith posted:

When someone believes something you find irrational - it is unlikely that your reasoning will persuade them otherwise.

So it goes arguing faith-based concepts versus an evidence based approach, except that the faith-based have numbers in others for comfort whereas those relying on evidence have only real numbers. Mathematics hold truth in reality whereas when one has faith any rationalization is possible - hence a desire to seek a time before time began, a concept rather irrational in and of itself.

If we put the clock back a few thousand years, there was probably no discussion about flat earth v round earth. The concept didn't exist in man's mind.

If we put the clock back a few hundred years, the evidence that the world was flat or round, hung in the balance. Scientific evidence indicated it was round, practical experience had yet to confirm this.

At present, there might still be universal facts of which we have no inkling at all. It's a sad fact that many so-called scientists are unwilling to accept this posibility. Not every idea has to be rational within the (limited) knowledge of our time.

Don

Science is about testing hypotheses and seeing if the evidence supports or refutes it. Results are by nature probabilistic. Things are 'proven' to a degree of statistical confidence, nothing is absolute.

Scientists rarely proclaim things as proven beyond any possible doubt-but media portrayals deal in black and white so a nuanced answer is rarely reported.

Doubt, and acceptance of the limitations of current thinking are intrinsic to science. Without them nobody would ever make any advances. There is no area of our understanding of our selves or the universe around us that can be considered complete, and I don't think many real scientists fail to recognise that.

In one of the infinite multiverses the Earth is of course flat.

Bruce

Bruce,

I am in agreement with what you say. I note that you used the term "real scientists".

Don

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

It's worse than you think. Proof of a flat earth here.

Jump!, Blow! Get High!, Christian science in action

We all know that the FSM stuck the world together using pasta, and modeled it on a spaghetti meatball, so the world is spherical (or approximately so). 

In this thread, there seems to be consensus that the earth isn’t flat and the earth wasn’t created in seven days by god. But nobody’s questioned the theory that the universe was created by “the big bang”.

 As far as I’m concerned the big bang is as ludicrous as a flat earth and seven day creation. I wonder how far in the future it will be before people are chuckling and shaking there heads when the term “big bangers” get mentioned.

fatcat posted:

In this thread, there seems to be consensus that the earth isn’t flat and the earth wasn’t created in seven days by god. But nobody’s questioned the theory that the universe was created by “the big bang”.

 As far as I’m concerned the big bang is as ludicrous as a flat earth and seven day creation. I wonder how far in the future it will be before people are chuckling and shaking there heads when the term “big bangers” get mentioned.

 

Given that in some approaches to the problem, 'time' occurs as the byproduct of a collapse of a multidimensional universe, 'bang' may be an inappropriate word as it implies intense action over a short period of time.

Perhaps we're initially looking at the little bleed - a leakage (or disturbance) from another instance of the multiverse, creating an initial tiny bubble that initiates the inflation period?

Yes in the early universe (femtoseconds, picoseconds or perhaps even nanoseconds), we have a lot of hot air (hot space?), but nothing concrete (that only comes billions of years later when planets form).  

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

In this thread, there seems to be consensus that the earth isn’t flat and the earth wasn’t created in seven days by god. But nobody’s questioned the theory that the universe was created by “the big bang”.

 As far as I’m concerned the big bang is as ludicrous as a flat earth and seven day creation. I wonder how far in the future it will be before people are chuckling and shaking there heads when the term “big bangers” get mentioned.

 

Given that in some approaches to the problem, 'time' occurs as the byproduct of a collapse of a multidimensional universe, 'bang' may be an inappropriate word as it implies intense action over a short period of time.

Perhaps we're initially looking at the little bleed - a leakage (or disturbance) from another instance of the multiverse, creating an initial tiny bubble that initiates the inflation period?

Yes in the early universe (femtoseconds, picoseconds or perhaps even nanoseconds), we have a lot of hot air (hot space?), but nothing concrete (that only comes billions of years later when planets form).  

I have to agree with your last paragraph, sounds like "a lot of hot air" to me.

fatcat posted:

In this thread, there seems to be consensus that the earth isn’t flat and the earth wasn’t created in seven days by god.But nobody’s questioned the theory that the universe was created by “the big bang”.

 As far as I’m concerned the big bang is as ludicrous as a flat earth and seven day creation. I wonder how far in the future it will be before people are chuckling and shaking there heads when the term “big bangers” get mentioned.

 

When I suggested that we don't know what preceded the "comming into being" of the Current Universe and what might exist beyond the boundaries of the Universe, I was politely suggesting that the Big Bang might not be the be all and end all of everything. How things "looked" just before the universe started expanding..................who knows ?

OK, I appreciate that current science provides a plausable description of events back to an incredibly short time before the event we refer to as The Big Bang, but.....................