What Mythology is Subjectively Better

[Timsup2nothin]

Well yeah, i was being lazy and also thinking of a famous hypothesis or claim phrased with such hypothetical 2d sensing ants (a hypothesis about such a being being or not able to gather whether a plane it is walking on is in fact not linear but curved. Iirc the Russian mathematician, Gregory Pererlman, provided some sort of general answer for that a few years ago ).

PS: yes, it was a claim/hypothesis by Poincare, of the eponymous symmetry system used by Einstein as well You can read about it here: http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems-poincaré-conjecture/perelmans-solution

Too much reading...any sufficiently large construction will demonstrate that the plane upon which it is constructed is curved, if it is.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see the need. I might go so far as to invoke the mythology of probabilities; ie the odds of a rooftop sniper are infinitesimal; but mostly I just try to operate in reality without resorting to descriptive systems any more than is absolutely necessary.

Infinitesimal unpleasantness (and in this case infinitesimal chance of being shot) is in my view quite far away from a state closer to a lack of such a sense. But i am not going to theorise on emotion-factoring calculus. I did so in elementary school, to the far more pronounced detriment of my health

Too much reading...any sufficiently large construction will demonstrate that the plane upon which it is constructed is curved, if it is.

The Poincare question is not about being able to divert the focus of how to conclude if the plane is curved or not, to abilities such as raising oneself on it in any way. It is similar to the question of how to notice that you are moving in an infinitesimally lowering level at the peripheries of a cone, if you are a human locked inside a massive conic jail etc. It is a pretty nice bit of geometry, but i have not yet found the cash to buy the greek translation of the work done on that question by Perelman. Or a couple of other cool math books either :\

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Infinitesimal unpleasantness (and in this case infinitesimal chance of being shot) is in my view quite far away from a state closer to a lack of such a sense. But i am not going to theorise on emotion-factoring calculus. I did so in elementary school, to the far more pronounced detriment of my health

I think the detriment most people run into is that they don't apply that mythology of probability, and respond to anything that could be as a functional part of reality. There is no proof that 'there is no sniper', just like there is no proof that solipsism is wrong, but lack of negative proof does not imply positive proof. There is still probably no sniper, and probably more in existence than my simple mind.

In retrospect, I am changing my answer. Rather than physics being my choice for subjectively best mythology, I choose probability.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Even if you yourself are just as flat as the plane, and thus confined to the plane, if you can construct a square corner and extend the walls (which have no height) out far enough, then construct additional square corners and extend the newly formed walls until they intersect and measure the angle of intersection, you will find that if the surface is not flat the intersection will not be ninety degrees.

Of course, this is again a 'negative proof', because all you have done is proven that within the precision of your construction you cannot prove that the surface is curved, you haven't actually proven that the surface is flat.

 

[jackelgull]

The thing is- we accept those axioms because they explain the results. If they don't they are discarded. My physics teacher explained it like so to me-
imagine if you were thrown into the bleachers of a baseball game without ever hearing about baseball before and you want to figure out the rules. The batter walks up to the plate and swings and misses- strike one. e then proceeds to swing and miss two more balls before a strikeout is called and another batter walks up to the plate. He too strikes out. From there you might conclude that baseball is a game in which the purpose is to swing and miss at the ball. And until something proves that assumption wrong, it is what you have to work with, based off of experience.
So too is the case with physics, until something proves you wrong, you just have to accept it as fact.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The thing is- we accept those axioms because they explain the results. If they don't they are discarded. My physics teacher explained it like so to me-
imagine if you were thrown into the bleachers of a baseball game without ever hearing about baseball before and you want to figure out the rules. The batter walks up to the plate and swings and misses- strike one. e then proceeds to swing and miss two more balls before a strikeout is called and another batter walks up to the plate. He too strikes out. From there you might conclude that baseball is a game in which the purpose is to swing and miss at the ball. And until something proves that assumption wrong, it is what you have to work with, based off of experience.
So too is the case with physics, until something proves you wrong, you just have to accept it as fact.

Why not just accept it as something that works for the purpose at hand?

 

[jackelgull]

Isn't that what I was saying? If not, then that is what I meant.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Isn't that what I was saying? If not, then that is what I meant.

I was thrown off by the word 'fact'. Once you go with axioms that are accepted without proof you are out of reach of facts...but still can have a really good working system.

 

[Linkman226]

My favorite mythology is Ayn Randism. The great hero John Gault fending off the dirty peasant-leeches- there's a story of heroism for you.

But political satire aside the Zelda cosmos has a pretty cool story.

 

[Josu]

Can you please open a thread Science Vs God. Round 1 so that we can read mythology stories calmly?

 

[Kyriakos]

^Indeed we should un-derail this thread

 

[Antilogic]

Can you please open a thread Science Vs God. Round 100 so that we can read mythology stories calmly?

A minor fix, to be sure.

 

[Perfection]

Yeah but their followers kill whoever they want.

It's not about killing who you want, but killing those who deserve it. Also the way they kill peeps is boring, not awesome.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, I don't know. The Big Bang is a kind of creation myth, isn't it?

Sure, you can point to evidence justifying this particular view of how the Universe came into being, but equally the Ancients would have pointed to the sky, and the heavens, and volcanoes and stuff to justify their particular creation myths, too. (Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they just made up stories to tell each other round the campfire.)

The Big Bang is the current creation myth. What's to say that in another 10,000 years (say), it won't look as quaint as Genesis does to most people today?

I'd say it's highly likely.

It's not a myth if there's observable and measurable evidence to support it.

The most subjectively awesome (and exclusive) mythology is the stuff we came up with as kids for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Unfortunately, there aren't any published materials on it, and I don't think I knew any of you jokers while I was playing it.

One time in the D&D group I was part of back in the '80s/'90s, I was the DM and was helping a player make a cleric character. She was highly annoyed that I told her she'd have to tithe 10% of her earnings to her deity's temple. Kinda ironic, given that she's someone who sees nothing wrong with stopping strangers on the street to preach at them and insisted that the entirety of Jesus' life happened between 1 BC and 1 AD.

 

[Berzerker]

I'll have to go with the Sumerians, they are most certainly the first written sources for the mesopotamian creation epics, the serpent and the garden, and the various myths and cosmologies from the original pantheon of 12 gods to Abraham and the 12 tribes of Israel.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's not a myth if there's observable and measurable evidence to support it.

The ancient Greeks considered lightning to be observable and measurable evidence of the existence of Zeus.

If you build it (mythology), they (evidence) will come.

 

[Antilogic]

One time in the D&D group I was part of back in the '80s/'90s, I was the DM and was helping a player make a cleric character. She was highly annoyed that I told her she'd have to tithe 10% of her earnings to her deity's temple. Kinda ironic, given that she's someone who sees nothing wrong with stopping strangers on the street to preach at them and insisted that the entirety of Jesus' life happened between 1 BC and 1 AD.

That's why you play an illiterate half-orcish barbarian and just grunt at the rest of the group for a couple hours. And destroy things.

 

[Kyriakos]

The ancient Greeks considered lightning to be observable and measurable evidence of the existence of Zeus.

If you build it (mythology), they (evidence) will come.

Not seeing why you repeat this absurd statement. At any rate the actual (even if in critiques by a century or more later) views on natural phenomena were not myth-based at least since the early 7th century BC and Thales. And half a century later there are multiple accounts/views about who first built solar-clocks and examined time through the trigonometry of the sun-dial's cast shadow (eg Anaximander of Miletos or Pherecydes of Syros). Want to compare that to the north of Europe and the whitewalkers?

 

[timtofly]

It's not a myth if there's observable and measurable evidence to support it.

Yet 21st century humans feel the need to declare life in the ancient world a myth without any observable evidence? Archeology is hardly a full blown observation. One would have to erase the current bias of life before ever attempting to judge the past, and that may be nigh impossible.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yet 21st century humans feel the need to declare life in the ancient world a myth without any observable evidence? Archeology is hardly a full blown observation. One would have to erase the current bias of life before ever attempting to judge the past, and that may be nigh impossible.

Btw, is there any Bulgarian uni/other interest in Zamolxis/Zalmoxis, that northern Thracian (Getae) deity and mythical being? Or is that only pronounced in Romania?

edit: nm, i thought you were Tolni.

Tolni: see the question and reply