Books For BIPs

[Mangrove]

The thread for making other BIPs aware of reading matter that might be relevant, interesting or illuminating to the BIP project.

I'm starting off with this:

http://www.viewfromthecenter.com/index.html

I'm not quite finished reading it yet, but will be done quite soon. Then I can get into it in more detail. However, there were more than a few times where I felt the authors had hit upon BIP notions.

The basic idea of the book is that humanity has always developed symbols and metaphors to understand their place in the universe. However, inspite of our considerable advances in physics, astronomy, cosmology etc, the typical ideas which we use to frame our experience of the universe are woefully inadequate and inaccurate.

What the book proposes is a collection of new symbols and metaphors that are scientifically based to provide a new, updated 'centring cosmology' and suggests what kind of thinking a new cosmology might produce.

[LHX]

i dont really agree that a new set of symbols would accomplish anything right now

but
this is something that the people who contribute to this forum would prolly excel at


i still say that if given the time, we could come up wiff a system that would pwn anything that is currently in circulation




interesting site Mang

[Mangrove]

the book suggests that nothing would happen right away, only that if a better set of symbols & metaphors were devised, then people may come up with better strategies than we have now.

in an early part of the book, they discuss the cosmologies of the bible, ancient egypt and medieval europe. the thrust of the chapter is that at these points in history, cosmologies had a very stabilizing & centring effect within a culture. especially the egyptians who had a pretty successful run of about 3000 years.

when a new cosmology comes into play, for instance: flat earth to round earth or geocentric to heliocentric, they seem weird & counterintuitive. however, in time (for the most part), the cosmology becomes accepted. although there's plenty of creationist 'tards out there, i've not yet heard one of them suggest that the earth is still the centre of the solar system. (part of the dissonance surrounding creationism is that it mixes & matches cosmologies, using the flat-earther understanding of genesis and yet, accepts other, later advancements like laws of gravity etc).

the book makes a case for the importance of metaphor in our thinking & communication and that we lack a good set of scientifically-based metaphors to describe our current understanding of the universe. 

this is what made me suggest this as a potentially useful BIP book.

[B_M_W]

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Just sayin'.

[Mangrove]

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Just sayin'.

fair point, but either they're a  or they are (hopefully) a very small minority with no policy influencing powers.

[B_M_W]

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Just sayin'.

fair point, but either they're a  or they are (hopefully) a very small minority with no policy influencing powers.

I don't think they are  :troll:ing and I don't think they have any policy influencing powers. They are certainly a minority.

I was just noting that these people are still out there. Check the Wikipedia article for more information.

[Mangrove]

i'm good. once i noted that they had 'evidence' i stop caring about these n00bs..

now why don't the flat earthers team up with the creationists?

[B_M_W]

i'm good. once i noted that they had 'evidence' i stop caring about these n00bs..

now why don't the flat earthers team up with the creationists?

Because that would be political suicide for even the most fundy of creationist. And you know them, they're all about the politics

[Mangrove]

i can't remember what book i read this in...something i was glancing through in B&N while waiting for mrs mang to get out of work.

but in a discussion about fundies, the phrase came up 'selective literalist' being someone who believes the bible is the perfect word of god....but only the bits they bother to quote.

the story of creation as per Genesis came from a time when flat earthers were a majority. it's interesting that creationists would distance themselves from flat earthers as being 'freaks'...lol...

[Mangrove]

i've mentioned this book before, but i think that it'll be useful to repost for future BIPness.

http://www.innertraditions.com/Product.jmdx;jsessionid=F84C415C3E4057E401EB2C97348FCF28?action=displayDetail&id=436&searchString=0-89281-990-1

[rygD]

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Just sayin'.

I took a couple minutes to actually read some of their evidence, and found this:

"Once again, picture in your mind a round world. Now imagine that there are two people on this world, one at each pole. For the person at the top of the world, (the North Pole), gravity is pulling him down, towards the South Pole. But for the person at the South Pole, shouldn't gravity pull him down as well? What keeps our person at the South Pole from falling completely off the face of the 'globe'?"

Then I wanted to see if they mentioned gravity again, as they don't seem able to comprehend how it works.  I found this:

"Now imagine, if only for the sake of argument, that the person on top and the person on bottom can both manage to remain attracted to the ground "below" them. What would happen if the person on one side decided to visit the other? Since the man at the North Pole has a different idea of what is down and up (and in fact experiences an opposite pull from the Earth's gravity) than the person at the South Pole does, when the denizen of the frozen Arctic visits his Antarctic counterpart, they will experience gravitational pulls exactly opposite of each other! The human from the North Pole will "fall up", never returning to the ground, and will continue falling forever into the deep void of outer space!"

When I get time I will see how they dispute arguments against their evidence.  How do they dispute the fact that they are fucking morons?

[Cain]

They're all trolling.  I'm almost certain.

Roger hung out at their boards for a bit, maybe he can tell you more.

[rygD]

Nevermind, they don't seem to have anything on that page.