EXPLORE THE MIND

COME EXPLORE THE PHENOMENA OF MIND

What do I mean by “the phenomena of mind”? I’m talking about mind as I experience it, of course, i.e., what I think of as my mind, because that is the mind I know. But, why would I be egoistic and self-centered enough to think that you might want to explore the phenomena of  my mind? What is different about my mind? Is it really worth spending your precious time and energy to try to learn about things that I have thought about or may be thinking? --Maybe.

In 1958, I had the rare privilege of visiting for a brief while with a man who, my friend, who introduced me to him, said was over 100 years old at the time. He was known as Dr. Mahija. I was an undergraduate college student, and because I was impressed with Dr. Mahija’s wisdom and knowledge, I expressed a desire to return and learn from him. His response was: “You can do as you wish, but I’ve found that most people know far too much to learn anything from me!”

More than 60 years later, being a senior citizen myself now, I appreciate the truth Dr. Mahija spoke that day far better than I did then: Most people are not interested in what you or I think. Most people are pretty much closed-minded and self-absorbed. That is only natural, however, because, after all, for most of us, it is our own life and immediate family and friends that are important to us and our happiness and success, or failure and frustration as human beings.

There is no denying that your own consciousness is all that you normally experience directly. Everything else, you must learn about very indirectly through reading, hearing, and a process of observation and inference. Images of the rest of Reality, the reality that exists outside of your own mind, is automatically filtered through the lenses of your own belief system, a unique system that has been carefully crafted by acceptance of authority, and to some extent, by your individual efforts to think about the world and your place in it.

That which does not appear to be understandable within your belief system, is generally ignored or rejected by your brain in such a definite way that you will give it no credence, and you may never even remember that you encountered it at all.  We’ve read, for example, of aboriginal tribes living on remote islands, who literally could not see massive sea-going vessels that anchored near their islands, because their brains had no images in them with which to compare these huge objects, and so their minds simply rejected the alien images as meaningless.

As human beings, our perceptions are very limited. We are only capable of seeing a very thin band of the spectrum of electromagnetic energy, and of hearing only a very limited range of vibratory sound. If, suddenly, we were able to see and hear the vibrational frequencies generated by things that exist in dimensional domains beyond those to which our physical senses have access, then, like the aborigines, our brains would ignore and/or reject the images generated by those unfamiliar energies, and remain ignorant of  the existence of the things that generated them. The human brain, and perhaps those of other sentient creatures, for purposes of creature comfort, protection and survival, are designed to fill in, and even pave over, i.e., replace, unknown images created by what we perceive, with images with which we are already familiar.

Among the 370-plus posts in my Transcendental Physics blog there are discussions, papers, proofs, poems, and ideas that I think may appeal to many. There are posts that will strike a familiar chord with you, and there may be things that will have no meaning for you, but I believe that there may be some things there that are important for you to know about, some things that are real, but that you might never encounter elsewhere. But just my belief that this is the case is probably not enough to motivate you to explore very many of the posts to be found there. Why should my posts be any more important or meaningful than the millions of other well-developed ideas and concepts that are out there to  be found on the internet today? I’ll try to answer that question in the following way:

Almost ten years ago, when I was 72, I learned that I had a gift. It  was a gift that, apparently, I had had all my life, but a gift I didn’t really know about. By a gift, I mean something one is ostensibly born with, that is so rare and highly developed, that it is far beyond that which the average person can experience. It seems that I had an extraordinarily high IQ. Not just a MENSA-level mental acuity, but a one-in-a-billion, extremely rare intellectual gift.

In my opinion, it was a blessing that I never knew that I was exceptionally gifted until late in life, because I’ve seen what happens when one person or a group of people come to believe that they are superior to everyone else. I lived through World War II, all the wars we’ve been involved in since, and more recently through the rise of political correctness. Belief in the absolute superiority of a person or group of people over everyone else, is very dangerous, and absolutely crippling for individuals, society and the progress of civilization in general.

Our country was founded on the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The idea that there are kings, persons of royal blood, or divine descent, who by virtue of their inherent superiority, are entitled to tell the rest of us what to think, say and do, was rejected by our forefathers, who left other parts of the world, primarily Europe, to escape such tyranny.

The statement that "All men are created equal" was a basic part of the philosophy of those setting up the government of the United States of America. Historians have called it “the most important single phrase" of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson used the phrase in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the declaration of independence from the British Empire. He committed it to paper in 1776 at the beginning of the American Revolution. After that, it was quoted in writings and speeches by many of the most important people in the early political and social life of our nation. The final form of the phrase was penned by Benjamin Franklin. His wording of the idea appears in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

But, what do these words actually mean? What did they mean to Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin? What did they mean to the King of England? What are they interpreted to mean today?

When these words were written, only 242 years ago, New England was dominated by a group of wealthy men, i.e., men who owned property. This group of men, to which Jefferson and Franklin belonged, were declaring their independence from the oppressive rule of the King of Britain and Ireland, King George III. Most of these men, including Jefferson and Franklin, in addition to owning real estate, also owned slaves.

The safety and well-being of women, children and the elderly, in an often-hostile environment, was the responsibility of these men, a responsibility which they took very seriously. While family members were not considered “property” in the same sense that houses, land, livestock, and slaves were, they were not considered equal to the men either. In the early days of our country, women, children, slaves and men without property were not entitled to vote. That right was reserved for property-holders, i.e. men, who, had a significant stake in the future of the country because they owned part of it.

Before you condemn these slave-owning men who were the founders of our country, bear in mind that this was a huge and important step away from the conditions prevalent in the rest of the world, where virtually no one had any rights except those granted to them by the ruling class of kings and priests, who were believed to be anointed and ordained by God to rule over them. In the many Kingdoms around the world, everything belonged to the ruling class, including even the subjects who were allowed to inhabit the kingdoms, and their personal circumstances, good or bad, were meted out solely at the pleasure of kings and priests. And our founding fathers didn’t invent slavery. Slavery existed throughout the rest of the world. It began in the dawn of human history as the practice of conquerors forcing the conquered to do the manual labor required to repair the ravages of war and to maintain the empire thus established.

Today, we’d like to believe that the idea that “all men are created equal” refers to not just men, but at least to all human beings, maybe even to all living things in some sense. But we also have to recognize that this equality can probably only be true in some sort of spiritual, or overall potential sense, not in the literal sense of physical or mental traits. Clearly, most of us were never physically equal, at birth, or any other time, to Shaquille O’Neil, nor are any of us intellectually equal to Albert Einstein or other geniuses of the past, or present. Jefferson and Franklin were not stupid men; they could look around and see that there were others who were their superiors in any number of ways. With these words, however, they were expressing an ideal upon which they believed a better government could be established.

To be gifted physically or mentally does not make one intrinsically superior to anyone else. But everyone should be free to use and develop their own unique gifts to the maximum extent possible in his or her lifetime, otherwise such gifts are wasted. But no one should be condemned or looked down upon for their gifts or lack thereof: Prejudice and reverse prejudice are two sides of the same evil coin, and should not be the basis of condemnation or avoidance.

So, please have a look at the ideas, poems, discussions, cogitations and proofs recorded in my blog, with an open mind. Maybe you’ll find something of value there. Please read and consider as many of them as you will. I don’t claim to be all-knowing or infallible. The possession of the gift of a  high level of intelligence does not preclude error or fallacy. The smartest person in the world can still be wrong, and wisdom is often simple and plain. But civilization moves forward with the fuel of new ideas, and my blog posts contain some new ideas, including the discovery of the mathematical and physical necessary of the existence of a non-physical aspect of reality we call gimmel. Each post in the blog has a list of Key Words and Phrases. Type in those that are of interest into the search box, or make up some of your own, and explore!

I will appreciate any feedback, questions and comments, positive or negative.

--Edward R. Close 6/6/2018

THE URGE

THE URGE TO WRITE

I know I’m not the only one who has ever been afflicted with this urge, but it seems to intensify as I age. It’s as if I must get the ideas that are constantly streaming into my head down on paper before they fade away like the images of a dream, like crystals of hoar frost melting on a sunny February morning.

The joy of life rises in my consciousness, like the waters of an artesian fountain and cannot be suppressed. It is a blessing and a curse. I cannot wait for money or the opportunity for my thoughts to be published, so I am thankful that I can post them here, with the hope that they will be gathered in the future and recorded in a more permanent way. They are like the tracks of a pre-historic creature in a sand dune of mud bank of his time, only to be buried in layers deposited over the ages, and perhaps thus preserved to be uncovered at some future date. When uncovered, will they be deemed meaningful, or considered as chaff to be scattered in the wind? Hopefully, some future soul will discover them, recognize them as the rare treasures I believe them to be, and be inspired by them. In that way, if in no other, I will live again.

To what do I attribute my exuberant verbosity? Perhaps there is a clue in my ancestry. My ancestral origins are varied and diverse: In the DNA of my eight great-grand-parents I find, in no particular order: traces of Scot, English, Irish, Scandinavian, German, Jewish, Middle-Eastern, and North African blood. Going back four more generations, there are also traces of DNA from Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. Perhaps I got the best luck of the draw from all these ancestors and cultures. Perhaps this diversity is the reason I am blessed with insights that may escape the notice of most people. I think there may be a correlation between this diversity of heritage and the diversity of my thought, and even my IQ.

Words of those of the past reverberate in my consciousness today: My Grandfather Tyndall (Scot-Irish DNA contributor) said: “What is t’be will be, if ‘t ne’er comes t’pass!” and “I reckon what’s fur ye’ll no gae past ye!” My grandmother Martz said: “Ist es ein schone Madel, o’ ein Bubala Baby?” and “Er ist zu klug, um zu leben!“

Everyone should honor their parents, grandparents and all their ancestors back as far as memory and science can recall. There will be individuals of whom you can be proud, there will be mediocre work-a-day folks, and there will be some you’d rather not know about. But there is wisdom in a statement posted by someone on Face Book recently. They said: “I’ve checked my DNA, and guess what? I’m a child of God!”

CONSERVATION WITH AN ATHEIST Part 4

CONVERSATION Continued

(Scroll down for earlier installments)

CONVERSATION WITH AN ATHEIST PART 4

©Edward R. Close 2018

A few years ago, I chatted with Doug Corrigan, then the Training and Education Director at Young Living Essential Oils, about TDVP on a Western Caribbean YL cruise. A few months later, while introducing me and other panelists on stage during the YL convention, he joked that talking with me for more than ten minutes would cause your head to explode. I’ve never seen this happen, and of course Doug was exaggerating, but, just in case, you’ve been warned. If you begin to have anything more than a mild headache, take a break, listen to some relaxing music, take a walk in the woods, or just close your eyes and think peaceful thoughts, and then come back to this discussion later.

“OK,” my friend said, “I’ve got these things we’ve talked about rattling around in my head, and I want to get them sorted out and resolved. You said that according to the theory of relativity, in our universe. time measured by actual clocks can pass at different rates for different observers if they are traveling at high rates of speed. Then you speculated that a reality that is that complex, could also be complex enough that believers and non-believers could both be right about what happens when they die. And you’ve said that quantum phenomena are non-physical, non-local gimmel until an actual observation is made, and that gimmel is somehow related to consciousness. Can you explain all this a little better and back up you statements with some facts so that I can understand it well enough to decide whether it’s pseudo-science bunk or not?”

Sure! The mathematical logic of the calculus of distinctions reveals that reality must be multi-dimensional, and that a comprehensive model of reality has at least nine dimensions. Since Einstein’s model is four-dimensional (three of space and one of time) TDVP is an extension of Einstein’s work.

“Wait! I’ve read your blogs about TDVP and the calculus of distinctions, but refresh my memory. How do they relate to these speculations?”

OK. The calculus of dimensional distinctions, with its basic equivalence unit, the Triadic Rotational Unit of Equivalence (TRUE) based on the electron, is the quantum math of the Triadic Dimensional Vortical Paradigm (TDVP). In this model, the math predicts extra dimensions beyond the three of space and one of time that we usually deal with.

“Right. Haven’t some other physicists tried multi-dimensional models? Weren’t there some five-dimensional models? And doesn’t string theory have many more dimensions?”

Yes, First Gunnar Nordstrom, and then Theodore Kaluza, Oscar Klein and Wolfgang Pauli, all worked on five-dimensional models. Einstein encouraged five-dimensional research, especially that of Kaluza, and there have been five or more different string theories that were more-or-less combined into M-theory a few years ago, which has eleven dimensions. TDVP agrees with this in a manner of speaking, but, I developed a different approach: The calculus of distinctions, with the quantum equivalence unit (TRUE) as the basic quantum distinction, shows that pure mathematics reflects the logical structure of reality, and the math requires nine finite dimensions, one trans-finite dimension and at least one infinite dimension, making a total of eleven definable dimensions. But different than string theory, the seven dimensions beyond 3S-1t are not spatial. Two are time dimensions and three are dimensions of consciousness.

“This is really confusing! How are those extra dimensions visualized?”

Well, they can’t be visualized the way we visualize the three dimensions of length, width and depth, because our physical senses are limited to a 3-D mode of perception, but they can be described mathematically and graphed in cross-sections which reduce the number of dimensions in each cross section to three, but such graphs are very difficult to understand without a lot of practice. Also, the math doesn’t agree with two things about the M-theory dimensions.

“What two things?”

String theorists say there are 10 space dimensions and one time-dimension; and seven of the space dimensions are “curled up” very small so that, like quanta, we can’t see them.

“That’s the M-brane theory Stephen Hawking writes about in “Grand Design”, right?”

Yes. I think it’s a misunderstanding of what dimensions are. No one can “see” dimensions. We see objects extended dimensionally. Lower dimensional domains are embedded within higher dimensional domains. We don’t see the additional dimensions of an object with our physical sense organs simply because they are not physical. I corresponded with Stephen Hawking about my multi-dimensional time model in 1989 through his interpreter, -it was before he got his voice synthesizer. He said he couldn’t imagine more than one dimension of time.

“You corresponded with Steven Hawking?”

Yes, I sent him a copy of the manuscript of my book “Infinite Continuity” before it was published in 1990. In it I proposed that there had to be at least two more dimensions beyond space-time. He kept the manuscript for three months, and when he returned it, he said he didn’t see the need for extra dimensions. But, he has since changed his mind. He has changed his mind about other things too.

“Like what?”

Perhaps the biggest one was his “proof”, published in collaboration with Roger Penrose, that the universe started as a mathematical singularity. I also argued in the manuscript I sent him in1989 that there are no absolute beginnings, only change. A few years later, he embraced the extra dimensions M-brane theory and stated that the idea of an absolute beginning was probably wrong.

“Are you saying that your ideas influenced Stephen Hawking’s thinking?”

I can’t prove that they did, but I think they probably did. A few months after he returned my manuscript, in a public lecture he said that someone had suggested three-dimensional time, but that he couldn’t imagine that!

“Hold on, are you implying that you are as intelligent as Stephen Hawking - the man some have called the new Einstein?”

No, I didn’t say that. I don’t advertise my IQ. I agree with what Hawking said in a 2004 interview. He said: "People who boast about their IQ's are losers". I am saying that he rejected my ideas about time and dimensions in 1989 but has since changed his thinking and adopted at least some aspects of them.

“Hawking is super-intelligent. I did some research on IQ when I was in grad school at Harvard, and Steven Hawking’s IQ was once reported as 154, and sometime later as 160, or above.”

IQ is just a number indicating potential. What one does with it is much more important. You could argue that Stephen has done more with his IQ than I have with mine. I never knew what my score on the IQ test I took in high school was, and I had no need to know. The school career counsellor, who knew I wanted to be a scientist, just told me that my score was high enough that I could pursue my dream of becoming a scientist.

I got into MENSA based on my Graduate Record Exam. 

“Did you ever find out what your IQ is? is it higher than 160?”

Yes, but I’m not telling you my IQ because that would be boasting. You know as a statistician that scores past the 99.99 percentile are unreliable. There’s a lot of variance and the confidence limits are as broad as plus or minus the standard deviation on the extreme tails of the bell curve of IQ scores. [IQ is a statistical estimate of how a score on a standardized test compares with the scores of the general population. Standardized IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet test, have a standard deviation of 15 points, and the standard error of a score is defined as the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of scores with which it can be compared (S_e = SD/√N). So, if the highest score registered is only achieved by one or two test takers, then, the standard error, S_e, is 15/±1 = ±15, and the true score of one could be any number within that 30-point range. If the score was 197, for example (the IQ claimed by Walter O’Brien, the real-life person behind the TV show Scorpion) the true score could be anywhere between 167 and 227! So, an IQ score like Steven Hawking’s only indicates that he’s in the 99.99 percentile, and that’s really about all you can say about any score between 150 and 200.] But, you know all this, so let’s get back to our discussion.

“Yeah, I saw in your derivation of the TRUE unit that you used the Large Hadron Collider data, which is obtained using Fermi-Dirac statistics, normalized to the mass of the electron.”

Do you see any problems with that?

“No; your derivations deal with electrons and quarks, which are fermions, particles with ½ spin. And, normalization to the mass of the electron makes sense, since that is the smallest mass of the basic elementary fermions, electrons, up-quarks and down-quarks.”

Yes, and after defining the volumetric equivalence unit (TRUE) as the smallest possible quantum distinction for the calculus of dimensional distinctions, I normalized the variables of observation and measurement, i.e., mass, energy, space and time.

“I need a little more clarification here. Why exactly, did you do that?”

I did it to establish a standard quantum equivalence unit. It is very similar to what is done in Planck units, except, instead of normalizing to the five universal constants, as Planck did, I normalized to the four variables of physical structure. By doing that, the speed of light is normalized also, like it is in Planck units.

“How did you know that that would work? Normalization simplifies calculations, but you always lose detail in the process; - How did you know you wouldn’t lose so much detail that it would make the results meaningless?”

First of all, the selection of the units of measurement of anything is arbitrary; for instance, you can measure distance in feet or meters, furlongs, or stone-throws, anything, if it can be standardized, and the results of a calculation in any system of units can be converted back to conventional units after the calculation is done.

“But why go to all that trouble?”

Because we live in a quantized world. By standardizing and normalizing all of our units of measurement, we do away with fractions. Then, every object consists of a whole number of quantum equivalence units, and all equations describing quantum reality are Diophantine equations, i.e., equations with integer solutions.

“I got that. That’s why you were able to use Fermat’s last theorem to explain why quarks combine in threes to form protons and neutrons. A remarkable feat!”

Yes, and I’ve been able to explain a lot more, including why life-supporting elements are stable and why there are neutrons and inert elements!

“Fascinating! But, I have an appointment, so I’ve got to go now. But, I still have some more questions; I want you to explain gimmel some more, and why you think it has something to do with consciousness.”

OK. I look forward to answering your questions. Give me a call when you are free again.

To be Continued.

IS THERE INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE?

IS THERE INTELLIGENT LIFE?

Let’s take this one step at a time: Is there intelligent life? We would hope so; but before we can answer this question in any meaningful way, we must first recognize that when we ask this question, we are assuming that we know what intelligence is, and we are also assuming that we know what life is. I don’t think there is much tangible evidence that we do. We are assuming that just because we can ask such a question, we are intelligent. But, let’s think about how we determine whether we are intelligent or not. We judge human intelligence based on IQ. But, exactly what is IQ?

IQ is defined as a numerical score obtained by dividing a person’s mental age by his or her chronological age, and multiplying the result by 100. The median raw score of many human test results is used to define the “normal” IQ, which will be then be 100. With this definition, and a measure of the variability of the data, called standard deviation, of 15 points, approximately two-thirds of individuals tested will score between 85 and 115, and about 2.5 % will score above 130, and 2.5 percent below 70. Intelligence defined in this way is related to human intelligence only; it says nothing about any other kind of intelligence. Are other life forms less intelligent than we are if they don’t have our vocal chords, or hands that can hold a pencil or peck out words on a keyboard?

If you score 132 or above on a standardized IQ test, you will qualify to become a member of MENSA, and other people, who don’t qualify, are expected to think of you as a genius. But, what does it really mean if you score 133, or even 200 on an IQ test? It means is that you are very good to extremely good at taking IQ tests. It means that, on a test that takes about an hour for the average person to complete, at that one time in your life, you scored much higher than the average of the general population. There are several assumptions built into this evaluation that, even though they were thought out by some very “smart” people, may or may not be true. In some ways, other life forms may be more intelligent than we are.

Certainly, there are some animals, like dogs, cats, horses, and dolphins, that have many abilities that we do not possess, and I would argue, based on my experience as a math teacher, that there are some dogs that are smarter than some people. The point is that we have a very narrow view of intelligence, and we shouldn’t assume that other life forms are more, or less intelligent than us based on human standards alone. Even if I score 200 on a battery of human IQ tests, I have no right to claim complete superiority over any other human being, and certainly no right to think I’m superior to other species.

It is the height of self-centered egoism to assume that the species Homo sapiens is the epitome of intelligent life in the universe. There is no evidence of that, and considerable evidence to the contrary. There very well could be a life form out there somewhere in the universe that could score 1000 or higher on our IQ tests. If so, does that make them superior to us? Not necessarily; we might be able to squash them like ants. Incidentally, how do we know how intelligent an ant is? Some small insects are more resilient and more complex structurally than we are. Have you ever looked at microbes under a microscope? Do we really know what intelligence is? I don’t think so.

OK, then; if we don’t quite know what intelligence is, what about life? Do we know what life is? We think of life as a state of being that distinguishes animals and plants from other things like rocks and toasters. Living things, at least on this planet, first appear in an infantile form, then, under the protection of adults, grow organically until they can reproduce, interact with their environment, enjoy life, suffer pain, and then die. But is this true for all life forms everywhere in the universe? Is there intelligent life out there? I think there probably is, but maybe we should first ask whether there is intelligent life in here.

Ed Close December 10, 2017

PROOF POSITIVE OF THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH

USE YOUR BRAINPOWER!

It is disappointing when I encounter people who don’t want to put much, if any, effort into thinking about anything outside their habitual comfort zone. It seems that most people would rather watch Television than read a non-fiction book, even if the book contains world-changing ideas and there is evidence that too much TV can cause brain atrophy. This may sound like a complaint, and I don’t want to be a complainer, I just want to spur people on to think just a little bit outside the box. Is it too much to ask people to try to understand a new paradigm, or why the old one doesn’t work? Is it too much to ask someone to think beyond one or two logical steps? Too often I’ve heard: “Oh, that makes my head hurt! I’m not a genius you know!

But you may be smarter than you think. Why not try to use more of the brain power you have? Psychologists tell us that most people never use more than 10 to 20 percent of their brain power, so you could be anywhere from five to nine times smarter than you think you are, in fact, you may be smarter than your IQ test indicates. IQ experts used to think that everyone is born with a fixed Intelligence Quotient that will stay constant throughout your life, except for a possible decrease in case of injury and the eventual inevitable decline in old age. We now know, that that is not true. The experts are now saying that you can increase your IQ by perhaps as much as 10 to 15% by putting your brain to work learning a new language or exercising it by solving puzzles of different types. So, if you have an IQ score of 120 on a standard IQ test, by working hard, you might increase it to 132 to 138, which is enough to get you into MENSA! And if you have an IQ of 138 to start with, with hard work, you might raise it to 152, enough to get into ISPE. The average IQ of PhD recipients is about 130, and IQ experts have estimated Einstein’s IQ at about 160. Would you like to be smarter than the average PhD? Or smarter than Einstein?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that people who ascribe to some of the most outlandish false theories and/or conspiracy theories, are either pulling your leg, are not very bright, or are just too lazy mentally to follow the logic that clearly disproves them. The flat-earth hypothesis is a prime example of a false theory that you can disprove yourself in a few minutes, if you want to. The idea that the Earth is flat except for irregularities like mountains and valleys, of course, was common in most primitive cultures, because to the casual eye, it looks that way. In modern times, a number of relatively uneducated writers and preachers have argued that the Earth is flat. The Flat-Earth Society traces its roots back to an English writer named Samuel Rowbotham, who argued for a flat Earth based on the results of some experiments that failed to find any curvature of the water surface over the length of a drainage ditch in England. He published a book titled “The inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scripture.” The ‘proof’ put forth by Rowbotham and others who supported the flat earth theory, was ‘proved’ back then by statements like:

“There are rivers that flow for hundreds of miles towards the level of the sea without falling more than a few feet — notably, the Nile, which, in a thousand miles, falls but a foot. A level expanse of this extent is quite incompatible with the idea of the Earth's convexity. It is, therefore, a reasonable proof that Earth is not a globe.”

Anyone with a rudimentary acquaintance with logic, will realize that this is not a proof at all, but simply a feasibility argument. The concept behind this reasoning is that, if the Earth is round like a ball, and water seeks the lowest possible uniformly flat level, then a convex curvature would require that the water run uphill to the half-way point in its route to the sea, and downhill the rest of the way, and everyone knows that water always runs downhill. If the Earth is relatively flat overall, there would be no ‘hump’ of curvature to cause a problem. But this is not proof of a flat Earth, because the problem is also resolved if the Earth is actually spherical, and gravity, which causes water and everything else to seek the lowest possible level, pulls everything toward the center of the sphere. And Sir Isaac Newton, and others, showed that the gravitational pull of any spherical object, whether a cannon ball or the moon is always toward the center. So there are two possible ways to explain why the Nile flows tranquilly to the Mediterrean, making the statement no more than a feasibility argument.

The flat-earth nuts (I call them nuts advisedly, or maybe even lovingly, because I know that some of them are just enjoying poking fun at the scientific establishment, which I also enjoy) even have websites and a You-tube video that boasts 20 proofs that the Earth is flat! But every one of the 20 ‘proofs’ are bogus because they either ignore some well-known and easily provable fact, or they are based on unproved and unprovable assumptions. So I could publish sound counter arguments refuting each and every one of the so-called proofs. But I don’t need to waste my time doing that, because there is an easy demonstration anyone can do that proves unequivocally that the surface of the Earth curves between Denver and New York City by an amount consistent with a sphere having a circumference of approximately 24,900 miles. And this is a proof that anyone can perform. I’ve published it twice, but I’ll copy it here again for the readers’ convenience:  

All you need to do is have someone in New York City and someone in Denver call you on the same day, exactly when the sun comes over the horizon at their respective locations. (Notice that this eliminates any confusion that might arise from time zone differences because you are noting the times of the calls on your clock.) If the Earth’s surface is flat, the calls will come virtually simultaneously, because there are no mountains between Denver and New York high enough to block the line of sight. If the Earth’s surface is curved, the call from Denver will come in later than the call from New York, because the sun will be hidden behind the curvature of the Earth until it reaches the height necessary for it to be seen in Denver. If the Earth is spherical, with a circumference of about 24,900 miles, the calls will be about 2 hours apart. This is easily calculated, but completely unnecessary for the demonstration.  

If you get two friends to do this, you will find that the time between the two calls will actually be about 2 hours, give or take a few minutes depending on exactly where your friends are located in the Denver and New York areas. I can say this with great confidence because I effectively done the experiment myself. I have spent time in both Denver and New York City, and have friends in both areas, and we find that it is always necessary to allow that same amount of time difference if you are in one area and want to connect by telephone or skype at a specific time with someone in the other area. If the Earth were flat, the sun would be seen to rise at the same time in Denver and New York, but would reach the zenith (straight overhead) about 2 hours apart in in the two locations, Denver 2 hours behind New York. So the diurnal time difference would vary during the day, from zero to 2 hours, making synchronizing watches for a given time to schedule a phone call between the two locations very difficult. Obviously this is not the case; the time difference between similar solar inclinations in relation to the horizon in the two locations is always the same. Conclusion: the surface of the Earth between Denver and New York is effectively the surface of a sphere. Now that wasn’t hard was it?

Now, concerning government and NASA conspiracies; there is no doubt that they often lie to us. But it’s not to keep us from knowing that the Earth is flat! It’s just that the Flat-Earthers, in order to support their hypothesis, have to go to great lengths to explain the many things that have to be accounted for to maintain the illusion that the surface of the Earth is flat, and explaining away NASA photos showing the Earth’s curvature is just one of them. The Earth is definitely and provably an oblate spheroid spinning in space. Anyone who denies it is either delusional, not capable of following simple logic, or enjoying seeing how many people they can fool with confusing, half-baked arguments.