Doctrines of Dependency

[B. John Jones]

(To me) A hidden motive seems very apparent in certain leagues of modern science, propagating dependence on digital things, and ultimately total dependence on science; rather than relying on tried and true, guts of solid, organic stuff, like clocks and watches with physical hands. Why? Because watches with hands suggest such things as raw trades, and the notion that people can tell time with total independence, by the heavens and by our own stature. Your shadow, for example, tells perfect time, to the wise, more perfect than any digital device.

 

Mind you, my minor in college was computer science, and I'm still very active developing web-apps, so I'm not at all a technophobe or "anti-electronics." It's just smarter to learn to tell time by the shadows and satellites.

 

 

[fiveworlds]

(To me) A hidden motive seems very apparent in certain leagues of modern science, propagating dependence on digital things, and ultimately total dependence on science; rather than relying on tried and true, guts of solid, organic stuff, like clocks and watches with physical hands.

 

Horology is a modern science whether the clock is electrical or not is irrelevant.

[swansont]

Gosh, it's not as if the non-mechanical clocks are literally a million times better than mechanical ones, and are required for other modern technology like GPS.

 

Oh, wait, that's exactly what it is.

 

Claiming that your shadow tells perfect time, better than any digital device - really? Anything that easily debunked is a combination of profound ignorance and hubris.

[B. John Jones]

 

Horology is a modern science whether the clock is electrical or not is irrelevant.

 

It's totally relevant because people in general for the most part are totally dependent on devices that break.

 

In this age, people fly everywhere and signals get lost and batteries die. If I turn my head slightly, near noon, I know it's noon. How cool is that? I'll tell you, it's cooler than iPhone or android. These phones are dumber than dust.

Gosh, it's not as if the non-mechanical clocks are literally a million times better than mechanical ones, and are required for other modern technology like GPS.

 

Oh, wait, that's exactly what it is.

 

Claiming that your shadow tells perfect time, better than any digital device - really? Anything that easily debunked is a combination of profound ignorance and hubris.

 

Time involves space. You wouldn't know it was daytime without a sun, which exists in space. If I need to get somewhere but my watch is broken and my phone hasn't a signal, I can calmly find my way to the east-side of town because I know I'm on the north-side. Digital stuff has no stealth see?

Edited June 27, 2016 by B. John Jones

[Bignose]

Gee, if only there was an organization that certified that these devices have a certain accuracy. Oh wait! there is! http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html Most respectable labs ensure their devices are tested to meet or beat the ISO standards on the calibration schedule each device needs to ensure accuracy. You act like no one has thought of these issues before, but frankly, there is a tremendous amount of work done to ensure the necessary accuracy.

 

However, if you're going to start assigning 'hidden motives' to people, then you've clearly drifted to conspiracy woo woo land; I do hope you'll come back to the real world.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Bignose

[B. John Jones]

Gee, if only there was an organization that certified that these devices have a certain accuracy. Oh wait! there is! http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html Most respectable labs ensure their devices are tested to meet or beat the ISO standards on the calibration schedule each device needs to ensure accuracy. You act like no one has thought of these issues before, but frankly, there is a tremendous amount of work done to ensure the necessary accuracy.

 

However, if you're going to start assigning 'hidden motives' to people, then you've clearly drifted to conspiracy woo woo land; I do hope you'll come back to the real world.

 

Not assigning hidden motives to anyone. I'm saying there is a clear impulse in science towards dependency on things developed by science. Digital stuff is inferior to organic stuff, yet the craze has seemed more and more scientific. This dependency (in my estimation) diminishes the general quality of life. People have far less appreciation for the stuff that really works. Society wants more and more short-lived convenience at the expense of timeless standards. At some point, the law of diminishing returns strikes, and the bottom drops out. Few people will know what hit.

[ajb]

I'm saying there is a clear impulse in science towards dependency on things developed by science.

Sure, and we like to call it progress.

 

Why not (sometimes with care) use new technologies?

[B. John Jones]

Sure, and we like to call it progress.

 

Why not (sometimes with care) use new technologies?

 

Absolutely. But it's usually not "sometimes."

[John Cuthber]

(To me) A hidden motive seems very apparent in certain leagues of modern science,...

 

 

 

Not assigning hidden motives to anyone. ,,,

When you make up your mind...

In the mean time, since your shadow doesn't tell the same times as mine, may I remind you that mine is the perfect one- and yours is wrong.

It's also daft to complain that clocks sometmes break down, then advocate sundials that fail every night

[B. John Jones]

 

When you make up your mind...

In the mean time, since your shadow doesn't tell the same times as mine, may I remind you that mine is the perfect one- and yours is wrong.

It's also daft to complain that clocks sometmes break down, then advocate sundials that fail every night

Not assigning to anyone or to people. Asserting, and attesting (on the basis of a subjective conviction), hidden motives, in certain indeterminable groups of science. Very different from assigning to a certain someone or to people.

 

It's a charge of vice, not a sentence of conspiracy.

Edited June 27, 2016 by B. John Jones

[swansont]

 

It's totally relevant because people in general for the most part are totally dependent on devices that break.

 

In this age, people fly everywhere and signals get lost and batteries die. If I turn my head slightly, near noon, I know it's noon. How cool is that? I'll tell you, it's cooler than iPhone or android. These phones are dumber than dust.

 

Time involves space. You wouldn't know it was daytime without a sun, which exists in space. If I need to get somewhere but my watch is broken and my phone hasn't a signal, I can calmly find my way to the east-side of town because I know I'm on the north-side. Digital stuff has no stealth see?

 

 

My, you do like moving those goalposts. "Things break" is an entirely different argument that "shadows have infinite precision". I can navigate without my GPS, too. But GPS makes it easier.

 

Tell me, how do you use shadows to tell time on a cloudy day, or at night? Or in a cave? Even without the infinite precision.

 

Not assigning hidden motives to anyone. I'm saying there is a clear impulse in science towards dependency on things developed by science. Digital stuff is inferior to organic stuff, yet the craze has seemed more and more scientific. This dependency (in my estimation) diminishes the general quality of life. People have far less appreciation for the stuff that really works. Society wants more and more short-lived convenience at the expense of timeless standards. At some point, the law of diminishing returns strikes, and the bottom drops out. Few people will know what hit.

 

 

People adopt stuff that is useful to them, or things they like. Science, for the most part, doesn't give a rat's ass. When Einstein was developing relativity, he wasn't thinking that someday there will be satellites exploiting it to aid in navigation. That came later.

 

Science enables advanced technology, but it's not the same as advanced technology.

[Bignose]

It's a charge of vice, not a sentence of conspiracy.

Apparently the vice is improved accuracy?

 

Just curious, do you feel the same way about calculators? If your employer calculates your paycheck by hand and makes an arithmetic error, are you ok with that? Just accept it as part of the cost of doing thing 'organically'? How about when you buy a plot of land, no need for surveyors and their fancy electronic measuring gadgets, right? Just trust that the walked-off line from the farmer next door is close enough.

 

Fortunately, the manufacturer and designer of the device you're using to type your responses to us didn't just accept 'good enough', lol. The number of highly accurate devices used to make your computer there would probably blow your mind...

 

Look, I can appreciate the Luddite point of view. I am almost never an 'early adopter' myself. But that is on things like newest smartphones or CPU processors, etc.

 

But regarding measuring devices, please look through that link I posted above. The ISO makes sure that these devices aren't just claimed to be more accurate. It tests and verifies that they really are as accurate as they claim. Intentionally using a device that is less accurate means you intentionally introduce more error into your measurements. If you have the resources to minimize error, there is literally no good reason not to use the most accurate device possible. High errors lead to false correlations and seeing effects that aren't really there or missing effects that are there and causes numerous repetitions of experiments. Seems silly to make things harder on purpose, doesn't it?

Edited June 27, 2016 by Bignose

[Phi for All]

I think it's a slippery slope fallacy that dependency on technology is automatically bad because it may fail and nobody will know how to live without it. Very weak as a supportive argument, very shaky.

 

Your shadow, for example, tells perfect time, to the wise, more perfect than any digital device.

 

Ah, mysterious wisdom! It's religious spackle magic to fill any knowledge gap! But doesn't it create a dependency of its own?

[dimreepr]

Not assigning to anyone or to people. Asserting, and attesting (on the basis of a subjective conviction), hidden motives, in certain indeterminable groups of science. Very different from assigning to a certain someone or to people.

 

It's a charge of vice, not a sentence of conspiracy.

 

 

Shush now, the adults are talking.

[John Cuthber]

Not assigning to anyone or to people. Asserting, and attesting (on the basis of a subjective conviction), hidden motives, in certain indeterminable groups of science. Very different from assigning to a certain someone or to people.

 

It's a charge of vice, not a sentence of conspiracy.

OK so it's a motive, but is isn't the motive of a person or group.

Is it the motive of an animal?

The reason I ask is that inanimate things don't have motives and you are rapidly running out of options.

Or you could save us all time by admitting that you are talking nonsense- and that's why you contradicted yourself.

 

Anyway, you seem to have ignored my point that your shadow won't behave in the same way as mine- so yours must be wrong (because mine is- so you tell me- perfect).

Or is that just another example of how little sense you make.

Edited June 27, 2016 by John Cuthber

[B. John Jones]

OK so it's a motive, but is isn't the motive of a person or group.

 

It is the motive of a person and group (in my view). That person and group are indeterminable, thus, not assigned.

 

Anyway, you seem to have ignored my point that your shadow won't behave in the same way as mine- so yours must be wrong (because mine is- so you tell me- perfect).

Or is that just another example of how little sense you make.

 

Neither. Your shadow tells time on the basis of where you are relative to the sun. So does mine, keeping perfect time. Even when the sun is obscured by the clouds, a nearer, stronger light will cast a second shadow. As the sun continues his course, the first shadow will extend, contract or turn clockwise or counterclockwise. Perfect time.

 

But when sun and moon are no more, one day remains.

Edited June 27, 2016 by B. John Jones

[Strange]

Even when the sun is obscured by the clouds, a nearer, stronger light will cast a second shadow. As the sun continues his course, the first shadow will extend, contract or turn clockwise or counterclockwise. Perfect time.

 

 

What is this second light? And how does it track the time?

 

And the sun only casts a shadow between sunrise and sunset. What do you do the rest of the time?

[swansont]

It is the motive of a person and group (in my view). That person and group are indeterminable, thus, not assigned.

 

 

Neither. Your shadow tells time on the basis of where you are relative to the sun. So does mine, keeping perfect time.

This shadow, a sundial, depends on the earth's rotation, orbit and inclination. The orbit is not a circle, we are inclined to the sun, and the earth's rotation is not constant. The length of a solar day varies by almost 15 minutes (fast and slow) over the course of a year. That's why you have to modify a sundial (OMG, science! Run away!) by moving the gnomon around an analemma. The rotation has a smaller effect, varying by milliseconds a day, but that's big compared to the errors of atomic clocks.

 

We stopped using the earth as a basis for time because the earth is a lousy clock, compared to what we are capable of building (which have the added advantage of working on cloudy days, at night, and indoors, too)

 

A perfect clock is impossible to construct. There is always noise in any oscillation, and that integrates to a random walk in time. i.e. any real clock will random walk away from perfection. It's just a matter of how big the steps are. So stop repeating this nonsense that shadows give you perfect time. It's painfully wrong.

 

Even when the sun is obscured by the clouds, a nearer, stronger light will cast a second shadow. As the sun continues his course, the first shadow will extend, contract or turn clockwise or counterclockwise.

What is this second light? I always see it get darker when the sun is obscured by clouds, and shadows go away.

[John Cuthber]

 

It is the motive of a person and group (in my view). That person and group are indeterminable, thus, not assigned.

 

word salad

[B. John Jones]

 

 

What is this second light? And how does it track the time?

 

And the sun only casts a shadow between sunrise and sunset. What do you do the rest of the time?

 

 

 

What is this second light? And how does it track the time?

 

And the sun only casts a shadow between sunrise and sunset. What do you do the rest of the time?

 

Carry a flashlight as you would an umbrella.

 

It tracks time relative to the second shadow.

 

The sun casts light throughout the night while the moon is present. It's not dark at night. The light of night is a lesser light. Use your entire stature--your hands, some paper and a pen or pencil.

word salad

 

That one must take a chemistry expert.

 

[i'm sorry, I couldn't help it]

Edited June 28, 2016 by B. John Jones

[swansont]

 

 

Carry a flashlight as you would an umbrella.

 

It tracks time relative to the second shadow.

 

The sun casts light throughout the night while the moon is present. It's not dark at night. The light of night is a lesser light. Use your entire stature--your hands, some paper and a pen or pencil.

 

 

Are you seriously suggesting that a flashlight can be used with a sundial to tell what time it is?

[DrP]

QUOTE: "...people are totally dependant on devices that break"

 

Yea, like hearts, minds, lungs, kidneys etc...

[Strange]

Carry a flashlight as you would an umbrella.

 

It tracks time relative to the second shadow.

 

So you think you can tell the time by using a flashlight? How does that work? You can point the flashlight in any direction and so your shadow can go in any direction. How does that help you tell the time?

 

I am becoming convinced that you don't actually believe any of this stuff. No one could be that daft. You just post meaningless nonsense for fun. Is that right?

The sun casts light throughout the night while the moon is present. It's not dark at night.

 

It is at the new moon.

 

But thanks for raising the idea of a moondial. I had never thought of that before. Cool! But ...

 

The most basic moondial, which is identical to a sundial, is only accurate on the night of the full moon. Every night after it becomes an additional (on average)^{[note 1]} 48 minutes slow, while every night preceding the full moon it is (again on average)^{[note 1]} 49 minutes fast, assuming there is even enough light to take a reading by. Thus, one week to either side of the full moon the moondial will read 5 hours and 36 minutes before or after the proper time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondial

 

Obviously one could correct for that, but it becomes much more complicated than your "perfect shadow".

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Thread closed for lack of making sense, and because the opening poster's account was dependent on his ability to follow our rules.