Seeking Mysteries (Multi-Thread ST-2)

[SkinWalker]

This is a Sub-Topic from a Multi-Thread discussion. The Main Thread is located at this link. http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109356

 

Sub-Thread 2 (ST-2) : Seeking Mysteries

 

While science's objective is to solve mysteries, pseudo-science tends to emphasize the existence and supposed unsolvability of mysteries. This is a rather sterile position, since if a mystery is by definition insoluble, then why waste ones' time thinking about it? (Pigliucci, 2001)

 

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Immediately I thought of the legend of Atlantis when I read that passage. I'm sure many others did as well. I've no doubt that Pigliucci and Casti considered it as well. Other mysteries that come to mind include the pyramids of egypt, ancient "astronauts," the Bermuda Triangle and Noah's Flood.

 

Popular mythology (hundreds of books exist on the subject) has it that Atlantis was a continent that existed upwards of 10,000 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean. Plato allegedly reported it as a hearsay (Sagen, 1997) "coming down to him from remote ages."

 

Most of Atlantean legends have it that the civilization was lost to a catastrophic event that occurred at the end of the last ice age. The survivors abandoned their doomed continent and spread their seed accross the globe, sparking civilization as they went.

 

New age writer Graham Hancock and former engineer Robert Bauval have determined that the key to unlocking the mysteries of the Lost Civilization is the identification of architectural star maps.

 

The Bauval-Hancock argument runs as follows: Monuments around the world can be aligned with certain constellations, but only as they were in the sky in the deep past. The astronomical phenomenon of precession - a "wobble" in the Earth's axis as it rotates - changes our view of the relative position of the stars in the sky in a grand cycle that lasts 26,000 years. It is then observed that the correlation between stars and monuments is closest (or, as they put it, "locked") in the era of 10,500 BCE.

 

The heritage of this idea, however, is far from scientific. Since precession is a cyclical process with a 26,000-year duration, it is worth asking why the alternative historians fix on the commemorated date of 10,500 BCE as opposed to, say, 36,500 BCE or 62,500 BCE. Any of these other dates would also produce a "lock" between monuments and stars and, to the minds of professional ancient historians, none is any less ludicrous than 10,500 BCE. The answer is telling.

 

In the 1920s, the American psychic Edgar Cayce - known as the "Sleeping Prophet" - proposed, on the basis of a dream, that a chamber containing the records of Atlantis lay beneath the Giza Plateau. Cayce dated the construction of the chamber to ca. 10,500 BCE - the very date supposedly deduced "scientifically" by Bauval and Hancock from their star-alignments. The fact that both consider 10,500 BCE as a key date in their argument without admitting that it ultimately derives from the psychic visions of the "Sleeping Prophet" amply demonstrates their standards of scholarship.

 

Here's the danger:

History represents our collective memory of where we came from and how we arrived at where we are. As such, it can be used to direct and justify public policy (as it has with civil rights legislation, for instance). When history is decoupled from rational analysis, and careful scrutiny of evidence is superseded by speculation and bald assertion, history is transformed into myth. People whose sense of history has become mythologized can be very dangerous. A striking example of this is the role Atlantis played in Nazi ideology. It was considered the original home of the Aryans, the first great civilization from which all others had arisen.

 

Comments? Additions? Other "mysteries of the world?"

 

The lost civilization in the Cydonia region of Mars is a good example too.

[Kain]

One must take into consideration that Plato was no storyteller or mythologist, he was a philosipher, so the story of Atlantis have to have some kind of real point basis. There have been pyramid-like structures, domes, and other ruins of a lost civilization found from the coasts of the US to the coasts of Europe and Africa. A strange rock formation in the Bahamas resembling a road can't be shrugged off as 'natural erosion'.

 

The 'rock formations' on Mars can't be looked away from noting them as only 'rock formations'. Scientists at NASA define them as erosion after thousands of years. But they expect the public to accept it as ironic that a rock erosion carries the same geological bearings as the 3 Great Pyramids in Giza? (I know theres only 1 GREAT Pyramid, but i forgot the other pyramid's names). A face that is still just a huge eroded rock? Unlikely.

 

There have been hyroglyphics found that strike a remarkable resemblance to today's technology (the one that comes to mind is a mark similar to the Apache Helicoptor found in an Egyptian Pyramid). I find it highy improbable that someone chizzeling at stone just HAPPENS to make an Apache Helicoptor.

 

All these things may have one common link: Extra Territrials, but thats another topic for another day.

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

One must take into consideration that Plato was no storyteller or mythologist, he was a philosipher, so the story of Atlantis have to have some kind of real point basis.

 

I would concede that Plato's word certainly held more veracity than that of his average contemporary. I would still argue, however, that it was based on hearsay and not any phyisical evidence that was presented to him.

 

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

[bA strange rock formation in the Bahamas resembling a road can't be shrugged off as 'natural erosion'. [/b]

 

Your description would probably be accurate.. "a strange rock formation." Particularly since much of the bedrock in the Bahamas is limestone, and the characteristics of limestone is to create blocks and fill in spaces as deposition occurs. It is more likely, though perhaps not the reason, that the calcium carbonate that was deposited to eventually become limestone settled in a fault to become a "strange rock formation." One such formation exists in the county adjacent to mine (Rockwall county!) and early settlers thought it to be a wall from ancient residents. They were wrong, of course.

 

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

[bThe 'rock formations' on Mars can't be looked away from noting them as only 'rock formations'. Scientists at NASA define them as erosion after thousands of years. But they expect the public to accept it as ironic that a rock erosion carries the same geological bearings as the 3 Great Pyramids in Giza? [/b]

 

Well... let's look at that a bit. There was not only wind erosion on Mars, but hydrological erosion as well (some would say as recent as a 150 years ago). In addition there was volcanic morphology that created volcanos, lava flows, various discharged materials, etc. Many of the images that are being examined in Cydonia are based on thermal imaging, which has a unique characteristic of not always telling the truth visually since it is taking temperature differnces and creating a visual image. This can create geometric shapes that don't really exist as perfectly as they are represented by thermal images.

 

As to the same geological bearings... I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean angles, axes and distances from each other? Alignment to stars such as Orion? The volcanos and mountains present in Cydonia were very likely to be islands at some point and there is geological evidence to suggest that. A look at the "face" in high definition shows what looks like a collapsed magman chamber.

 

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

[bA face that is still just a huge eroded rock? Unlikely. [/b]

 

Look at this High-Res Photo. This has all of the classic characteristics fo a shield volcano. It is of the "face." One can even see what looks to be shoreline morphology around the volcano itself, suggesting that it was in a shallow sea at one time.

 

We also have to consider that it would be in NASA's best interest to demonstrate that there is good reason to suspect that there are structures that could be artificial on Mars. This would be a reason for more funding to examine the site more closely. That NASA has shown only a cursory interest in the Cydonia region is telling.

 

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

[bThere have been hyroglyphics found that strike a remarkable resemblance to today's technology (the one that comes to mind is a mark similar to the Apache Helicoptor found in an Egyptian Pyramid). I find it highy improbable that someone chizzeling at stone just HAPPENS to make an Apache Helicoptor.[/b]

 

I'd be interested in seeing some source information on this... since it would be an obvious archeological wonder. If archeologists and anthropologists aren't excited about this type of glyph, it might suggest that there is an alternate explanation.

 

Originally posted by MydnightPsion

[bAll these things may have one common link: Extra Territrials, but thats another topic for another day. [/b]

 

That topic is coming

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Scientists at NASA define them as erosion after thousands of years. But they expect the public to accept it as ironic that a rock erosion carries the same geological bearings as the 3 Great Pyramids in Giza? (I know theres only 1 GREAT Pyramid, but i forgot the other pyramid's names). A face that is still just a huge eroded rock? Unlikely.

There is no rock formation on Mars that looks like a face, as Skin already said. Unless we actually find alien artifacts or settlement ruins on Mars, I won't believe that there's been a civilization there.

 

I think that as long as historians take care to separate history from myth, and the people use common sense, we'll be okay.

 

I'm more worried about history that's close to myth, though, not about myth itself.

[Kain]

Thought there is no STRUCTURE of a face on that 'volcano', I still see one. When I get back home I'll cut out where I'm talking about and post it.

[SkinWalker]

So, by applying critical thinking skills, we can assume that whenever we see what clearly looks like a humanoid face in another object (cloud, landform, reflection) that it is representative of something more?

 

Let's not forget that humans are conditioned to recognize one another and, at times, to communicate with one another solely by facial expression. We are conditioned as a species to immeadiately recognize the patterns associated with faces, so when we see them occur accidently in nature, we assume a correlation to something more than random occurrance.

 

Unfortunately, this simply cannot be the case. Take this image for example: smoke from the World Trade Center fire.. This is a common phenomenon with smoke. It billows rapidly and creates many patterns and textures... occasionally a still from a video or a photograph will catch smoke (flames as well) just as the billowing effect forms the pattern of a face. An instant before and after: no face.

 

Also... if there were an advanced civilization on Mars, wouldn't it be anthropocentric to assume that their faces would resemble ours?

 

Here's another link that I found enlightening... this person is fascinated by faces in landforms and he/she includes the "face" on Mars as well as the "smiley" on Mars. Faces in landforms

[ShadowTemplar]

A striking example of this is the role Atlantis played in Nazi ideology. It was considered the original home of the Aryans, the first great civilization from which all others had arisen.

 

*longwhistle* Impressive. I didn't know that at all. Have you got a source?

 

One must take into consideration that Plato was no storyteller or mythologist, he was a philosipher, so the story of Atlantis have to have some kind of real point basis.

 

Eer... Why? Philosophy was far cry from History and Geology, last time I checked.

 

Also... if there were an advanced civilization on Mars, wouldn't it be anthropocentric to assume that their faces would resemble ours?

 

Mydnight: 0 Skin: 1

 

The 'Face' link was cool too.

 

BTW: If you like Mars, check some of this.