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Re: The flat earth notion
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2003 Nov 5, 05:22 +1100
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2003 Nov 5, 05:22 +1100
----- Original Message ----- From: "Walter Guinon"To: Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 3:38 AM Subject: Re: The flat earth notion > While we laugh at the dimensional chauvinists of yester year who believed the > Earth was flat, how many of us are comfortable with our three dimensional space > being curved and distorted rather than flat? I think this is a good point. We assume everyone else is like us, with the benefit of a Western education, but really we are an elite minority. And should not feel superior, my guess is that most of us would struggle to comprehend the new worlds opened up by Einstein and others, just as people who imagine the world is flat because it is so self evident would struggle (and did) to comprehend the new worlds opened up by Galileo and others. Its not a question of intelligence, 'primitive' people are just as clever, and demonstrate this with 'intuitive' skills so well developed that they seem like magic to us. "The universe is not only stranger than you think, its stranger than you can imagine" (or words to that effect).