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Alien Abduction meeeting in Brighton







Bold Seagull

strong and stable with me, or...
Mar 18, 2010
30,464
Hove
My point got somewhat muddied and less coherant as I tried to search for different ways to try and explain the same thing to you while you sat there no doubt with an expression on your face of a man trying to look up an ant's backside.

No, just amusement at someone with such a poor understanding of semiotics trying to explain a simple concept with such difficulty.
 




The Truth

Banned
Sep 11, 2008
3,754
None of your buisness
It's best to leave the anus til last, things can get very unpleasant otherwise.

Sorry, I'm confused, Isn't this what you say the aliens do?
 


Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
53,153
Goldstone
I see you're having trouble as well.
:rolleyes:
It takes a certain amount of "time" for the earth to go round the sun. We agree on that yes?
We agree so far.
It takes "a year" yes?
That's the English word for it, yes.
365 days yes?
Yep.

Let's imagine, for the time being we don't have knowledge of the following words : Year. Months.Days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds. Seasons. Day. Night.

With that in mind...

How long does the earth take to revolve around the sun?
Ok, we don't have words to describe important events in our daily lives. Let's invent some (that's how language develops). Well, the sun comes up over the horizon, and it gets light and warm, and I go hunting for food, eat, etc. It then gets dark and cold, and I wrap up, and go to sleep. So that we can talk about these astronomical events, lets give them names. Let's say day and night. Moving on.
There are periods when even the days are quite cool, the leaves fall off the trees, and then it snows. The days seem to last less time, and the nights seem to last longer. It stays cold for a lot of days and nights (I've counted between 100 and 140), and then the days seem to get longer, it gets warmer, flowers start to grow, and leaves grow on the trees again. This cycle has continued throughout my life (and that of my ancestors, so the tales say). We've been keeping records of how many days and nights it takes between when the leaves fall off the trees, grow back, and then fall off again. We've taken the average of this number, and it's 365 days and nights (accurate stuff eh). The elders who have been studying the stars have said this is because we go around the sun every 365 days. Let's call that a year.

Now then, I need to be more specific with my family about different periods within the day and night. So let's divide the whole day and night into 10, and call them hours. There, we have 10 hours between each sunrise. Could have been any number, but we like 10. The number of days in a year though - I'd have liked 100, but it didn't work - that barely covered the cold period.

Of course we could have, in exactly the same way as we could have decided to have 10 hours in a day - 'long' or otherwise.
Are you people for real?

Think of it as using metric or imperial measurements, the actual length is still the same whether we use either scale.
We're given the scale by the sun rising each morning, and seasons being 365 sunrises apart. We can't change that scale.
 






Nibble

New member
Jan 3, 2007
19,238
:rolleyes:
We agree so far.
That's the English word for it, yes.
Yep.

Ok, we don't have words to describe important events in our daily lives. Let's invent some (that's how language develops). Well, the sun comes up over the horizon, and it gets light and warm, and I go hunting for food, eat, etc. It then gets dark and cold, and I wrap up, and go to sleep. So that we can talk about these astronomical events, lets give them names. Let's say day and night. Moving on.
There are periods when even the days are quite cool, the leaves fall off the trees, and then it snows. The days seem to last less time, and the nights seem to last longer. It stays cold for a lot of days and nights (I've counted between 100 and 140), and then the days seem to get longer, it gets warmer, flowers start to grow, and leaves grow on the trees again. This cycle has continued throughout my life (and that of my ancestors, so the tales say). We've been keeping records of how many days and nights it takes between when the leaves fall off the trees, grow back, and then fall off again. We've taken the average of this number, and it's 365 days and nights (accurate stuff eh). The elders who have been studying the stars have said this is because we go around the sun every 365 days. Let's call that a year.

Now then, I need to be more specific with my family about different periods within the day and night. So let's divide the whole day and night into 10, and call them hours. There, we have 10 hours between each sunrise. Could have been any number, but we like 10. The number of days in a year though - I'd have liked 100, but it didn't work - that barely covered the cold period.

Are you people for real?

We're given the scale by the sun rising each morning, and seasons being 365 sunrises apart. We can't change that scale.

well, you have kind of got it. Took a while though eh! Well done. Sort of.
 








Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
53,153
Goldstone
well, you have kind of got it. Took a while though eh! Well done. Sort of.
But you still haven't got it:
Here's some education for you: We didn't figure out how many days are in a year, we decided. There wasn't a secret, unknown figure waiting to be discovered.
That's still wrong. The figure was always (prior to creation of man) 365. It was an unknown figure at one time, and we figured it out. Exactly the opposite of what you said. We would have had words for 'year' and 'day' before we realised a year was 365 days.
 


Nibble

New member
Jan 3, 2007
19,238
But you still haven't got it:
That's still wrong. The figure was always (prior to creation of man) 365. It was an unknown figure at one time, and we figured it out. Exactly the opposite of what you said. We would have had words for 'year' and 'day' before we realised a year was 365 days.

:facepalm:

**** me, give up on it mate, You are never going to get it and you're boring me now.
 




The Truth

Banned
Sep 11, 2008
3,754
None of your buisness
Ok, but only 'cos you said. Wife's not going to be impressed when she finds out I've fallen in love.

Give her the Jimi Hendrix Album and up her intake of milk and chillies too. She'll be fine x
 










:facepalm:

**** me, give up on it mate, You are never going to get it and you're boring me now.

Nibs, he's got you bang to rights, I really can't see what you're getting at.

Here's some education for you: We didn't figure out how many days are in a year, we decided. There wasn't a secret, unknown figure waiting to be discovered.

This is wrong. There is no other way to describe it. For as long as humans have been on this earth there have been 365 complete revolutions of the Earth in the time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun. We did not decide this. We chose to have full units (days, years) which match one-to-one with these celestial movements, but it'd be pretty counter-intuitive to do anything else when it's important to know our relative position (for agricultural purposes). Hours, minutes, seconds, yes. Days, number of days in a year, no, afraid not.
 


Bold Seagull

strong and stable with me, or...
Mar 18, 2010
30,464
Hove
Nibs, he's got you bang to rights, I really can't see what you're getting at.



This is wrong. There is no other way to describe it. For as long as humans have been on this earth there have been 365 complete revolutions of the Earth in the time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun. We did not decide this. We chose to have full units (days, years) which match one-to-one with these celestial movements, but it'd be pretty counter-intuitive to do anything else when it's important to know our relative position (for agricultural purposes). Hours, minutes, seconds, yes. Days, number of days in a year, no, afraid not.

He's getting his semiology mixed up with his ontology.
 


dingodan

New member
Feb 16, 2011
10,080
Watch it if you dare :mad:

 




birthofanorange

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Aug 31, 2011
6,500
David Gilmour's armpit
Nibs, he's got you bang to rights, I really can't see what you're getting at.



This is wrong. There is no other way to describe it. For as long as humans have been on this earth there have been 365 complete revolutions of the Earth in the time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun. We did not decide this. We chose to have full units (days, years) which match one-to-one with these celestial movements, but it'd be pretty counter-intuitive to do anything else when it's important to know our relative position (for agricultural purposes). Hours, minutes, seconds, yes. Days, number of days in a year, no, afraid not.

Yes, humans gave it a number and relevance, due to it's significance re: agriculture etc. These numbers and significance are purely man made - they do not exist outside of our (human) interpretation.

There are not 365 of 'anything' in a 'year' in the natural world. WE decided.

(I think).
 


Nibble

New member
Jan 3, 2007
19,238
Nibs, he's got you bang to rights, I really can't see what you're getting at.



This is wrong. There is no other way to describe it. For as long as humans have been on this earth there have been 365 complete revolutions of the Earth in the time it takes the Earth to travel around the sun. We did not decide this. We chose to have full units (days, years) which match one-to-one with these celestial movements, but it'd be pretty counter-intuitive to do anything else when it's important to know our relative position (for agricultural purposes). Hours, minutes, seconds, yes. Days, number of days in a year, no, afraid not.


Unbelievable. I need to get away from this thread, it's been hijacked by retards.
 


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