I enjoy debates, and debating, and I always enjoy trying to be a convincing devil's advocate. It is an interesting exercise, usually. This is the argument that I was just imagining:
What arguments for a geocentric universe might one be able to make today in a debate over heliocentric vs. a geocentric, particularly against a high-school student with a background similar to mine? If you can not prove your side right, it is acceptable to keep from being proven wrong.
original theory -> argument towards it being true.
crystal spheres -> who says that crystal is the substance, as supposed to a description thereof? Beyond that, there is something keeping the planets and stars from changing position too much. No reason you can't call it a series of crystal spheres, and no reason it would not seem like a set of complicated spheres/ 3D ovals.
revolve around the sun -> Have you ever seen the earth revolve around the sun? No? Then you are just basing your knowledge on things you have no proof of, and have never seen. You just trust what others are telling you, and that does not mean it's necessarily right. Point in case: witch burnings, sacrifices, every time the government has exploited the unwashed masses, etc. You say there are movies that exist, showing the earth rotating around the sun? Ignoring the fact that the sun would be too bright to look at, videos are easy enough to fake. First rule of Descartes' method: "don't take anything for true which you do not clearly know as such".
heaven -> ignoring all the arguments that it doesn't exist, there is no reason it might not simply be beyond the horizon. Since heaven is religious, and religion by definition can not be proven T/F, this topic will be left be.
Is there anything I could say to convince this "devil's advocate"? Would anything meet Descartes's standards for proof as you've laid them out here? Do the phases of Venus work? Or is skepticism unassailable?
ReplyDeleteI am not entirely sure why you mention Descartes here: are you referring to my demand for visual evidence?
ReplyDeleteAs the the phases of Venus, you raise a very good point. As I see it, however, there are two ways in which I can argue your point.
One is simply that if the heavenly bodies move at different speeds within their rotation, than what would happen if the sun sped past, or fell behind, Venus? The light would hit the planet differently, thus creating changing shadows.
The other argument is based off the above discussion and one question: what is Venus made of? Who is to say that the material on Venus does not change colour, perhaps dependent on timing, temperature, even some invisible gas or ray emission from earth that, depending on the distance to Venus, changes the planets colour? Based off the arguments in my article, the only way to prove any of these points would be to send the doubter out to space to collect samples and eye-witness accounts. If the invisible emissions theory is believed to be true, even if someone else /b/did/b/ bring back a rock from Venus and it didn't change colour, that might not mean anything. If the atmosphere breaks up light from the sun coming down to earth, might it super-focus rays/radiation coming off of earth and going out into space? If the rock was protected from the ray's influence in the space shuttle and on the way back down to earth, then it would be very hard to prove anything.
That all said, very few people would be as skeptical as I am pretending to be: if one were to assume everything he or she had never seen or proved him or herself was a lie, they'd go crazy from the paranoia. If you can hardly trust them to tell you what the weather is accurately, then how could you trust anyone not to do something stupid?