Blue Flowers of Mars

[dub_]

Extrasense is actually right.<br /><br />I kinda do see a coin.<br /><br />Oh my god!

 

[extrasense]

Some people capable only to go with the crowd. If we all were this way, we would still be climbing the trees with our monkey cosins.<br /><br />dub_, <br /><br />now that you see the light, you should look at the flowers pictures again!<br />

 

[odysseus145]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Some people capable only to go with the crowd. If we all were this way, we would still be climbing the trees with our monkey cosins.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I here this statement from just about every single woowoo whose claims and "evidence" are being smashed to bits. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacechump]

I know odysseus. It's like every post by es can be replaced by:<br /><br />** Token crackpot comment **<br /><br />in the body because we've heard the exact same statements from folks who think earth is hollow, think Planet X will destroy the earth, believe the Martian face is just that-a face, think homeopath and crystals can actually heal. And why do folks believe this stuff? Because no one actually cares to learn things anymore. I guess they want to ignore science because they either can't understand what they are trying to learn or just don't care to learn that the universe can be magnificent by itself; that they have to create meaning for themselves by making up something "extravagant".

 

[bobvanx]

Spacechump,<br /><br />You might notice that I've got a pretty good grounding in the hard sciences from some of the posts I've made, so maybe you'll accept this info as coming from someone who's not in the woo-woo camp.<br /><br />Some woo-woo fantasies turn out to have basis in reality.<br /><br />If you approach everything from the western viewpoint, that effect follows from cause and everything is reducible, you'll end up with a set of mysteries that are unexplanable. It's because the structure of thought cannot ask the proper quesion. Similarly, if you approach it from a mystical direction, you end up making some pretty wacky choices becuase your tools aren't up to the task of, oh, driving from point a to point b.<br /><br />Here's a concrete example: Western medicine held the <i>belief</i> for years that the mind was seperate from the body, and didn't influence health. Other philosophies ascribed illness to wrong thoughts. It turns out, we are making discoveries that thinking ill of ourselves opens a route fro the pathogens that exist everywhere to multiply uncontrollably and we get sick.<br /><br />So who is more right? Western see the pathogen, mysticism sees the negative thought energy. Both contribute to making an individual unwell.<br /><br />Science is great for investigating the physical world, consisting of blue flowers and coins: so scientific tools should be used. People who are investigating other realms have incence and crystals, fasting and meditation at their disposal.<br /><br />The craziness starts when you try to ask science questions in the language of mysticism, and mystical questions in the language of science.

 

[spacechump]

Bobvanx,<br /><br />I do see where you are coming from on that issue and I'm totally with you on it. But science deals with mysteries in a rational manner..assumptions can change and therefore theories change due to new evidence. But ES is neither dealing with the subject as fact science-based or mystic. He has made up his mind and will not accept a new answer even if Spirit ground into the rock itself.

 

[extrasense]

This bumbling about science is laughable.<br />I am a scientist, real scientist. <br />What you advocate is pseudoscience, a tyranny of pompous ignorance.<br />Real science needs to generate variety of opinions, and to discuss them, in order to advance the search for truth.<br />Fools think that they own the truth. <br />You are the enemies of science, the enemies pretending to be its friends.<br /><br />ES<br /><br /><br />

 

[spacechump]

<i>Real science needs to generate variety of opinions</i><br /><br /><br />that statement alone proves you're not a real scientist nor will you ever be one. Science is not about opinion. It's about testing a hypothesis based on empirical data. All you are doing is guessing; and bad guessing at that. You're willing to throw away everything we have learned about Mars already to push your civilization hypothesis that is based around blurry overprocessed images of <i>rocks</i> when everything we've gotten from every probe we have ever sent there shows Mars to be a harsh, dead planet that may have <i>once</i> harbored life way in the past. And even those who say that take their own words with a grain of salt. You on the other hand are serious.<br /><br />The enemies of science are those that twist the concept of what science is for their own liking extra and that is exactly what you do.

 

[bobvanx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Fools think that they own the truth.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Ummm... as in, this fuzzy, artifact-ridden, over-enlarged picture from Mars shows an object that looks like a flower and so it absolutely positively must be a flower?<br /><br />Or is it closer to the following?<br /><br />Anyone who cannot agree that my perception is the complete truth of the matter is pompous, and ignorant. Keep your facts to yourselves, especially if they point out that the environment is completely hostile to life, or if they point out results from other sets of sensors (because it's only the imaging camera that is performing flawlessly).<br /><br />Or is it this?<br /><br />Please, please, you baffoons and baboon butts, join me in letting your eyes do your thinking for you, and let optical illusion tell you the truth! And if you don't, I'll post pictures of other rocks and micropgraphs of concretions and keep assaulting your intelligence until you finally cave in and admit that I and I alone am master of truth!<br /><br />Well?<br /><br />Or is hard, objective truth arrived at by using all the information available? And gathering more, if a single observation isn't enough?

 

[dub_]

A crazy nutcase leopard.

 

[bobvanx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>There is no such entity. If you believe it exists, then give us a physical, measurable observation of it<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Ah! See, you misunderestipresent me. It exists when you use mystic tols to investigate it, but specifically does not exist when you use the tools of physical measurement.<br /><br />However<br /><br />It can, and does, create real, measurable effects. For example, two people can be exposed to the same, unhealthy environment, and the one with a positive mental and emotional state will not become ill, while the other with a fearful, negative mental/emotional state will succumb.<br /><br />I've been well and more well, as I practice the power of positive thought. The Wests' use of antibitoics, as an example, is creating super-bugs, and soon the drug treatments will be either ineffective or super-expensive. So while I and my superior immune system continue to get stronger, people who rely on western, invasive medicine will become less and less well.<br /><br />Just a prediction. You and I will live long enough to see it proven, or not.

 

[extrasense]

I am sure that the notion that there is no life on Mars, while you are presented with pictures of Martian frowers and coin, is installed in your mind by the mysticism.<br />

 

[bobvanx]

I'm sorry, I missed the intent of your post.<br /><br />What're you sayin'?

 

[extrasense]

-- due to the low temperature, radiation, aridity, and near-vacuum conditions on the surface of Mars, nothing BUT rocks could exist --<br /><br />The arrogance of half-knowers does not have limits.<br />You claim to know, under what conditions life is impossible. <br /><br /><br />

 

[extrasense]

My point is that your rejection of the obvious is irrational.<br />

 

[dub_]

extrasense, do you agree that you are infallible?

 

[spacechump]

<i>You claim to know, under what conditions life is impossible.</i><br /><br />Give us the evidence (not blurry rock images) that you think you know what conditions <i>are</i> possible for life on Mars that made you come to the conclusion you so dearly grasp.

 

[extrasense]

Here is the importent proof:<br /><br />If flower rock where flat, it could have had all over it the same brightness, which it actually has on the edges.<br /><br />Changing of the shape does not change total amount of light scattered.<br /><br />Which means that average brightness will stay the same if you modify shape of the rock from flat to whatever you suggest it is for this flower rock.<br /><br />Since there is a darker than edges area of a rock, there should be a brighter than edges area, to keep average the same.<br /><br />BUT THERE IS NO AREA, WHICH IS BRIGHTER THAN EDGES, ON THIS FLOWER-ROCK!<br /><br />Which apparently proves that it is impossible to have a rock with the brightness distributed the way it is actually distributed for our object.<br /><br />Which proves that it is not a rock.<br /><br />ES<br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[thechemist]

Which proves reading this thread is a complete waste of time <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />BTW, I would not recommend offering such flower-rocks instead of the usual flowers. There is the real danger of having them returned with force on one's head <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>

 

[bobvanx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>My point is that your rejection of the obvious is irrational.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Oh. How you got that from my post about something entirely different and even mildly supportive I do not comprehend. Anyway... Perhaps you would like me to clarify that I DO accept the obvious?<br /><br />It is obvious to me that you are unwilling (so far) to incorporate any data except morphology into your analysis, and therefore your arguments are incomplete.<br /><br /><i>morphology=raw description of the shape of a thing. When used in ignorance of chemistry, physiology, spectroscopy and thermodynamics, can result in erroneous conclusions.</i>

 

[extrasense]

-- It is obvious to me that you are unwilling (so far) to incorporate any data except morphology into your analysis, and therefore your arguments are incomplete. --<br /><br />I agree, but plead not guilty since pictures are the only direct data available <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />ES<br /><br />

 

[spacechump]

<i>Since there is a darker than edges area of a rock, there should be a brighter than edges area, to keep average the same. </i><br /><br />How do you figure extra? Ok lets think about it. The plain that Spirit was traveling through was an ejecta field. Fractured and melted rock was thrown from the forming crater. This rock appears to have a glob of rock that is the "anomaly" we see on the left side. If you look at the shadow that makes itself and the compare that to the way the sun is shining on the rock itself you can see the fact that part of that glob is sticking out of an indentation. The shadow you see is probably behind the lip of the indentation. It's like digging a shallow area in an orange and sticking a grape in there with a toothpick. If you shine the light on it right the grape will be illuminated but the indentation will be in shadow.

 

[extrasense]

-- I claim to know under what conditions life is unlikely --<br /> The unlikely things still happen, and the observation is the way to see wheather they do or they don't.<br />

 

[extrasense]

-- How do you figure extra?... --<br /><br />Anyone can make a clay model of the way he thinks the rock is shaped and lit. I pay $100 to the person, who would be the first to post stereo pair of such model, that would be essentially similar in lighting/shadows, to what we observe for the Flower rock.<br /><br />I think it is impossibility, so good luck <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />ES<br /><br />

 

[extrasense]

-- you can't determine "that" merely by looking at these pictures. You're jumping to conclusions, and very unlikely conclusions --<br /><br />Two points. <br />(1)With the Flowers picture, I believe that I've mathematical proof that a rock can not produce the light scattering and shadows that are being observed.<br /><br />(2)I have hundreds of pictures, pretty consistent with presence ot the life and civilization on Mars, and barely consistent with absence of the life and civilization there.<br /><br />You can claim one strange rock after another, but at some point it becomes ridiculous.<br /><br />ES<br /><br />