Mach Effect progress

[CaptainBeowulf]

I believe there was some claim about a decade ago that something that *could* resemble the foundations of a city was found off the southwest coast of Spain, but it was never confirmed. Probably just a natural seabed formation.

Anyway, we are dealing with ancient myths after all. As I said, the Atlantis part could be made up or conflated from another (now lost) myth. Plato also seems fairly explicit that he is coming up with these examples primarily to prove philosophical points, rather than as a historian. That's led some people to argue that he made the whole thing up entirely.

Despite his explicitness, it's still entirely possible that he transposed an ancient lost city further south than its actual location. After all, even if it was in the Bay of Biscay, you would still get to it from Greece by going through Gibraltar. And the Bay of Biscay is closer to Gibraltar than Greece is...

Or, if it didn't contain many stone structures, it could have rotted away entirely. The few stone structures that existed could easily have toppled over, their rubble strewn around by ocean currents, and then been covered by seabed (oceanbed) silt.

[happyjack27]

if the lost city existed, and esp. if it's underwater, i'd imagine a u.s. spy satellite would have found it some time ago. i'm sure they have very precise maps of every inch of the ocean floor. for submarine navigation, if nothing else.

[djolds1]

I take a bit of a vitalist approach as well. Civilizations have life cycles, they age, and eventually they run out of motivating ideas and ideals. The West and its intellectual traditions are in their middle age right now; not senescent, but no longer explosively creative either.

Its possible that we can literally run out of things to invent. Once we have fully developed biotech, nanotech, and the physics breakthroughs (all of this by the end of the century), what else is there left on the plate?

Lysenkoism.

Which we have been indulging in for decades.

The corruption of Liberal Arts scholarship with "fads of the year and generation" has been obvious for most of the last hundred years (can't say century any more - annoying ).

"Postmodern" philosophy crossed into hard science c. 1975. String/Brane/M "Theory" is darn close to nothing but metaphysics, Warmingism IS Feelgooderism and nothing but, the recent unjustified pursuit of press releases at NASA over non-existent "Arsenicophiles," the late Stephen Jay Gould's approach to evolution, etc.

IOW, what's left? Nothing. Even biotech and nanotech are more engineering than pure science at this point. The quest for a GUT is the quest to say "we are done with our process of fundamental discovery." The Liberal Arts have largely discredited scholarship in general, and Warmingism is finally starting to transfer that discrediting over to the hard sciences. Instead of the sciences being looked to and trusted, they will be derided, laughed at, and defunded. Engineering will remain, but pure science will go back to being the odd puttering old man/Merlin/Da Vinci attached to the court of a Big Man.

We will go into a long term intellectual freeze on the model of Aristotelianism. If lucky, the static period collapses ala Rome and we get the chance at a new intellectual flowering based on new metaphysical inspirations. If unlucky, the static period endures ala Imperial Egypt and China, and we're locked into the intellectual freeze for millennia.

Me, I'm just hoping a last few boyhood dreams of mine percolate out and are proven before scholarship in general is relegated to the realm of the cosmic jokes.

On the up side, we will no longer have to endure psychobabble BS in court cases, because the psyc phDs will be laughingstocks. On the down side, all those soft graduate level degrees everyone invested beaucoup dinero in to boost their pay scales and justify supervisory level jobs will cease to matter.

[djolds1]

Always fascinating and instructive to see how theories grapple with the Atlantis story. Trouble is, Plato was pretty specific that it was West of and close by Gibralter, which puts it by Madeira, Portugal. The detail in that part of the story is so specific, I would trust it before details about how old, etc.

Pretty sure no one has ever found anything passing for Atlantis off Madeira. . .

Of course not.

Access to the Hollow Earth is far too hit or miss for reliable results.

if the lost city existed, and esp. if it's underwater, i'd imagine a u.s. spy satellite would have found it some time ago. i'm sure they have very precise maps of every inch of the ocean floor. for submarine navigation, if nothing else.

1) Thera

2) Submerged shores of the Black Sea nee Pontian Lake.

[icarus]

Maybe there's an ancient Stargate using ME effect wormholes buried in all those myths.

There, I said it first, just to keep things tangentially topical.

[happyjack27]

if the lost city existed, and esp. if it's underwater, i'd imagine a u.s. spy satellite would have found it some time ago. i'm sure they have very precise maps of every inch of the ocean floor. for submarine navigation, if nothing else.

1) Thera

2) Submerged shores of the Black Sea nee Pontian Lake.

eek... i see. geological conditions that probably aren't very conducive to subsurface radar of any sort. (or long term preservation, for that matter.)

[djolds1]

if the lost city existed, and esp. if it's underwater, i'd imagine a u.s. spy satellite would have found it some time ago. i'm sure they have very precise maps of every inch of the ocean floor. for submarine navigation, if nothing else.

1) Thera

2) Submerged shores of the Black Sea nee Pontian Lake.

eek... i see. geological conditions that probably aren't very conducive to subsurface radar of any sort. (or long term preservation, for that matter.)

Hell, look how long it took to find the Japanese minisub the USS Ward sank minutes before the Pearl Harbor attack kicked off. Now do that to the entire Black Sea shoreline of 5600BC, which is 100m underwater.

[GIThruster]

I hope I'm not being taken as a scoffer. IIRC, 14,000 years ago during the last mini-ice age, the sea levels were 400' lower than they are today. Any substantial building at that time would likely have been built along the shoreline, now be under water, and only stone construction would still exist for us to find. It would certainly not be easy to find, even with modern sat tech.

NASA is constantly finding old stuff in Central American by sat. They keep a lid on and work with local governments so the finds won't be pillaged, but certainly there is a LOT left on planet Earth for us to discover about our past.

Quite the drama. . .

Scoffers beware. There was no end to tiny minds who scoffed at Troy, and what did we find? Does anyone here think those tiny minds who scoffed, later gave an apology commensurate to their folly? I don't.

[djolds1]

I hope I'm not being taken as a scoffer. IIRC, 14,000 years ago during the last mini-ice age, the sea levels were 400' lower than they are today. Any substantial building at that time would likely have been built along the shoreline, now be under water, and only stone construction would still exist for us to find. It would certainly not be easy to find, even with modern sat tech.

Easier than it was until, oh, 1990 or so.

Extinct river channels and roads show up nicely on satellite, even if not easy to see from the ground or even the air. The old shoreline of the Black Sea (before the inundation of 5600BC) shows up nicely, as do the old extensions of river channels to that extinct shore's edge. Likewise, the site of the semi-mythical city of Ubar in the Arabian desert was located a few years back thanks to satellite data.

NASA is constantly finding old stuff in Central American by sat. They keep a lid on and work with local governments so the finds won't be pillaged, but certainly there is a LOT left on planet Earth for us to discover about our past.

Quite the drama. . .

Yup.

Scoffers beware. There was no end to tiny minds who scoffed at Troy, and what did we find? Does anyone here think those tiny minds who scoffed, later gave an apology commensurate to their folly? I don't.

I will continue to scoff at the Hollow Earth. Fun idea to laugh about however...

[GIThruster]

Well, I don't know a thing about "Hollow Earth". If someone wants to propose, I'll take a gander but, not expecting too much.

Is "Hollow Earth" just hyperbole, presenting itself against real theories about our past?

I don't have much sympathy for scoffers who think they're clever, based upon their own self-percieved safety from granted them by codgy skepticism.

Ignorance couched in skepticism needs to take a long walk off a short peer.

[icarus]

Some people should learn to spell before they are taught to think.

[djolds1]

Well, I don't know a thing about "Hollow Earth". If someone wants to propose, I'll take a gander but, not expecting too much.

Is "Hollow Earth" just hyperbole, presenting itself against real theories about our past?

Nope. Actual pseudoscience with a track record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth_Expedition
http://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Jones-Hol ... 684&sr=1-1
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Umbra

Some say the space Nazis who escaped to the Moon in their VRIL saucers from their Antarctic Neuschwabenland base c. 1946 will return for conquest in 2018.

http://www.ironsky.net/
http://www.eyepod.org/Nazi-Disc-Photos.html

Others are convinced they escaped to and conquered Agharta, and the saucers are actually coming out of the holes at the poles.

http://paranormal.about.com/od/hollowea ... 022206.htm
http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/ ... wearth.GIF

ROFLMAO.

Ignorance couched in skepticism needs to take a long walk off a short peer.

Pier. Though your spelling choice has interpretational advantages.

Some people should learn to spell before they are taught to think.

Don't be so grouchy. Misspellings have potential.

And yeah, we're badly off topic again, but man, learn to laugh.

[ladajo]

And all this fun because I brought up Ballard's unpublicized neolithic find in the Dardenelles.
As I read some of the above, it all does seem to fit.
Black Sea flood, folks relocate, DNA tracers, Farming Tech Tracers, Language Tracers, Culture Tracers, folk legend tracers...interesting stuff for sure.
What better way to spend some time while we wait to hear from Paul or Jim on this thread.

[ladajo]

Just in case anyone is curious,
this link mentions the circular structures that Ballard talked about.

http://nautiluslive.org/blog/2010/07/05 ... aster-dive

[krenshala]

Ignorance couched in skepticism needs to take a long walk off a short peer.

Personally, I don't have a problem with ignorance couched in skepticism.

Remember the difference between ignorant and stupid -- ignorant can learn ...