Advanced mathematics encrypted in Stone-Age and ancient 'artwork'

[Jiri]

Jiri, ReligionStudent has a valid point. It is valid on at least two counts.

The first is basic scientific process. You have a hypothesis: Mathematical insight and knowledge of an ancient culture can be deduced from the artwork of the culture. (Please, correct that if you feel it misrepresents your hypothesis.)

Why the qualifier "ancient"? You would not gain much mathematical knowledge even from today's artwork. Artists do not write poetry about mathematics, graphic artists and sculptors do not in general create etudes on specific subjects from mathematics. Some 'insight', sure, portrayals of technology, and such speak for themselves. You can see and study the artistic technique and learn about the artist.
Just be careful what you ask for: When experts first saw the Altamira paintings, and the La Marche engravings, they saw advanced academic techniques in them, and promptly declared the artworks to have had been forged by academic artists. Your comments on these embarassing moments, and their relation to your hypothesis should be interesting.

Some modern artists like Leonardo, Durer, Picassso, Kubista, and Escher did use their mathematical knowledge in art, but it was for the purpose of enhancing the art. The self-serving art was never meant as primarily encoded mathematics, which when decoded will expose its spectator to a discussion of mathematics. 'Your' hypothesis is much too general, and quickly leads into problems.

Rather than a hypothesis, I have a postulate. You can reverse the above relation between art and mathematics. Art becomes a medium for the purposes of encoding mathematical ideas , in such a way that these ideas can be reproduced from the art.
A professor of mathematics can draw free-hand diagrams of mathematical ideas, which then may be recognized as such, or may not due to their imprecision, and sloppiness. The same professor could use precision tools, however, such as CAD, to mark strategic points, arcs, and lines of an exact system, and thus create a short-hand method of noting exact order to be worked into what looks like art, but is something more.
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The next step would be experimentation. The most obvious experiments would evaluate artwork of known-mathematical cultures and of known-non-mathematical cultures. You seem to be assuming your hypothesis correct without the pesky work in the middle to validate your hypothesis.

You'd love to drown me in work, wouldn't you? When I show you an example of Egyptians using the Golden Section construction in the production of some glyphics at Abydos, do you acknowledge that my analysis is compelling? Nah, you just deny it. How about admiring the undeniable geometrical work in the Nazca monkey glyph? Nah, you deny that too. Plus, you denied all the meaning packed into the "Frame". Remember the Frame, which would serve as strong supporting evidence for the work of Santillana and Dechend with its emphasis on certain numbers?

The second is algorithmic ambiguity. Your algorithm for adding lines isn't. (Isn't an algorithm, that is.) The experimenter has too much latitude deciding where lines may be drawn and which lines are to be included. In short, it is an artistic rather than a mechanical process..

Are you discouraged because an engraved line can produce, or force as we say, more than one line? This ought not to be a problem, especially if each line has its own purpose. Remember, the number of lines forced by an engraved line is limited. Many lines as a whole force just a single interpretation.
In the case of the torso of the young woman in the Athena engraving, and the lines within it, it was fairly easy for me to find implications of deliberate order. Of course, my angle measurements could not be precise, since I was using primitive tools (a protractor, and a ruler), and yet, lo and behold, an idea had shone through quite clearly. If enough ideas are tied together, the overall effect is that the design becomes in effect self-correcting for minor imprecisions.
I said that the case of La Marche engravings would be ideal for computer exploration. That is, a deciphernment program should make sense out of what might seem like utter chaos to you and me. Or, it could assist a researcher with sorting all the data.
On the other hand, cases like the Abydos Helicopter, and Nazca monkey are clear-cut geometrically, and there is very little ambiguity to speak of. Since you gave up on those anyhow, it is obvious that you are mostly interested in denial, in sweeping these phenomena under the rug.

 

[Jiri]

I've got a couple good quotes to bring up:

Quote:
An important constraint on middle-range theories is independence. They should be justified on independent grounds, by appeal to evidence other than the evidence to which they give meaning in credibility

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Does Prof. Kosso wish to say that mathematical evidence is not complete per se? Probably not. If he'd like to see independent confirmation, I can offer the geometry of the Nazca monkey glyph. Another independent example of coding similar geometry into glyphs is the so called Abydos Helicopter.

This is the antitheses of Jiri's work. The proof that the ancient people had the knowledge he posits is the presence of the special numeric meanings in the piece. But the special numeric meanings are only there if they knew about them, otherwise it is chance. You have to prove that it could not be chance, or that they knew about these numbers, as represented in another source.

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You cannot get rid of the image's meaning, because that meaning actually adds up to thought. What I have learned from it someone else could learn as well. Thought like that, or a highly complex, and fully coordinated system does not materialize out of a vacuum. Ever!
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Another quote:

The relative weight of a claim is not based on a sociological entrenchment. It is not about how many people endorse the claim, or how long the claim has been believed. Rather, it is an epistemic entrenchment. It is about how many other ideas and observations in our network are linked to this one. How many things does this theory explain? How many things contribute to explaining this theory...
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Basically in presenting a new theory, it has to not only replace another idea, but make up for the fact that existing ideas exist in a web of evidence and other theories. To propose that ancient people hid math in these carvings, you have to explain how they had this, explain the fact that record keeping is only associated with complex societies, explain away the evidence for precision tools that you claim necessary but do not exist, and countless other things. You end up introducing ideas with no evidence, and making an entirely new web out of one single piece. This new web is unsupportable and ends up with holes. For instance, how come they apparently measured in millimeters.

(both quotes from Peter Kosso Prof. of Phil. at Northern Arizona University. In Archaeological Fantasies ed. Garrett G. Fagan. )

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The above requirements are for a paradigm shift. All I did is find some extremely important evidence going against the accepted theory. The paradigm shift could possibly come later as the result of testing this evidence. I am happy with what I did, but I can see a lot of people wanting this evidence to go away by pointing at dearth of similar evidence. The alleged absence of other evidence certainly does not make absent the evidence I had found. Infact, however, it does go away in the sense that it will be denied due attention. When next someone else happens to come up with similar evidence, everyone will pretend that it is wholly unsupported, although that evidence and my evidence support each other.
Science has two ways to go. One way is to observe facts and collect all important data. Pay attention to anomalies. There is plenty of evidence out there for advanced ancient technology in action in various places of this planet. The other way is a fear-reaction - try to suppress inconvenient facts, and that's what you are doing.

 

[Jiri]

Too much granite to handle

This is a photo of the remaining outer casing of Chefren's pyramid. It is limestone, not granite. Granite was much more difficult for the Egyptians to work with their copper tools than limestone was. Because of granite's strength it was used to line interior chambers but it was impractical to cover the whole exterior of a pyramid with it.

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Here what Nova's web-page says:

Quote:
Limestone was used for all but the lowest course of outer casing on Khafre and the lower 16 courses of Menkaure. These lower casings were made of granite.
There is good evidence that Khafre's bottom course of granite casing was being stripped as early as ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty, and as early as the 12th century A.D., limestone was quarried from the Giza Pyramids for the construction of buildings in Cairo.
The lower courses of Khafre pyramid are allegedly constructed of giant granite blocks weighing up to a hundred metric tons. Wow, that would mean thousands of such granite blocks!
Perhaps, these granite courses making up a grandiose platform had been there thousands of years before Old Kingdom.

Hey, how come no ne had commented on this? Too hot to handle?

 

[andyandy]

maybe for the benefit of people who havn't been following the thread this is taken from you could condense your argument/main point into a short single post?

 

[calebprime]

Some modern artists like Leonardo, Durer, Picassso, Kubista, and Escher did use their mathematical knowledge in art, but it was for the purpose of enhancing the art. The self-serving art was never meant as primarily encoded mathematics.

my bold.

Not to sidetrack you, but by being self-serving, artists serve others--as in the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith. Art produced in the service of worthy causes--like, say socialist realism--is usually well-intentioned (or cynical) dreck.

second what andyandy said.

show the big picture, with pictures. I care not so much about your precision, more about how these pictures "force" approximately the geometric designs you see in them.

 

[ReligionStudent]

**********************************************

Does Prof. Kosso wish to say that mathematical evidence is not complete per se? Probably not. If he'd like to see independent confirmation, I can offer the geometry of the Nazca monkey glyph. Another independent example of coding similar geometry into glyphs is the so called Abydos Helicopter.

I would like to point out that I have already addressed your reply to this post, but I will do so again. Even with the Nazca monkey, you have not proved anything. You are using these pieces to show that ancient people knew certain mathamatical ideas.
To do so, you need to show the pieces have these numbers in them.
But that could just be chance
The only way to show it is not chance is to show that the people knew these numbers.
that is circular and false reasoning.

Additionally, there is no reason at all, and no validity at all, in comparing any Nazca gliff to these other things you have mentioned. You cannot in any way provide a context between them. The Nazca monkey will never be any form of support or proof or whatever for somthing from stone age France.

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You cannot get rid of the image's meaning, because that meaning actually adds up to thought. What I have learned from it someone else could learn as well. Thought like that, or a highly complex, and fully coordinated system does not materialize out of a vacuum. Ever!
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You still have yet to show it has meaning, and that it is not chance. Additionally, you have yet to show that the sone age people you are concerned with had the highly precision tools you have stated necessary to give the stones more meaning than chance.

Since you cannot provide these tools, it must be chance

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The above requirements are for a paradigm shift. All I did is find some extremely important evidence going against the accepted theory. The paradigm shift could possibly come later as the result of testing this evidence. I am happy with what I did, but I can see a lot of people wanting this evidence to go away by pointing at dearth of similar evidence. The alleged absence of other evidence certainly does not make absent the evidence I had found. Infact, however, it does go away in the sense that it will be denied due attention. When next someone else happens to come up with similar evidence, everyone will pretend that it is wholly unsupported, although that evidence and my evidence support each other.
Science has two ways to go. One way is to observe facts and collect all important data. Pay attention to anomalies. There is plenty of evidence out there for advanced ancient technology in action in various places of this planet. The other way is a fear-reaction - try to suppress inconvenient facts, and that's what you are doing.

No, it is not the requirement for a paradigm shift. It is part of what supports a theory. For a theory to be supported it has to fit within a specific system of other theories.

Saying that the stone age people made a picture with no special meaning fits well within all existing theories, and is supported by its place in the web.

Your theory fits with nothing, requires that the web be completely ignored, and creates holes all throughout.

For your theory to be true, the web finds holes in the existance of fictional tools you believe existed, the knowledge of ancient people to mathmatics, the links between cultures you keep proposing, and many other places.

You have to take care of these things to support your theory, not draw pictures.

 

[Ladewig]

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Here what Nova's web-page says:

When quoting material it is useful to give the actual webs address and to clearly indicate where the quoted material begins and ends.

From the Nova website

Limestone was used for all but the lowest course of outer casing on Khafre and the lower 16 courses of Menkaure. These lower casings were made of granite.
There is good evidence that Khafre's bottom course of granite casing was being stripped as early as ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty, and as early as the 12th century A.D., limestone was quarried from the Giza Pyramids for the construction of buildings in Cairo.

and

The lower courses of Khafre pyramid are allegedly constructed of giant granite blocks weighing up to a hundred metric tons. Wow, that would mean thousands of such granite blocks!
Perhaps, these granite courses making up a grandiose platform had been there thousands of years before Old Kingdom.

Your post made it appear that Nova was speculating about the age of the platform.

. . . . . . . .
ETA: By putting the word "quote'" inside brackets [] you can begin the quoted material and by putting "/quote" in brackets, you can end the quote.

 

[Ladewig]

. There is plenty of evidence out there for advanced ancient technology in action in various places of this planet.

Would you provide some citations to show this evidence?

 

[Dr Adequate]

This thread appears to have started halfway through.

What the heck are you talking about?

 

[CurtC]

When I click on a new thread, and there are about four screens' worth of posts from the same person right up front, quoting someone else from some unspecified other thread, I tend to read the first sentence and the last sentence, looking to see whether this is an interesting topic worth my time.

In this case, I wasn't able to quickly figure out what you're on about. Seems like some kind of a flame war carried over from another thread or something, so I'm moving on...

 

[Cuddles]

I think I might be able to see the problem here. A->B does not mean B->A. If mathematical principles can be seen in pretty things it does not mean that mathematical principles were required to make the pretty things. Does a flower have to understand Fibonnachi to grow the right number of petals? No. So why do humans have to understand maths in order to draw pictures? You don't need to know what pi is or how to calculate it in order to draw a circle. Why should it be different for any other picture or mathematical concept?

As far as I can tell Jiri's argument is that some pictures can be analysed using maths, therefore ancient civilisations had really advanced technology. Are you familiar with the old robotic saying "Does not compute!"?

 

[ReligionStudent]

I think I might be able to see the problem here. A->B does not mean B->A. If mathematical principles can be seen in pretty things it does not mean that mathematical principles were required to make the pretty things. Does a flower have to understand Fibonnachi to grow the right number of petals? No. So why do humans have to understand maths in order to draw pictures? You don't need to know what pi is or how to calculate it in order to draw a circle. Why should it be different for any other picture or mathematical concept?

As far as I can tell Jiri's argument is that some pictures can be analysed using maths, therefore ancient civilisations had really advanced technology. Are you familiar with the old robotic saying "Does not compute!"?

Its not that it can be analyzed mathamatically, its that when you measure it, the millimeter measurements can be arranged to be similar to important mathamatical constants. For example, if you had a rectangular box and one side was 3 meters and the other side was 1 meter, that would be like having 3.1 so obviously the box was based on PI.

He also draws lots of colorful lines that apparently have no real meaning at all.

 

[Big Les]

I think I might be able to see the problem here. A->B does not mean B->A. If mathematical principles can be seen in pretty things it does not mean that mathematical principles were required to make the pretty things. Does a flower have to understand Fibonnachi to grow the right number of petals? No. So why do humans have to understand maths in order to draw pictures? You don't need to know what pi is or how to calculate it in order to draw a circle. Why should it be different for any other picture or mathematical concept?

As far as I can tell Jiri's argument is that some pictures can be analysed using maths, therefore ancient civilisations had really advanced technology. Are you familiar with the old robotic saying "Does not compute!"?

Not to thread hijack (more tout for knowledge really), but this also appears to be the case with the Rosslyn Chapel carvings that have been claimed to match Chladni vibration patterns which in turn correspond with musical notes. I have a thread here for any physics, maths or music types to peruse.

Both claims seem to credit (based upon observation) the "ancients" with technology and knowledge that, as far as all other evidence goes, they just didn't have.

 

[Belz...]

Isn't this just a continuation of your the thread, Jiri ??

Oh, that's right, I'm on ignore for asking for proof! How silly of me.

 

[EHocking]

...A professor of mathematics can draw free-hand diagrams of mathematical ideas, which then may be recognized as such, or may not due to their imprecision, and sloppiness. The same professor could use precision tools, however, such as CAD, to mark strategic points, arcs, and lines of an exact system, and thus create a short-hand method of noting exact order to be worked into what looks like art, but is something more. ..

Since you recognise this, why don't you apply this to your attempts at analysing the Nazca figures?

This is a post from me from a thread you have apparently abandoned:

In order to make your case more "bullet proof", you need to decide whether your theory is to use line-of-best-fit, or derive your lines from end-point or junction-point of the original.

At the moment your lines are purely arbitrary and indicate no scientific methodology in selection or placement. For instance - the yellow line parallel to line 'b' passes through no end-points or junctions. You need to be able to justify you line-of-best-fit approach mathematically, else, the lines ARE merely artistic.

You'd be best to digitise the end-points, junctions and point on arcs of the original.

At least then you can apply scientific methodology to support your line selection - simple regression formulae would be one, for instance that would give you an idea of correlation accuracy and greatly aid your argument.

 

[JonnyFive]

Don't forget to ask him about Atlantis.

 

[jimbob]

This thread appears to have started halfway through.

What the heck are you talking about?

I hope this will help you Dr Adequate:

Jiri joined on a DJJ thread, with similar ideas, and that is all anyone needs to know.

I have just realised that I have made 390 psots on this forum, which is almost exactly 432 especially when measured with a CAD package

Spooky; who can argue against an intelligent designer with non-sequiters observations like these.

Jim

 

[Jiri]

my bold.

Not to sidetrack you, but by being self-serving, artists serve others--as in the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith. Art produced in the service of worthy causes--like, say socialist realism--is usually well-intentioned (or cynical) dreck.

Very tempting, socialist realism, utopia, which existed only on paper as opposed to the oppresssive reality, all totally needless pure evil emanating from diabolical personalities like Stalin, or Trotzky, their pathological hatred of the idea of God, the tens of millions of wasted lives, millions of needlessly captured and killed Red Army soldiers - very bad..

second what andyandy said.

show the big picture, with pictures. I care not so much about your precision, more about how these pictures "force" approximately the geometric designs you see in them.

Then clad yourself in patience, we were focused on analysis of lines in the center of the image - and within the lens-like torso of the girl.

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Critics maintain that the lines a,b,c,d, are random, and do not characterize the engraved lines at all. Yet, these are the lines I had chosen from the very beginning to make, in order to extrapolate straight lines from the torso, so there must have been something I saw in them, and it must have been something more exacting than artistic license. Of course, it just so happened those lines had then created a systematic result together with the pre-existent axial pair x,y. This mini-system then works itself right into the rest of the system already on hand at that time.
Testing the extrapolated lines
The lines you see in these gifs are derived directly from the basic system (the Square). They are test lines for the exactitude of the system since the lines I drew originally were by their nature imprecise due to my usage of manual drafting. We want to see, how exactly the test lines, the geometrical idea, adhere to the picture by our standards of judgement.
We are also discussing the general rules behind extrapolating lines, how certain lines can be considered forced, etc.
For instance, some lines, like 'b', are quite unambiguous as to their general direction. Here is 'b' in good detail. Start the extrapolated line as a tangent to the engraved line at either bottom left or right, and run it in the general direction of the engraved line.


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Line 'b' from the bottom left -starts as a tangent, and continues to run with the left edge of the eng. line, staying near the edge, touching it as a tangent once more above the center of the engraved X. By our rules, this is a forced line (by the image).
It is however just a reflection of the system line 'b', which starts as a tangent at the bottom right edge of the eng. line 'b'. Up to the center of the X, the engraved line moves to the left slightly right away, and then runs parallel, with the humps in the line coming very close to 'b'.
Once above the center of the X, the system line 'b' stays entirely within the engraved line, or runs with the edge, becoming a tangent to it once.
Thus, the system line 'b' keeps the engraved line to the inside below the X junctioin, and it keeps the engraved line to the outside above the X junction. All in all, the system seems to be finding accurate relations to the engraved line.
We also test the engraved line by moving 'b' (magenta color) to its extreme right, at the top. Then it is a tangent twice, which qualifies it as a forced line, as well.
pyrab5ln.gif

We try moving 'b' to the extreme left (magenta). This time it runs with the engraved line very nicely, parallel to the edges, which become a tangent in a number of places at this high magnification far below the limits of unaided eye. There is a single bump, which protrudes. Overall, line 'b' passes the test on both extreme sides of the engraved line. (However, we could have drawn another line, as a tangent to the Humpty-Bumpty bump, which sits on the wall here , but that line would obviously miss, its purpose remaining unclear.)
Finally, we test the line 'b' by moving it to the center, as a tangent to leftmost edges on the right of the engraved line. It then runs higher up with the rightmost edges on the left of the engraved line (sorry, if this sounds complicated). This is the green line. Again a nice result in the test. All five test lines can be considered to belong to the forced category, and they all hold the angle of 36 degrees with the y-axis. I encourage everyone to open the gif in Photoshop, or so, and study the position in detail. The same position in greater detail is available upon request, here, as well.

We can also see most of the system line 'a' in this gif. It actually misses being a tangent to the engraved line at the top by about 150 microns (very hard to see at lifesize, and so our critics never saw it). This is a small fault, no doubt. How about the parallel line, which really is a tangent to the engraved line here? It is a forced line - a tangent at the top, and a tangent at the bottom - check out the detail, where we see the two lines start from the bottom of engraved 'a' as tangents on the inside.
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The line on the right is faultless by our rules, a tangent on both sides. It is one of the four possible forced tangent lines in this context - a tangent from the bottom right of engraved 'a' to its top left. It forces a highly accurate angle line, but this line is about 150 microns too far. It is not too far though to simulate the same idea, because even at two times lefesize one can hardly see any difference.
Since the extrapolated 'b' is already highly accurate, the line 'a' needs to hold only a rough 36 degree angle with the y-axis, and the idea will show through just the same.
BTW, the line as a tangent from the lower left to the top right of engraved 'a' gave me a very exact 52.0098 degrees.
Comments?

 

[Jiri]

I hope this will help you Dr Adequate:

Jiri joined on a DJJ thread, with similar ideas, and that is all anyone needs to know.

You just forged a big lie, jimbob, shame on you. Your ideas strike me as more similar to DJJ's than mine. That goes for almost everyone else so far on these boards I came across so far, what with their baggage of fixed immutable ideas about a very mutable scientific issue.
Pathetic.

I have just realised that I have made 390 psots on this forum, which is almost exactly 432 especially when measured with a CAD package

Spooky; who can argue against an intelligent designer with non-sequiters observations like these.

Jim

Yes, pathetically amazing! Welcome to my list of the Ignorables!

 

[Jiri]

Don't forget to ask him about Atlantis.

Plato and Atlantis is a very nice subject. After all, Plato speaks to us about the Americas, does he not?