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Re: Dr. Frog Ph D. - The Real Meaning



kjetikj@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Kjernsmo) wrote:


>In article <shae_lm-0705951619120001@mg4_26.its.utas.edu.au>, shae_lm@postoffice.sandybay.utas.edu.au (shae mccrystal) writes:
>>    Our Dr. Frog (Ph.D.) had developed his own universal view and was so
>>    convinced of it that even when another frog hopped into the well from
>>    outside and described the Pacific Ocean our Dr. Frog could only conceive
>>    of it in terms of the dimensions of his well. (Is it twice the size of
>>    my well?, Five times the size of my well?) in this way he could never
>>    hope to comprehend the vastness of the pacific ocean.
>> 
>>    The story is not religious. The outside is not some mystical "Spiritual
>>    World". The idea is to illustrate the imperfect nature of information
>>    gathered through our senses and the resulting imperfect vision of the
>>    universe we construct.
>> 
>>    Our scientists are no better than Dr. Frog (Ph.D.). Their well may be
>>    bigger, but the principle is exactly the same. So to acquire real
>>    knowledge we have to find someone who is not in the well, or at least
>>    someone who has not become bewildered by the "scientists" in the well
>>    and who has heard the truth from a real authority (ie: someone outside
>>    the well)

>Which reminds me of the first measurings of parallax (don't know what it is?
>try sci.astro FAQ).

  I do know what parallax is but I can't see what it's got to do with our
  Dr. Frog. Its not very useful for him because his will is only three
  feet wide!  You can just imagine he hops over to one side of the well
  and takes his measurements and hops over to the other, works out the
  angles and he gets a figure for the distance of the stars. Who knows
  he might be able to come up with 1000 astronomical units?

>Copernicus and Tycho Brahe did independent experiments. Both found that
>if the earth is revolving the sun, the distances to the nearest stars had
>to be more than 1000 AU away. Tycho Brahe (Dr. Frog (Ph.D.)) concluded
>that distance was so large, the sun had to go around the earth!
>Copernicus thought that was quite allright. So Copernicus is todays
>modern scientist, I would claim!

  But we stopped talking about those things weeks ago. [at least it seems
  like weeks ago] We don't really care what shape the earth is or whether
  it goes around the sun or the sun goes around it. Dr. Frog is about
  something else altogether.

>So whats the difference between the situation the frogs are in, and the
>situation Copernicus and Tycho Brahe faced?
>Lets say there are absolutely no data supporting the claim that there
>is something on the outside,

  In our analogy Dr. Frog has very limited data on the outside world. He
  can see the blue sky sometimes, sometimes rain comes through the top of
  the well... So undoubtedly he knows there is something out there but
  there are things he can't understand, things he can never see, but he
  may sometimes get a hint. I used the example of a farmer cultivating
  the field with his tractor. Our Dr. Frog hears the noise but he really
  can't have any understanding of what's going on up there. He has no
  concept of a field or a tractor... But he has heard seen and heard a
  bee buzzing in his well so he comes to the conclusion the noise must
  be a big bee outside his well. Not a bad hypotheses though, considering
  the scanty data he has to work with!

>just the testimony from this single frog 'A'

  There were only two frogs actually. I have read about hundreds of frogs
  and all sorts of religious beliefs and so many things but there is just
  Dr. Frog and his friend who hops in from the outside. His friend has
  traveled extensively outside the well and he tries to explain the
  vastness of the Pacific Ocean to our Dr. Frog. But Dr. Frog tries to
  measure the pacific ocean in terms of hes three-foot well, "Is it twice
  as big as my well?"...

>(I'm back to the THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE - subject - frog).
>The geocentric modell was on Copernicus and Tycho Brahes time really not
>good. More and more Ad Hoc's were introduced to explain data. It simply
>had to stop. The geocentric modell stood for so long because of the church
>and because of the astrologers (guess what I think about astrologers! :-) )
>dogmatic views.

  This is completely irrelevant to Dr. Frog. His world is not flat nor a
  sphere, his world is a three foot wide column with some water at the
  bottom.

>This is a great difference.

  ?????

>Regards,

>Kjetil


Thank you. Hare Krishna!

Madhudvisa dasa       
(madhudvisa@krishna.org)     /sudarsana 
                                
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
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