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John Michell lecture
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Rhiannon
5290 posts

Edited May 05, 2016, 09:24
Re: John Michell lecture
May 05, 2016, 09:21
Ah! that's it isn't it - 'a category mistake'. If Michell's insights are along the lines of "I know an airship landed at a temple in London in prehistory", if that's come about through Revelation (and digging finds no airship, or you get cross if I suggest we ought to dig for an airship) - then to be intellectually honest about that insight, one should put it in the "imaginative interpretive and possibly inspiring to others' creativity" category. Which doesn't actually denigrate it or the person who came up with it. It just acknowledges what sort of thing it is. Maybe no-one's even suggesting it's supposed to be true in the sense that 'today is thursday'. (Or are they? That's why I want to hear from Cerrig)

Then there's the other type of thing, the 'this stone lines up with that one', which is demonstrably true or untrue. So should be put in a different, more scientific category. And obviously, you're requiring proof that if he says X is Y degrees from Z, that that's correct. But, you're claiming that actually Michell didn't measure these things properly in the first place. So what happened there? Did he mismeasure? Did he just make it up to fit his theory that this stone and that one lined up because of earth energies or somesuch? If he mismeasured, then his theory is just plain wrong. If he deliberately fixed the results to make his theory look right, then that doesn't look particularly good either.

So I'm intrigued to hear Cerrig's response to this. Are the measurements in fact correct (and so Michell's theories are supported)? Or does it not matter if the measurements are wrong and don't prove anything because the whole thing isn't supposed to be scientifically true, it's more about being "Visionary"?

Go on, I'm genuinely intrigued.
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