cladking

There are numerous reasons this entire subject is irrelevant to human advancement. Discovery is contingent upon knowledge and the tools we possess to seek this knowledge. While language is paramount in all regards each new instrument to measure some aspect of nature gives us more data allowing more hypotheses. Each new theory provides insights into other aspects of nature. When a new invention comes along it usually appears in numerous places simultaneously as new theory, new material, new instruments, and new data arises. There is no theoretical limitation to human knowledge however my guess is that we'll find that some leaps will be highly elusive and we might not survive out own follies in the search. Understanding chaotic behavior, long time periods, and very small scale will not come easily. But if it does come it will have nothing to do with intelligence because there virtually is none. This isn't to say this lack of intelligence will necessarily persist, merely that this is the status quo and until machine intelligence arises it will remain so.

If intelligence were necessary to progress we'd still be living in caves. Language makes progress possible. It was language that made it possible for Newton to see from the shoulders of giants.

I've just started working on the determination of what cavemen knew and when they knew it. I already was able to deduce most of the metaphysics from a literal understanding of the sole piece of writing that survives in the ancient language, the Pyramid Texts. Now I've begun trying to decipher and deduce the science itself. The educated caveman would have known the nature of gravity, sizes of the earth and moon, orbits (probably non-mathematically), and might have had a wildly inaccurate idea of the speed of light. The typical caveman would maker fewer false statements about nature than the average college graduate. Of course they knew a great deal more than this as most of their knowledge concerned botany, zoology etc. I'm guessing at this point that the typical caveman was more intelligent as well. It is probable that it was the women who were primarily the scientists. I suppose people now are so superstitious and set in their thinking that they can't even entertain such ideas. We had backward and superstitious ancestors and nothing anyone can say and no amount of evidence will overturn it. This is simply such a massive reevaluation that it will require decades and demographic changes before it is fully accepted.

I'm not competent to judge your theory but find it interesting that I've needed to refer to the Koran a few times in my work. I believe there is a lot of information about ancient science in it if it can be sorted out.

We are on a collision course with reality caused by greed and superstition. We try to remedy the effects of excessive waste by wasting ever more and creating an accounting system that perverts reality itself. There's no way off but through some new invention such as fusion power or a new direction but there are too many beholden to the status quo for this to be a viable option. There are several severe tests coming in the next decades but we might not survive to even the first if we don't put our house in order.

Perhaps an expansion on the points would be beneficial. Modern science has an exceedingly simple metaphysic. Observation> hypothesis> experiment> conclusion. This is, of course all tied together with the logic and definitions that underlie it and its math. Most of the metaphysics can be stated in a few simple paragraphs. But people lose sight of this and the history of science which is essentially the history of the experiments so they don't understand the true nature of either science or the results. Most people mistake the technology generated by experimentation with science. People believe that it's knowledge that underlies science when the only reality is the metaphysics and the accumulated results of experiments. However, I have learned that this is not the only kind of science. I suppose everyone who's educated has a sort of sense that we've lost something or that something important came before us and this may it. We suspect there's a missing puzzle piece because of evisdence such as artefacts and the great pyramids which we hardly comprehend. We know on a visceral level that something must be missing. The ancient science was far more complex than ours. Where ours is observation and experiment based the ancient science was observation and logically based. This means they had to develop a massive metaphysics to understand nature. This all occured rather naturally in all probability because language was natural and incorporated science. It was composed of sounds from nature and the logic required to make communication possible and to rhyme with nature. Few words were necessary because meaning didn't come directly from the words but from their order like computer code. Word meanings, unlike in modern languages where words take their meaning from context, was very static but could be modified by phrases and sentences. As new learning occured the new concept became not a word per se but a "natural phenomenon" which was given human characteristics and incorporated into the language. This is invisible to us because we speak an entirely different language which can be deconstructed and interpreted. Ancient language loses its meaning when taken apart. We mistranslate "natural phenomena" as "gods". It appears that the ancient science was extremely advanced. Of course by our standards a lot of the cutting edge material was speculative but the same thing is occuring in science now with thought experiments and mathmatical justification for new cosmological concepts. I don't believe the old science was superior except where there is no modern lab equipment and tomes of previous experimentation. Where the modern "bible" is the "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" which contains tables and formulae theiur "bible" was the book of thot which contained the metaphysics of their science. I think this fragmentation is natural and caused by the simplicity of our science. It might not have to be such if people were trained in the metaphysics and experimental results but very few are. So we get a hodge podge of information as well as the inability to distinguish bad science from good science. Facts and data don't fit into an overall picture because of both extensive specialization and the comingling of reality with the flavor of the day. People are divorced from nature because they don't understand the science that discloses it and our machines work to remove nature from our lives. If it's cold we turn on the heater in the car. If there's no road to where we want to be then one is built. I don't believe any sort of religion existed before 2000 BC. Religion arose with the advent of modern language and was largely an attempt to preserve the ancient metaphysics. Today religion can give many people comfort but it does a less good job of uncovering nature or the nature of being human. Of course there are vast differences between the intent of religion and the modern day version. Modern religion is a sort of fixed point that is continually evolving. I believe we can't understand the true nature of humanity until we understand the nature of the ancients. I doubt we can invent artificial intelligence until we invent machine intelligence. Machine intelligence will not use modern language or any language where the meaning can be deconstructed. In order to pass Turing's test we'll simply need a translator for a thinking machine. The implications of all this are far ranging. I might not have even scratched the surface since nothing remains unchanged and even the concept of educated cavemen becomes a reality. We have an improper perspective of human history and science. It has made us blind to countless realities (or at least possibilities).

I found this thread on a search. I hope people don't mind bringing back old threads here (I'm still really a newbie). I think I've stumbled on the answer. It's the metaphysics of modern science that has caused the fragmentation. I don't mean the fragmentation of knowledge as that is natural due to the remarkable quantity of knowledge and the "necessity" for specialization. It's the fragmentation of the knowledge itself which is rarely understood by anyone because people mistake technology for science and for knowledge. Technology is merely the ability to remove something from the lab and does not connote any knowledge. All human knowledge is therefore either incorrect as being overgeneral or is true in light of the metaphysics. Nothing we learn can legitimately be extrapolated, except through technology, to the real world or a real world way to understand existence. We are victims of our great success as surely as the ancient metaphysics failed. Ancient science was real world science. While the technology was usually simple the metaphysics are extraordinarily complex. Rather than a mere process based on observation like modern science there was extraordinary logic to know how to apply observation to knowledge. This metaphysics appears to have been language itself and when human knowledge exploded with the advent of writing the language became too complex. The metaphysics was lost and it is remembered as the story of the tower of babel. The great world religions are mostly an attempt to preserve the old metaphysics. Confusion still reigns.

I should think "better" would apply to the nature of a fish. Since fish are prey they need to see any movement around them. The location of the eyes on the side of the head and their ability to take in a wide and deep panorama allows a fish rapid response to attack from nearly any direction.

Sad to say that it is not in the least a bold statement. Indeed, I've been the world's leading expert on the literal meaning of the Pyramid Texts almost from the day I began studying them. The simple fact is that almost no researchers at all have ever even considered that this work might have a literal meaning. It's just like they found the world's first book and never even bothered to read it. It wasn't found until long after the language was translated and the finder (Masperro) was familiar with a later book that is derived from it. This is the book of the dead and it is obviously a book of magic and obviously derived from it so it wasn't noticed that the PT was distinct, it is ritual and it is not magic nor religion. It simply is written in an older form of the language where meaning is determined by context like computer code. There are two or three other people who take the PT literally and I've studied their work. While some is quite insightful and all of them are very scientific, I personally don't believe the meaning they found actually exists as they interpret it. Their interpretations are mostly wrong. This isn't so much to say that I discount their conclusions so much that I find them unsupportable linguistically, scientifically, and (probably) culturally. No one to my knowledge claims to basically understand most author intent other than myself. Egyptologists consider this work something akin to gobblety gook that can't be understood but still use it to try to understand the people. These people come off looking like bumpkins because you can't ascribe a deep seated belief in illogical and contradictory religious beliefs as well as superstitious beliefs in magic and incantation in anyone and have them look sophisticated. The PT does have a consistent and literal meaning and it was I who found it. I have used this meaning to uncover the physical facts and the physical facts to aid in understanding the PT. The work is actually quite simple or I'd have never cracked it. The bulk of the real work to solve this was really done by google. I understand that most people are very concerned with "credentials" and the like. Suffice to say I normally describe myself as a disabled ditch digger. Of course, like everything, it's more complicated than this. I personally don't believe it matters where ideas come from; they are either supportable or they are not. I've always considered myself a "generalist". There is another term for what I mean that actually pre-dates my term and this is "nexialist" that I've discovered only very recently (with a little help from a friend); http://www.nexial.org/nexialism.htm This is similar to what I mean by "generalism". I believe that widespread specialization is one of the greatest threats to the human race. http://www.sciencefo.../page__st__2680 These would have been spectacular in their day. This site is probably the most disturbed by man site on the face of the planet and has been disturbed for at least 6000 years probably. There was water and in a desert water is life. In all probability their word for "life" was a representation of the geyser we call an "ankh". Most people don't realize that the builders invented the calender and that these structures are oriented perfectly N/ S so that they will work as a timepiece and a calender. Each side is indented a few inches so on the equinox the light will flash across the side as the sun sets. On the solstice the shadows of the corners of the three Giza pyramids form a wide straight line at sunset. http://www.catchpenny.org/concave.html Bronze was of critical importance to their ability to construct these.

...Just a story... When I was your age or just a little older I developed a truly beautiful 58 step proof that anything divided by zero equals infinity. I showed it to all my teachers and anyone I could and they mostly just shrugged. While checking it for about the 100th time I found the 45th step was a very subtle assumption of the conclusion so the proof meant nothing. People don't think about underpinnings and definitions of our ideas nearly enough so lose sight of what the results really mean and most of us get worse with age. Never lose your doubt. Try to keep as broad a perspective as possible.

Just to be clear nobody actually considers me an expert in Egyptology (especially myself). I am however very well versed in the facts and the physical data that are known about the great pyramids. Nobody in the world has a better understanding of the literal meaning of the Pyramid Texts as derived from context than I, but no one else believes that this literal meaning has any relevance and it's this which I hope to be able to establish here. (I'm thinking on the computer forum). I believe the aquifer at Giza was carbonated. Indeed, I believe it was highly carbonated. There are hot springs in the area even today and the aquifer here is lightly carbonated apparently. This water was so highly carbonated that it sprayed out of the ground like a shaken soda and was named "Osiris". We call these cold water geysers today and they are quite rare. I should probably avoid the term "ascender" as this was a term invented by Egyptians from much later in history but the specific name for this device doesn't appear in the PT and the general term is used only a single time. The counterweight was known as the "[]nw-boat". Later in Egyptian history it was known as the "henu boat" and had characteristics of the ascender and the counterweight. The boat that was laden with stone was on the opposite side of the pyramid and for now I'll just call it the ascender. 1375c. Neit is behind him; Śrḳt-ḥtw is before him. 1376a. The ropes are knotted; the boats of N. are tied together Neit is the Goddess of the (S) ascender and Serket the (N) counterweight. 1742b. The ropes are tied, the boats are assembled, 620b. Horus has set thee up, in his name of "[]nw-boat" 620c. he carries thee, in thy name of "Seker." The language was like computer code and this is why it has been misunderstood for so long. http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/ Thank you very much. I would be interested in any opinions you might have about it.

Multiple sources. The western corners are actually carved of bedrock as is most of the western side to about 22'. The descending passage near the eastern side has about a 15' elevation where it passes through solid stone. The grotto a little west of this is at 22'. The entire structure sits on a water collection device that channeled water to the cliff face where it was apparently used in cliff face counterweights. The builders referred to the cw run as the "ladder of Set" and Set was the God of the water which puddled after falling naturally from altitude. There were three cliff face cw's with the primary being in the center of this picture; http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=29.9805733&lon=31.1365682&z=18&l=0&m=s The builders referred to the canals feeding them as the "knsti-canals" which means "desert's edge". I debunked it; Proof that ramps weren't used must wait for the powers that be to use 1970's technology to prove beyond doubt the route of the stones and mode of lifting. They are currently not seeking such information but a virtually air tight case can be made against ramps by observation and logic alone. While innumerable signs point away from ramps I'll try to limit the discussion to only the major points. Historical accounts say that the stones moved to the pyramid 300' at a time after a priest attached a piece of paper to them. This is inconsistent with ramps. Indeed, there are no historical accounts until more recent times that involve ramps. Herodotus' description almost precisely matches the usage of counterweights. (they were shaped like the dorsal carapace of a grasshopper and composed of "short pieces of wood".) They were built in "battlements" (steps) and the lifting devices could be moved between them. The culture has no word for "ramps" as applied to lifting objects. There is no such record for the use of this term. While they, no doubt, physically used ramps to lift objects the lack of the word is glaring omission. There is no "god of ramps" and not a single drawing of a ramp from the great pyramid building age. Far more importantly is there is no overseer of ramp builders, ramp architects, or ramp dismantlers buried anywhere in Egypt. There are no overseers of basket makers, no overseers of harness makers or salve makers. There is not even a single stone dragger or his overseer in evidence. The pyramid town had equal numbers of men and women and was a tiny fraction of the size that would be required to drag stones and build ramps. The town is hardly large enough to supply such a large army with water and supplies far less do all the work themselves. It is little larger than a couple soccer fields. Indeed the builders' town was a mere 300' by 700'. By today's standards this would accomodate only 933 people in an office building. People need far more space where they live. Only about 40% of the population was men so there wouldn't even be nearly enough labor to supply food and water to the thousands necessary to build ramps and drag stones up them. You say ancient people didn't mind being cramped up. Modern sanitation and processes are more efficient than they were in 2750 BC but let's say they were willing to be jammed in cheek to jowel. This only increases occupancy to about 2800 men which is still grossly insufficient. With so many people in close contact disease would spread like wildfire. Since there were storage and production fascilities in the town as well it's highly improbable that there were numbers even approaching these levels. Logic says that on a gargantuan project that a highly efficient means must be used. Ramps not only are hugely inefficient due to the high friction and high cost of building and dismantling ramps but also because the weight of the team dragging stones to the pyramid top is simply wasted as they walk back down on already constricted and overused ramps. Getting the manpower necessary to build this requires massive ramps because 55 HP being done by men at extraordinarily low efficiency requires vast numbers of men. They couldn't even see the pyramid to build it under the amount of ramping that would be needed to project so much power. Logic says it would be far easier to just drag stones up the side from the top. Friction is reduced to almost nothing since the route of the stones can be greased. The men don't have to lift their own weight and can pull much more effectively from a level surface. The concept that they must have used ramps is absurd when there are numerous better evidenced and easier means. Maitaining this level of efficient power with muscles alone would require massive ramps and a means for the workers to get back down. Then there is the impossibility of cladding the structure with any possibly evidenced ramping system. Anything that required cladding stones as they went would leave nothing for ramps to adhere to and any other means would require the ramps to be rebuilt to apply the cladding. Then comes the physical evidence which just puts a nail into the heart of the ramp ideas. Perhaps most glaringly is the utter lack of any evidence whatsoever for ramps on the pyramid. This wouldn’t be such a glaring void if not for the existence of numerous vertical lines visible in the pyramids. These lines tend to appear in pairs with one on opposite sides. This is consistent with counterweight operations where one line marks the counterweight and the opposite the route of the stones. It is most highly inconsistent with any ramping ideas. Simply stated ramps wouldn’t leave such lines no matter how they were configured except for ones that can be ruled out by logic such as integral ramps. The grooves on the Great Pyramid are also these routes of the stones that the builders called the “ladders of the Gods”. Simply stated you can see the routes of the stones right up the middles and in two places above the boat museum. You can also see that these pyramids are five step (battlement) pyramids on some pictures but especially in the gravimetric scan half way down the page here; http://hdbui.blogspot.com/ I have a truly beautiful depiction of these five steps drawn on the scan but can't get permission to use it. But this is still conclusive proof that it's a five step pyramid which is more than adequate to debunk ramps. They would not have used steps unless it was necessary and the only reason steps might be necessary is that they could lift the stones only 81' 3" at a time. Each of the great pyramids after Djoser’s were five step pyramids. There is simply no reason to build these as step pyramids unless the height of each step defined the height they were able to lift stones. In order to lift stones to the top they must have needed to be relayed the greatest distance they could lift. Of course this could be as simple as the length of the ropes by which they lifted them up the side. No matter the actual reason it simply isn’t consistent with ramps. It is highly consistent with counterweights and using water for ballast since the geyser sprayed 80’ and this is the height of the steps. It might be consistent with locks that lifted 81' 3" at a time or any water or ballast lifting system limited by natural laws or infrastruture/ materiel concerns. It is not consistent with ramps. Ramps can’t explain the various infrastructure all around and within the pyramid. They are inconsistent with the history, culture, logic, physical evidence, and the evidence left by the actual on-site builders. Perhaps the greatest inconsistency is the cultural evidence right on site. In the pyramid builders cemetery is the “Overseer of the Boats of Neith”. This would be the loader on the south side in all probability but it could have nothing to do with ramps. There are canal overseers, overseers of metal shops, director of draftsmen, inspector of craftsmen, controller of a boat crew, controller of the side of the pyramid, inspector of metal workers and a host of other jobs that reflect a sophisticated and intelligent culture. Most tellingly is that there is a “Weigher/ Reckoner”. This job would be critical on a device that was said to be sensitive enough to tell the difference in weight of a “heavy heart” from a feather. They found a standard weight in the queens “air siphon” and a hook. In point of fact there simply isn’t anything consistent with ramps. While the evidence isn’t deep it is very broad that counterweights were used and the vertical lines on the great pyramids are simply sufficient to say ramps are debunked. This scale is tipped so much you’d think there’s nothing on the ascender at all. There were no ramps. They are debunked.

Well, I guess I'm the resident expert here now. First off your numbers are terrible. The pyramid is a five step pyramid with each step 81' 3" (http://hdbui.blogspot.com/) except the construction atop the top step is slightly shorter to allow for the combined thicknesses of the rows of stones that cladded the tops of the steps. This makes the pyramid approximately 481' 1" as it was probably completed. The density of the stones was actually 2.69 or about 172 lbs/ ft ^ 3. The slope was about 52 degrees. There is a hill under the pyramid which probably has an average height of about 12'. Of course this barely affects the answer since stones at this height would require very little lifting. The bulk density of the pyramid can be inferred from the gravimetric scan but it's not known if the exterior conditions prevail throughout. There are more closely packed stones near the exterior cladding (now missing) called "backing stones". For bulk density your numbers might not be too bad. The center of gravity of a pyramid is at 1/ 4th the height (~120'). Building likely occurred only about 7 months per year in 10 hour days with every tenth day down (for maintenance) and interspersed with numerous holidays. The difficulty with your question is that no one knows what means was used to lift the stones. The orthodox assumption that ramps are the only possible method has been disproven, or at the very least, debunked. In any case the efficiency of method used to lift the stones is key to computing the amount of "Horse Power" necessary (1 HP = ~11.5 ancient man power = 550 ft lb/ sec). With a remarkably inefficient means like ramps you'd be lucky to achieve 5% efficiency meaning you'd have to multiply the result by twenty (reciprocal of .05) to reflect needed manpower. I'd be happy to help further if you get stuck but I believe the tradition here is to just help and not provide the answer. This is only my second post. By the by, the builders actually said that the Gods built the pyramids and went on to define the Gods such that the statement can be true. In other words men didn't actually do any lifting of the stones. I believe they were correct and am here to seek help in proving it.

I guess I've had a date with this place for half a century when I built my first computer out of tinkertoys. I was close to computers my whole life and even studied programming back in the '60's. Now I'm nearly computer illiterate because they are so remarkably non-intuitive and I become more literal every passing year. I'm a natural born (and raised) scientist and studied a little physics in school but am largely a self taught generalist with my primary interest in metaphysical foundations. I used to be pretty good with equations and estimations but now use modeling to approximate realities. I'm mostly verbal and intuitive now days. I'm on a quixotic quest to prove the obvious and have been failing broadly and utterly. It started six years ago when I deduced the stones of the Great Pyramid had been raised with counterweights that had been filled with water that appeared through a natural process at altitude and I set out to prove this wrong. It can't be proven wrong because it's most likely true and I've gained some small expertise on the Egypt that actually existed at the time this was built. This isn't a very difficult task since virtually nothing is really known and mostof what passes as fact is nothing more than assumption and interpretation. Most of it is actually material from hundreds of years later projected back to the era of pyramid building. I've attacked this problem from virtually every single angle but can't find a purchase for a prise. There are so few facts that they are all dismissed because they fit my theory perfectly and don't fit conventional understanding. What brings me here is that the pyramid builders themselves left a significant corpus of material related to the great pyramids. This corpus (the Pyramid Texts) is wholly misunderstood by scholars because they have translated it as though it's written in the same type of gobblety gook spoken by modern man. The languages of the earth were actually confused around 2000 BC based on the meaning of the PT and other sources. Only two such languages survive from before this period because they weren't understood later. Sumerian survived and the PT survived because it was inscribed in stone under collapsed pyramids. This is what specifically brings me here; to prove the Pyramid Texts is written in something like computer code. It was a "natural" language that used a natural grammar and the forces of nature which are the terms they used to communicate have been mistranslated as "gods" for 4000 years. I'm all ears if anyone has any suggestions and I'll defend any part of the theory. It is based strictly on the evidence and all the evidence. It will prevail eventually because it most probably is exactly the way they built pyramids and they spoke using language that couldn't be misunderstood. It could be not understood but it can't be misunderstood.