Re: What is gravity?
Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 4:04 am
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I suggest that no matter what the actual underlying (nuts and bolts) mechanics of gravity may be, it should be obvious that it seems to be the perfectly structured phenomenon for keeping us magnetically adhered to the surface of this orb we are standing on.
Furthermore, the truly quirky thing about gravity is how utterly oblivious humans are of just how strange it really is, as is depicted in my illustration below...
...For it seems that because of gravity, we are functioning in precisely the same context expressed by the second little guy, yet most humans are so unconscious of our actual setting, that the idea of it seeming “fishy” doesn’t even enter into their minds.
As a thought experiment, imagine taking the sphere that the two little guys are standing on and flattening it into a disk, to where the bottoms of their feet are almost touching.
Now imagine them going about their daily business on this disk, completely upside-down from each other - as their disk world slowly flips around and around (like a giant coin) through space.
Now as crazy as that would be for the little guys in the illustration, it pretty much describes the status of our circumstances here on earth.
In other words, if we were functioning on both sides of a disk, as opposed to a sphere, then there would be very little difference between the two (yet consider how fantastically strange a disk world would be).
Therefore (and IMO), the question of “what” gravity is, does not seem to be as important (philosophically) as the question of “why” we were wired in such a way as to make the upside-downness of our situation seem so “natural” to us when, in fact, it is totally bizarre.
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I suggest that no matter what the actual underlying (nuts and bolts) mechanics of gravity may be, it should be obvious that it seems to be the perfectly structured phenomenon for keeping us magnetically adhered to the surface of this orb we are standing on.
Furthermore, the truly quirky thing about gravity is how utterly oblivious humans are of just how strange it really is, as is depicted in my illustration below...
...For it seems that because of gravity, we are functioning in precisely the same context expressed by the second little guy, yet most humans are so unconscious of our actual setting, that the idea of it seeming “fishy” doesn’t even enter into their minds.
As a thought experiment, imagine taking the sphere that the two little guys are standing on and flattening it into a disk, to where the bottoms of their feet are almost touching.
Now imagine them going about their daily business on this disk, completely upside-down from each other - as their disk world slowly flips around and around (like a giant coin) through space.
Now as crazy as that would be for the little guys in the illustration, it pretty much describes the status of our circumstances here on earth.
In other words, if we were functioning on both sides of a disk, as opposed to a sphere, then there would be very little difference between the two (yet consider how fantastically strange a disk world would be).
Therefore (and IMO), the question of “what” gravity is, does not seem to be as important (philosophically) as the question of “why” we were wired in such a way as to make the upside-downness of our situation seem so “natural” to us when, in fact, it is totally bizarre.
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