Magic-23 update: the author responds
I received a response to my post Magic-23 from the author of the article I was mocking. As I did earlier with Berklinski, I think that if the author is willing to take the time to respond to me, it's only fair to let their response be seen by readers. Mr. Osborne took the time to write a very civil response, and so I'm going to post it here, with my own comments at the end. His message is unedited, and quoted verbatim:
Every crackpot in the world, upon being confronted by a debunker, invariably comes back with some kind of comment about having an open mind. Having an open mind is important - but so is being skeptical. There's a lot of gibberish out there, and there are a lot of people who are either wrong, crazy, or deliberately deceptive: you should always be open to new ideas, but at the same time, you have to look at them very carefully. The reason that I think the 23.5 degree stuff is so goofy isn't because I don't have an open mind - it's because it doesn't meet the test of credibility.
For it to be believable, I would need to accept:
But it gets worse: to get to your conclusion about a catastrophe that pushed the earth onto its tilted axis, I would have to accept:
Hi Mark,My response is going to be brief.
I read your essay 'Good Math, Bad Math', which criticizes my work on the 23.5-degree references and makes it all look rather silly, which is disappointing really.
I'm not really that interested in the '23' number phenomenon, neither am I "in on a joke", as one of your correspondents states, and neither am I out to exploit anything and make a quick buck.
This is a real phenomenon. I have spent years researching this, and many others have verified my findings.
I think my presentation is well balanced and is merely based on what I have discovered despite my own beliefs, if any.
Someone has to discover and bring attention to this. Surely it was intended that someone should.
Attached is a chapter from my book. This is what all these references are leading to and more.
Also, viewing the images would help. See here, another version.
http://www.freewebs.com/garyosborn/235degrees.htm
Also take a look at this version of the 23.5 Degree presentation on my website.
http://garyosborn.moonfruit.com/revelations
Also I don't have a book entitled 'Revelations'.
So at the end of the day, I am merely bringing attention to the things I have discovered and I don't see that as wrong, and I don't think my findings are "chock full of insanity" either.
Don't want to lecture you Mark, but first and foremost. I'm always careful not to believe in something that will stop me finding other alternatives, and most of the time, and if I search long enough within my own mind, I find that I really don't believe in anything 100%.
I always try to remain neutral and balanced.
We are all prone to experiencing, seeing and believing whatever it is we are focusing on at the time and really because we are creating everything ourselves, and many of us don't realise it.
Read my article The Synchroholoform on my website. There's a "bigger picture" to all this and it appears to be related to the creative nature of our own consciousness and that's something I always consider.
Oh and I too like The Flower Kings and go to see them whenever the opportunity arises - so that's something we have in common.
Kind Regards,
Gary Osborn
Every crackpot in the world, upon being confronted by a debunker, invariably comes back with some kind of comment about having an open mind. Having an open mind is important - but so is being skeptical. There's a lot of gibberish out there, and there are a lot of people who are either wrong, crazy, or deliberately deceptive: you should always be open to new ideas, but at the same time, you have to look at them very carefully. The reason that I think the 23.5 degree stuff is so goofy isn't because I don't have an open mind - it's because it doesn't meet the test of credibility.
For it to be believable, I would need to accept:
- That you can, looking at a painting, distinguish between the
"perspective angle" of 22.5 degrees, and the axis angle of 23-23.5 degrees.
- That painters throughout history could both distinguish and paint angles so accurately that they could deliberately make a line between 1/2 and 1 degree different from the standard perspective angle.
- That there was such a threat from the church that this knowledge had to be kept secret, but at the same time, it was so widespread that there are dozens of different painters and architects who all not only knew about it, but visibly inserted it in their work.
But it gets worse: to get to your conclusion about a catastrophe that pushed the earth onto its tilted axis, I would have to accept:
- Our understanding of gravity - which tests out accurately to a incredible degree - is entirely wrong. We can plan space probe trajectories that do double gravitational slingshots and wind up in exactly the right position - travelling millions of miles, and yet reaching a very precise destination with near-perfect accuracy.
- The stability of the solar system is an illusion. The fact that we have a uniform ecliptic plane, with a regular pattern of near-circular orbits is something close to impossible to explain mathematically if we assume that there was a catastrophic change in the solar system during the period of human history.
- Something drastic enough to tilt the earth on its axis and reconfigure the entire solar system occurred, and yet life on earth was pretty much unaffected; and the event left no geological evidence at all.
- A catastrophic change occurred recently enough that people like the Egyptians were able to record it; and yet there are no explicit records of the event - not from the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Chinese - none of them recorded it in anything like explicit terms - all just used highly ambiguous metaphorical allegories.
posted by MarkCC at
6:32 PM
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20 Comments:
gary:
No, I am *not* clearly referring to you when I said crackpot in the opening of my comments. (Which is not to say that I don't think you're a crackpot, but that's not what that sentence says.) It *is*, however, a definite fact in my experience that the "open mind" argument is a warning sign: whenever someone with a bogus argument that they are deeply personally committed to has the bogosity of their argument pointed out to them, they respond with "you need to open your mind", or some variation thereof.
I stick by something a rabbi I used to know taught me: there are three ways of listening to an argument: with a closed mind; with an open mind; and with your brains dribbling out your ears. I try to be in that middle category: I look at the evidence and the arguments, independent of my preconceptions, my opinion of the author, etc.
My point about the angles is very simple: 22.5 degrees and 23.5 degrees are incredibly close. Take out a yardstick and lay it on your floor, and look at the angle it makes relative to your level. Now, move the tip of it by 1/4 of an inch. *That* is the difference between 22.5 and 23.5 degrees. Your entire argument is based on the ability of both you, and numerous artists throughout history being able to make a distinction *that* small.
Most paintings aren't precise enough for a line to be perfectly *straight* to that precision, much less to match some specific peculiar *angle*.
Just going that far - getting no deeper in the questionable claims of your theory - it's not credible. Humans are *not* that precise. And take away that fundamental claim - that that specific angle is hidden in plain sight all over the place, and your argument falls apart.
How do you claim that the artists were able to distinguish between 22.5 and 23.5 degrees? Were they sitting at their easels with rulers and protractors?
By
MarkCC, at 11:51 AM
Gary:
First - I don't know if that's an eye on the crown. Perhaps it's just to relatively low resolution of the images you're using, but to me, that looks more like pixellation of the digitized image than an eye. I looked for better quality images, and found one at http://www.wga.hu/art/p/poussin/4/37selfpo.jpg; that doesn't particularly look like an eye to me. I also copied the best quality image I could find on google, and I get an angle of just a hair under 25 degrees (24.8 degrees according to my software.)
Even supposing that I'm wrong and you're right WRT this image, you haven't bothered to answer how these medieval painters were figuring out the perfect 23.5 degree angle. Like I asked before - were they standing at their easels with protractors? This is a really important issue - you're demanding a spectacular amount of accuracy, a degree of accuracy which is impossible to do freehand. Look at that painting, and explain *how* the painter was able to find the exact 23.5 degree angle to position the "eye"?
I think that you're just experience apophenia. Humans have a way of naturally looking for patterns. If we're looking for something, we'll find it. Witness the dozens of "jesus images" that people find in everything from pierogies to treebark; or the other "2/3/5" stuff that I linked to along with your stuff in my original post. When you're looking for a specific pattern, you're likelyto find it. You're picking out two very innocuous features of a painting: a ring and some blurred feature on a crown, because they fit what you're looking for. If I look at 100 random paintings with a protractor marked at 23.5 degrees, looking for things that fit that angle, by golly, I'll be able to find them. And I'll be able to do the same with 12 degrees, 15 degrees, 28 degrees, 52 degrees, 88 degrees, etc.
Just for example, after I typed the 12 degrees above, I went back to poussin image. If you draw a straight line from the center of the "eye" on the crown to the tip of his nose, you get an angle of precisely 12 degrees. Or how about exactly 36 degrees - a number with great mystical significance to Jews? A line from the center of the woman's eye to the peak of the part of his hair is exactly 36 degrees.
By
MarkCC, at 3:37 PM
I've heard the open/closed-minded non-argument quite a lot, myself. It sets off a lot of alarms in my baloney detection kit.
By
Bronze Dog, at 2:08 PM
One issue that I haven't seen addressed, though I confess I tend to skim stuff like this guy: Why would painters use this complex symbology using numerology? Why not just paint paintings, instead of leaving this magical code out for all the numerologists in the world to decipher?
Of course, the way the human mind works, even if they did paint uncoded pictures, someone would keep chugging until they found something they wanted to see. This could be a case of Texas Sharpshooter as well: Come up with a magic cipher and look at paintings until you find one that coincidentally matches.
Also, if the artists used some ultraprecise method to make those angles, there'd be evidence like indentations in the canvas, faint guideline sketches underneath the paint, etc.
By
Bronze Dog, at 3:29 PM
bronze:
You've hit on exactly one of the things that I find most wacky about this stuff. Why would painters through the ages go to the trouble of sitting in front of their canvases with protractors (that's what Osborne claims on his site) to embed these magic angles?
The line that the church is out to get people who reveal the secret knowledge just doesn't fly. Either it's a secret that needs to be hidden; or it's not a secret. It's the reason why elaborate conspiracies never work: once too many people know, it's not a secret anymore. All you need is one person to reveal it, and the game's over. But Osborne's argument requires that this secret has been kept by hundreds of people for hundreds to thousands of years.
By
MarkCC, at 3:43 PM
And is there some vast freemasonesque conspiracy by all of the painters to pull something like this off?
By
Rev. BigDumbChimp, at 3:43 PM
It kind of reminds me of a person in a mental institution who claimed everyone who had a 5 in their car's license plate was part of the evil conspiracy.
By
Bronze Dog, at 6:20 PM
Limbs of the dead thing: Seems like you've got a lot of room to play with. Especially since on some of those, you're not going down the center of the limb. That's got to take you at least a full degree off in places.
The repetition doesn't really mean a thing if it's so easily shoehorned.
Still unanswered question: Why go through all the trouble of painting those very specific angles?
On the pyramids: Remember your significant digits in those calculations.
By
Bronze Dog, at 6:34 PM
Those lines still don't look like they're all going through the center of those limbs. If you'd like to show otherwise, get a higher resolution image with close-ups. Also, I'd like to know how you calculated the center of the limbs.
And why draw an uncentered line for one? Isn't that dishonest?
I'll skim for the answer to the why question, but I don't see any honest reason not to leave it here. I suspect it'll be immensely silly.
By
Bronze Dog, at 12:41 AM
Seems there was even more text than I remembered from last time. Still nothing more than the usual backwards-working apophenia in the portions I read.
Still wasn't able to find the reason for the angle thing in all that text. If it's a secret, there's no reason to display it. If it's hints, why do it in a way that's so subtle as to be indistinguishible from noise?
By
Bronze Dog, at 12:56 AM
gary:
If you want to bring up comments from personal email, how about being honest about the context? (It was in response to Gary's implication on his website that I'm using a pseudonym, which pissed me off.)
WRT to the image on the crown. I haven't had the privilege of being in Paris (short of a 10 minute transfer between flights on my way to a conference on Toulouse), so I haven't seen the image. I'm looking at images on the web, and the resolution is lacking. Certainly the zoomed image that you use is absolutely inadequate for perceiving any of the details you're talking about - it's so pixellated that any fine features are lost. It *still* doesn't look like an eye to me in the images I can find; it looks like a round feature of some kind, but I can't see any more detail than that. I'm perfectly willing to concede the point given the third-party verification that it is an eye.
WRT the angles: it doesn't take expensive software to measure angles. And I *still* get 24.8 degrees.
You're extremely touchy about measurement issues, throwing tantrums rather than just answering the question. For example, I've asked several times about just *how* you claimed the artists measured angles of precisely 23.5 degrees. It took three repetitions of the question to you get you to say "protractor and ruler". Why? It's a natural question with an apparently simple answer. Why make such a big deal out of a simple question, rather than just answering it?
Similarly - why are you throwing tantrums and insults at BronzeDog over the issue of how you measure the angles of limbs? There are perfectly reasonable questions about how you take your measurements. In fact, in the kind of thing that you're talking about, those are some of the most important questions to ask; the only way to rule out apophenia is to demonstrate a careful and rigorous approach to measurement. If you're demanding that a difference of 1/2 of one degree is significant, then eyeballing a centerline isn't sufficient. As another commenter said: don't forget to keep track of significant digits; you need to show that your measurement techniques are sufficiently precise to meaningfully differentiate between the small differences you're measuring. But instead of answering those questions, you just go off in paranoid rants.
On a similar topic, why won't you answer the question about why so many artists are hiding this stuff in plain sight? As I keep saying, the church persecution angle just doesn't make sense. If people are hiding things because they're afraid of persecution from the church, then it needs to be a closely held secret; but you claim dozens of artists over a period of hundreds of years were in on it. How was it that this was passed around for hundreds of years, without the church ever getting wind of it? It's an odd claim that somehow, dozens of people "hiding" it in obvious places would never get back to the church.
How about just simply *answering the questions*? Doesn't seem particularly difficult to me. I'm a professional researcher, and sometimes it seems like I spend more of my time answering questions about exactly how my tests and evaluations of results are put together than I do actually doing to the work; but that's an expected part of research. People *do* ask questions; people *will* be skeptical, especially when you're making strong claims. So just answer the questions, without hyperbole, insults, or self-aggrandizing rants.
By
MarkCC, at 8:48 AM
gary:
You're *still* just arguing about the argument, and avoiding answering the questions.
You say "So what if it did take three repetitions of the question before I answered? ". I say, "Answer the questions instead of complaining about them." I asked a perfectly reasonable, civil question: how did people get the angles so precise? You didn't answer - you complained about how closed-minded I was and how obvious the angles were. I asked again. You didn't answer - you complained about the tone of my response. I asked *again*, and said "were they standing at their easels with protractors", and then finally, you said "Yes, protractors and rulers". Why did it require repeated attempts to pin you down just to get a simple answer?
Likewise with the limb angles. You've been asked twice by bronze, and once now by me to explain how you're measuring the limb angles - where's the angle-line coming from? How are you finding the center of the limb? That's *crucial* if you're claiming that minute differences in the angle have meaning. And after being asked three times, the closest you've come to answering the question is to say, and I'm quoting you verbatim here: "There are certain paintings where the 23.5-degree measurement isn't precise as I or we would like it, but I really don't buy the alternative argument that these limbs are displaying the angle of perspective - if some happen to fall close to 22.5 degrees instead.
No! its clear to me based on other corresponding data that these limbs were painted at these angles.."
You demand that a one half to one degree difference - an incredibly minute and hard to perceive difference - from the standard perspective angle is meaningful; and then also assert that if the measurement isn't precise, that it's unimportant, because you *know* what the angle is supposed to be.
A real researcher is never afraid to explain their methodology in great detail; and when there's data that disagrees with their thesis, they're willing to accept it. You demand that when an angle matches what you want it to be - then it's absolutely perfectly precise, and we should accept the minute difference as meaningful; but that when an angle *doesn't* match what you want, or when there's a question of whether your measurement is accurate enough to draw the conclusion that you want, you then insist that inaccuracies are insignificant. Which is it? Are the angles precise? Are the artists precise enough to really make a 1/2 to 1 degree distinction, or are they not? You can't have it both ways.
By
MarkCC, at 10:54 AM
Since this is a personal issue, I separated it into a separate comment.
Sorry about mispelling your name; I'll make sure to get it right from now on.
But misspelling a name is quite different from accusing someone of hiding behind a false name. As someone who has taken the trouble (and accepted the incredible volume of spam) of being open about my identity on the net, to accuse me of using a false name is, to put it mildly, obnoxious. If you look at the history of this blog, you'll find that I take criticism of my writing quite well - you can call me a lousy writer, you can criticize my analysis, you can criticize my literacy, and I'll take it in stride. But personal attacks are a different matter. You fabricated a claim that I'm *lying* about my identity. I take that damned seriously; as far as I'm concerned, anyone who does that *is* an asshole.
(And incidentally, since you refused to take responsibility for that, and claimed that "you'd heard otherwise" about whether Mark Chu-Carroll is my real name, I'll point out that you've still not answered the question about just *where* you heard otherwise. Dare I to suggest that you just made it up?)
By
MarkCC, at 11:02 AM
It doesn't matter who MarkCC or Bronze Dog are. We're irrelevant to the argument. We're just a pair of people presenting arguments. Just like Robert Lancaster's identity isn't going to change which way the sun rises.
Back on topic: The one limb that was off that I noticed featured a "23.5" degree line going from the top of the bicep, near the inside of the elbow to the bottom of the wrist. Then Gary mentioned a thigh that was off-center as the "one limb". Looks like we're dealing with more than one.
By
Bronze Dog, at 11:19 AM
Gary:
In other words, you're *still* not going to answer any of the perfectly legitimate questions that we've asked you. I wonder why that is?
By
MarkCC, at 12:05 PM
It's a scientist's job to pick nits. Especially if they lie at the foundation of a person's claims. Without defining the center of the limbs, you have no foundation for claiming they're at a particular angle: The center seems to be whatever you want it to be, which makes your job as easy as any crackpot's.
Here's a general tip: If you're going to ramble on about precision angles, eyeballing the center of limbs isn't the way to go.
By
Bronze Dog, at 12:20 PM
Ok, so let's sum up.
A 1/2 to 1 degree difference in angle is crucial, except when it isn't, and there's no point in arguing about when it isn't, because it's just obvious.
And asking questions about how you make the crucial measurements that lead to your conclusions is a demonstration of such woeful ignorance that the question isn't worth answering; but it *is* worth taking the time to come back to blog to tell us all about how ignorant we are, and how we're not worth the effort of responding to.
And you wonder why I think you're a crank?
(Anyone want to take a bet that he'll go back to his private comment-free website and "respond" there, declaring victory?)
By
MarkCC, at 1:04 PM
This painting is an exception to the rule of precision, because ALL the limbs except one are at the angle of 23.5 degrees! and/or close.
Except one? More like two: That thigh you mentioned and that arm I mentioned.
Define "close." All measurements do have a degree of error, you know. +/- half a degree? A full degree? Several degrees? That arm I mentioned had to be off by at least 3 or 4 degrees.
These measurement errors would also be compounded if the images were captured slightly off. I'd need some guarantee the camera/scanner and the original were both level before simply accepting your measurements.
Of course, if you don't care for that precision, you shouldn't be handling math with decimal places.
...and noting 'by eyesight' that the others are at the same angle. That's the conclusion one would naturally deduce. Its simple.
In other words, they're exactly 23.5 degrees because they look to your eyes to be the same, despite not being the same to my eyes.
You are trying to paint me into a corner on this 'precise' issue. Precision does not always apply, but in those things where it is crucial, these references still stand up to scrutiny.
Translation: It doesn't matter when you're wrong. It only matters when you're right. Ever work in a cherry orchard?
What are you on? You are making a fool of yourself.
I'm on the impression that a person should be able to show us the paths he followed to arrive to his conclusions, rather than handwave away his errors by saying precision only sometimes applies to him. If investigating those things makes me foolish, so be it. That would make pretty much all of science foolish, despite getting consistent results.
By
Bronze Dog, at 1:54 PM
gary:
My point isn't to fight about "who wins/who loses". It's that you're refusing to respond with real answers to simple legitimate questions. I'm just betting that you're going to pull the same stunt you did a couple of days ago: run back to your own web site, and pretend that you answered all of the questions that were put to you.
You're running away from legit questions, and I'm betting that you're not going to answer the questions, and at the same time claim that you answered all questions. That's why you're running back to your website, where you're in control.
By
MarkCC, at 2:06 PM
gary:
How surprising. You've responded with yet another excuse for why you can't be bothered to answer the questions that have been put to you.
By
MarkCC, at 2:29 PM
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