Re: Round earth in judaism

On Wed, 17 May 2006 21:31:16 +0000 (UTC), in
soc.culture.jewish.moderated , kamlet@xxxxxxxxx (Arthur Kamlet) in
<e4g4i8$ft5$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <e4g05m$qag$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Micha Berger <micha@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 15:01:14 +0000 (UTC), Eliyahu Rooff
<lrooff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: But are the four cardinal points of the compass a modern construct,
: as opposed to a naturally-occurring one? After all, the compass
: actually has many more points (NE, NW, SE, SW, NNE, NNW, SSE, SSW,
: etc), and the assignment is entirely arbitrary....

Still, it's naturally occuring.

There are 3 dimensions, each has a to and fro, yeilding 6. Eliminate
altitude, and the same argument yeilds 4.


Consider a three-man patrol, part of my basic training.


The patrol is moving ahead, but the point/leader is looking
forward and covering a 120 degree angle, and each of the other two
are walking sort of backward, but obserrving/covering their own
120 degree sectors.

Seems to me a people could have evolved their society based on
dividing the directions of the visible world into three and not
into four.

There really seems nothing more natural about four directions than
three directions.

Four is the natural division of a plane. Two dimensions (and two
directions on each dimension) is the minimal necessary to uniquely
identify any point on a surface.


--
Matt Silberstein

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