reply to post by Hanslune
The absence of evidence is of course debatable. There are two kinds of evidence which has survived from ancient times: texual and artefacts. They both
require interpretation to be understood. There is certainly a problem with interpreting ancient texts and artefacts, because of the problem of
multiple interpretations, especially with artefacts. Take the Baghdad battery for example, one could say it suggests advanced knowledge of eletricity,
chemistry etc; on the other hand another could say it is just a crude battery that has been built through trial and error and does not mean the
ancients Sumerians actually knew of eletricity and chemistry.
Even if we did discover far more sophisticated artefacts, it is explained by the skeptic as either a modern hoax or as naturally occuring. Some
examples include underwater pyramids, and allegedly advanced thousands of years old metallic components(which have been dismissed as modern spark
plugs.) So it seems it is a lose-lose situation. No matter which evidence you produce it can be denied.
An India-related example of the above is ancient wootz steel, which recently was discovered to be composed of carbon nanotubes, which gave its
unusually high quality. Almost suggesting that the ancients were aware of nano-engineering. The explanation by skeptics is that the ore used for Wootz
steel had naturally occuring carbon nanotubes , but it is no longer extant.
The dubious quality of artefacts thus makes them a rather redundant type of evidence, and hence why I am not so preoccpued with them. I consider them
weak evidence for ancient advanced civilisations. The strong evidence are the texual evidence that has survived from ancient times. These still have
to be interpreted, but linguists can use accurate methods to interpret them properly. The Sanskrit literary tradition in particular has legions of
experts on translating classical Sanskrit texts. The texts I have made reference to exist, widely studied and translated, and rather uncontroversial.
They are teeming with anomolus references which are uber-modern. Some include
1) A text on cosmology: Discussing the cycles of the universe, supersymmetry theory, and observer paradoxes. None of that ideas are jaded one bit
from contemporary quantum physics. In fact this particular text inspired Schrodinger and his cat in the box problem. I have read it quite extensively,
and a lot of books on it. I can read Sanskrit a bit too, so understand it. Here is one aphorism from that text which is striking because it discusses
how one should go about in observing phenomena and the problems inherent in:
Standard methods of evaluation through detection are affected
by distortion, attenuation and inferior resolution to details; but an
alternate method that is totally satisfactory, is based on the
principle of discriminating the basic and dynamic substratum into
its appropriate components of the unmanifest, manifest, the selfpotential
and kinetic or dynamic potential.
This is talking about certain unperceivable phenonena, which exists(e.g., cosmic rays) but cannot be perceived because by a range of problems with
intruments(inferior resolution etc). From the same text another Sutra:
2.. The reasons why manifestation may not be detected.
Extremely far or near distances, mental and sensory
inefficiencies, subtle or attenuated conditions, occultation or
eclipsing of the object, poor background contrast, camouflaging
effect (are the causes of non detection or non measurement of
phenomenon).
In the text's school of cosmology: the universe is divided into three distinct stages: manifest, unmanifest and absolute. All phenomena which occurs
is emanating from a single physical substratum called cosmic energy(Prakriti) which is very close to modern concepts of quantum vacuum. All phenonena
are cylical units which emanate from the substratum, become manifest, exist in a local and temporal phase and then become unmanifest again. The above
passage is talking about why to the observer phenomena can become undetectable. The most obvious is one our sensory instruments are insufficient to
detect the phenomena.
According to this text before the observer observes any phenomena, the universe exists in a state of supersymmetry, where three elemental forces(known
as Gunas) are in a state of balance. As soon as the observer makes an observation it collapses the state, throwing the forces out of balance, and what
results is manifestations, each manifestation being a certain modification of the forces. It not only explains this is how the universe came into
existence, it also talks about the cycles of expansion and contraction it goes through. Another revolutionary idea contain within it is that not just
the universe, but all phenomena within (what it calls cyclic units) go through the same process i.e., creation and dissolution is happening every
moment.
The Sanskrit tradition took this model of cosmology as accepted fact and event went as far as to give time-scales for various cycles. The age of the
Earth was given as 4.32 billion years; the age of the universe was given as 155 trillion years, the age of the solar system is given as 8.45 billion
years and the lifetime of the universe is 311 trillion years. The Vedic Aryans believed this cycle goes on forever.
Another thing which is striking here that there is no god in this system of cosmology. This is an atheistic school, which explains the entire universe
in purely empirical language. Just what one would expect from an advanced civilisation. Some parts of it are indentical with Quantum Physics.
If that is not anomolus, then what is? Should something like this have been written in 1000BCE or older?
This is just one example of an anamolous text. Other examples I have given in my other thread: texts on microbiology and brain surgery, texts on
computer science, texts on binary numbers and hashing algorithms. All of these texts, by conservative dates, were written in the 1st millenium BCE.
[edit on 16-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]
[edit on 16-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]