Apologies for titling my first post "Mr. Taylor". It's Mr. Thomas.

Hermione Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anthony Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > He has
> > continuously stated that his maths can TELL
> us
> > about the designers intent
>
> Hang on: what do you mean by "the designers'
> intent"? Do you mean the motivation (religious or
> otherwise) that allegedly obliged them to say,
> "Place such-and-such a structure here, and another
> one there":

He has said that the design was dictated by the maths, rather than the maths used as a tool to execute a religious design. He has claimed that his maths prove the intent of the builders with regards to dimensions, placements, etc. This is very different from saying that the KC was intended to be 10 cubits by 20 cubits. What he has said is that the dimensions of one room allow him to predict the location of another room, and its canal shafts positions, angles and end points.

Do you see the difference now?


> or do you mean the nuts and bolts of
> the construction design - i.e., since it has been
> decided that such-and-such a structure is being
> put in such-and-such a space, exactly what
> measurements are to be applied to this structure
> ??

That would be the methodologically correct analysis of the system, which is what Gantenbrink did.




>
> >, beyond the simple,
> > mundane mathematics he now claims. He has
> clearly
> > stated that the maths "predict" the location
> of
> > features within the pyramid
>
> Perhaps it depends on what you mean by "predict"
> and "location", though. Surely "location", in
> this context, might mean simply "distance of one
> structure from another"? Having decreed that, for
> religious reasons, such-and-such a structure be
> situated at such-and-such a level or in
> such-and-such a general area of the pyramid, why,
> again, would Khufu's priestly advisers be
> particularly bothered about the details of the
> measurements of the structures in question?


That has been my point all along. The priests would have dictated the placement of the "structure" in question, and the engineers would have used the tools at their disposal to hit the priests' plan. They would not have told the priests that mathematically they would "calculate the position of the bottom floor of the Grand Gallery which needs to be "here" because the King's Chamber has a ceiling height of "X" and the Portcullis stone has a dimension of "Y" that the niche in the Queen's Chamber has a depth of "Z" and thus the floor of the Grand Gallery must be at (ZXY/22) x 7. So whether that means Khufu can be revivified or not is unimportant, we have to hit the mathematical equation just right. You priests deal with that magic stuff and leave the building to us"

Nothing could be less Egyptian.



> Surely the part of the design team that was
> responsible for these details might well have used
> sekeds, fractions and ratios that formed patterns?

But they would not have used these to DICTATE the position of structures within the pyramid. They would have used them to carry out the king's wishes with regards to the placement of the rooms as HE saw fit and necessary.



> If there are repeating patterns within all these
> measurements and dimensions, I suppose it might be
> theoretically possible to discern that part of the
> pattern somehow indicates the presence of another
> structure somewhere (although I have to say that I
> find it extremely difficult to get to grips with
> the proposal that there might still be an
> undiscovered chamber somewhere within the GP.)

No, because there's no indication that the culture in question carried out such pattern building. Anything that is found, without contextual evidence, is just a coincidence. It can't be any more.



> Anyway: the point is, as I mentioned in a previous
> post, that some people might find it difficult to
> see what's wrong with finding patterns that might
> have been applied by the designers; and how or why
> such patterns would interfere with your shafts
> hypothesis.

I'm not the one who said they interfered with the canal shaft theory. MJT did. I don't give a flip about it, except that it is a series of arguments based upon a flawed initial assumption.

Strictly speaking, without evidence that they intended these kinds of patterns in their tombs, there is no reason to even start looking for them.


> You replied by stating that it was
> the methodology used by MJT to which you were
> objecting: but I didn't really know what you
> meant. Presumably the methodology employed here
> would consist of obtaining lots of measurements
> and then comparing them all ... many people might
> wonder quite what was wrong with that. After all,
> the walls, passages and chambers, etc., had to be
> some length ...

But if you notice, he's not just comparing measurements. He's stating that Egyptologists are wrong because the coincidences he has found have convinced him that the pyramid was built very differently from the accepted theories that are based upon a huge matrix of data gathered over centuries, without a single piece of contradictory evidence in the lot.

He has also claimed Tim is wrong, for no other reason than Tim used different numbers than MJT did. Both of them have the same methodological flaw.

Heck, MJT has even said that his theory didn't work right, so he has asserted that the INTENDED dimensions were different, and they were changed to show us what we can now measure today. That is another dimension of flawed methodology entirely (special pleading). I'll find the post where he has said this if you like.

This is such a subtle point, but it is so very important.

If one accepts his arguments, then one is accepting the idea that mathematics DROVE the pyramid's design, and were not just a tool used to implement the High Priest's design for his own tomb. I could even live with the idea that Khufu was cuckoo for calculations, but to then come out and say that those plug stones were built in place and that chamber is not a real burial chamber and those shafts had to end there because I can draw a rectangle over the pyramid and that's where I calculate they would have to end... it's just gibberish.

It's the same flaw as the whole Transgenerational Funerary Project (Giza Master Plan) numerology. One must first assume they would have done it that way for a "that way" to be found. If you don't make that baseless assumption, then you have no reasonable starting point for your search. Even IF you find something, like an Orion Correlation, or the size of the spot on Jupiter, or just a seqed/cubit set of coincidences, it doesn't mean they put it there, or used that relationship as the driving force behind the overall design.

It's one of those fine points, just like when John Wall once asked me to cease starting my theorizing with speculations, but rather use facts. It took a few hammer hits to the head by him, but the lightbulb finally went off. Theories start with facts. MJT's theoretical string is circular reasoning. Follow this:

The builders used maths to dictate the positions of the features.
The dimensions demonstrate a mathematical relationship between the features.
Therefore, we know the builders used maths to dictate the positions of the features.

If you take away the first assumption, you realize the second two are just a non sequitur. Go ahead, and read the last two only. You'll see the mistake quite clearly. But, you can't use the first one, because it is wholly reliant upon the argument itself for its validity. That first sentence needs to come from another, independent source for it to be usable as the foundation for another theory. It is the conclusion of this theory, thus making it a circular argument.

I can only hope that there's at least one person out there who understands what I'm saying. I'm getting tired of finding new ways to write it...lol.

Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2009 12:54PM by Anthony.