Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 211.28.113.50 (talk) at 13:03, 7 September 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

See Talk:Time Cube/Delete for a past discussion on whether this article should have been deleted.

All the anti-Cubic arguments in the "Time Cube" article are actually wrong and can be easily refuted. However, rather than correct the article myself, I will simply invite any free thinkers who are interested in learning the Truth to debate Time Cube on the Time Cube forum. No closed-minded Academian pedants, please.

UPDATE: The forum is out of commission. However I may discuss Time Cube on user talk pages, like I did with Andrewa.

UPDATE: I'm now editing the article.

Archived debate: Andrewa vs. TIME CUBE

Section removed

This entire section was removed by an anonymous user, with the explanation "The time cube theory uses the cube as an analogy to help describe ideas. Stretching the analogy is not a good way to refute the theory." I'm no Time Cube expert, but it seems to me that Gene stretches the analogy himself, which would make this a perfectly valid subject of criticism. Comments, anyone? Bryan 19:05, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the time cube is nonsense, but "stretching an analogy too far" means drawing false conclusions by assuming that the analog perfectly describes something else. If Gene Ray is using the analog to draw new conclusions, it's possible that this happened. It's also possible that he made conclusions without reasoning about an actual cube. Neither you nor I know which of these happened.

It's probable that he feels there are no remotely adequate words to describe the concept he has (I think that this is the reason he calls words evil). If this is the case, he might use an analogy to try to get his general idea across. If "cubelike" is a fairly adequate word, you would be justified in saying that he stretches the word (not the analogy) a bit too much. However, if he feels there are no words that are even close (including "cube"), he would be justified in picking the word that makes the best analog and stretching the word to make it fit what he's trying to say. Giving new definitions to old words when mainstream science makes a discovery is an accepted practice.

Now, on to the removed section itself. The criticism of "quadrant" because it uses a nonstandard definition was deleted first. There is no suitable replacement and Gene Ray gives a clear definition of it, so it should cause no confusion. The use of the term, by itself, certainly doesn't cause any logical errors.

The criticism of "cube" was because Gene Ray focuses on the four sides of the cube and ignores the top and bottom. This is perfectly reasonable if the concept deals only with a four-sided, cubelike object. The top and bottom would be irrelevant to the theory, regardless of the fact that the top and bottom are symmetrical with each of the sides. Ignoring irrelevant attributes of an analog is preferred because it focuses on the things that are actually similar and important to understanding and it ignores things that are dissimilar or unimportant. Bringing them up is foolish and a red herring.

Bringing up the fact that four is a square number, rather than a cube number, is also a red herring. If the thing under discussion is better understood by analogy to a three-dimensional shape (like a cube with the top and bottom missing), then using a square to represent it is stupid. A cube with two sides missing is much closer to a cube than a square and no amount of saying "but four is a square number" will change that.

12.214.45.9 23:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay, this is quite sufficiently detailed to convince me the removal was well thought out. Thanks for answering; I tend to err on the side of caution when someone I don't recognize deletes a large block of text that I don't fully understand and I hope I didn't come across as assuming bad intentions. :) Bryan 00:26, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Four cornered?

Has this idiot not noticed that cubes are not 4-cornered, but rather have 8 vertices? Also 6 faces, and 3 faces meeting at each vertex. There's almost nothing fourish about a cube! --Jerzy(t) 19:57, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)

Criticism of this was the subject of the section whose removal I questioned above. Perhaps some version of it should be restored after all. Bryan 21:09, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think there should be, obviously, as I wrote the deleted section about this problem. Feel free to put it back, or preferably to improve upon it, I don't think it's the last word by any means. I caution against any careless use of technical terms in criticising the Time Cube, Ray does this all the time in promoting it and if others do too this will just make the confusion worse. Andrewa 07:12, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You might also note what I said in the February VfD debate earlier this year: Significant crackpot theory based on the false premise that the cube is closely related to the number four. Perhaps that could be also better put, but I think that, contrary to what the anon above says, the mathematical weaknesses in the Time Cube symbolism are blatant enough to be significant. If so, this is relevant to understanding exactly what Ray is doing, which is the very last thing Ray himself wants. In hindsight I've gone back to my original thinking in the January VfD debate, this article should be a redirect to Gene Ray, which doesn't need another VfD debate. There is no evidence that anyone else promotes this theory, let alone significant numbers of people, and if so current policy would be that it doesn't get an article of its own. Ray himself deserves an article, he's significant if only for his critics. It's also interesting IMO that this latest debate is by an anon who claims to reject the "theory", but whose edits to this talk page and the article seem to reduce the content of both pages and enhance Ray's credibility. There have been many edits from this IP, but are they all the same person? Probably not another Ray glove puppet is my guess, but we have no way of knowing. All we know is that Ray does seem to have lots of time to set up Internet accounts etc.. Andrewa 21:00, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Under the circumstances, then, I think the deleted material should be restored again. I don't think the anon user is Ray, he seems far too lucid for that, but it seems that at least some pieces of the baby were thrown out with the bathwater in this case. Since the symbolism problems do seem to be brought up commonly by Time Cube critics, they should be addressed here even if they turn out to be unfounded. Bryan 23:39, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In response to Andrewa's request for evidence of people other than Gene Ray supporting Time Cube, this pro-Cubic petition may be helpful. Many of the people who have signed this petition (of course, some are but educated stupid Academians and brainwashed religious zealots who are attempting to suppress the Cubic Truth) along with the person who created the petition, do indeed support Nature's Harmonic Time Cube and hold the opinion that "Time Cube debate should be mandated in all academic and social institutions" -- and I think we can consider Misplaced Pages a "social institution". Also, Andrewa, since you hold testimonies in such high regard, I will now testify that contrary to your "glove puppet" claim, I am not Gene Ray.

It's quite simple, Jerzy. The cube ROTATES about an axis passing through the centre of one face and the centre of an opposite face. Just like in a 4-corner room, the Cube's corners are the VERTICAL EDGES; more specifically, the four edges that are parallel to the rotational axis. And the faces can then be categorised into a group of 2 and group of 4; the group of 2 includes the ones to which the axis is normal (these may be interchangeably referred to as the Top and Bottom) and the other 4 are like the 4 walls of a room; the EDGES (not vertices) joining them are the 4 CORNERS.

Yes, the Cube is not inherently "fourish"; the number four is derived from the ROTATING cube that I have described. Also note that the rotating cube is dilated; as the rotational speed slows down and approaches zero, the magnitude of dilation also approaches zero. Now may I ask whom you are calling an "idiot"? I'd say if you cannot understand these simple concepts, then maybe YOU are an idiot.

I apologize for my reckless user of the wildly inappropriate term "idiot", which denotes lack of raw mental power. "Maniac" is closer to the case, as suggested by imagining that rooms are four cornered from their cubical status rather than from being what even idiots call "rectangular" or "square-cornered", and imagining that rotation affects corner count. --Jerzy(t) 16:22, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

Jerzy, the Cube-like room is merely an ANALOGY. The 4 corners of a room are the vertical edges, right? Now if we have a non-rotating cube, it is not possible to non-arbitrarily designate four of its twelve edges as corners. (The corners are the VERTICAL EDGES.) But if the Cube is rotating about an axis that passes through the centre of one face and the centre of the opposite face, then we can say that the 4 edges parallel to the rotational axis are the 4 CORNERS, and again note that I have defined CORNERS as VERTICAL EDGES (more specifically, edges parallel to the rotational axis).

I think what you meant by ""rectangular" or "square-cornered"" is that a room is as a rectangle projected along the vertical axis. Well, this is perfectly compliant with what I've described; project a rotating square along an axis that passes through its centre and is normal (perpendicular) to it, and you will get a rotating dilated Cube (it will only be undilated if you projected it along a distance equal to the square's side length).

Did I say that rotation affects corner count? No I did not, so maybe you should read my posts more carefully in future. What I did say was that just as the direction of gravity defines which of the 6 faces of a room are the 4 Walls, the orientation of the Cube's rotational axis defines the orientation of its 4 corners; and I also mentioned that rotation causes dilation along the rotational axis.

Funny

After reading it for the second time, I suddenly found Gene Ray's website to be the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Something in my mind clicked over from scepticism to overwhelming amusement at its bizarreness. Hence I am now compromised to the point where the only words of criticism I can muster are Evil Ass Educators Suppress Time Cube, and dumb ass students condone such evil. Cubeless institutions are spreaders of evil, and students lack mentality to challenge it. And ain't it the truth. -- Tim Starling 07:50, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

Help

Hi. I was wondering if some of you could help in dealing with a similar issue to this one. As I'm kind of new here, I don't exactly know the best way to deal with this. Someone named togo has been maintaining a rather nonsense and POV article called Holomovement. Although the subject matter is something that is actually quite worthy of attention, the article itself is absolutely unsatisfactory. I wrote a new article on the subject, and I think the best thing to do is to redirect to it.

Thanks,

Floorsheim 23:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anon,

Here are the reasons I've made the changes to the article that I have:

• I disagree with your changes to the first paragraph. Adding the phrase "Critics of the theory claim" is inaccurate. It is a fact that no one has been able to make a clear statement of what Mr. Ray's ideas have to do with time. If you can do this, do so, and I'll support changing the sentence. Also, it currently is a fact that Mr. Ray's theory makes no testable hypotheses or predictions. Again, if you can supply some, do so, and I'll agree to changing the sentence.

Dr Ray says that "Time is Cubic, not Linear". My interpretation of this is that by "Cubic", he means 3D. So Time Cube dictates that Time has 3-dimensions, which contradicts 1-dimensional linear-time models.

Time Cube dictates that everything is cyclical, any given entity is either composed of opposites or has an opposite, everything is finite and the forms of higher living beings are related to 4 (eg. higher animals have 4 limbs which tend to have 4 fingers/toes each, golden rectangle can be approximated by a rectangle composed entirely of 4-corner squares with increasing sizes, etc.) I think that it is scientifically falsifiable -- if something were observed that didn't conform to it, then that would disprove it.

• "More specifically, these continua tend to be cycles, which the 4 classes divide into quarters or quadrants." The meaning of this sentence is unclear. I'm reverting the paragraph for now.

Consider one period of a cycle; you can divide that into 4 equal quarters (eg. sunup-midday, midday-sundown, sundown-midnight, midnight-sunup). If the cycle involves going around in a circle, then you can accomplish the 4-quarter division by dividing the circle into 4 quadrants.

• "(family time ages of metamorphic human)" The meaning of this is unclear. I'm removing it.

That is terminology Dr Ray uses to refer to the baby-child-parent-grandparent life-cycle.

• "Midday, Sundown, Midnight and Sunup" These are times of the day. If you want to use these words to refer to corners of the earth, you need to establish the connection. I've made an effort to do this.

You're right, I made a mistake there. Consider a single point in time; sunup, midday, sundown, midnight can be used to define 4 corners in space. Then in 1 rotation, each of those corners rotates through the initial positions of the other 3 before returning to its own initial position. That's 4 Time corners for each of the 4 space corners, which sums to 16 total spacetime configurations. A graphical explanation of this is here.

• Made numerous changes to the 4-day section. Mostly to establish more clarity about the four corners of the earth but also to present some ambiguities.

At the poles, the corners cancel out, so near the poles, they are not well defined. However, you can extrapolate them from the more equatorial regions where they are well defined.

• Assuming you are Mr. Ray, you ought to know whether you claim that the four seasons are occurring simultaneously at different points on the earth. Based on your edit, I'm guessing you don't. Therefore, I'm removing the paragraph.

No I'm not Gene Ray, and I was merely attempting to neutralise the POV present in what someone else wrote.

• "However, it is arguable that the transitions between life stages are somewhat indefinite, and that the precise 4-corner division functions as a useful approximation of this." It is unclear what this means. I'm removing it for now.

Well, for instance, although populations do not form a perfect bell-curve, the bell-curve is still a useful approximation. Likewise, although people's life-cycles aren't perfectly clockwork and are subject to much variation, the 4-corner division still functions as a useful approximation.

• Added context to the quote in the "Words are evil" paragraph.

• Supplied some pertinent additional information concerning the online petition.

• Made copyedits for clarity and succinctness to "Problems with the Time Cube symbolism"

• If the Earth were to stop rotating, although there would be many other immense changes would take place, the Earth's surface would not become spherical. This seems to invalidate paragraph #3, so I've removed the entire paragraph.

Due to gravity, non-rotating bodies tend to collapse into an approximate sphere. This may not be so much the case for a small rocky planet like Earth, but it certainly is for large gas planets and stars etc. Please explain the exact basis for your prediction above. Time Cube applies to all planets/stars/galaxies, not just Earth. I think the paragraph in question needs to be put back in the article.

• Removed the paragraph about algebraic cubes. I don't see how it's relevant.

It is somewhat relevant since people do sometimes bring up the issue. It's not essential though.

–Floorsheim 05:41, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)