Yggdrasill

Argh, increased density in the core, why didn't I think of that, I suck.We don't need to know anything, if we were still climbing around in trees in Africa, I'm relatively sure we would be quite content. The only reason for human exploration is a quest for knowledge, and what is the worth of knowledge if it is false? So just because I require absolute proof before I claim to know something I am unreasonable? When you know something, there is no doubt involved. If I claimed to know something I would be no different from those who claim that they "know" that god exists. It is an illogical unprovable assertion.

(I may read this in the morning and change my standpoint, I am drunk at the moment)

Shadowy Man

In my opinion, yes. What does the word "know" mean if you can't actually know anything?

SULPHUR

Lobstosity

Your idea has merit until you take a good look at the structure of the earth.Consider the crust which can be two sections SIAL and SIMA. Then the MOHO which seperates the crust from mantle. The mantle has sections of heating and cooling with vaiable densities over time The outer core is thought to be liquid because of of secondary siesmic wave behavior. then an inner core thought to be solid but latest research indicate some parts may be liquid. I dont believe your mathematics can cope witn all those variables.

Yggdrasill

There are many things that exist in concept alone. God, knowledge, ether (not the liquid), etc. are useful for conveying ideas of similar nature to the concept. For example: "If I were omnipotent, I would be a god." This would be a more meaningful thing to say than, "If I were omnipotent, I would be a very powerful being." The vocabulary should be as broad as possible to enable better understanding.

And, like "theory", "Know" can be used in different ways. There is "know" as in "absolutely sure", and there is "know" as in "relatively sure". You just need to realize that "absolutely sure" exists in concept alone, and can't be applied to "reality".

Shadowy Man

Agreed, which is why I don't even use the phrase "absolutely sure". In fact, I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean.

But you can't claim that if something isn't known "absolutely" then it is equally well-known as anything else not known "absolutely. There are degrees to which something is "known".

SULPHUR

Nothing is absolute

Yggdrasill

I don't usually use the definition "relatively sure" when I use the word "know", I tend to substitute it with more vague terms, although I just read some of my previous posts and I did use "know" as in "relatively sure" a lot. I should try to avoid mixing the two definitions. Of course, if there is category "1" and category "not 1", 5 is closer to category "1" than 50, but both 5 and 50 winds up in the category "not 1". I'm just saying that if there is an element of doubt it is not knowledge (= absolute knowledge).

It seem our disagreement is linguistical, rather than pertaining to the ideas behind the words.

SULPHUR

Could you reply to my post,about 4 posts above, and say how you would apply your maths to the problem ? There is of course the other problem on phase diagrams.

Shadowy Man

Perhaps, but I guess what I am wondering is this: If you don't use the word "know" unless you are absolutely sure, what do you think you actually know?

And if you know nothing, then does the word "know" have any useful meaning. Could you redefine it to "has been proven to me to be"?

Lobstrosity

I realize that. My model wasn't meant to be an accurate model for the Earth, it was merely meant to show that an area of increased density within the planet can potentially lead to an increase in gravity within the planet. Basically, I was curious how two discontinuous density regions would influence the results, so I just performed the simplest calculations I could. I openly admit that it's a very very very crude model. In order to cope with the true complexity of the real problem I'd need to use numerical methods.

I'm not sure about the other problem.