Here's some more images:
These are called Crepuscular rays. They appear to converge at some point in the sky, for the same reason that the parallel lines of a roadway seem to converge in the distance. How this stumps FE'ers, I'll never understand. It appears this also seems to stump some RE'ers.
If you are using the argument that crepuscular rays prove a close sun, then you must also somehow explain Anticrepuscular rays within the same framework. (Do a google search.)
Actually, I was fooled by the crepuscular rays thing - and I even made a post based around my misunderstanding!
The illusion that they are fanning outwards from a point right above the clouds is visually quite compelling.
Even now (although I know this to be the correct answer) it's hard to adjust my brain to the fact that the gap in the clouds is WAY off in the distance and not almost overhead. The fact of the divergence being due to perspective is hard to convince your eyes about!
But yes - when you look at the actual situation - for sure that's what it is.
Well you don't see FE'ers admitting to cognitive or perceptual mistakes. EVER. At least, I haven't ever seen it. So, huge kudos!
I have a hypothesis, and I know this could come off as insulting to you personally, so please understand that I don't mean it that way at all. It's about people who believe the Flat Earth Conjecture. My hypothesis is this:
People that spend a good deal of time outdoors, in varied environments, intuitively understand the basic geometry and physics of many natural phenomenon that apparently stump FE'ers - things like crepuscular rays. For reasons (in this just one example) such as:
- They see a significantly wider field of view, than people looking at the same thing from home in photos on their computer screen.
- They see in significantly higher detail than photos on a screen.
- They see significantly higher dynamic range and vividness, than photos on a screen.
- They see in three-dimensions; not just stereoscopy, but the ability (and natural inevitability) of moving your whole head (and body) over significant distances, to build a rich, deeply 3D model of the world around them.
- They see things evolve over time - such as crepuscular rays shifting with the clouds
- They see the "whole picture", such as crepuscular rays facing toward the sun, anticrepuscular facing away (near sunrise and sunset and/or at elevation)
- They see crepuscular rays turn into anticrepuscular as the day wears on (or in reverse as the day begins)
- Not necessarily having to do with outdoorsiness, but they like to travel
- They are curious on every flight (like me), no matter how many hundreds they've taken, always get the window seat facing away from the sun and ideally ahead of the wing (which they specifically think about while booking), try to schedule for a landing near the "magic hour", hope for a final approach around building thunderheads, and are always ready with some decent camera for an amazing photo opportunity (again usually on the long, low final approach). Either way, looking out the window for much of each and every flight, they see anticrepuscular rays all the live long day. At a deep, internal level, there is no mystery at all about the practical parallelness of light's rays from the sun.
- They've seen - and really taken in - hundreds if not thousands of sunsets under highly varied conditions - such as from beaches, from boats at sea, from mountains, from the Great Lakes, from inland seas, from big lakes like Lake Tahoe and Crater Lake, from deserts, salt flats, from airplaines, from skyscrapers, from the Grand Canyon, from the Rockies, the Sierras, the Appalachians, the Cascades, Swiss and German Alps, etc.
- They've taken long-haul flights to every major continent plus Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, etc.
These are just a few reasons why outdoorsy (and/or travel-ey) people - mixed with a high amount of curiosity about the world - may be able to better intuitively "grasp" just one phenomenon (among myriad others) that seems to stump FE'ers. And adds to my suspicion that Flat Earthers:
- Are utterly incurious
- As a result probably lead unadventurous lives (though possibly perfectly full of love and laughter)
- Are not well-traveled or if so, utterly incurious about it
- Do not have great spatial awareness/intelligence
- May not have much experience with other people and cultures
- Are highly gullible people prone to magical thinking
- Are more paranoid than average and prone to believing that powerful hidden forces dictate every facet of their lives
- May be on the lower end of the IQ spectrum
I'm having a hard time imaginging how anyone who has really taken in as much as the world has to offer, with gusto, bravery, and high curiosity - outside, without computer screens - could possibly believe the Earth is flat. Seems to me like the people who believe that are stuck inside watching Youtube videos, forming elaborate, ad-hoc mental models of the world, stewing away with growing anger over the grand conspiracy, and falling deeper down the rabbit hole of cognitive biases and logical fallacies, and building a wholly fictional "model" that is completely unworkable in any logical or rational way, but that they convince themselves - over days, weeks, months, years...decades (Tom), that is the only possible way the universe could and does work. They don't get out much. Maybe they have social anxiety and/or poor health, and/or are just utterly incurious about things outside their walls, and/or unmotivated to go explore. Maybe they feel beat down by the world, powerless, and a grand conspiracy helps them feel like it's not their fault. Who knows.
I mean, don't get me wrong, FE'ers. I'd absolutely flip out with joy, if the Earth were actually flat. What a brain-f***! How cool would it be to have a lifetime of an ever-evolving, ever-refining mental model, supported by everything I've ever done and observed - all of my uncountable journeys - turned on it's head? Either way, I must admit it is really fun to think and fantasize about. If I were a writer, I'd make it the basis of a whole adventure novel series. And who
wouldn't want to venture out onto an infinite ice shelf that grows increasingly more hostile, and set a record for how far you can make it? Or to watch as mankind keeps pushing that boundary, generation after generation? Maybe one day we'd find that the infinite plane isn't infinite after all, and a whole 'nother world exists 100,000 miles away? 1,000,000 miles away? Maybe infinite worlds on the infinite plane (assuming Rowbotham's intriguing model), with their own alien species, and atmospheres? Who
wouldn't want to try to build a rocket to reach a planet just 3,000 miles up, and see how it works and what it's made of? All of that sounds absolutely awesome. I wish it were true.