This is because the higher a receding body is, the less it turns to its side to perspective. In the Moon's case it is such a great hight that it barely turns at all (it does turn a little, however; look up the moon's daily liberation).
The Ancient Greeks did not really test how perspective works on a large scale, and their math assumes a continuous universe (ie. that the turn will be infinitely slower, and that perspective lines will recede infinitely into the distance without meeting) without any real evidence for that at all.
It is possible to theorize with their math that the moon should turn more than it does, but no real evidence for how things should be at that scale. Does the slowness max out at some point? Do the perspective lines really continue infinitely? These are unanswered questions and an ancient mathematical model is insufficient as an explanation.
All of these doubts and confusions vanish if instead of continuing to talk about the magical mystery that perspective seems to hold for you that you instead just think CAREFULLY about where the photons travel from the subject to the viewer.
If you have a solved rubix cube suspended 1 foot above your head and look upwards you will see its white underside. If this rubix cube then floats across the room you will be able to see its green colored side when it reaches the far wall 30 feet away.
However, if that same rubix cube is instead 1 mile above your head, and it travels across the length of your room, you will NOT be able to see is green colored side. The rubix cube will have hardly turned at all when it gets to a position 30 feet away. You will still be looking at its white underside.
Awesome example!
So in your example - the cube is a mile (5280 feet) overhead - and as it moves the width of your room (let's say 20 feet), yes, indeed, you'll hardly see any of the sides.
HOWEVER, let's no stop there. Let's continue with the experiment - so the cube doesn't stop over our 20 foot room...it keeps moving...it's 100 feet away, 200 feet...1000 feet...5000 feet...5280 feet off to the side. Now what do we see? Well, the cube is now at an angle of 45 degrees to us - and we see half of it as the white underside and the other half as green.
But if I keep the cube there - and walk a mile so I'm again standing underneath it - then again I see only the white side. So I bring two friends along....one of them stands in my room, 1 mile away...the other walks a mile off in the opposite direction.
We call each other on our cellphones and figure out what we are each seeing.
I look straight up and I see a white cube. My buddy back in the room sees half-white and half green...and the guy who walked another mile looks back at the cube and sees half white and half red!
So now let's replace the rubics cube with the moon.
I see the underside - one guy sees half of what I see and half of some entirely new part of the moon that's invisible to me - and the other guy sees half of what I see and some yet different part.
All three of us see different aspects of the cube.
THAT is the problem you have with the moon. I'm standing where the moon is 3000 miles vertically overhead and my two friends are standing 3000 (or as much as 6000) miles either side of me where the moon is rising for one of them and setting for the other.
Flip the moon out and replace it with a 30 mile rubic cube - and the problem is clear.
As a object increases its height it will turn slower.
Your thought experiment is lacking because you constrained the horizontal distance of the object to some ridiculously small distance as you increased the altitude.
Using your typically weird phrasing:
"As the object get higher (without moving off to the side) it 'rotates less' - but as the object moves further off to the side (without changing altitude) it 'rotates more'. When you combine these two motions, they cancel out exactly. So the 'rotation' is the same for the moon at 3000 miles up and 3000 miles off to the side as it is for a rubic cube 3 feet up and 3 feet off to the side."
Phrasing things like that is weird...inaccurate...just *WRONG*...but that's where your thought processes are broken.
We do not know how slow, however. Infinitely slow?
Does the slowness become imperceptible or perhaps stop turning altogether at some point? Could it be that an object turns so slow that it reaches the vanishing point before rotating to any significant degree? There is a lack of data because the maximums of perspective theory were never studied.
We don't need "data" - we know that light travels in straight lines and the laws of Eulerian geometry are indisputable. So we don't need to "guess" - we can use the awesome power of GEOMETRY to know the answer for sure.
One could easily claim that perspective scales repressively and slows down to an increasingly infinitesimal pace with increased distance, and that theory would be just as accurate as the theories of the Ancient Greeks who have neglected to provide evidence for the maximums of perspective theory.
That's incorrect - and when (if) you ever get around to telling me how the photons move instead of confusing yourself with "rotations" and "vanishing points" - the answer becomes crystal clear.
I'm all for "doubt" - but when the physical situation is well understood, we can stop guessing and actually figure it out.
Is there any evidence that it changes as you declare it should though? Because if there is I haven't seen you trot it out.
All observations of very distant objects show that they do not rotate as significantly as theorized. The fact that the moon does not turn (significantly), that Saturn does not tilt, and that the stars do not build up and change configuration at the horizon line, is evidence that those assumptions for how perspective should work at large scales is incorrect.
Or it's evidence that the Earth isn't Flat.
You see you're only puzzled at how perspective works on the Flat Earth because you're convinced that the Earth is flat.
The rest of us are pointing out that perspective works very simply and as an 'emergent property' of the fact that light travels in straight lines.
These problems of yours go away completely when you assume a round earth solution.
You interpret this as "magic perspective" because that's the only way you can continue to believe that the earth is flat. When you look carefully at "non-magic" perspective - it debunks the flat earth hypothesis - and confirms that the world is round.
Again you try to twist the point. Perspective has nothing to do with viewing angle. If a person is standing in front of you, facing you dead on. You are not going to see their back. I dont care if you are 3 inches or 30 feet. As already proved, the moon is not 3000 miles away. It's quite obvious to anyone that can think it through.
Your evidence is based on a thought experiment, not what actually happens at large distances.
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But Tom - your "evidence" is that the standard laws of perspective are incorrect because normal perspective doesn't work in the flat earth...that's not evidence! That's the opposite of evidence.
Your argument goes like this:
* If the earth is flat then...
* Sunsets wouldn't happen with normal perspective...
* So perspective must be "magic"...
* So when the RE'ers say "Hey sunsets can't happen unless the Earth is round"...
* You can say "Aha! But I can prove that they happen in the flat earth because perspective is magic.
* When the RE'ers say "But perspective can't be magic because light travels in straight lines"...
* You can say "AHA! But if that were true then there would be no sunsets - ergo perspective is magic.
* ...and therefore perspective is magic.
* ...and therefore the Earth is flat.
...but that's one gigantic circular argument. At no point did you prove that perspective is magic. All you did was prove that "
IF the world is flat THEN perspective is magic"...which is most certainly not the same thing!
We're saying "
Perspective ISN'T magic (it cannot be if light travels in straight lines) SO the Earth isn't Flat".