[extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...

[Jeff Davis]

--- Alan Eliasen <eliasen at mindspring.com> wrote:

"Okay, so the highest mountains of the earth were
covered, plus an extra 15 cubits (approx 27 feet) for
good measure.

The current measurements for highest mountain is Mt.
Everest at 29030.8 feet (according to the highly
dubious and utterly non-trustable 2002 Guinness
Book of World Records.)"

         ------------------------------

Your use of Everest here doesn't seem right.  The
authors of the scriptures likely were speaking of the
"known" world, that is, the world known to them. 
Supposing them to have been native to what we now call
the mideast, the Himalayas would probably not have
been known to them.  Consequently, I suggest the
following method for determining the height of the
highest mountain within the world known to the authors
of the Biblical flood story.

Consider the expanse of the known world at the time,
and take the highest mountain within that region. 

Or, take the location of Noah's home town as the
starting point and Ararat as the ending point. 
Calculate the rate of drift--to my knowledge, the arc 
wasn't a sailboat, so speed derived in the
conventional fashion based on hull speed, and power,
doesn't apply here--of the arc based on its
dimensions, load factor, upper bound on wind speed,
and use this to calculate the maximum distance the arc
could have traveled, out and back as it were, on its
way to Ararat.  Then use this as the radius of a
circle(actually Noah's home town and Ararat would be
the foci of an ellipse) encompassing the region to
which the biblical authors could have been referring. 


The biblical authors must have been descendents of
Noah, as all the rest of the people of the known world
are presumed to have drowned.  And the more limited
view of the flood that I am suggesting seems likely,
since Chinese and African peoples either survived--the
more likely conclusion--or evolved subsequently from
Noah's descendents.  Given the large number of Chinese
people compared to semites (ie spawn of Noah), I would
have to go with survived and prospered rather than
evolved, migrated, prospered and reproduced like,
well, er,... Chinese).

Anyway, derive a "highest mountain on earth" by this
method and then recalculate the rainfall rate.

It takes a village to make a village idiot. ;-}

Best, Jeff Davis

    I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical 
    thing is usually to change those beliefs that 
    cause the most immediate trouble...
                      Daniel Ust


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