D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[mamba]

But honestly, all that about flight is moot. Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth back in third century BC, a couple thousand years before the airplane was invented. Being able to fly really isn't relevant to the discovery.

I agree, you do not need to be able to see the curvature to detect that it exists, clearly we figured that out way before we could see it from ‘space’

The most easily detectable sign should be a sunset / sunrise already, you do not even need ships sailing past the horizon on an ocean

The other thing is that on a flat plane the horizon should always rise to your eye level, even on mountains (given a large enough flat plane), and that clearly does not happen either.

And yet a few thousand years ago the ‘common sense’ said that the Earth is flat. What we consider common sense is frequently not common or not sensible, so I would not see this as a foundation for worldbuilding that everyone should adhere to.

The point was not that it is undetectable, but that you have to fly very high to see it and is not what common sense would / did indicate. It took a little more than that for us to figure out the right answer, otherwise we would have started out with believing that the Earth is a sphere.

 

[mamba]

The idea that most people believed the earth was flat during the middle ages was not true. It was just one of the many things that people pushed to say that people were ignorant back then.

no one here said the people in the middle ages believed that

 

[AlViking]

no one here said the people in the middle ages believed that

You just stated that they did at one point. Which, we know the ancient Greeks did not. There's no evidence that belief in a flat earth was ever particularly widespread that I know of.

if you go back far enough most people likely didn't care because it had no impact on their lives.

 

[mamba]

You just stated that they did at one point. Which, we know the ancient Greeks did not.

Show me where I stated that. All I did say is that the Bible very clearly describes a flat Earth. Last I checked it was not written in the middle ages

 

[AlViking]

Show me where I stated that. All I did say is that the Bible very clearly describes a flat Earth. Last I checked it was not written in the middle ages

Not gonna argue about that. I'm just saying that there would be visible impact if the earth is flat in many cases.

 

[mamba]

Not gonna argue about that. I'm just saying that there would be visible impact if the earth is flat in many cases.

Sure there would be, my point is not that there wouldn't be. If anything my point is that there is a lot of 'evidence' that is immediately apparent and and leans towards flat while the actual evidence for spherical is somewhat more subtle. Just listen to any reasons some flat earthers give you for their beliefs (water is level, the ocean is water, so we live on a flat plane...)

Using common sense would frequently lead us to wrong conclusions, the shape of the Earth is one of those cases. We clearly have no actual evidence for a flat Earth and yet if you look at what people believed in the distant past, that was not exactly an uncommon belief (the Bible is pretty much a reflection of what the people of Mesopotamia believed at that time, not just a dozen desert tribes). The older books in the Bible predate Aristotle by a thousand years, the newer ones of the old testament are around his time and there is no indication the authors were aware of a spherical Earth.

 

[AlViking]

Sure there would be, my point is not that there wouldn't be. If anything my point is that there is a lot of 'evidence' that is immediately apparent and and leans towards flat while the actual evidence for spherical is somewhat more subtle. Just listen to any reasons some flat earthers give you for their beliefs (water is level, the ocean is water, so we live on a flat plane...)

Using common sense would frequently lead us to wrong conclusions, the shape of the Earth is one of those cases. We clearly have no actual evidence for a flat Earth and yet if you look at what people believed in the distant past, that was not exactly an uncommon belief (the Bible is pretty much a reflection of what the people of Mesopotamia believed at that time, not just a dozen desert tribes). The older books in the Bible predate Aristotle by a thousand years, the newer ones of the old testament are around his time and there is no indication the authors were aware of a spherical Earth.

I'm not going to discuss the Bible and whether or not it talks about the earth being flat.

my example was simple. On a sailing ship if the planet is flat there is no need for a lookout in the crows nest because someone on the bridge could see just as far. I don't care if your fictional world is flat or not but if characters can sail off the edge of the world because it's flat and you had the guy in the crow's nest see it first, that would be odd to me.

If we assume even medieval levels of scientific knowledge, it was well known that the world is a sphere.

 

[mamba]

I'm not going to discuss the Bible and whether or not it talks about the earth being flat.

it's about what common sense is and there are only so much old documents around that have anything to say on this topic... the point remains that common sense is frequently not accurate, it's a fancy term for making things up based on gut feel and not thinking too hard about the topic, so worldbuilding should not be limited to that

 

[pemerton]

If you think that means we understand everything or know how stuff really works, I suggest you read up

I've taught history and philosophy of science, so I have my own view based on the stuff I've read up on.

 

[AlViking]

I've taught history and philosophy of science, so I have my own view based on the stuff I've read up on.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Our understanding of how everything works is limited and likely always will be is all I was saying.

I don't really care about the underlying rules of physics describing how things work. All I care about is what is experienced, what is perceived and how. Do atoms exist? It doesn't matter because the PCs will never see an atom.