Persephone vs Axis Tilt
In a recent Twitter space, @liberty-fitz-claridge asked how Veritula would model the clash between the Persephone myth and the axis-tilt theory of the seasons, as compared in The Beginning of Infinity chapter 1.
This discussion shows how. It explains the rational preference for the axis-tilt theory over the Persephone myth not in terms of which we find harder to vary, but in terms of the former having no pending criticisms, whereas the latter does have pending criticisms.
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas, and submit new ideas.Long ago, Hades, god of the underworld, kidnapped and raped Persephone, goddess of spring. Then Persephone’s mother, Demeter, goddess of the earth and agriculture, negotiated a contract for her daughter’s release, which specified that Persephone would marry Hades and eat a magic seed that would compel her to visit him once a year thereafter. Whenever Persephone was away fulfilling this obligation, Demeter became sad and would command the world to become cold and bleak so that nothing could grow.
This explanation predicts that the seasons happen at the same time everywhere. It contradicts observation: in Australia, the seasons are ‘inverted’.
[W]hy those gods and not others? …
[W]hy is it specifically a magic seed and not any other kind of magic? Why is it a conjugal-visits contract and not some other reason for someone to repeat an action annually?
This explanation basically just says “the gods did it.” The details have no bearing on the underlying explanation.
“[P]eople do not generally cool their surroundings when they are sad…” (BoI chapter 1)
“[W]e have no way of knowing that Demeter is sad…” (BoI chapter 1)
If any prediction of this theory is found to be false, we can easily change it to make different predictions. That’s bad.
[T]he true explanation of seasons [says] that the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun. Hence for half of each year the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun while the southern hemisphere is tilted away, and for the other half it is the other way around. Whenever the sun’s rays are falling vertically in one hemisphere (thus providing more heat per unit area of the surface) they are falling obliquely in the other (thus providing less).
[S]urfaces tilted away from radiant heat are heated less than when they are facing it, and … a spinning sphere in space points in a constant direction.
@liberty-fitz-claridge take a look at this discussion as a whole. At the time of writing, the Persephone myth (#4240) has 5 pending criticisms, whereas the axis-tilt theory (#4243) has no pending criticisms. Hence a rational preference for the latter: Veritula says to reject ideas with pending criticisms and adopt those without.
But some of the criticisms basically say that the Persephone myth is “easy to vary”.
But the criticisms don’t try to find out how easy to vary the Persephone myth is. Nor do we try to find out how hard to vary the axis-tilt theory is.
Basically, a small part of the notion of ‘easy to vary’ gets to live on in Veritula as an approximation, as Popper would phrase it.
That’s only some of the criticisms though. Others have nothing to do with easy/hard to vary.