Introduction To Atlantis Kenneth Moak
DOWN LOAD FORMAT
$15.00
Introduction to Atlantis
By Kenneth Moak
Copyright by Kenneth Moak & PsychicSchoolHouse.com 2007
Description:
This course offers an outline of basic facts, theories, and assumptions involved in the study of Atlantis. It will provide a solid foundation for students interested in pursuing further research; those with a more casual interest will come away prepared to discuss the subject knowledgeably. The approach will be scientific; relying on physical evidence, while emphasizing that psychic and intuitive approaches are equally valid and essential paths to knowledge. Students will gain understanding of the Scientific Method, the geological time-line, and the standard "family tree" of humans. Finally, various ideas of where and when Atlantis existed, and what may have happened to it will be discussed.
NOTE: This course is designed to be an INTERACTIVE course. Reference links within the course can be accessed by clicking on the number and outside web site references and referrals are also linked in. To access these web links you will need to read this CD while connected to the Internet or DSL.
Prerequisites:
None.
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Index:
Thirty Thousand Years Doing Nothing?
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Sample Read:
Science Looks at Prehistory
The past has shaped us, not only as individuals, but also as a race: in order to learn where we are going, we must first understand where we have been. Even a brief survey of human prehistory challenges us with a great many profound questions, and despite mainstream Science’s claims to the contrary, the answers are neither obvious, nor simple. Are humans relative newcomers, a species that appeared only moments ago, on the geological time-scale, or did we originate much further back? Is civilization a recent development, “invented” for the first time by clever tribal societies only a few thousand years ago, or has it risen, peaked, and vanished once or many times before? Was there a Golden Age? Did someone use high-technology in the distant past? If so, what happened to it, why did the Golden Age end, and how could it have been forgotten? This course will address those questions, examine the standard answers to them, and consider the evidence for a completely different view of prehistory.
There are several paths to knowledge, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. For at least two hundred years our culture has relied almost exclusively on the Scientific Method. Science works (ideally) this way: a scientist observes something that is not understood, figures out a possible explanation- a hypothesis- for it, then devises a way to test that hypothesis by doing an experiment. Depending on the results, the hypothesis is either discarded, or new experiments are carried out to refine it. Meanwhile the scientist has told other scientists of his work, and they are also testing and refining the original hypothesis. To reach the next level of acceptance, to become a theory, the hypothesis must be confirmed by independent, repeatable tests. It also must be proven falsifiable; that is, scientists must agree that at least one workable experiment could disprove it once and for all.
Scientific Method is a powerful tool for answering questions that begin with “What happens.” The experimenters who devised it were most interested in chemistry and physics; the problems that intrigued them involved measurable changes. What happens when two chemicals combine to make a third? What happens when a gas is compressed? What happens when an electric current passes through different materials? Hypotheses involving questions like these can be easily tested, the experiments can be redone by anyone interested, and falsification is usually very simple. For instance, an early theory of burning held that inflammable substances contained a sort of gas called phlogiston, which was given off as heat and flame. Modern chemistry really began when repeatable experiments falsified the phlogiston theory, by proving that some burnt materials weighed more than they had originally (because they had combined with oxygen), instead of less, as they would have if phlogiston were lost.
This system of back-and-forth testing became the standard approach to understanding nature, because it worked; the incredibly rapid growth of chemistry, physics, and other “hard sciences” proves that. But it has a flaw. The two key requirements- that every discovery be repeatable, and every hypothesis falsifiable- set up a built-in bias against whole categories of knowledge. The first simply doesn’t apply to one-of-a-kind evidence (such as fossils); you can’t very well experiment with things that happened thousands or millions of years ago. The second makes scientists uncomfortable with open-ended questions that don’t have either-or answers; those beginning with “Why-” or “How-“. Why do most cultures recall an ancient Golden Age? How were the Great Pyramid built?
If these limitations had been recognized early on, Science could have developed alongside other, more intuitive approaches to knowledge; those disciplines which modern Science dismisses as “mysticism” would instead have been accepted as equally powerful, complementary tools to understanding. That didn’t happen, probably because Science and established religion blundered into a vicious, protracted fight in the nineteenth century. After sparring for years over Darwin’s theory of evolution, science finally “won” by invading the other side’s territory; claiming absolute authority over the disputed subject, Human prehistory. In order to do so, it created two new disciplines: archaeology (the study of things made by ancient Man) and palaeontology (the study of fossils). In theory, both were based on the scientific method; in practice that wasn’t possible, because their subject matter was neither repeatable nor falsifiable. As a result, both tended to ignore the fine, essential distinction between hypothesis and theory, using the former, untested, to do what only the latter, confirmed, should: serve as a standard for judging new evidence. Worse yet, both disciplines emerged from the evolution-creation controversy saddled with a priori assumptions; rigid, preconceived ideas of what they were going to prove. Darwinism had become a belief-system; its underlying premises were not to be questioned, no matter what. Generations of archaeologists and palaeontologists have assumed that modern man is a geologically-recent arrival, that early humans remained stone-age hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years, that civilization arose less than ten thousand years ago and has steadily advanced (with occasional lapses) to a level far beyond anything the world has ever seen.
Unfortunately every other approach to knowledge flatly contradicts these assumptions. Religion, myth, folklore, ancient literature, and memory-regression all tell us there was at least one great precursor (forerunner) civilization before ours. Most place it during the last ice-age, a time when establishment science insists there were only scattered bands of primitive humans just learning to make polished stone tools. For the most part, scientists have responded to this challenge with scorn and angry denial. It looks much like insecurity.
While making fun of “mystics,” “Atlantis-buffs,” and “pyramidiots,” Darwinian true-believers have also carried out shameful editing of their own data. As we shall see, scientists with the best of credentials have made awkward discoveries which were suppressed, written out of the scientific record. Hard evidence does exist (or did; much of it has been lost) indicating very great human antiquity, and ancient achievements equal to our own.
Having said that, we still have to acknowledge the real achievements of archaeology and paleontology. They aren’t perfect, but thanks to them we see that there was prehistory, a concept not widely appreciated before science took charge. Thanks to them we have volumes of evidence that can be interpreted in various ways. Thanks to countless dedicated, honest researchers we know there are unanswered questions, and have clues to their solution. There are also recent, optimistic signs that both disciplines are trying to correct their shortcomings: new discoveries are being published and discussed in an open-minded spirit that would have been unthinkable only twenty years ago. When used with care, scientific method remains one of the best tools ever invented.
We have seen that science- done right- moves from hypothesis to theory, testing and retesting all the way. That isn’t the end. When one or several related theories are considered proven, they may come to form a paradigm, an inclusive way of looking at large aspects of reality. Because paradigms include so much, they are often taken for granted; we may not appreciate that what is assumed to be fact, is actually built out of theory. The first step toward changing a paradigm is to recognize, evaluate, and if need be correct its underlying assumptions.
There is an accepted paradigm of human prehistory. It’s a complex structure, built and modified over many decades, often by researchers who didn’t realize the effect their small contributions would have. Like all paradigms, it shapes everyone’s ideas; you don’t have to be a paleontologist to recognize a cartoon image of a hairy, low-browed caveman squatting by an open fire. Imagine trying to make sense of the movie Jurassic Park without that shared, unifying vision of prehistoric life. It is, above all, a reasonable way of interpreting the distant past- or seems to be. Only when you look closely do you begin to see rough edges and parts that don’t quite fit.
Before we can recognize its shortcomings, we have to bring the larger structure in focus. This paradigm is built entirely on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. That is a paradigm in itself, with almost religious overtones. Arguing its merits is far beyond the scope of this lesson: whole libraries of books have been written pro and con. Basically it maintains that all life forms develop from simpler forms over long periods of time, as a result of many random mutations (genetic changes). Even if that’s wrong, the prehistory paradigm doesn’t necessarily collapse, because there are alternative theories available, which include the important concept of change over time. Any theory involving continuous, progressive development is one of evolution, but here we will use that term in its Darwinian sense, as a process driven entirely by chance.
According to the paradigm, evolution produced various hominid (pre-human) species over the past four million years. None of them were human, or even close to it, but each one had a few more human characteristics than the preceding ones. Around one and a half million years ago a hominid originally named Pithecanthropus erectus appeared in Africa, and very rapidly expanded throughout Europe and Asia. Subsequently it was decided that Pithecanthropus erectus was a direct human ancestor, and the name was changed to Homo erectus. It was replaced by- presumably mutated into- Homo neanderthalensis, the first true human. (The genus name, Homo means “man”, and neanderthalensis refers to a place, the Neanderthal Valley, where its fossils were first discovered.) The popular image of cavemen- brutish subhumans- refers to Neanderthals, though it may be totally incorrect. Then, suddenly and very recently- less than one hundred thousand years ago- a completely different species, Homo sapiens (“Thinking man”), appeared. The early Homo sapiens are known as Cro-Magnon Man (also because of the place of discovery), and are considered to have been biologically identical to modern Humans. Within sixty or seventy thousand years Cro-Magnons had completely replaced the Neanderthals. Then for the next thirty thousand years or so they hunted, crafted stone tools, domesticated a few animals- dogs, goats, probably horses- and spread throughout the Old World, but accomplished very little else. Their culture remained essentially static- unchanging- until the end of the last ice-age, about twelve thousand years ago, at which time they invented agriculture, began to settle in villages, and discovered how to use naturally-occurring copper. Two or three thousand years later declining food-supplies, population pressure, or climate changes led them to develop such things as organized towns, and central government. At about the same time they learned to alloy copper, initiating the Bronze Age. Later still, around seven or eight thousand years before the present (BP), towns became cities, large-scale stone working technology appeared, iron came into use, and written languages developed. The last was tremendously important: by definition a society with a written language is a civilization. From that point on, prehistory becomes history.
That is, of course, an extremely simplified outline of an extremely complicated paradigm. As you might expect, there are many important details, elaborations, and grey areas that it ignores. We’ll explore some of those later. The key point to recognize now, is that this view of prehistory was, until quite recently, the only scientifically acceptable interpretation. There have been changes made, many in the last ten years, but most of the large assumptions are still accepted as fact.
Let’s take a moment to review. For over two hundred years our culture has relied on Science to explain the world. We’ve learned how Science is supposed to work; moving from observation, to hypothesis, to theory, to paradigm, testing and retesting every step of the way. We’ve seen that it doesn’t always do so, because its testing requirements simply don’t apply to large areas of knowledge, including human prehistory. Instead of recognizing intuitive approaches as complementary equals, Science has dismissed them, because of an old feud with organized religion. Two disciplines, archaeology and paleontology, were created to deal with the question of human origins: between them they have formulated a paradigm that offers a reasonable interpretation of prehistory. According to it, a variety of ape-like hominid species led to the first true humans, the Neanderthals, who in turn were replaced by modern Man, Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnons. After about thirty thousand years of static, hunter-gatherer life, Homo sapiens rather suddenly discovered copper, agriculture, and the advantages of village life. Later, even more suddenly, villages became towns; bronze, then iron was discovered, written languages appeared, and civilization began, for the first time. This happened in what is now the Mideast, about seven thousand years ago...
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Copyright by Kenneth Moak & PsychicSchoolHouse.com 2007 all applicable laws apply.
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