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To: E. Charters who wrote (75364)	8/21/2001 8:07:32 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116762

<<Aliens are aware of this widely accepted principle and always choose to reveal themselves >> Those from Mexico or Canada? :)

To: E. Charters who wrote (75364)	8/21/2001 10:02:40 AM
From: grusum	Respond to of 116762

Yes, the truth is that no one 'knows' anything. Knowledge is simply strong unquestioned belief. There is always a degree of uncertainty to everything, even if we don't recognize it. It is quite freeing to understand that there is nothing that we can 'know' in the truest sense of the word. In the words of a physicist whose name I have long forgotten, "We don't know what matter is. We don't know what consciousness is. Our ignorance is complete." Reductionism never ends, so the answer will never be there. Our lives are lived in probabilities from absurdly impossible to seemingly unavoidable. Yet we get surprised at both ends of the spectrum. About surveying, here is something to consider. It is possible to be very accurate and cheap, if your error tolerances are big enough. It is also possible to be very precise and expensive, and be inaccurate. For instance if you ran a set of levels to the nearest foot, you could be quite fast and with compensating error, be quite accurate too. But if you ran a set of first order levels and took great care to read to the thousandths of a foot, you would take a great deal more time and therefore expense, and your measurements would be very precise. But if you had a systematic error, your set of levels would be very precise and highly inaccurate! You could be off the true elevation by several feet! I'm sure you understand this, but it isn't commonly understood that measurements can be precise and inaccurate, and they can be imprecise and accurate, as well as the more commonly understood two other combinations. You're an interesting man Mr. Charters.