Our Age

[archely]

Okay, this thought came to me while i was reading about the patch and also while I was reading about the green men, but I think it deserves its own thread. Also, I apologize, i'm pretty new here, so this may have been discussed to some extent already.

Does anyone know for sure when our age is? We know that the books are set in the third age for sure. I just can't remember any other references. There are 5 ages i think, and for some reason I want to say that our age is the fifth. The AoL would have to be 1 or 2. Anyway, for certain our age comes between the third age and the AoL. That has some real implications as to what can happen. We know that somewhere between the third age and our age people lose all knowledge of the one power. Obviously, unless there is some secret society that channels now. (can i be in it?) Anyway, most people lose all knowledge of channeling, and it survives as tales of "magic." There are a lot of things like that. We obviously don't have nym, so either they are created again and destroyed again, or we won't be seeing them anymore in the books, because they are only created during the AoL. There are other things that I won't get into.

A last note on the length of ages. This may be just a quirk of RJ's, but he gives us at least some idea that ages can't be really really long. This being that legends still survive from our age to Rand's age. I think most people know by now that Lenn who flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire is a take on John Glenn, and so on and so forth with all the other references. For these to survive at all, I am of the opinion that ages are not as long as one might say they could be. However, it does matter which age is where, which is my original question.

[Cypher]

First thing...there's 7 ages (or at least that's how the wheel shows it.)

Second thing...who's to say we have an age? heck, this book isn't even written about earth

Other than that, I think the technology age of Randland was the 7th age considering only the forsaken have any knowledge of what a light bulb (as used by Moridin) is and they were around in the 2nd age.

I'd say ages could be any length since some ages could store information longer than others and therefore make the next age a long length since it'll take more time to forget stuff and make them legends, and then myths, and then forget completely.

[archely]

Originally posted by Cypher
Second thing...who's to say we have an age? heck, this book isn't even written about earth

Ummm, actually it is. I would direct you to

http://www.arkane.demon.co.uk/WOTFAQ/index.html

and check out the sources of knowledge section near the bottom. Specifically section 3.03 Is the world of Randland a future earth? Not just speculation either, you'll see a couple RJ quotes too.

[Buckweet]

RJ may have this whole divine idea of how "his" world works, and bless him for it, but--In this world, there are things that exist that disprove things like a repetive wheel---like oh I dont know... umm... evolution, known civilizations and development of the continent of the earth and what have you.

Unless of course a full turning of the wheel is the creation and destruction of the universe.. that i can buy--lol... but that should be left to a different thread...besides...the legends would not survive into next univese.

[archely]

Okay, i can't just let this die.

Two things....
First off, by appealing to history, you aren't doing anything. ie, how do you know that there wasn't some event in history that wiped the slate clean? Like, oh, i don't know, massive nuclear holocaust? While that may not fit for RJ's world, it would sure wipe out a lot of stuff. However, throw in the one power, and you've got the making for some possible events that very possibly could wipe the slate clean. Not to mention the fact that by appealing to history, you are assuming you know the whole of it and you are wholly confident in our scientific methods. eg. carbon dating and the like. I would hope that we as humans wouldn't do this and would realize that it is possible there are things we don't know. I'll stop this now, as it is starting to become a different discussion.

That said, part II-
It IS a fantasy world, sprung from the head of RJ. The chances of it being real are slim to none I would say. I hope you don't think that I really believe that our world is truly RJ's world. However, he has created his world to mesh with our world. It is his fantasy setting, and in it, he has included our world. Which means that in terms of theories and such, our world can be used to determine various things.

So.....there's my $1.50 that I know you all probably didn't want to hear.

[Buckweet]

Originally posted by archely
Okay, i can't just let this die.

Two things....
First off, by appealing to history, you aren't doing anything. ie, how do you know that there wasn't some event in history that wiped the slate clean? Like, oh, i don't know, massive nuclear holocaust? While that may not fit for RJ's world, it would sure wipe out a lot of stuff. However, throw in the one power, and you've got the making for some possible events that very possibly could wipe the slate clean. Not to mention the fact that by appealing to history, you are assuming you know the whole of it and you are wholly confident in our scientific methods. eg. carbon dating and the like. I would hope that we as humans wouldn't do this and would realize that it is possible there are things we don't know.



~~puts 2 pennies on the table~~~:D


Of course I'll mention a thing like history etc... And yes, I do believe in carbon dating and the like but it ges beyond that.
You dont have to believe something is a 100% true and there is nothing else to it.. to believe in something. Explain mainstream religions...they are based on hearsay.

Physicists know how old this planet, the solar system and the galaxy are. The facts are undeniable. Sure there are gaps in our civilization.. and plenty of unexplained wierdness like the Samerians, but there is no room for a repetitive cycle of some kind in it. RJ, by saying it..I cant buy it... Ill eat up almost anything he says but I wont eat that. he cant incorporate our world into Randlandia(TM), cause if he does... he takes everything with it, ... our history.

Now who is to say that our world can't be a very distant mirror world that can be reached through a portal stone. Our wolrd is similar to randlandia but there are key differences,... thats why if we went through a portal stone to it...everything would be fuzzy and what have you....

An for part II, How can you not believe tha Rand exists somewhere fighting the Dark One in a never ending cycle!! :p

[archely]

Originally posted by Buckweet
Of course I'll mention a thing like history etc... And yes, I do believe in carbon dating and the like but it ges beyond that.
You dont have to believe something is a 100% true and there is nothing else to it.. to believe in something. Explain mainstream religions...they are based on hearsay.

Physicists know how old this planet, the solar system and the galaxy are. The facts are undeniable. Sure there are gaps in our civilization.. and plenty of unexplained wierdness like the Samerians, but there is no room for a repetitive cycle of some kind in it. RJ, by saying it..I cant buy it... Ill eat up almost anything he says but I wont eat that. he cant incorporate our world into Randlandia(TM), cause if he does... he takes everything with it, ... our history.

Well, I still can't let it die, even though it is reduced to myself and buckweet having a conversation on this thread. Which, by the way buckweet, I am rather enjoying.

What I don't understand about this statement is that you say you don't have to believe in something 100% to believe in it; and then you go on to say that the "facts" are undeniable. It just reveals to me the assumptions you are making. The prime assumption being that our scientific methods are correct. Now, I'm not saying they aren't, and I'm not saying that I personally don't believe in them. All I am saying is that there is the possibility that we have screwed this stuff up. We seem to like history on this thread, so we can use it here. All throughout history, people have been discovering things, "knowing" things (although you can't know something if it isn't true) and then changing once they figure out something that works better. There are millions of examples of this.

Last thing....do I hear a trace of BLASPHEMY? Saying RJ couldn't do something? Hey everyone, burn him, he's a witch! (i'd put in a smiley here, but they are all broken for me)

[Buckweet]

yea, Im enjoying this talk too Arch,
:D (if you want to do this, just do coln and then the letter "D"
so it is ---- : D ------- except no spaces, cause If I didnt put a space, it would come out as :D.. LOL :D

:D is : D
:) is : )
:rolleyes: (my fav) is : rolleyes :

Anyhow, back to this talk,

I may be biased toward science and taking it personally, sorry. Im a chem major and when I here stuff like oh maybe science is way wrong I get... uppity :)

Not that science is infallible...cause it's not, some of the older chem theories for instance that we learn for laughs sake are so ditsy, I cant help but laugh...I digress..
Back to this. One thing pretty much I trust is that physicists are pretty acurate with the age of the universe, and the earth. All these times are not 100%. One thing Ive come to take with a grain of salt is that most numbers in science have an error associated to them... except pi(e) of course. ... but in this case with the age of the universe, the error is pretty sigificant.

Also, the universe was once created and one day it woll come to an end. I think that physicists have calculated that too
:(

But that wont be for quite a while... and doubt the earth would last nearly that long. Also, the amount of nuclear bombs trong enough to wipe out all tech would certainly wipe out mankind itself too.

[archely]

:D <---- is that a smiley now? The problem isn't that I don't know how to make them, the problem is that they don't come out as smileys for me, see general>help me.....all i can see are a bunch of wotism.net icons.

As far as science goes....i used to major in materials science engineering and had my fair share of science and whatnot....since i've switched to philosophy because i find it far more interesting....I've come to understand that this combo gives me a somewhat different outlook on these things.

Also, I don't know if you know this, but RJ has a degree in physics.

My point is put quite simply - It is possible that we don't know all that we think we know. Whether it is 50% possible or .0001% possible does not matter. The only way to say that it can't be the way he says is to have this be a 0% chance, which it is not.

As for the nuclear bombs remark, I completely agree, it was just an example of something that could completely wipe the slate clean.

[Buckweet]

Ive been thinking about that prob you have, I need to know something.


Try going to this site.http://www.wotism.net/forums/images/icons/icon10.gif

Do you see a little smiley face?

I may no the problem.

[archely]

I still see the icon for wotism.net.

[Buckweet]

I wish I knew what icon this looked like... umm I think the problem is some kind of setting in your browser...What browser and operating system do you have?

oh and yea... I kinda forgot that RJ had a physics degree...hehee... :D <---silly grin

Also, I completely agree that there is plenty we dont know... wholeheartedly. I used to be cynical toward chem before I made it my major...but as I got deeper and deeper into the major...stuff just kept piling up and some proofs are just plain logical.

But, to spin it around--I think that there is plenty of proof for no repetive wheel thing, but the only proof for it is RJ and his series....great awesome fiction

~~~bows down in awe~~

but it still is sci/fi

[archely]

My point isn't that our world isn't RJ's, because that I don't think at all. My point is simply that because of the chance that it is possibly RJ's, however small, that means that he can legitimately use it in his world. You can deduce things about his world using the circumstances in our world, because he has included our world in his. His world is simply that one chance out of a billion, or more if you'd like, it doesn't matter as long as there is that one chance, where time is a repetitive wheel.

[Buckweet]

Originally posted by archely

it doesn't matter as long as there is that one chance, where time is a repetitive wheel.

~~~sighs~~~
i dont think it is---period...though

~~~sighs again~~~

Hey can we agree to disagree cause, we both are pretty set on our opinions...
So, I agree they I dont agree with you.... how about you??:D

[archely]

Yeah, i was thinking we would have to do that anyway....