Oolite Bulletins

I thought his anniversary speech odd - 'breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers'. I wonder what he knew that we do not. A great man and a true patriot of his country.

Greyth wrote:

I thought his anniversary speech odd - 'breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers'. I wonder what he knew that we do not. A great man and a true patriot of his country.

I think he was saying that there are great discoveries to be made – that science and exploration are the only ways to remove the "protective layers" that keep the secrets of the universe hidden from us. There's nothing mysterious, nothing fantastic – we just need the will, and the courage, to apply ourselves: it's all out there waiting for us to go and look.

What he knew, what a lot of us know, but what does not interest the politicians and the generals, is that space exploration has the power to unite us: and what he knew first-hand, having seen with his own eyes what only a handful of other men have ever seen, is that we are all here together on one little round world, and that if you stand on the moon you can cover up all of human existence with one thumb.

On the few occasions he spoke in public, he encouraged people to keep exploring, to keep building, to keep experimenting. I think in many ways he must have been deeply disappointed to have become emblematic of humanity's high-water mark, and to have seen us retreat back down again from that first small step. To have done all that, to have achieved all that – and then seen nothing come of it, must have been very hard to bear. It was one small step, one giant leap – but we have yet to take the next one.

NASA seems to have been dragging it's feet for decades with regard to the production of spacecraft. It's also curious that there have been few, if any, airframes designed since the late fifties. Regrettably the planet we live on seems to be in some way mis-engineered and we lurch from ecological disaster to catastrophe every 2000 years or so. A foothold on Mars would be a significant step towards ensuring faster recovery from these periodic disasters and a small insurance against extinction. It is galling that we hold the technology to achieve that but not the political strength required to do it. I can only guess that the reason it has not been done is that no politician would pass the physical and mental tests that astronauts endure making any offworld colony incorruptible by conventional means.

It's possible that what you say, Disembodied, concerning Armstrong's speech is accurate. But remember that he was a military man and therefore will have chosen his words with care. The would have been intended to provoke thought and wonder without transgression of his agreement to serve his country. In such a sense his words were at the very limit of what it is possible for such a man to say. Morever, 'Truths protective layer' is usually considered to be 'a bodyguard of lies'. Food for thought.

Neil Armstrong was a passionate advocate of manned spaceflight and space exploration. He also didn't seem to be a man given to handing out evasive nods and winks, nudges and sidelong hints. If he had something to say, I'm pretty sure he would have said it. He was brave enough. I don't think there's any need to give credence to the conspiracy enthusiasts: half of them think he didn't go, and the other half think he was in league with aliens. This sort of stuff isn't worth debating.

Disembodied wrote:

half of them think he didn't go, and the other half think he was in league with aliens. This sort of stuff isn't worth debating.

Amen to that!

He was a military man and took the interests of his nation to heart. When he returned from his mission he became reclusive in the extreme and a man of few words. It took considerable leverage to make the man appear in public. It is important not to entangle bravery with patriotism. Patriotism might far more adequately explain his curious choice of words.

Greyth wrote:

He was a military man and took the interests of his nation to heart. When he returned from his mission he became reclusive in the extreme and a man of few words. It took considerable leverage to make the man appear in public. It is important not to entangle bravery with patriotism. Patriotism might far more adequately explain his curious choice of words.

He did a thing which was profoundly outside the normal run of human experience. As a passionate supporter of manned space exploration, he became deeply disillusioned at America's, and the world's, failure to follow up the early promise of Apollo. He might never have been very comfortable with fame; certainly, he chose not to spend the rest of his life being defined by one event, and shunned the limelight.

His choice of words is only "curious" if you start with the (wholly unwarranted) assumption that he had something to hide (but not, of course, hide properly; he had something to hide but didn't mind dropping cryptic hints about it through the world's media, which only the initiated with their websites could understand. That's an odd definition of patriotic silence: keep schtum, but give little nods and winks to the fans now and then.). "Truth's protective layer" is not considered to be "a bodyguard of lies": no such phrase exists which links those two statements. The latter part comes from a wartime epigram of Winston Churchill, referring to (I think) all the Allied deceptions in the lead-up to D-Day: "In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies". No mention there of Armstrong's "protective layers". Instead, Armstrong spoke of "great ideas undiscovered" and "breakthroughs available": clearly, he's talking about the potential fruits of science and exploration, not "secrets".

If you start off looking for hidden messages, you can find them in anything: this is the root of all conspiracy theories. Personally, I think this man's great achievement is trivialised when it gets turned into a sideshow in a carnival of X-Files nonsense.

His choice of words is only "curious" if you start with the (wholly unwarranted) assumption that he had something to hide

Not at all. His words clearly indicate that truth is being obscured. In a context that those words were delivered to an audience encouraged to question everything it is an inarguable invitation to debate. To deny that is of itself to trivialise an extraordinary man's achievements, unique standing in society and singular nature. Probably that is not your actual intent as it is not mine.

That's an odd definition of patriotic silence

Not in the least. He said nothing that could be taken as a transgression against absolute secrecy. A patriot all his life. What would be odd is an absolute lack of guidance to the young people he was, in the main, addressing given his unique experience.

no such phrase exists which links those two statements

The link the obscuration of the truth in order to conceal important information. That should not really need explanation.

clearly, he's talking about..

When people use the word clearly it is usually safe to assume that things are unclear. Was the word science mentioned? No. That much is very clear. If something is protecting the truth then there is a secret to be uncovered. Is that clear?

Blah..X-Files nonsense..blah

Ranting is rarely constructive. Your choice of 'X-Files' as an example is also somewhat self defeating as the initial series were dramatisations based on 'real life' police reports. IMO it was the most interesting series because of that.

I regret becoming reactive and vindictive Disembodied My apologies to you.

Just one observation:

Greyth wrote:

His choice of words is only "curious" if you start with the (wholly unwarranted) assumption that he had something to hide

Not at all. His words clearly indicate that truth is being obscured.

Greyth wrote:

When people use the word clearly it is usually safe to assume that things are unclear.

And one remark:

Greyth wrote:

His words clearly indicate that truth is being obscured.

Not at all. His exact words are "truth's protective layer", which clearly indicates that the protective layers are a property of truth itself, which is the exact opposite of "being obscured" (in passive mode) from the outside.

To me the original quote seems to mean that the laws of nature are not evident to any idiot at first glance, but have to be discovered, and this discovery (a) is hard work and (b) leads to breakthroughs in (scientific) development. Not less and not more, only in a more poetic language.

Simple example: for a long time mankind believed that all matter was made up of atoms, and those were the smallest parts. That was one protective layer, under which lay hidden the fact that atoms are also made up of quarks, which is what mankind used to believe for a while, until it became evident that this was just another protective layer. That one was removed as well, and bosons (and whatnot) showed up. And then it turns out that those are yet another protective layer, beneath which strings may be found. Or maybe not. Nobody knows yet for sure, because all we know that we're dealing with another protective layer. We're only peeking beneath it, but we haven't been able to really lift it from truth yet. And our experience with the last few protective layers may even warn us that it may not even be the final, innermost layer.

Thus the only thing we know for sure is that we don't yet know the complete truth about matter. (My wife, who is a physicist, uses to say that our current theories can predict outcomes of experiments correctly to the 10th digit behind the decimal dot. But the 11th digit is wrong. Thus we know with absolute certainty that our theories, while being quite accurate, are not completely accurate, which is the same as being ultimately wrong.) But each time another discovery about the nature of matter was made, it was a breakthrough. A breakthrough achieved by those who managed to peel another 'protective layer' from the actual nature of matter. And further breakthroughs will (hopefully) be made along the way.

Voilà, there you have your straightforward interpretation of a sentence that isn't odd at all. It's the most simple and logical interpretation (I think the most obvious one, too). Turning around words in order to construct a conspiracy theory that can't be derived from the actual meaning of the words, on the other hand, strikes me as overly complicated and more than just a little ridiculous. But then again, that's a fitting description for any conspiracy theory.

Whether there is or isn't something behind a veil of deliberate obscurity, the fact is that Neil Armstrong wanted us off this planet and out there shining lights in all the dark places. He wanted boots on the ground of planets other than our own.

Any discussion of hidden meaning takes the focus away from the true meaning: get your asses in gear.

Greyth wrote:

I regret becoming reactive and vindictive Disembodied My apologies to you.

No worries – no need to apologise! Let's just agree that – like Rese249er says – there's stuff out there worth going to look for.

I would read his comment more in a meta-physical or psychological light.

We all protect ourselves from the truth of certain things because we don't believe in it or don't want to know the truth of something because it would shatter our perceptions of reality.

Everyone pre-conceives notions about things all the time, but if we remove a layer we 'see' exactly what the truth of something is without bias or our own minds discounting it.
It's just those barriers in your mind that filter your perceptions make conclusions about things instead of allowing things to simply be experienced and understood. Any Buddhist or anyone who meditates will understand what I mean.

Being one of the few people on earth to have actually set foot on another celestial body will no doubt give you a different perspective on things.

RIP Neil. You have been and always will be an inspiration to us all.

The other thing I remember from JFK's speech:
"We choose to do these things, not because they are easy but because they are hard."
No one in power wants to do difficult things any more. They sit behind their protective layers gathering money and more power.

!m!

Thank you.