In the midst of all of this strife in the world, I find myself seeking a refuge of relaxation in my mind, where I can retreat into a place where the daily news recedes far away.
Along these lines, I have lately found myself listening to Youtube podcast videos from a geologist named Randall Carlson, specifically ones having to done with an ancient archaeology, and specifically ones having to do with the question of the legend of Atlantis.
Ancient history and ancient archaeology has long fascinated me, especially the boundary between history and prehistory, and the origins of civilization, which by our current mainstream understanding date from around 3000 BC. The mystery of Gobekli Tepe, which appears to be 11,000 years old, and which only twenty years ago changed our entire conception of the ancient world, was fascinating to me from the moment I heard about it. Carlson talks a lot about Gobekli Tepe.
Depending on who you ask, Carlson is either a woo-spewing crackpot, or a solid geological research investigating nonstandard theories. After listening to four hours of him talking about prehistory, I tend to lean towards the latter.
He himself jokes about "putting on his tinfoil hat" to discuss certain topics, such as whether the Atlantis legend is possibly true. One thing hugely in his favor is that he is quite humble in his assertions.
In talking about such "fringe" things as Atlantis, he admits that despite any evidence he may be able to assert in favor of the possibility that the legend has veracity, he could well be wrong. Plato (who is the only ancient source for the topic) could well have been talking about a made-up place that never existed, and using it to provide a model for the just society.
From Carlson I learned that Plato's date of Atlantis' destruction (9000 years before his time, according to what Solon was told by the Egyptians) corresponds almost exactly to what many geologists assert was a very sudden rise in sea levels, perhaps caused a comet fragment that struck the ice cap that covered North America at the time. Of course, that proves nothing, as Carlson says. But it makes it easier to continue a line of investigation. Was Atlantis possible? Most mainstream researchers have said no to this question. Carlson, looking more deeply perhaps, says maybe.
Of course there is no evidence at all that Atlantis was a continent, or that it was an advanced civilization in the modern sense of the world, with modern technology. Carlson asserts that if Atlantis existed, and it was advanced in any sense, it was probably on the level of Minoan civilization.
The most fascinating thing I've learned from him is the possibility of large sudden movements of the earth's crust up and down, in response to similar movements elsewhere on the globe, caused by such things as sudden melting of glacial icecaps. There is geological evidence on the ocean floor of the mid Atlantic of oolitic limestone, which could only have been produced if the floor were much shallower at some point.
It's safe and easy to be a sceptic about anything that anyone slaps the label of pseudoscience on. It takes such little effort, as the odds will favor that you will never have to change your mind. For this reason, I have little respect for most self-styled skeptics unless they can actually defend their position beyond ridiculing the problems in the speculative ones, and launching ad hominem attacks. Carlson? You're listening to THAT GUY?
It's important to remember how science works, and that many times so-called crackpot ideas wind up becoming the new standard accepted truth. Alfred Wegener, the German who originally came up with our theory of plate tectonics, which is universally accepted in geology, was himself considered a crank in his day. Continental drift was considered pseudoscience.
The idea that everything is as we have been told seems like the biggest conspiracy of all, given the historical record.
All of these ideas about Atlantis are very fascinating. It's relaxing because to me there is nothing at stake in this. We will probably never have a definitive answer to these questions, and in the end, what does it matter what the answer is?
Carlson is extremely knowledgable about many topics, including the climate record. After an hour listening to him talk about the record from the Greenland ice cap (which drilled down to 10000 feet), it is almost impossible to talk seriously any worries that the earth is warming up in a drastic and unprecedented fashion. How much mental anguish is being generated by that worry right now, among so many people, in a completely pointless fashion? How many people are falling for that pseudoscience?
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