Comment on Don't fix the problem just change the parameters

• wischi@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You can’t just make stuff up and then say “it’s just a description”. It looks like you just remembered precession of the equinoxes wrong and doubled down once somebody called you out on it?

  If it’s a description of something, what does “progression of the equinoxes” describe? Astronomically it’s complete gibberish, so I’m not sure what it’s describing.

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  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The significance of the equinox in premodern calendar systems is pretty well established - stonehenge is an easy example of how it was taken into consideration, and was used to mark out significant dates.

    How can time itself progress towards equinoxes, which are points in time?

    I think you might be overthinking what I said. To highlight the absurdity of your question: One day comes after another day. Eventually, on one of those, days the arrangement of celestial bodies wherein the length of the day equinox will happen. From wikipedia:

    An equinox is equivalently defined as the time when the plane of Earth’s equator passes through the geometric center of the Sun’s disk.

    We’ll reach that arrangement again as time progresses. The progression of time, will bring us to the point in which that arrangement occurs. If you would prefer, “progression towards the equinoxes” is a slightly less florid way of expressing the same concept.

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    • wischi@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      But calling the fact that time passed and we will reach another equinox at some point is like saying that “progression of time towards 5:43 pm” is a thing just because time always tends towards 5:43 and one we pass it, we use the next 5:43 as a target.

      I develop calendar systems in my spare time and you should take a look at the leap year rule of SAC13, it takes the precession of the equinoxes into account.

      The things you just said are just words thrown together - and again - just because you can’t admit that you heard precession of the equinoxes in the past and misremembered it.

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      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        is a thing just because time always tends towards 5:43 and one we pass it, we use the next 5:43 as a target.

        Yes exactly, which is why I said you may be overthinking it when you were trying to interpret it as anything more than this. The Equinox were a critical time for the calibration of sundials, hence why I chose them.

        just because you can’t admit that you heard precession of the equinoxes in the past and misremembered it.

        But, why? It would have been perfectly valid to bring up in the original context - you yourself brought up the complicating factor of minor celestial events in it’s applicability to - and “progression towards the equinox” is a fine-if-slightly-florid way to describe the passage of time towards a significant event. There’s no reason for me to have done that.

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