Fact and fiction as sources.

[Jd755]

The problem we all face is one of knowing.

When we are born we know nothing of a past aka history. At some point after that we get told stories of pasts. Occasionally they are stories of family who are still alive but usually family long dead.
As we trust the family and family stories we, young as we are, transfer that trust to stories from beyond the family which are usually written stories of various pasts.
Likely we question family stories and the family story tellers but when it comes to written stories there is no teller to question.

Then comes an acceptance of the authority of the author of the writers without question and it is this position that endures through time in people who are genuinely interested in history as documented., history as present in the physical world they walk about in and the path through time that has been recorded on paper by people writing about other people.

On occasions people people shake the " do not question" shackle from their mind and once again find that child's urge to find out. A couple of thousand of such people end up here.

Trouble is for a decent amount of these people is as soon as a new plausible emerges in their research they put their don't question shackles on and lose themselves in their new plausible to them history.

Methodology for establishing the veracity of quite literally anything historical simply does not exist. There appears to be no work being done to establish and test one and frankly I am not surprised.
This entire system you and I were born into is one of a ruling hierarchical authority is the only thing that can keep the savage civilised. This system is based entirely in the control of the pasts.

I use the term pasts deliberately as there are a multitude of pasts in operation simultaneously. The system runs all of them. Studies, books, libraries, museums, physical artifacts, structures, processes, what is acceptable, are all under the control of people within the system who pay other people to keep the system as the authority on everything.

At some point prior to my birth I assume there was no written word. I assume this of course as I am not an immortal being and as most of my life is lived without the written word it seems obvious that the spoken word was the follower not the leader.
Therefore assuming that to be the case, prior to writing all history is oral. Stories told to others about a past some of whom in turn take that story and tell it to others in other places adding bits and forgetting bits. These stories endure through time but none of them stay true to the original as they move through time. They cannot unless the version that arrives at the ears of someone who is writing it down has passed from photographic memory to photographic memory and what are the odds for that?

There is no paper that lasts for thousands of years as far as I have been able to establish. It is consumed by many living things, fire obviously takes it out, water weakens and dissolves it, abrasion wears it away, even light degrades paper.
Then there is the inks, pencils, paints used on the paper. They too are subject to degradation by the same agents that degrade the paper.
In short there is no testing methodology to establish longevity of paper nor establish when the marks on the paper were put there. It is just as impossible to date words on clay, stone, wood, metal or any other medium that is claimed as being used as ancient writings.

Thus we end up in a loop of picking what we individually decide is acceptable to us as being most likely a true record of a past and upon that foundation we build our story. Over time our investment in the story becomes so great we go into defending it when someone else questions it, most often questions the veracity of the source.

"We have to start somewhere or we have nothing" and its variations being the most common defence employed.
Why not keep drilling down to find as I did academia holds opinion and speculation within permitted boundaries most high for example?
Don't take my word for it do it yourself.
This process showed me that discussing anything which is held within academia is a waste of effort.
As all history, all pasts appear to be held within academia (by extraction the hierarchical authority) it would appear researching any history sans academia is impossible.

It comes down to accepting that proving the veracity of any written evidence and placing the words in a chronology or time is currently impossible. All that can be said to be true is at some point in time someone wrote about a past.
If on reading the story one roots out the claim(s) within and puts them under scrutiny by using known facts it is one route one I have devised for myself to establish a likelihood of veracity.

There are always claims within the written story. The claim is why the story was written. The act of writing places it in an agreeable to hierarchical authority chronology and is used to craft endless speculation and opinion because the weight of such things is of importance when it comes to authority imposed upon others.

It is truly impossible to establish the veracity of the ancient world. Events and characters slide around on a sea of language changes, translations, word use, definition changes. The claims though remain consistent by comparison and they can be put under scrutiny.

So to round this off.
Perhaps its a good idea for people who add to the discussion on here to preface how they have arrived at the position they have before positing truths because some consensus of historians and archaeologists assume the written word is true.
Perhaps its a good idea to list the sources one used to figure out what they have. To name and post a link to the base document they have found and read and crucially accept as being the best source available.
Perhaps people could take a step back from attacking questions by defending what they believe and reexamine what they believe in light of the question posed.

If nothing else it should knock personality back into its box and once again this place could get back to putting content under scrutiny.

 

[Deleted member 37]

Personally I don't have a problem with those who want to build their own reconstruction starting from sources they deem 'true'. My only problem is that I've seen how in multiple cases the authors don't mention them and/or don't give easily accessible links to verify them and/or don't explain where is the limit between the realm of opinions and that of quotations from sources and/or whether those sources are primary or secondary. This is how you build 'stories'.

When it comes to primary sources (the very most ancient book from which a narrative is derived) it would be great to have a sort of encyclopedia mentioning where and when they were found, if it is not implied that they were always at disposal. In any case I would suggest to go and read those books (the texts at disposal on the internet or the hard copy) in order to have an idea of how much the academia is interpreting and/or manipulating words. Believe me if I tell you there's a lot of surprises!

Another aspect not to underestimate is what the 'copysts' are actually reading from those sources. For example the word 'insula' could very well become 'Thule' (Latin never was the spoken language in Rome/Pompeii).

Another example I can give from a private conversation with a professional historian is the eventual removal or adding of text in the primary sources:

My problem is the excess of good faith (and sometimes bias). The text spoke about Scythia. That word completely disappeared. My intuition (only that at the moment) tells me that the word was erased from the manuscript above. Am I biased? Could be.

There is a sort of science to analysing the copies. If a scribe introduces a mistake, then other scribes tend to copy the mistake. Thus the mss group into families so you can make a very crude 'family tree' to ascertain reliability. Textual criticism - Wikipedia.

Why do you say the word 'Scythia' was erased? It is there in the Ms above. Or are you referring to the screenshot posted by the other person? But that is not a manuscript, rather an early printed.

Oh I see. Both the ms and the early printed have the name ‘Scythia’. But the online Pliny does not. Pliny the Elder: Natural History, Book IV Is that what you meant?

I am talking about "unam abesse a Scythia diei cursu" becoming "unam abesse diei cursu".

I understand. The Vatican ms has "unam abesse diei cursu", as does the online source you cite. By contrast, the early printed edition has "unam abesse a Scythia diei cursu".

So let's try to understand why the sources are different.

Step one, locate the edition used by the online source, which is by Mayhoff, Leipzig, Teubner 1906. Mayhoff is from that generation of editors who went back to the earliest mss they could find, such as the Vatican one I referred to above (https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.3861).

Step two, locate the sources which have the addition. A search on "unam abesse a Scythia diei cursu" turns up a number of early printed editions, such as this one in 1514 Naturae historiarum libri XXXVII.

Step three, search for an explanation of the difference between sources. This Pytheas aus Massilia, referring to that passage says “das nach Harduin in einigen handschriften fehlen soll wahrscheinlich als Glossen auszuwerfen” , i.e according to Harduin, 'a scythia' is missing in some manuscripts, suggesting that it is a gloss, i.e. an explanation added by a Renaissance editor to help the reader.

Thus, mystery explained. The best or earliest sources we find do not have 'a scythia', which was probably added by some later editor in the early printed era. Then Mayhoff diligently removed it. No mystery at all.

The conversation went on with me pointing out to him how:
1. the correction came from Jean Hardouin - Wikipedia, whom he despised since he was a revisionist, which is a contradiction in itself.
2. the entire 'correction' came down to the opinion of one single guy: Jean Hardouin.

That said I don't agree with the perceived falsity of texts running wild on this forum. Oral traditions did exist and even if we imply those stories came down to us modified (but we don't that either), it's hard to tell they are false becuse we don't have the physical original but only copies of copies. It is legit to have doubts, but it's not very goos neither saying "it's all true" neither "it's all false" without even reading and inspecting.

By the way the previous historians said:

And I'm sorry, the efforts of you and your friend really were hopeless. It took me about 20 minutes to uncover the fully story. You guys, by contrast, seize upon any suggestion that history has been stolen or deliberately tampered with, without checking the facts carefully. In other words, half-assed.

20 minutes to then cite the opinion of a guy who says 'that most texts from Antiquity were forgeries' (Jean Hardouin - Wikipedia).

Good job my historian friend, LOL!

 

[TruthIsOnlyDelayed]

Personally I don't have a problem with those who want to build their own reconstruction starting from sources they deem 'true'. My only problem is that I've seen how in multiple cases the authors don't mention them and/or don't give easily accessible links to verify them and/or don't explain where is the limit between the realm of opinions and that of quotations from sources and/or whether those sources are primary or secondary. This is how you build 'stories'.

This is a good point.

I use the following logic to accept this point:

1) Humans can lie, be confused, be wrong, and be misunderstood.
2) Humans in the past who wrote source material are not immune to point 1.
3) If you do not constantly remind yourself of number 2 you will find you can overweigh the value of past materials in understanding the present / future.

With that being said if the goal is to understand the past as it happened and you believe deception is at play you are now in a synthesizing pattern: source material is necessary to understand the past but a certain level of hypothesis of where it is wrong (here interjects intuition) is needed.

If one completely disregards historical sources at large (from a place of distrust) then I feel personally the only logical conclusion is to focus one’s thoughts on the present / future instead of things of the past as there can be no reconciliation without a time machine.

To do otherwise, as you said, is really just dabbling in fiction writing. It doesn’t mean the story you come up with in your head won’t be closer to the truth but you have entered into a path where your only verification is how it lines up with the here and now. Problem with that is the here and now is (arguably) under even more control from those that deceive so you don’t really get any closer to verification.

I argue to do what each one’s soul pulls them to and conscious agrees and let God handle the rest.

 

[Deleted member 37]

By the way there was an adding third point I didn't tell to the previous historian I talked to:
3. you are "explaining" things to me entirely relying on the opinions of past scholars without a shred of doubt, which means you have been programmed to automatically repeat stories you learned at school through repetitions and in order to have good grades.

 

[trismegistus]

There is an archived thread that makes for a good companion piece to this one:

SH Archive - The History of Rome has no Surviving Sources
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/the-history-of-rome-has-no-surviving-sources.2057/

I believe that the only connection we have to the ancient world (whatever "ancient" means) are the structures they left behind, but even that is troublesome. In many cases we have to take for granted the "historical documentation" of a particular building's history IE how many times was it destroyed and rebuilt, modified, added onto, etc. It gets somewhat easier when you look towards the last hundred or so years, as in some cases it is possible to track down the receipts of work (contracting companies, invoices, etc) but in many cases we are just assuming that the written historical record is accurate. In many cases this leads to confusion - like how is it that many of the amazing structures of the 18th and 19th century were designed in contests consistently won by savant-level teenagers with silver spoons and connections to universities that have shaped many of the issues we criticize on this site? When we see something labeled a "construction photo" are we actually looking at a "remodel" or perhaps a renovation of a previously existing older structure? If we see a construction photo labeled as having been taken in 1900 - how do we know this to be true? It is quite difficult to date the age of a photo outside of what information is provided. How many people can truly tell the difference between a photo taken in 1870 versus 1905?

Moving to more impressive and "ancient" structures - these dating methods are even more spurious, often times being provided by the same universities that have shaped discourse for hundreds of years, by academics who have many different incentives to provide a "solution" to a historical question regardless of its true veracity. For example - the pyramids (I hope JD doesn't mind that this is the second time I've brought them up in one of his threads): one can take one of two approaches to how it was constructed. Assuming that advanced building techniques were used unknown to other ancient cultures to construct them - either we are dealing with a historical inconsistency that academia has yet to satisfactorily answer, or "ancient advanced building techniques" are being confused (or purposefully obscured) for more modern 19th century technology employed by other civilizations like Napoleon and his merry band of Maltese jesuit scholars and freemasons. Did the ancient builders of the pyramids have access to advanced machining techniques for stone - or are we just looking at 19th century graffiti on even older structures? Currently there is no archeological technique available to tell the difference, we are only taking the word of previous "scholars" and researchers to make inferences.

What is Roman, other than what non-romans have told us about them? What is Atlantean? Egyptian? Phoenician? Tartarian? Where have the convenient little boxes people stick history into come from? Cartography? Scrolls? Stone tablets? Relative dating? Dendrochronology? How do we, as amateur researchers, confirm any of these things to be true?

It is an overwhelming question and I can see where the logical conclusion is to say "its all fake" and "we know nothing." Perhaps this is true, but logically it is more likely that it is somewhere in the middle between known and unknown. The trick is figuring out which is which.

 

[Deleted member 37]

There is an archived thread that makes for a good companion piece to this one:

SH Archive - The History of Rome has no Surviving Sources
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/the-history-of-rome-has-no-surviving-sources.2057/

I believe that the only connection we have to the ancient world (whatever "ancient" means) are the structures they left behind, but even that is troublesome. In many cases we have to take for granted the "historical documentation" of a particular building's history IE how many times was it destroyed and rebuilt, modified, added onto, etc. It gets somewhat easier when you look towards the last hundred or so years, as in some cases it is possible to track down the receipts of work (contracting companies, invoices, etc) but in many cases we are just assuming that the written historical record is accurate. In many cases this leads to confusion - like how is it that many of the amazing structures of the 18th and 19th century were designed in contests consistently won by savant-level teenagers with silver spoons and connections to universities that have shaped many of the issues we criticize on this site? When we see something labeled a "construction photo" are we actually looking at a "remodel" or perhaps a renovation of a previously existing older structure? If we see a construction photo labeled as having been taken in 1900 - how do we know this to be true? It is quite difficult to date the age of a photo outside of what information is provided. How many people can truly tell the difference between a photo taken in 1870 versus 1905?

Moving to more impressive and "ancient" structures - these dating methods are even more spurious, often times being provided by the same universities that have shaped discourse for hundreds of years, by academics who have many different incentives to provide a "solution" to a historical question regardless of its true veracity. For example - the pyramids (I hope JD doesn't mind that this is the second time I've brought them up in one of his threads): one can take one of two approaches to how it was constructed. Assuming that advanced building techniques were used unknown to other ancient cultures to construct them - either we are dealing with a historical inconsistency that academia has yet to satisfactorily answer, or "ancient advanced building techniques" are being confused (or purposefully obscured) for more modern 19th century technology employed by other civilizations like Napoleon and his merry band of Maltese jesuit scholars and freemasons. Did the ancient builders of the pyramids have access to advanced machining techniques for stone - or are we just looking at 19th century graffiti on even older structures? Currently there is no archeological technique available to tell the difference, we are only taking the word of previous "scholars" and researchers to make inferences.

What is Roman, other than what non-romans have told us about them? What is Atlantean? Egyptian? Phoenician? Tartarian? Where have the convenient little boxes people stick history into come from? Cartography? Scrolls? Stone tablets? Relative dating? Dendrochronology? How do we, as amateur researchers, confirm any of these things to be true?

It is an overwhelming question and I can see where the logical conclusion is to say "its all fake" and "we know nothing." Perhaps this is true, but logically it is more likely that it is somewhere in the middle between known and unknown. The trick is figuring out which is which.

The great problem I have with those links you have provided is that they infer something without telling WHAT.

The starting point, in my opinion, is once again Fomenko, whose books most of people have not read. Aside from the western critique of ancient texts (see Hardouin previously cited) it was Fomenko who inspired all the threads we now read on this forum. I'm not claiming he inspired EVERY thread but certainly most of them.
So it's important to understand what he thinks about those texts based on his mathematical methods based on statistics. He doesn't claim those authors are 'false' as most people believe or as the new narrative leads one to believe. He claims that the Vatican and in general all Western Europe with its kingdoms started manipulating the events of the past happening in the East to make it seem they were 'western'. Therefore the stories told by those authors DID HAPPEN, but in the East under different conditions and geography. He basically says that the structure is the same and the manipulation consisted in a sort of re-colouring.

Now unless one believes in everything Fomenko says or one is an expert mathematician and can prove him right, I'm going to say that despite his methods are mindblowing and revolutionary to some extent, his reconstruction is quite dubious.

So turning back to the sources it would be good to also read their contents because unless we have trained mathematicians who can prove Fomenko right and are so good to be able to explain it to us mere humans, the only possible thing to do is trying to read what is written an then try to compare it to physical reality, rather than assuming everything is false and then building up new narratives based on our modern view of things.

 

[JimDuyer]

OP, when you added these parts, it caused some confusion in my understanding:
"It comes down to accepting that proving the veracity of any written evidence and placing the words in a chronology or time is currently impossible. All that can be said to be true is at some point in time someone wrote about a past."
"If on reading the story one roots out the claim(s) within and puts them under scrutiny by using known facts it is one route one I have devised for myself to establish a likelihood of veracity."

Because they seem to cancel each other out. If we attempt to test something as being true or not, we often have to rely on supportive but perhaps circumstantial evidence. For example, I can tell you what a tablet says, and I can give you a fairly good range of years - just based on the way the author formed his letters and placed his words in sentence order, and of course in his vocabulary. But I have to base my range upon others - an archaeologist who did radio-carbon dating on pottery made with vegetable matter that can be dated, and was found inside of a building that was destroyed by such and such group, which other evidence tells us was somewhat close to X period of time. So we can't get
positive results, and we have to depend upon the preponderance of evidence.

Then in your second statement above, you mention that your devised route is to use known facts. But how were these "known facts" themselves established. Known to whom, established by whom - if you get my meaning. Perhaps known facts are no more reliable than manufactured reports or facts.

Not trying to bust your chops, just pointing out that at some point we really need to attempt to
explain certain writings and events based on the inter-connectivity of a preponderance or overwhelming amount of evidence. It's the best we can do at this time.

Would you agree with that to some extent? Could you counter it, if you don't agree, with another theory that I can digest, test, refine, polish or discard? Thanks.

 

[Jd755]

I dont see any confusion and it is not a theory!
Its simply a way I devised for myself to establish likely veracity for myself in the absence of proven methodology.
I examine the claim being made using known facts and my experience. Apologies for leaving the word experience out.
As for known facts I use things I know and by know I mean I have direct experience of or trust the experience of others. The logistics of a claim has become a reliable way of examining veracity for me.
This route of course is limiting to a degree as there is not a great deal known by me however some things are fundamental such as how far a human can walk in a day or how far a horse can go in a day. Such things don't vary and both human and horse travel at the speed of the slowest.
These facts alone disprove an awful lot of claims about armies, the distances they cover, the things they are said to have done.
Then logistics are a known. Horses crap and piss as do humans. These basic functions have to be dealt with. Coupled with how much food horses and humans need to move all day and maintain condition which is also known, then once again claims of wars, battles, fighting, discovery are often proved false by these fundamentals.

Discovery using ships is another claim that is rolled out time and again. The limitibg factor of any ship is the volume of fresh water it can carry. To set off on to an unknown yet suspected destination beyond the reach of the volume of fresh water that is carried is madness. However watering the ship by stopping off along coastlines does allow for exploration by ship.
Migration by ship is another. Ships can only carry a limited number of people depending on their size, the water they carry, the seaworthiness of the design, the age of the ship. These things show a lot of claims of migration by sea are on balance dubious.

Thats just two examples that spring to mind.
I am not saying its perfect but its better than reading academias take on things and better than taking old books at face value.
I have a copy of Voltaires King Charles XII of Sweden dated 1742 if memory serves and having read it it reads as a work of fiction. Using logistical scrutiny it becomes obvious its a work of fiction yet many people believe it is or want it to be an accurate history.
Truth is it is this book that got me into looking at claims using known facts.

I avoid things I have no experience of most of the time. Bible tales for example. As with all books written by a man or men yet attributed to a god. Not my forte at all.
Maps are another I avoid these days as I cannot for the life of me figure out the purpose of most of them. Universally they are useless for navigation by land or sea so they must have been drawn for other reasons but they are not known to me.

Physical things on the other hand intrigue me. Photographs also intrigue me. Paintings and drawings less so. Living with two artists one digital one pencil and ink/acrylic does show me art is an interpretation of imagination and what they see limited by their skill.

I have never seen an original book edition bar one. I subscribed to a local history book back in the late eighties and as a subscriber got a first edition. The only other books Ihave which could be first editions, just no way to tell, are the 14 volumes of The National Encylopedia dated 1897.
This seeming lack of access to first editions came up a fair bit on version one of stolenhistory and it seems to be universal or at least prevalent across many countries.

 

[trismegistus]

his route of course is limiting to a degree as there is not a great deal known by me however some things are fundamental such as how far a human can walk in a day or how far a horse can go in a day. Such things don't vary and both human and horse travel at the speed of the slowest.
These facts alone disprove an awful lot of vlaims about armies, the distances they cover, the things they are said to have done.
Then logistics are a known. Horses crap and piss as do humans. These basic functions have to be dealt with. Coupled with how much food horses and humans need to move all day and maintain condition which is also known, then once again claims of wars, battles, fighting, discovery are often proved false by these fundamentals.

Case in point:

SH Archive - 1812 French Invasion of Russia vs. Logistics

 

[Deleted member 37]

Case in point:

SH Archive - 1812 French Invasion of Russia vs. Logistics

Sorry for dissenting as usual, but it may serve well to know how that invasion ended to understand how it was entirely possible that it really happened.
Quote: "Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the best studied military campaigns in history and is listed among the most lethal military operations in world history. It is characterized by the massive toll on human life: in less than six months nearly a million soldiers and civilians died." (French invasion of Russia - Wikipedia)

 

[Jd755]

Sorry for dissenting as usual, but it may serve well to know how that invasion ended to understand how it was entirely possible that it really happened.
Quote: "Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the best studied military campaigns in history and is listed among the most lethal military operations in world history. It is characterized by the massive toll on human life: in less than six months nearly a million soldiers and civilians died." (French invasion of Russia - Wikipedia)

Not if you look into the logistics. They show the impossibility of the campaign being undertaken as recorded by historians.

 

[Deleted member 37]

Not if you look into the logistics. They show the impossibility of the campaign being undertaken as recorded by historians.

mmmh I don't know what you mean with 'logistics'. I'm not sure that thread by KD is on pair with the treaties on the war. Even the statistics he gives are suspicious, as if asking the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture how an army should fair with its horses, especially in an era where the only horses we see are in our cars.

 

[Jd755]

mmmh I don't know what you mean with 'logistics'. I'm not sure that thread by KD is on pair with the treaties on the war. Even the statistics he gives are suspicious, as if asking the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture how an army should fair with its horses, especially in an era where the only horses we see are in our cars.

Read the archived replies.
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/1812-french-invasion-of-russia-vs-logistics.5108/

 

[Deleted member 37]

Read the archived replies.
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/1812-french-invasion-of-russia-vs-logistics.5108/

ok, going to read it. Just know that I in fact read one of those treaties possibly 20 years ago or something and I guarantee you it was full of data and numbers, so I'm a bit skeptical at the possibility that all those papers mentioned were fake and all the people involved in the analysis were incompetent. But hey, it could be anything!

edit: btw I would like an answer by the boss @dreamtime.
What are these metadata, metalayers and metapatterns? And what objective methods do you apply to recognise them?
I couldn't find any mention of them with the search bar.
Thank you

 

[ViniB]

Not if you look into the logistics. They show the impossibility of the campaign being undertaken as recorded by historians.

That is totally correct once you know how much one horse eats, drink, piss and shit every day. And by personal experience i can guarantee that taking care of horses soles is equally critical.

That line of thinking already eliminates a goid chunk of "ancient" battles all together, and as an example the campaigns of alexander the great.

This will be a fantastic, and necessary discussion!!

 

[feralimal]

I'll throw my thoughts in too.

Re the past, we know something occurred, but we cannot say what. We cannot say what occurred though for many reasons. Eg the evidence may have been flawed from the start, may contain errors, may have been re-worked, some may be excluded, false elements can be added, etc. We also have an industry of licensed history creation by authorised historians producing reams of data that concurs with whatever story we are meant to hold to.

There is also the fact that the context (our viewpoint) from which we ourselves understand this information is changed - the average man of today, is not the same man of 1920, nor the same as of 1800, or Ancient Greece or Rome, etc - ie what writings of the past meant to people in the past, is impossible to say. So I think it is entirely fair to say we cannot know the past with certainty, and cannot even make good guesses in most cases.

I think you can approach this question in reverse - and that this approach makes more sense. By understanding what it is to know something, we can then work out what is missing. We then have a gauge of a sort, we can list our assumptions and see how comfortable we are in holding them. Are we happy with these assumptions, etc?

Another way to approach it in reverse, is to try to break whatever story or chain of reasoning that we are provided. This is effective, because although it is extremely unlikely to be able to prove the truth, it is possible to prove a lie. The truth, what actually happened, cannot be incoherent. However, a lie must be - so can we find any incoherent facts in the story? The idea of working through the logistics as @Jd755 suggests, is a great example of a way one can find inconsistencies. If we cannot satisfy ourselves about the logistics of a claim, eg how they were able to talk to the president by phone from the moon, then it is fair to dismiss the claim/story entirely.

The reason you can dismiss the claim, is that it contains elements which cannot be. If these elements will not be reconsidered by those making the claim - this tells you that those making the claim are not working in good faith. If there is bad faith, it is correct to take a defensive position and assume you are dealing with liars and/or useful idiots. Having disabused yourself of false notions, you are then free to consider how the claim was made to appear as true - eg with the moon landing, you might conclude that it was easiest to achieve by filming in a studio, ie something that creates the illusion of truth.

For me, it seems that the best way to proceed towards truth is by first attempting to destroy whatever hypothesis you are able to come up with. If the hypothesis is valid (ie accurately reflects the reality), these 'attacks' will do nothing as the truth is always coherent - it is what actually happened after all!

Re the best sorts of evidence. I agree that architecture and geographical features are the best, as a big effort is required to falsify it. Of course, even this evidence can be mis-framed, and we need to take care or we can be given the wrong explanations.

Re the lesser sorts of evidence. Changing records, planting false evidence, removing evidence (esp books) in previous times, is far easier. Where possible, we should attempt to trace back the artefact back to as contemporary source as possible - eg we should trace books back. I have done this, and been sorely disappointed many times - the sources run dry after about 150 years, or the documents were missing then re-discovered (eg dead sea scrolls). Perhaps, in the internet age, this is even easier to do - false information can be seeded and distributed (or removed) very quickly.

As I have never managed get close to the claimed sources (esp ancient ones), and it's impossible to verify the proclaimed sources for myself, what should I conclude? After all of the lies that have already been revealed, I tend to also see most of the historical record as a sort fabrication. I find it far more useful to think of history as providing a malleable backdrop to our present circumstances - ie that history is whatever is expedient for the masses to believe in order to facilitate better control of those masses. Obviously the changes are made quite carefully - a long-held story is not turned around instantly. Making the incremental changes is the job of licensed historians.

 

[JimDuyer]

I dont see any confusion and it is not a theory!
Its simply a way I devised for myself to establish likely veracity for myself in the absence of proven methodology.
I examine the claim being made using known facts and my experience. Apologies for leaving the word experience out.
As for known facts I use things I know and by know I mean I have direct experience of or trust the experience of others. The logistics of a claim has become a reliable way of examining veracity for me.
This route of course is limiting to a degree as there is not a great deal known by me however some things are fundamental such as how far a human can walk in a day or how far a horse can go in a day. Such things don't vary and both human and horse travel at the speed of the slowest.
These facts alone disprove an awful lot of claims about armies, the distances they cover, the things they are said to have done.
Then logistics are a known. Horses crap and piss as do humans. These basic functions have to be dealt with. Coupled with how much food horses and humans need to move all day and maintain condition which is also known, then once again claims of wars, battles, fighting, discovery are often proved false by these fundamentals.

Discovery using ships is another claim that is rolled out time and again. The limitibg factor of any ship is the volume of fresh water it can carry. To set off on to an unknown yet suspected destination beyond the reach of the volume of fresh water that is carried is madness. However watering the ship by stopping off along coastlines does allow for exploration by ship.
Migration by ship is another. Ships can only carry a limited number of people depending on their size, the water they carry, the seaworthiness of the design, the age of the ship. These things show a lot of claims of migration by sea are on balance dubious.

Thats just two examples that spring to mind.
I am not saying its perfect but its better than reading academias take on things and better than taking old books at face value.
I have a copy of Voltaires King Charles XII of Sweden dated 1742 if memory serves and having read it it reads as a work of fiction. Using logistical scrutiny it becomes obvious its a work of fiction yet many people believe it is or want it to be an accurate history.
Truth is it is this book that got me into looking at claims using known facts.

I avoid things I have no experience of most of the time. Bible tales for example. As with all books written by a man or men yet attributed to a god. Not my forte at all.
Maps are another I avoid these days as I cannot for the life of me figure out the purpose of most of them. Universally they are useless for navigation by land or sea so they must have been drawn for other reasons but they are not known to me.

Physical things on the other hand intrigue me. Photographs also intrigue me. Paintings and drawings less so. Living with two artists one digital one pencil and ink/acrylic does show me art is an interpretation of imagination and what they see limited by their skill.

I have never seen an original book edition bar one. I subscribed to a local history book back in the late eighties and as a subscriber got a first edition. The only other books Ihave which could be first editions, just no way to tell, are the 14 volumes of The National Encylopedia dated 1897.
This seeming lack of access to first editions came up a fair bit on version one of stolenhistory and it seems to be universal or at least prevalent across many countries.

At the risk of offending some of our members, I will qualify this with medieval or earlier authors. But if it was written by a Frenchman, I automatically distrust it to some extent.
And I agree with the walking distance reported by armies. The Romans had small feet, as did the Greeks in comparison with others. So their furlong or pace or rapid march etc was different from that of the Scandinavians, and thus their distance measures were as well.
After Caesar bragged of slaughtering men, women and children in Gaul, and by his own reports it was a genocide of nearly a million souls, I don't care much for anything written by Romans.
This was repeated by later Romans, of the Catholic kind, with their genocides, so not much
improved over 1400 years.
I tend to believe the Scandinavian reports, as well as the Welsh and Britains of old, and almost nothing of the Norman influenced later occupants of England, sorry to say.
But that's just me.
I also believe the Sumerians and almost nothing from the Akkadians or Babylonians, for
similar reasons.

I'll throw my thoughts in too.

Re the past, we know something occurred, but we cannot say what. We cannot say what occurred though for many reasons. Eg the evidence may have been flawed from the start, may contain errors, may have been re-worked, some may be excluded, false elements can be added, etc. We also have an industry of licensed history creation by authorised historians producing reams of data that concurs with whatever story we are meant to hold to.

There is also the fact that the context (our viewpoint) from which we ourselves understand this information is changed - the average man of today, is not the same man of 1920, nor the same as of 1800, or Ancient Greece or Rome, etc - ie what writings of the past meant to people in the past, is impossible to say. So I think it is entirely fair to say we cannot know the past with certainty, and cannot even make good guesses in most cases.

I think you can approach this question in reverse - and that this approach makes more sense. By understanding what it is to know something, we can then work out what is missing. We then have a gauge of a sort, we can list our assumptions and see how comfortable we are in holding them. Are we happy with these assumptions, etc?

Another way to approach it in reverse, is to try to break whatever story or chain of reasoning that we are provided. This is effective, because although it is extremely unlikely to be able to prove the truth, it is possible to prove a lie. The truth, what actually happened, cannot be incoherent. However, a lie can be - so can we find any incoherent facts in the story? The idea of working through the logistics as @Jd755 suggests, is a great example of a way one can find inconsistencies. If we cannot satisfy ourselves about the logistics of a claim, eg how they were able to talk to the president by phone from the moon, then it is fair to dismiss the claim/story entirely.

The reason you can dismiss the claim, is that it contains elements which cannot be. If these elements will not be reconsidered by those making the claim - this tells you that those making the claim are not working with good faith. If you are working with bad faith, it is correct to take a defensive position and assume you are dealing with liars and or useful idiots. Having disabused yourself of false notions, you are then free to consider how it a claim was was made to appear as true - eg with the moon landing, you might conclude that it was easiest to achieve by filming in a studio.

For me, it seems that the best way to proceed towards truth is by first attempting to destroy whatever hypothesis you are able to come up with. If it hypothesis is actually valid, these 'attacks' will do nothing, as the truth is coherent - it is what actually happened after all!

Re the best sorts of evidence. I agree that architecture and geographical features are the best, as a big effort required to falsify it. These can be mis-framed, and we need to take care or we can be given the wrong explanations.

Re the lesser sorts of evidence. Changing records, planting false evidence, removing evidence (esp books) in previous times, is far easier. Where possible, we should attempt to trace back the artefact back to as contemporary source as possible - eg we should trace books back. I have done this, and been sorely disappointed many times - the sources run dry after about 150 years, or the documents were missing then re-discovered (eg dead sea scrolls). Perhaps, in the internet age, this is even easier to do - false information can be seeded and distributed or removed very quickly.

As I have never manage get close to the claimed sources (esp ancient ones), and its impossible to verify the proclaimed source for myself, what should I conclude? After all the lies I think are already proven - I tend to see most of the historical record as a sort fabrication. I find it far more useful to think of history as providing a dynamic backdrop to our present circumstances - ie that history is whatever is expedient for control of the present. Obviously, they can't turn a long-held story around immediately, so they manage the changes incrementally.

I agree that the approach of @Jd755 is much better than what we see from modern scholars, and is a good start. Almost nothing that we know or think we know of history today is correct. Yes, it's just that sad. Nothing will stand up to careful scrutiny, nothing makes sense when you look at it with common sense. Some is designed for that purpose - to intentionally deceive, other parts are designed to throw researchers off the track. Some is just "innocent" stupidity. But most is agenda driven and used to control us, or attempt to.
I just laugh. That's the best response I could arrive at.
Translations that we do ourselves make it very obvious. And sometimes I see an element
of humor on their part - as if they need to make it ridiculous for some reason - but whether this is due to some law of the universe or just their own ego at work I do not know. But it makes it easier for us because we just find the obviously silly parts and that's a good place to start.

 

[ViniB]

My toughts here, when approaching a certain story is vital to look for the perspective of those that could be potential witnesses of what happened, not only of those involved. This could corroborate or disprove the story, but within the frame of all forgeries/manipulations how could this be done?

Sidenote: As a practical example of how oral traditions are totally ignored by academic historians, pretty much every native tribe from South to north america have a legend of how a giant redhaired man brought to them the knowledge of the gods shortly before a massive cataclysm destroyed the world! But none of that is even mentioned on a footnote of "historical" textbooks.....

 

[Deleted member 37]

Read the archived replies.
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/1812-french-invasion-of-russia-vs-logistics.5108/

Ok I've read as much as possible. I've found for you some good articles about that war. As I said I already read a book about it years ago and I can confirm this couple of articles are just the tip of an iceberg. I'm sure in the billion things at disposal there's going to be something about horses' shit too.

https://psource.sitehost.iu.edu/PDF/Archive Articles/Spring2011/LynchBennettArticle.pdf
Section V - Insects, Disease, and Histroy | Montana State University
Faq#10: Why did Napoleon Fail in Russia in 1812?

 

[Jd755]

Thank you.
I am doing this on the fly as I am reading.

Robert Burnhams article, the last one on your list. Talks of Napoleon and Russia.
He makes the statement.

In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with about 600,000 men and over 50,000 horses.

Then says this.

while a soldier could march 15 - 20 miles a day, a supply wagon was generally limited to about 10 - 12 miles a day. To avoid being slowed down by the trains, Napoleon insisted that his troops live as much as possible off the land

And then this

His plan was to bring the war to a conclusion within twenty days by forcing the Russians to fight a major battle. Just in case his plans were off, he had his supply wagons carry 30 days of food.

So a supply train carrying 30 days supply of food for 600,000 men an unknown number of camp followers, and 50,000 horses sets off.

This tells me there is no resupply coming from France or any part of the continent controlled by the French.
After 10 days travel the soldiers on foot would be fifty miles ahead of their supplies.
Why ten days?
Well that is half way through the claimed estimate of Napoleons 20 day campaign plan.

By day 15 both men and horses having being travelled over these respective distances.
Soldiers on foot 225 miles.
The supply train horses and people 150 miles.
With their supplies half gone. The last day they could turn round and get back to France under their own steam so too speak.

Losing condition each day and at least for those in the column well aware of the supply trains 30 day supply limit the increasing knowing that they are eating up supplies with no prospect of resupply then fears and worries must have taken hold and humans being humans the dwindling supplies would have been noticed by ever increasing numbers of men.

And of course by day 15 it would take the supply train 8 days to catch up if the soldiers stayed still where they were. So do the soldiers just sit hungry and thirsty?

Of course not so they go looking for food and water in the local vicinity of where they find themselves. Knowing nothing of the land, the people, the terrain, where Russian soldiers may be and losing discipline as the need to eat and drink overrides any payment to fight or any belief in a man god Emperor.

I'll read the other articles later but I just took the opportunity to show what I am on about.