Are we it???

[xelasnave]

Sorry I seemed to have nodded off...

Very interesting ... and the various views I find most enlightening...

So no one thinks that all I see was not just put there for my exclusive enjoyment...

that is the only reasonable answer that I could come up with... and that is not it!!!??... well its going to be a flat Monday for me, accepting that finding...

Still I feel I may not be alone in such a self centered approach after hearing the endangered species list read out to all who never listen on the radio... one could easily think most humans think everything is for them..

I don't recall my mother ever saying it was alright to be greedy and wasteful.... so as advised, I shall continue to follow what she told me when she was with me...kindness, moderation and thrift are decent key stones to a decent life.

She taught kindness and tolerance should be extended to all creatures and even plant life I guess.

Recalling her memory and her ideals makes all days wonderful, full of meaning and hope.

A mother's love will leave someone thinking the world is there for their exclusive use I guess.

Goto go its getting late..er early??

alex

[OneOfOne (Trevor)]

It is an interesting question. Depending on your religion, or lack of, we ascribe meaning to various things. Some people may recover from a terminal disease and see that as having some deeper meaning whilst others would just say "gee, that was lucky".

Curiousity has been raised by several people and I see it as more a trait of intelligence rather than humanity. Many animals are curious, some purely for reasons of self protection others for less important reasons, more like "what the hell is that?" As the intelligence level increases, curiousity increases. We just got a new TV on Sunday. An ant crawling along the unit it was sitting on would just crawl over it. The cat came into the room and froze, staring at it. After a few minutes she was satisfied it presented no threat and settled on the mat nearby. Our daughter came into the room and after commenting on how much better it would look in her room, sat and watched for a while.

I personally like to term myself as a "pure athiest", meaning I don't believe in anything that requires belief in order to effect me. If I don't believe in gravity, I don't suddenly float to the ceiling. You don't have to believe in gravity in order for it to effect you. If I believed in astrology (note all lower case and tiny to show my lack of belief) and my horoscope says I must not go outside today because I will surely die, and I stay at home...and live, it will confirm my belief. If I went outside oblivious to my fatal destiny and survived, astrology had no effect on me. It would only effect people who believed in the subject. If I persue no religious acts throughout my life, my life continues unaffected by this. Reinforcing my "non belief". If I was highly religious in my persuits and belief, my religion would effect my life profoundly. Not "believing", does not make my life a misery.

I like to recall a very profound saying from Mr Richard Dawkins in a recent book. "Good people do good things, evil people do evil things, only religion can cause good people to do evil things." In many cases the "more" religious, the more "evil", although not in their views.

We are here because we are here. We are here for the ride. If we were not here, the Universe would still be here, only we would not be here to observe it, and the Universe would not bat an eyelid! Just as a tree falling in a forest still makes a noise regardless of whether there is anyone or anything there to hear it, I am talking in a real sense and not the philosophical. Philosopher's philosophise, they don't do "science".

My two cents, I appologise sincerely if my lack of religion offends anyone. I never take offence when religous people may offer to pray for me or do I wish that they were less religious. I only hope my lack of belief does not cause them to wish I became more religious. This IS offensive.

[xelasnave]

I have taken to looking at everything with the qualification ... things just are!... and realising this one finds that good and bad are a description the observer makes using his own reference points... as such I find that to call everything good makes for a happier day.... even the photo of a child murdered in civil war offers some good as maybe the horror will change some hearts to change their lives and work in areas that may minimise these sad events.

I thought about the ice berg... that is a fair description of me and perhaps so many humans... what part appears to the world as bright but is such because of the reflection of a greater body...and under the surface there is a greater mass...mostly water..cold and hard... its only relevance to support that part exposed to the world.

I find it hard to believe in anything (other than gravity rain)..a reflection of too many years on the planet... a reflection of the continual rejection of nonsense others seek to build their meaning upon... I do not refer to religion here... but to things like that chap who writes messages on paper and wraps them around a jar of "good"or "bad"water so as to transmit the message to the universe I guess...or magnetic blankets that work with such power yet the manufacturer is happy to release such power to the public without knowing how it works... one must ask if so powerful would it not be prudent to understand how they may work against you.

Yet there are believers in such things. They find somehow that what is before them works for them and therefore perpetuate the myth drawing to their fold others who are happy to believe in anything that offers hope.

I think the folk who embrace religion have a need to share their good fortune with others but take on the vigour of a person who has quit smoking and then wishes to help others... the desire to help is the good thing..and I choose to ignore the bad aspect of presenting a case that their way is the only way.

Religion was invented by humans and not by God.

If there be an entity we could call God I suspect humans attempt to reveal him would be found humorous... if he was capable of emotion which one would suspect a God would be devoid of such human qualities... and to assign the qualification of being male or female simply reflects a humans attempt to visualise something that may or may not exist.. but I doubt that such a qualification would be relevant when considering a God.

So purpose and meaning is a very personal thing now doubt and seemingly the probability that all is random a reasonable conclusion to draw...if that view is not supplanted by a belief...

Very interesting comment and on the money OneOfOne...
alex

[avandonk]

Once there there was only nowhere and nowhen.

Then a naked singularity expanded creating time and space

At first only energy existed and as everything expanded and cooled some particles started to form

These particles formed only very primitive nuclei of atoms. These were what we call today Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium.

These particles after a very long time gravitationally collapsed into collections of stars which then by nucleosynthesis produced nuclei up to Iron.
The heavier elements than Iron, can only be produced in a super nova.

This went on for eons stars reformed from the debris of earlier stars. This caused an increase of the abundance of heavier elements.

Some four billion years ago there was enough material locally to form what we call our Solar System.

On a place third stone from the Sun the conditions were correct for liquid water to exist. The many elements now in close proximity started to randomly react with each other to form compounds. This can happen in space only at a very low rate.

At some point these compounds became self replicating and then organised into simple machines we call life. These first single celled organisms took some three billion years before they aggregated into organised entities. While all this was going on the environment was changed by the waste products of these organisms. The atmosphere now contained free Oxygen.

Evolution produced many diverse and strange organisms most of them extinct today.

Very recently one organism did not specialise by evolving its physical characteristics only passed on by genes. It instead specialized in passing on knowledge from one generation to the next by communication.
This was a species capable of discovering that the very atoms of their being were produced in stars and super nova.

The Universe is as big as it is because all of this took about 13.7 Billion years.

Complexity does not normally appear spontaneously. There has to be a driving force. The local driving force is the star this third stone from the star orbits.

We are interested in wondering about the Universe as it spawned our existence and consciousness.

Our reason for living is to learn and enjoy and pass it all on to the young.

They are your eternal future.

Bert

[Bobj]

A very good debate and, to paraphrase Professor Julius Sumner Miller " Why is it so?" I suppose it is man's unquestionable thirst for knowledge that drives us to seek answers and the the deeper man delves, the more the questions crop up.
Strange really, we know more about space than what's in the oceans.

[xelasnave]

Thank you Bert for your excellent contribution...
I like your reason put forward for living ...

Although I must say that I dont buy the big bang ... it hints too much at at point where one must reach for God to explain further... infinite removes the question and the answer...

An infinite Universe is beyond the comprehension of possibility for humans and as such I like it...

It is interesting how life is for the most part dependent upon our Star the Sun... but the exceptions to that general rule also seem to have as their reasons ..their survival and leaving heirs to their strange worlds.

I like your correct observation that of the life that is here so many species came and went before..
We say evolution is the rule yet it would seem extinction is the major player.
What I do wonder..given our development if we will ever leave here and avoid an extinction event... once such was not possible but to me a gene pool on the Moon would see us one up on other species long gone...

Today I will learn something new If it is neat I will share it....

alex

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Bobj

A very good debate and, to paraphrase Professor Julius Sumner Miller " Why is it so?" I suppose it is man's unquestionable thirst for knowledge that drives us to seek answers and the the deeper man delves, the more the questions crop up.
Strange really, we know more about space than what's in the oceans.

Well it is humanities lucky day ...I can tell you what's in the Oceans... water and lots of it...but space now there is an interesting question ..what is in space... all reach for the word nothing... well what is nothing if you must have it there..however if one thinks about it..at any point in space there is a piece of everything passing by... what electromagnetic energy is reaching you now.. some have it that even part of the very beginning (back ground radiation) passes by as does everything else.

I doubt there is a point one could go in the Universe..the finite one of course... where part of a distant place is not brought to us... think of the light captured by the Hubble... it does not just focus on the particular spot the Hubble is placed in by its orbit... the light it captures falls on regions all over the solar system..all over the Universe... we think of these objects as points of light but in fact we could see those points of light no matter where we stand..on this planet or another.

It was this proposition that made me accept that space is not empty but every part full of stuff passing thru... so in that way everything is sortta connected...

alex

[Dujon]

I think, Alex, that we are stuck in a circular conundrum because of the way we think. To us everything must have a beginning and an end. Therefore we always ask the questions 'where did I come from' and 'where did everything else come from'.

On a personal level I find it hard to quantify the answers to either of those questions. I most assuredly cannot convince my mind to get 'me' to understand the implications and ramifications of them. Ignoring mathematics the concept of 'infinity' is incomprehensible, in my opinion, to a human mind (never mind my own).

In years of yore, Alex, our ancestors felt that anything outside their perception was the realm of the gods. Since then we have pushed our knowledge away from the small area lit by our firelight and found the gods in question mere figments of our imagination. Our frontier (for want of a better word) is now outside even the planet on which we reside.

That's not to say that we understand our own environment as we certainly do not, but nor is that a reason not to expand our knowledge, such as it is, of the cosmos as a whole. Whether our resources should be concentrated on trying to understand our planet before we venture into cosmology or landing humans on Mars is a moot point. One does wonder though, at times, if the term 'get your own house in order first' should apply to us when it comes to spending significant amounts of our ever diminishing resources on extraterrestrial adventures.

[xelasnave]

Well I think we are the first species not only capable of understanding that extinction is the rule but also the first species capable of saving itself.
AND we have reached that level in a very short period... many creatures inhabited this place for periods far greater than our short time... many creatures exist that have passed their genes onwards for millions of years ...yet none of them can think about this new alternative to survival and gene passing.

I would rather money be spent on a fleet of battle stars before..porn, gambling, and tv soapies.. I wont even complete the list of lesser pursuits for humans.

I often look at the biblical prophesy and wonder if leaving the planet was not what was really being hinted at... well of course it is... its in the book so lets not leave it all to God .. we are capable so why do we wait for his intervention to fulfill such a prophesy.

Infinity is an interesting concept... and a branch of maths apparently that sees many going nutts... well that was on the radio so it must be true.

Thank you John for your profound observations and insite.

alex

[avandonk]

Alex even in the intergalactic realm where there are less than one proton (Hydrogen nuclei) per cubic meter there are billions of 'virtual particles' that fleetingly come into and out of existence.
This can actually be measured as empty space having a dielectric constant. Look up Casimir Effect.

There is an even stranger connection at the quantum mechanical level. Einstein called this action at a distance and it disturbed even him. It is also known as quantum entanglement. Taken to its extreme it means that everything in the Universe is connected still, as it once was all in the same place.

Bert

[xelasnave]

Bert I compliment you on your reserved and polite reply to my infinite Universe comment.

One armed with the good book may have been more dogmatic ..well that criticism can be levelled at both sides on occasion to be fair...

I don't go along with the popping into and out of existence stuff either.

This idea from what I have read comes from the notion , from the uncertainty principle that as a particle cant not be "nailed down"
it somehow does not exist... from there they find it does exist and therefore has popped into existence.

Now that is only my view gained in an attempt to discover all I could about the theory of inflation... and you guessed it ..I don't buy that idea either.

The fact that a particle could not be nailed down in the first place does not mean it did not exist merely that humans cold not identify it at that point.I will re read that stuff but that was my view after reading it all.

Still as you know I know very little of how the current thinking fits it all in... but I do recall seeing the basic flaw I felt crept in ...outlined above in respect of the foundations laid to arrive at the notion that particles are popping into and out of existence.

But even so space is not as empty as I was believed it to be... if nothing else there be the light that passes thru it on its way to where ever...


Thanks for making me think about it all... I will re read the casimir effect stuff.
alex

[avandonk]

On a side note Fred Hoyle should have got the Nobel Prize as it was he who first published a paper in about 1947 (I think) about nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in stars. Up until then no one knew the mechanism for their formation. This is almost within my lifetime.

We are in reality just starting to understand life at a molecular level and the future is beyond our current levels of understanding to predict. That is the job of people who are in primary school and those not yet born.

It was in the 1950's when the first complex biological molecule(s) structure(s) were determined.

The current revolution in our universities to only teach career oriented courses instead of teaching the young how to think so no avenue of learning is closed makes me worry about the future.

Nearly every modern revolution in understanding came from people using their talents to freely follow esoteric enquiries.

The emphasis on goal oriented research is an oxymoron as it is not research.

Bert

[xelasnave]

I lifted this from Wiki which I had not read before but probably is what I am saying...sort of maybe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle


The bit I noticed there was......

Many in the scientific community view them as an ad hoc abstraction that is required because our current view of reality as described by quantum mechanics is not complete. It is thought by this segment of physicists that virtual particles will no longer be required when a more complete view of quantum mechanics is integrated with general relativity and gravity in general

That was not where I formed my idea that particles dont pop in and out...
I will try and find that ... to refresh.

alex

[avandonk]

Alex I dont have all the answers just lots of questions. I will try not to denigrate anyone for their beliefs just point them in the current best direction if I think I know.


Of course these conundrums of virtual particles, quantum anything will be better understood with a better theory. But its the old song 'don't love the one you want, love the one your with.' We are stuck until a better definitive theory that can be tested with experiment comes up. Thats how science works.

Wishing does not work! Neither does any book written by man before anything was barely understood.

The ancients did the experiments and if you look carefully they were absolutely correct! The Sun and the Moon and the Stars and the Planets (sort of ) go around the Earth.
Ergo we are at the center of creation and it was just for us.

We are just as likely to be in a similar situation and we cannot see it.

Bert

[xelasnave]

Sorry Bert I missed your last post because I was into the last reply.

I was just reading stuff on particle pairs and personally I think they need a bit of a rethink.

I get impatient that we don't know everything yet but it is amazing as you point out just how little time really we have spent upon these matters... a blink in time really.

How do you teach someone to think... I think I think and although I may draw incorrect conclusions (or correct maybe) but I certainly think about things and without being intimidated by all the smarts that say I am incorrect... I at least think about what is before me... unfortunately I am a little old now and have little learning in the areas that interest me most.

Still the net makes things somewhat accessible maybe too readily available such that one can read and read more without maybe really taking the time to digest what one has read. I always take the time and think about the proosition I am being asked to accept... I cant accept inflation for example and would think that by others going along with it that we may miss something important...

It is probably just me but there are some propositions which are seen as most acceptable that obviously no one has really thought about..they have merely nodded accepted and moved on...

I dislike string theory..because it makes seemingly unsupported statements without any scientific back up... and all I can see it does finally is set out the math to enable all the particles to be "navigated" ... in fact I am never really sure what it is that string theory is saying... it sounds as if it is the explanation of everything..but at the end of the commentary I still find little has really been said...

The Elegant Universe got me off side with the reference to the man originating it..Suskin or some name similar... being the next DrA..get your own life and fame mate .... and original ??he lifted the formula from someone else.. and to hear one of the "äctors" apparently a scientist say...We should be able to in theory (does he know the meaning of the word) communicate with other intelligent species by using a gravity wave... how far can you let something be stretched before you say enough...well we cant find a gravity wave yet... and finding one will be remote given the distances they must travel to reach us... so what does this guy suggest,,,morse code using super nova or similar major cataclysmic events... geez ..how can folk not think that wild statement thru... its waffle ..nonsense but those around nod and except this crap as if it were supported science... think a little and one could reject such as simply out of hand...

Still I have no idea about string theory I doubt that even those involved dont know and no one is game to say so for fear they will be seen as dull...
The whole thing reminds me of the Emporer with no clothes trip.

So coming up with an incorrect conclusion having thought about the facts is much better in my mind to simply accepting everything because someone else has had an original thought and you can not be bothered to try same...

But they will find HB and then everything will be set in cement... and they will find it ..it is only an adjustment of the instruments away with that sort of cash outlayed... but I wont be happy unless they get a jar full of them..a blip on a tv tells me nothing.

alex

[xelasnave]

I dont wish to tear anything down other than the ridiculous stuff that is often presented as science without support...
But this post was to thank you for your kind and gentle approach and that you have taken the time to discuss the things you have.
Thank you very much.
alex

[avandonk]

Everything I was taught had a rigorous mathematical and physics derivation. The only contentious facts were the assumptions. It is these assumptions that are open to enquiry. We have to start somewhere!

In my student days we used to say after we went to the pub 'don't drink and derive'.


Bert

[xelasnave]

Yes I know Bert I am just having a grizzle I know that and that comes from the frustration of not having had a career in science...
But I suppose if I did I could not rant on to my hearts content without being relevant to anything...
I cant stand being stuck in the house I guess.
alex

[avandonk]

The simple fact Alex is that even having an enquiring mind puts you in good stead for the future. It is not about winner takes all!

The path to enlightenment is the journey not the answer!

Bert

[xelasnave]

Thanks Bert I respect your wisdom.
alex