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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Closing your eyes and clinging to a 2000 year old text written by men some time after Christ's death causes huge problems. Mainly that as science marches on, the Abrahamic religions become more disconnected. I find this a little sad, that they refuse to participate in human knowledge.
Don't be bummed dude! Instead why not tell us how science has made you a better person.
There's NOTHING that is wrong that is written in Genesis. It's only the interpretation inwhich you have clung to that is wrong!
I look at that pic and say ThankYou Lord, knowing that all knowledge in the universe will be revealed by His promise.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Quite the imagination you got there Dingus!
Sorta seems mystical
I guess ur software is your truth
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Forgive me if I find Harris neither profound nor original (Tvash)
Me too, but he is a good communicator.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^that looks more like art than it does science!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Remember though, there's way more to the mental life and its study or science than just meditation or SH's self-transcendance...
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dmt, I get your scales appreciation.
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Indeed Harris's great strength, imo, is his communication skills, esp in real time. Entire paragraphs of perfectly worded and often uniquely turned sentences can roll off his lips. Besides great communicator, I'd also say great crystalizer and great unifier of a wide range of subjects - of and for at least one important sector of the sciences demographic. But don't take my word for it. Check out the science illuminaries who follow him on Twitter. Not exactly schlups. Harris is a one of a kind. So is Niel deGrasse Tyson. Esp now that Carl's gone.
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Jan, did you get your Waking Up yet? I think I heard somewhere pre-orders from amazon might arrive a day or two early.
FYI: Waking Up, by Sam Harris, #1 in sales at amazon. Category: Science and Mathematics, lol!
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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i dont get much outta NDTyson, either. Now Sagan or Attenborough? Thats rare talent.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Base: Meaning is an interesting word. Our newly found discoveries about the universe. Does it MEAN anything? I leave that up to Mike and Largo and PSP.
Whoa. . . don't ask me, pal. I dunno. I'm surfing.
I agree, the image is beautiful, mysterious, awe-inspiring, Base. I don't dismiss it. On the other hand, I've recently had the chance to renew my exposure to Picasso's Guernica, and it too does something to me that I can't explain conceptually. It reminds me of the worst experiences I had in a combat zone. It is terrible, and it is also awe-inspiring, Base. What does it mean?
You are a closet poet, Base.
BB: Instead why not tell us how science has made you a better person.
:-)
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Amazon says the release date is Tuesay, Sept. 9
That's tomorrow!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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ps, my pattern recognition software still tells me the galaxy patterns still looks like neuron patterns.
of course it does, we make pictures that please us...
this is a part of MikeL's point of the dependence of our perceptions (including scientific ones) on what we "like" (what pleases us...).
what is an actual image, anyway?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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i wish i could find a picture of an olding grey-haired African man sit'in next to a herd of Antelope holding onto his pipe while it hangs from his lips all the while smoke streams from his nose.
Comparatively to your picture, is mine an image?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Is that ur thumb
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Ceci n'est pas une pouce.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Those pics of jgill's are almost painful to look at compared to those of Base, and Mental's. jgill's feel so rigidly unnatural. They are cool look'in, but so unfung-shwei.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 8, 2014 - 11:21pm PT
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Energy IS matter, some say. Others do not.
Matter and Energy: A False Dichotomy
Matt Strassler [April 12, 2012]
It is common that, when reading about the universe or about particle physics, one will come across a phrase that somehow refers to “matter and energy”, as though they are opposites, or partners, or two sides of a coin, or the two classes out of which everything is made. This comes up in many contexts. Sometimes one sees poetic language describing the Big Bang as the creation of all the “matter and energy” in the universe. One reads of “matter and anti-matter annihilating into `pure’ energy.” And of course two of the great mysteries of astronomy are “dark matter” and “dark energy”.
As a scientist and science writer, this phraseology makes me cringe a bit, not because it is deeply wrong, but because such loose talk is misleading to non-scientists. It doesn’t matter much for physicists; these poetic phrases are just referring to something sharply defined in the math or in experiments, and the ambiguous wording is shorthand for longer, unambiguous phrases. But it’s dreadfully confusing for the non-expert, because in each of these contexts a different definition for `matter’ is being used, and a different meaning — in some cases an archaic or even incorrect meaning of `energy’ — is employed. And each of these ways of speaking implies that either things are matter or they are energy — which is false. In reality, matter and energy don’t even belong to the same categories; it is like referring to apples and orangutans, or to heaven and earthworms, or to birds and beach balls.
On this website I try to be more precise, in order to help the reader avoid the confusions that arise from this way of speaking. Admittedly I’m only partly successful, as I’ll mention below.
Summing Up
This article is long, but I hope it is illuminating and informative for those of you who want details. Let me give you a summary of the lessons it contains:
Matter and Energy really aren’t in the same class and shouldn’t be paired in one’s mind.
Matter, in fact, is an ambiguous term; there are several different definitions used in both scientific literature and in public discourse. Each definition selects a certain subset of the particles of nature, for different reasons. Consumer beware! Matter is always some kind of stuff, but which stuff depends on context.
Energy is not ambiguous (not within physics, anyway). But energy is not itself stuff; it is something that all stuff has.
The term Dark Energy confuses the issue, since it isn’t (just) energy after all. It also really isn’t stuff; certain kinds of stuff can be responsible for its presence, though we don’t know the details.
Photons should not be called `energy’, or `pure energy’, or anything similar. All particles are ripples in fields and have energy; photons are not special in this regard. Photons are stuff; energy is not.
The stuff of the universe is all made from fields (the basic ingredients of the universe) and their particles. At least this is the post-1973 viewpoint.
Whole article here: http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/mass-energy-matter-etc/matter-and-energy-a-false-dichotomy/
I very much reading anything from "Professor Strassler."
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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But energy is not itself stuff; it is something that all stuff has.
All stuff? i suppose a rock houses energy, because it posses Form, and Form constitutes an energy?
But what about the "sands" on all the beaches, or in the Sahara. Is each grain a form or energized?
As a scientist and science writer,
Good one!!
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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~sigh~
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Instead why not tell us how science has made you a better person.
Science and morality are, for the most part, disconnected. If anyone wants to say that they are related, I'll listen.
I have to admit that as my life delved deeper into science, my young religious faith took a little hit, but I went to school with many fervent Christians who had no trouble getting an A in historical geology or evolutionary biology or paleontology.
There was this one girl who was a 7th day Adventist or some hardcore Christian sect. She was the best student in my graduating class, and that involved a lot of Earth history. How she reconciled that, I don't know. It never seemed to be an issue.
It isn't just geologists who accept the blatant evidence for evolution and an old Earth, it includes the money guys as well. Many of them are Christians, and when I present a prospect and explain its geologic setting, they never question evolution or the age of the planet. They put their money behind my hypothesis. They do not go out, find a preacher, have him pray with them, and go drill a 2 million dollar hole in the ground.
That never happens, but I'm sure that some people pray that they drill a good well instead of a dry hole.
If science has done anything for my morality, it is the rejection of prejudice.
The roots of morality is an interesting question. Religions teach it thoroughly. Despite that, we still have seen times when a religion went bonkers and committed atrocities. You can look back at the Inquisition, or you can look at ISIS in the Middle East right now. They are cutting off heads and fighting to create a religious state. Does anyone here really believe that they would want to live in such a nation? Those guys certainly feel that way, and they cut off heads while praising God at the same instant. They are immersed in their faith, and they are evil people, IMO.
My distance from religion protects me from that kind of thought, but Science has little to do with it.
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