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WBraun
climber
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Feb 28, 2010 - 09:31pm PT
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Your material body is the house of pain.
You spend your whole life trying to keep the pain at bay.
Only to fail.
Your materialistic science is a total failure .....
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Feb 28, 2010 - 09:36pm PT
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And my favorite from Kung Fu:
Caine: What happens in a man's life
is already written. Man must
move through life as his destiny
wills.
Old Man: Yes, yet each man is free
to live as he chooses though they seem
opposite both are true. Ha, I do not
understand it.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 28, 2010 - 11:36pm PT
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jstan-
Thanks for the clarification. I have to laugh at this given my love of the mystical and symbolic, but it seems I was taking your statement too literally!
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MH2
climber
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In guarding their fortune men are often close-fisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves to be most prodigal.
Though all the brilliant intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind.
Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life.
Often a man who is very old in years has no evidence to prove that he has lived a long time other than his age.
Seneca
Moral Essays
translated by J.W. Basore
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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MH2-
Are you trying to make me feel guilty for watching so much television the last couple of weeks?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Footloose wrote-
And my favorite from Kung Fu:
Caine: What happens in a man's life
is already written. Man must
move through life as his destiny
wills.
Old Man: Yes, yet each man is free
to live as he chooses though they seem
opposite both are true. Ha, I do not
understand it.
That's an excellent quote. It would make an excellent entry in the freespirit's Grand Bible (as opposed to the Christian's Holy Bible or Muslim's Koran).
MH2- That's good stuff.
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MH2
climber
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MH2-
Are you trying to make me feel guilty for watching so much television the last couple of weeks?
Just poking fun at myself, really, if cryptically, though the shoe is sure to fit other feet.
You must know the sensation - reading what some person supposedly wrote 2,000 years ago - modern sentiments; "Don't follow the crowd.", mixed with the hoary; "We drown our sickly progeny."
Seneca was born in Spain but lived under Caligula and Nero in Rome, among other strangeness. I've been trying to relocate a passage I came across once in which he mentions a sense of reverence he felt when visiting a grove of large trees.
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jstan
climber
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Moving right along.
What Is Time?
One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory
By Erin Biba February 26, 2010
SAN DIEGO One way to get noticed as a scientist is to tackle a really difficult problem. Physicist Sean Carroll has become a bit of a rock star in geek circles by attempting to answer an age-old question no scientist has been able to fully explain: What is time?
Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech where he focuses on theories of cosmology, field theory and gravitation by studying the evolution of the universe. Carrollıs latest book, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, is an attempt to bring his theory of time and the universe to physicists and nonphysicists alike.
Here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he gave a presentation on the arrow of time, scientists stopped him in the hallway to tell him what big fans they were of his work.
Carroll sat down with Wired.com on Feb. 19 at AAAS to explain his theories and why Marty McFlyıs adventure could never exist in the real world, where time only goes forward and never back.
Wired.com: Can you explain your theory of time in laymanıs terms?
Sean Carroll: Iım trying to understand how time works. And thatıs a huge question that has lots of different aspects to it. A lot of them go back to Einstein and spacetime and how we measure time using clocks. But the particular aspect of time that Iım interested in is the arrow of time: the fact that the past is different from the future. We remember the past but we donıt remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, like you turn an egg into an omelet, but you canıt turn an omelet into an egg.
And we sort of understand that halfway. The arrow of time is based on ideas that go back to Ludwig Boltzmann, an Austrian physicist in the 1870s. He figured out this thing called entropy. Entropy is just a measure of how disorderly things are. And it tends to grow. Thatıs the second law of thermodynamics: Entropy goes up with time, things become more disorderly. So, if you neatly stack papers on your desk, and you walk away, youıre not surprised they turn into a mess. Youıd be very surprised if a mess turned into neatly stacked papers. Thatıs entropy and the arrow of time. Entropy goes up as it becomes messier.
So, Boltzmann understood that and he explained how entropy is related to the arrow of time. But thereıs a missing piece to his explanation, which is, why was the entropy ever low to begin with? Why were the papers neatly stacked in the universe? Basically, our observable universe begins around 13.7 billion years ago in a state of exquisite order, exquisitely low entropy. Itıs like the universe is a wind-up toy that has been sort of puttering along for the last 13.7 billion years and will eventually wind down to nothing. But why was it ever wound up in the first place? Why was it in such a weird low-entropy unusual state?
That is what Iım trying to tackle. Iım trying to understand cosmology, why the Big Bang had the properties it did. And itıs interesting to think that connects directly to our kitchens and how we can make eggs, how we can remember one direction of time, why causes precede effects, why we are born young and grow older. Itıs all because of entropy increasing. Itıs all because of conditions of the Big Bang.
Wired.com: So the Big Bang starts it all. But you theorize that thereıs something before the Big Bang. Something that makes it happen. Whatıs that?
Carroll: If you find an egg in your refrigerator, youıre not surprised. You donıt say, ³Wow, thatıs a low-entropy configuration. Thatıs unusual,² because you know that the egg is not alone in the universe. It came out of a chicken, which is part of a farm, which is part of the biosphere, etc., etc. But with the universe, we donıt have that appeal to make. We canıt say that the universe is part of something else. But thatıs exactly what Iım saying. Iım fitting in with a line of thought in modern cosmology that says that the observable universe is not all there is. Itıs part of a bigger multiverse. The Big Bang was not the beginning.
And if thatıs true, it changes the question youıre trying to ask. Itıs not, ³Why did the universe begin with low entropy?² Itıs, ³Why did part of the universe go through a phase with low entropy?² And that might be easier to answer.
Wired.com: In this multiverse theory, you have a static universe in the middle. From that, smaller universes pop off and travel in different directions, or arrows of time. So does that mean that the universe at the center has no time?
Carroll: So thatıs a distinction that is worth drawing. Thereıs different moments in the history of the universe and time tells you which moment youıre talking about. And then thereıs the arrow of time, which give us the feeling of progress, the feeling of flowing or moving through time. So that static universe in the middle has time as a coordinate but thereıs no arrow of time. Thereıs no future versus past, everything is equal to each other.
Wired.com: So itıs a time that we donıt understand and canıt perceive?
Carroll: We can measure it, but you wouldnıt feel it. You wouldnıt experience it. Because objects like us wouldnıt exist in that environment. Because we depend on the arrow of time just for our existence.
Wired.com: So then, what is time in that universe?
Carroll: Even in empty space, time and space still exist. Physicists have no problem answering the question of ³If a tree falls in the woods and no oneıs there to hear it, does it make a sound?² They say, ³Yes! Of course it makes a sound!² Likewise, if time flows without entropy and thereıs no one there to experience it, is there still time? Yes. Thereıs still time. Itıs still part of the fundamental laws of nature even in that part of the universe. Itıs just that events that happen in that empty universe donıt have causality, donıt have memory, donıt have progress and donıt have aging or metabolism or anything like that. Itıs just random fluctuations.
Wired.com: So if this universe in the middle is just sitting and nothingıs happening there, then how exactly are these universes with arrows of time popping off of it? Because that seems like a measurable event.
Carroll: Right. Thatıs an excellent point. And the answer is, almost nothing happens there. So the whole point of this idea that Iım trying to develop is that the answer to the question, ³Why do we see the universe around us changing?² is that there is no way for the universe to truly be static once and for all. There is no state the universe could be in that would just stay put for ever and ever and ever. If there were, we should settle into that state and sit there forever.
Itıs like a ball rolling down the hill, but thereıs no bottom to the hill. The ball will always be rolling both in the future and in the past. So, that center part is locally static that little region there where there seems to be nothing happening. But, according to quantum mechanics, things can happen occasionally. Things can fluctuate into existence. Thereıs a probability of change occurring.
So, what Iım thinking of is the universe is kind of like an atomic nucleus. Itıs not completely stable. It has a half-life. It will decay. If you look at it, it looks perfectly stable, thereıs nothing happening thereıs nothing happening and then, boom! Suddenly thereıs an alpha particle coming out of it, except the alpha particle is another universe.
Wired.com: So inside those new universes, which move forward with the arrow of time, there are places where the laws of physics are different anomalies in spacetime. Does the arrow of time still exist there?
Carroll: It could. The weird thing about the arrow of time is that itıs not to be found in the underlying laws of physics. Itıs not there. So itıs a feature of the universe we see, but not a feature of the laws of the individual particles. So the arrow of time is built on top of whatever local laws of physics apply.
Wired.com: So if the arrow of time is based on our consciousness and our ability to perceive it, then do people like you who understand it more fully experience time differently then the rest of us?
Carroll: Not really. The way it works is that the perception comes first and then the understanding comes later. So the understanding doesnıt change the perception, it just helps you put that perception into a wider context. Itıs a famous quote thatıs in my book from St. Augustine, where he says something along the lines of, ³I know what time is until you ask me for a definition about it, and then I canıt give it to you.² So I think we all perceive the passage of time in very similar ways. But then trying to understand it doesnıt change our perceptions.
Wired.com: So what happens to the arrow in places like a black hole or at high speeds where our perception of it changes?
Carroll: This goes back to relativity and Einstein. For anyone moving through spacetime, them and the clocks they bring along with them including their biological clocks like their heart and their mental perceptions no one ever feels time to be passing more quickly or more slowly. Or, at least, if you have accurate clocks with you, your clock always ticks one second per second. Thatıs true if youıre inside a black hole, here on Earth, in the middle of nowhere, it doesnıt matter. But what Einstein tells us is that path you take through space and time can dramatically affect the time that you feel elapsing.
The arrow of time is about a direction, but itıs not about a speed. The important thing is that thereıs a consistent direction. That everywhere through space and time, this is the past and this is the future.
Wired.com: So you would tell Michael J. Fox that itıs impossible for him to go back to the past and save his family?
Carroll: The simplest way out of the puzzle of time travel is to say that it canıt be done. Thatıs very likely the right answer. However, we donıt know for sure. Weıre not absolutely proving that it canıt be done.
Wired.com: At the very least, you canıt go back.
Carroll: Yeah, no. You can easily go to the future, thatıs not a problem.
Wired.com: Weıre going there right now!
Carroll: Yesterday, I went to the future and here I am!
One of things I point out in the book is that if we do imagine that it was possible, hypothetically, to go into the past, all the paradoxes that tend to arise are ultimately traced to the fact that you canıt define a consistent arrow of time if you can go into the past. Because what you think of as your future is in the universeıs past. So it canıt be one in the same everywhere. And thatıs not incompatible with the laws of physics, but itıs very incompatible with our everyday experience, where we can make choices that affect the future, but we cannot make choices that affect the past.
Wired.com: So, one part of the multiverse theory is that eventually our own universe will become empty and static. Does that mean weıll eventually pop out another universe of our own?
Carroll: The arrow of time doesnıt move forward forever. Thereıs a phase in the history of the universe where you go from low entropy to high entropy. But then once you reach the locally maximum entropy you can get to, thereıs no more arrow of time. Itıs just like this room. If you take all the air in this room and put it in the corner, thatıs low entropy. And then you let it go and it eventually fills the room and then it stops. And then the airıs not doing anything. In that time when itıs changing, thereıs an arrow of time, but once you reach equilibrium, then the arrow ceases to exist. And then, in theory, new universes pop off.
Wired.com: So thereıs an infinite number of universes behind us and an infinite number of universes coming ahead of us. Does that mean we can go forward to visit those universes ahead of us?
Carroll: I suspect not, but I donıt know. In fact, I have a postdoc at Caltech whoıs very interested in the possibility of universes bumping into each other. Now, we call them universes. But really, to be honest, they are regions of space with different local conditions. Itıs not like theyıre metaphysically distinct from each other. Theyıre just far away. Itıs possible that you could imagine universes bumping into each other and leaving traces, observable effects. Itıs also possible that thatıs not going to happen. That if theyıre there, thereıs not going to be any sign of them there. If thatıs true, the only way this picture makes sense is if you think of the multiverse not as a theory, but as a prediction of a theory.
If you think you understand the rules of gravity and quantum mechanics really, really well, you can say, ³According to the rules, universes pop into existence. Even if I canıt observe them, thatıs a prediction of my theory, and Iıve tested that theory using other methods.² Weıre not even there yet. We donıt know how to have a good theory, and we donıt know how to test it. But the project that one envisions is coming up with a good theory in quantum gravity, testing it here in our universe, and then taking the predictions seriously for things we donıt observe elsewhere.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 29, 2010 - 11:33am PT
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"So again I say, you're left really with two choices. You either believe Genesis or you don't. You either believe the Genesis account that God created the heavens and the earth, or you believe they somehow evolved out of random chance......."
We can phrase the question slightly differently.
You can understand that simply the way the natural world is, has caused it to be inevitable that life comes to be and evolves as we see it around us - over time spans we cannot even begin to grasp.
Or you can imagine ......someone that looks like us created it all for some unknown reason.
Or you can imagine...... a great chicken laid an egg that became the universe.
Or you can imagine.......a great snake excreted the universe
Or you can imagine.......two monsters did battle and one was thrown down causing all we see
Or you can imagine.......
Or you can imagine.......
Or you can imagine.......
Or you can imagine.......
Or you can imagine.......
..................
The author arbitrarily defines the number of choices to be only two.
Ever wondered why the author says what he says?
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Mar 29, 2010 - 11:40am PT
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ABSTRACT: Guilt and fear associated with religious beliefs have received little research attention. In a convenience sample of 100 adults, fear of punishment by God was significantly higher for fundamentalists protestants than for liberal protestants, or for those with a personal faith not associated with a religious organization. Feelings of guilt for not living up to their religious ideals were approximately the same for fundamentalist and liberal protestants. The pattern of correlations among well-being, importance of religion, and religious guilt and fear was consistent with the hypothesis that religious guilt and fear contribute to suppressing a positive relationship between subjective well-being and importance of religious faith.
http://jeksite.org/research/bv.htm
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jstan
climber
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Mar 29, 2010 - 12:31pm PT
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Interesting result from the above link:
"Evaluation of the fear and guilt questions indicated that guilt and fear of punishment should not be considered as part of one scale. The item analysis methods of multitrait scaling described in Stewart, Hays, and Ware (1992) are useful when developing a few items to measure a relatively narrow construct. In the present data, the guilt item correlated only .27 with the mean of the four other items, whereas, a correlation of at least .30 and preferably .40 or higher is desirable for scale construction. Therefore, the single guilt item was treated separately and the four other items were used in a religious fear scale (alpha reliability .77). The variation of religious fear and guilt among the religious categories confirmed that fear and guilt were distinct factors in this sample."
End excerpt
In effect, feeling guilty does not mean one is also to be afraid. How so?
If you feel you have not done as you should have - you feel guilty.
But you are afraid only if you believe there is a heaven or a hell (for example).
Guilt and fear are responses to two entirely unrelated states of belief.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Mar 29, 2010 - 02:02pm PT
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0325/For-Templeton-Prize-intelligent-design-opponent-Francisco-Ayala?sp_rid=NTI5OTY1NjQzOAS2&sp_mid=4393038
UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala has won the 2010 Templeton Prize, which honors those who make 'an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension.'
By Peter N. Spotts, Staff writer / March 25, 2010
A highly respected evolutionary biologist has received the 2010 Templeton Prize, an award issued each year by the John Templeton Foundation to a person "who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works."
This year's winner, Francisco Ayala, is perhaps best known scientifically for his research into the evolutionary history of the parasite scientists have associated with malaria, with an eye toward developing a cure for the disease. He also pioneered the use of an organism's genetic material as molecular clocks that help track and time its origins.
But for the past 30 years, he has been at the forefront of battles to keep creationism and its more-sophisticated offshoot, intelligent design, out of public-school biology classes, noting that they actually represent religion masked as natural science. At the same time, he has vigorously argued that religion is a vital pillar in American life.
The US scientific enterprise is the envy of the world, he says, and the country is the most religious of any nation in the western world. "It is nothing short of tragic to see these two pillars of society are often seen as in contradiction with each other," he said during the award's presentation Thursday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.
"Properly understood, there can be no contradiction because they deal with different subjects," he said.
Although he has been reluctant over the years to describe his own religious leanings, Mr. Ayala argues that religion and science are "different windows" for looking at the world. Only when each tries to make "assertions beyond their legitimate boundaries" do the two appear to clash.
"Science gives us an insight on reality which is very important; our technology is based on our science," he says. "But at the end of the day, questions important to people, questions of meaning, purpose, moral values, and the like" are not answered through science.
Beyond championing the roles science and religion can play in their respective domains, he also has argued that "scientific knowledge, the theory of evolution in particular, is consistent with a religious belief in God, whereas the tenets of creationism and the so-called intelligent design are not."
While intelligent-design advocates point to the complexity of many biological processes as too intricate to have emerged from a random evolutionary process, Ayala points to many of biology's flawed designs as evidence of a lack of intelligence behind them.
"Any engineer who would have designed the human jaw bone would be fired the next day," he says. Instead, he terms biology's flawed products as "a consequence of the clumsy ways of nature and the evolutionary process."
Ayala, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, began his dual journeys into science and religion during his formative years in Spain, where he graduated from college with a bachelors degree in physics. After graduation, he studied theology there, and five years later became an ordained priest.
But during his theological studies, two geneticists took him under their wing, and in 1961, Ayala moved to New York to take up graduate studies in evolutionary biology and genetics at Columbia University. And he left the priesthood.
Over the course of his career, he has won awards for his scientific work and has served on several high-level science advisory panels in the US. In 2001, President George W. Bush awarded Ayala the National Medal of Science.
In a prepared statement, John Templeton Jr., the president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation said, "Ayala's clear voice in matters of science and faith echoes the Foundation's belief that evolution of the mind and truly open-minded inquiry can lead to real spiritual progress in the world."
Ayala says he will donate the $1.42 million prize to charity.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Cintune-
Thank you for this posting. It's the first I've heard of this one. It has really been a stellar year for fossil finds - Ardi, the non Neanderthal, non Homo sapiens in Siberia, and now this link between Austrolopithecus and Homo habilis. The family tree just keeps getting more and more like a bush!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Nice to see this thread back on evolution.
Speaking of such, biologists are now considering two new names in the taxonomy of H. sapiens: H. sapiens regularis and H. sapiens superbus. They are doing this to account for the wide cross-section of humanity (e.g., as evidenced by its diversity in belief) and to represent either ability or inability to adapt to modern age understanding (e.g., science education, evolutionary theory).
Extra notes: (a) Apparently the likes of Carl Sagan on one side of the spectrum and the likes of Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and/or Rush Limbaugh on the other inspired the group's paper and efforts. (b) Sources say the criteria for the suggested division and new taxonomic names are found in the brain's processing architecture and brain software. (c) More functional MRI are underway.
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WBraun
climber
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God has been proven
Chris McNamara created SuperTopo and mankind began ....
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Perhaps Werner means "humankind".
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Alpinist909
Mountain climber
Chesapeake
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Jan, thanks for the post.
Interesting comment about the jawbone. I have heard a similar comment about the flawed human eye.
I just posted on the string about "Favoite bible verse....". I just could not hold my tongue anymore.
Survial of the Sickest. I forget the authors name. Great book.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 26, 2010 - 03:52pm PT
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Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
 George Carlin
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