Putting things in perspective

Good to know we are but a minute speck in a immense, vast, cold, impersonal universe. We all may as well do whatever we will to assuage the coldness, grimness, futility, drabness, and darkness of a meaningless life.

On the other hand...
 
What is truly amazing is the *I* am the center of the universe. For surrounding me in each direction the universe stretches to infinity equidistantly.
 
i like the comment about how there should be a video that starts with a quark and builds up to a human.
 
tonycondon said:
i like the comment about how there should be a video that starts with a quark and builds up to a human.
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What do Ferenghis have to do with anything?

quark.gif
 
Nothing like a little distance to put things into it's proper perspective is there?

The next time you're overly concerned with being a few inches off course with a GPS, HSI, VOR, ADF and a handheld GPS while carring an EPIRB and are worried about being lost, get over it. THIS is what being LOST is all about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVbUo32XhcA

But that's trivia.

How about poking around the very local 1 Gpc neighborhood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SYelII66Xw

Understanding it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF2HG1PVZok

Peace out.
 

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Wow...way cool!

There IS life out there, somewhere, I just know it.
 
tdager said:
There IS life out there, somewhere, I just know it.
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IMHO: This galaxy alone is way too big with way too many stars for us to be the only life. Scale that up to the full Universe and the probability of us being the end all of life is self centered arrogance on our part. The latest number I've run across is a 158 billion LY diameter sphere and we can only see a teeny smidgen of it which is crammed full of possibilities. It's simply too big with way too many galaxies and star systems for us to be the only one off random chance that worked out.
 
fgcason said:
IMHO: This galaxy alone is way too big with way too many stars for us to be the only life. Scale that up to the full Universe and the probability of us being the end all of life is self centered arrogance on our part. The latest number I've run across is a 158 billion LY diameter sphere and we can only see a teeny smidgen of it which is crammed full of possibilities. It's simply too big with way too many galaxies and star systems for us to be the only one off random chance that worked out.
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"Random chance" is not the only possible, plausible explanation.
 
dmccormack said:
"Random chance" is not the only possible, plausible explanation.
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I'm not touching that one.

When operating on that scale, blind stupid luck and pure random chance has more than enough tries to get it right multiple times. It's like playing the lottery with a hundred trillion ping pong balls and getting 500 bazillion attempts using all the balls each time...you're gonna win more than once even if you can't win a two headed coin toss.
 
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dmccormack said:
"Random chance" is not the only possible, plausible explanation.
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Excluding Earth from the "random chance" for the sake of argument it's still very possible for life to exist out there. I just doubt they look anything like here.
 
This pretty much puts it into perspective as well :D

 
dmccormack said:
That's fine... but neither side of the argument has conclusive proof. Thus civility and respect should reign, no?

:cheerswine:
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Absolutely, which is why I worded my response so. Everyone is indeed entitled to their opinion, even though everyone but me is wrong.
 
Thus civility and respect should reign
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Agreed, even if we totally disagree on a fundamental level. There's no point, or fun, in turning an interesting discussion into a locked thread and banned members.

Pi1otguy said:
I just doubt they look anything like here.
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I don't know about that. Look at the pictures of Mars from the rovers. It looks a lot like the deserts here. Change the environmental conditions a little (atmospheric density, habitable zone of the star, type of star, etc) and things suddenly start looking very Earth like. There are a lot of variables however while things won't be exactly the same, they're not likely to be inbred sicko hollywood freakish either. I can easily imagine forested grass covered planets elsewhere though it's likely enough different that we couldn't survive the environment due to chemistry or biology variations. IIRC, we have life here that can survive in, no, make that, requires, human lethal levels of sulphuric acid to live.
 
"Random chance" is not the only possible, plausible explanation.
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That's true, we've come up with lots of explanations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth

Interesting commonality among them, including some still popular today, is that none accounts for any aspects of the universe that weren't known at the time they were first popularized. All very heavy on oceans and mountains and beasties and people, but that whole "rest of the universe" thing? Just lights in the sky.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
That's true, we've come up with lots of explanations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth

Interesting commonality among them, including some still popular today, is that none accounts for any aspects of the universe that weren't known at the time they were first popularized. All very heavy on oceans and mountains and beasties and people, but that whole "rest of the universe" thing? Just lights in the sky.
-harry
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Can you sue the word 'plausible' with any of them? Most likely one cannot.
 
Can you sue the word 'plausible' with any of them? Most likely one cannot.
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Well, as for me, I cannot use the word plausible with any explanations of how things are. I don't find evolution plausible, I don't find the Big Bang theory plausible, I don't find Genesis plausible, I don't find the existence of deities plausible, I don't find the existence of humans plausible.

So whatever the right answer is, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to consider it plausible. But that's just me. So I'm left basing my evaluations on relative plausibility. But I'll tell you, I'd award a lot of plausibility points to any religion whose divinely inspired creation myth offered up something about the nature of the universe that wasn't understood at the time, some spoiler that the designer passed along, or let slip by accident, not realizing he was talking over the heads of his scribes, as experts sometimes do.
-harry
 
smigaldi said:
Can you sue the word 'plausible' with any of them? Most likely one cannot.
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Now? No...but at the time, at the time, they were "plausible" to the people that espoused them.

Let us wait and see what another thousand years brings us! :cheerswine:
 
steingar said:
No, but it is the one that makes most sense to some of us.
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That, right there, is the core argument. All else aside, it must make sense to us. This due to the overpowering ignorance which is our burden as we consider the universe. For it to make sense, we are relieved of that burden if even by a little. On one hand there is the sense of how much we don't know. In fact, it's boggling to consider just how much we don't know.

On the other hand, some turn around and attempt to assign a value to those things we "just know are out there". That assumes a uniformity in a universe of which the preponderance of evidence shows is now and was born of catastrophe3. This business of attempting to determine the odds or chance or randomness falls flat and is resuscitated only in the consideration that...it's so big so there has to be life, there just has to be!

It's a vehement manipulation (or abject dismissal) of logic and reason, and it's a fraudulent faith in the existential fallacy. And most succintly, it is absolute arrogance that some, even while acknowledging that we know nothing, believe they to be in the position to make any determination with respect to what's out there or the nature of it.
 
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... For it to make sense, we are relieved of that burden if even by a little...
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Indeed. All of those creation myths relieved the burden of those who believed in them by replacing the discomfort of not knowing with warm reassurance.
On the other hand, some turn around and attempt to assign a value to those things we "just know are out there". That assumes a uniformity in a universe of which the preponderance of evidence shows is now and was born of catastrophe.
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But this notion of "uniformity" is hardly illogical, as our observed experience with the world around us, and what we can glean of the universe around us, suggests that uniformity is the rule of the day. Fire burns our hand, and that works at the bottom of the big hill, and also at the top of the big hill. In fact, we can't seem to find anywhere that is so special that it doesn't hold. Gravity works here, and from what we can see, it seems to work all the way across the galaxy, too, as do all the laws of physics, as we understand them.

We believe that the lessons we learn here will apply somewhere else, because in every observable instance, they do. It's wholly reasonable to assume consistency, and to place a requirement of evidence on any assertion that there exists some discontinuity, some exception to consistency, at some special place.

So is it a greater suspension of logic and reason, a greater arrogance, to assume that principles that are observed to hold true consistently in our observations should continue to hold true elsewhere, or to decide, in the absence of any evidence, and in contradiction to our observations, that this mundane ball of rock we live on is a "special" place?

What motivates us to think that? Is it anything observable, or is it something that we choose to believe? Maybe because that belief relieves a little of our burden?
And most succintly, it is absolute arrogance that some, even while acknowledging that we know nothing, believe they to be in the position to make any determination with respect to what's out there or the nature of it.
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It would certainly be arrogant for anybody to claim they _know_, but it's hardly arrogant to guess that phenomena observed here are likely to be observed out there, once we come to the realization that "here" is part of "out there".
-harry
 
mantakos said:
But I'll tell you, I'd award a lot of plausibility points to any religion whose divinely inspired creation myth offered up something about the nature of the universe that wasn't understood at the time, some spoiler that the designer passed along, or let slip by accident, not realizing he was talking over the heads of his scribes, as experts sometimes do.
-harry
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The latest date for the book of Job is 587BC (some place it much earlier):

26:6-8: "Sheol is naked before God,and Abaddon has no covering. He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them."
 
26:6-8: "Sheol is naked before God,and Abaddon has no covering. He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them."
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What previously unknown scientific knowledge is contained within? That clouds have water in them? Isn't the correlation between water and clouds pretty obvious to anybody who has been rained on a few times?

Here's what the Bible has to say about planetary orbit:
He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
​
This is what the Bible has to say about a spherical Earth:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
​
This is what the Bible has to say about the expansiveness of the universe, the existence of other planets, and that stars are remote suns clustered into galaxies:
Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years...
​
That's the work he did after first creating the Earth, then the seas, then seed-bearing plants, and trees bearing fruit. Once all that was done, he put those lights up in the sky to mark seasons and days and years.

A little later, on the fifth day, God put living creatures in the sea, made flying birds, livestock, and wild animals. Being a jokester, of course, he also created a wacky false fossil record to throw us off.
-harry
 
You asked for:
mantakos said:
But I'll tell you, I'd award a lot of plausibility points to any religion whose divinely inspired creation myth offered up something about the nature of the universe that wasn't understood at the time, some spoiler that the designer passed along, or let slip by accident, not realizing he was talking over the heads of his scribes, as experts sometimes do.
-harry
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I offered an example of a statement that was beyond the understanding of 600 BC anyone.

Instead you reply with a handy hit list of “How to Disprove the Bible” based on poor exegesis.
 
Uhhh, my God requires a good public orgy every three months, or he gets grumpity...

Dunno about you guys' gods and all that mountains and ocean splitting stuff.. Seems kinda pointless...
 
I like Danielle's cat.
 
I offered an example of a statement that was beyond the understanding of 600 BC anyone.
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That rain comes from clouds? Nobody in 600BC understood that? They never noticed that any time it rained, it was always cloudy? That rain never fell from clear skies?

And that Genesis clearly indicates that all kinds of animals were created at the same time, that's "bad exegesis"?
-harry
 
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mantakos said:
That rain comes from clouds? Nobody in 600BC understood that? They never noticed that any time it rained, it was always cloudy? That rain never fell from clear skies?
-harry
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Did they?

Did it always rain when it was cloudy?

Did it never rain when there was sun directly overhead?
 
In the beginning there was darkness. Or was there light? No there was darkness. Anyway, then man came upon the scene and created a great piddling little empi...you know, I'm almost positive there was darkness in the beginning.

Well, so anyhow....When your problems seem overwhelming or some little nitpicking details are bothering everyone on how the Universe was created, just stand back and enjoy the view:
 

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Did they?
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From Aristophanes's "The Clouds", ~400BC:
SOCRATES
Why, these, and I will prove it. Have you ever seen it raining without clouds? Let Zeus then cause rain with a clear sky and without their presence!
STREPSIADES
By Apollo! that is powerfully argued! For my own part, I always thought it was Zeus ****ing into a sieve. But tell me, who is it makes the thunder, which I so much dread?
SOCRATES
These, when they roll one over the other.
STREPSIADES
But how can that be? you most daring among men!
SOCRATES
Being full of water, and forced to move along, they are of necessity precipitated in rain, being fully distended with moisture from the regions where they have been floating; hence they bump each other heavily and burst with great noise.
​
Aristotle didn't have it all figured out, but was on the right track:
"The exhalation of water is vapour; air condensing into water is cloud. Mist is left over when a cloud condenses into water, and is therefore rather a sign of fine weather than of rain...The moisture is always raised by the heat and descends to the earth again when it gets cold ... when the water falls in small drops it is called drizzle; when the drops are larger it is rain."​
-harry
 
mantakos said:
From Aristophanes's "The Clouds", ~400BC:
SOCRATES
Why, these, and I will prove it. Have you ever seen it raining without clouds? Let Zeus then cause rain with a clear sky and without their presence!
STREPSIADES
By Apollo! that is powerfully argued! For my own part, I always thought it was Zeus ****ing into a sieve. But tell me, who is it makes the thunder, which I so much dread?
SOCRATES
These, when they roll one over the other.
STREPSIADES
But how can that be? you most daring among men!
SOCRATES
Being full of water, and forced to move along, they are of necessity precipitated in rain, being fully distended with moisture from the regions where they have been floating; hence they bump each other heavily and burst with great noise.
​
Aristotle didn't have it all figured out, but was on the right track:
"The exhalation of water is vapour; air condensing into water is cloud. Mist is left over when a cloud condenses into water, and is therefore rather a sign of fine weather than of rain...The moisture is always raised by the heat and descends to the earth again when it gets cold ... when the water falls in small drops it is called drizzle; when the drops are larger it is rain."​
-harry
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Number of original manuscripts unaltered by scribes?
 
Number of original manuscripts unaltered by scribes?
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Are you proposing the theory that the comedy "The Clouds", the writings of Aristotle and of Thales, all were re-written by subsequent authors to make it more scientifically correct with respect to precipitation?

You're going to have to give this up, nearly every mythology has some notion of "rain clouds", or gods who make rain clouds, or gods who are rain clouds, and unless subsequent scribes re-wrote the mythology of nearly every civilization to make it more meteorologically correct, then we're going to have to accept that people were savvy enough to notice that rain seems to fall from clouds.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
Are you proposing the theory that the comedy "The Clouds", the writings of Aristotle and of Thales, all were re-written by subsequent authors to make it more scientifically correct with respect to precipitation?

You're going to have to give this up, nearly every mythology has some notion of "rain clouds", or gods who make rain clouds, or gods who are rain clouds, and unless subsequent scribes re-wrote the mythology of nearly every civilization to make it more meteorologically correct, then we're going to have to accept that people were savvy enough to notice that rain seems to fall from clouds.
-harry
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Actually, you're going to have to stick to your initial point, rather than wander.
 
Actually, you're going to have to stick to your initial point, rather than wander.
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My initial point was that there's nothing in any purportedly divinely inspired mythology that demonstrates any kind of scientific knowledge or other kind of prediction that the designer of the universe, or any omniscient deity, would surely know, but that the "scribes" would not.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of incorrect science typical of what a person living at the time of the mythology's composition might believe. The authors of the Bible would have no way of knowing the true nature of those lights in the sky, their commonality with our Sun, nor about the commonality between our planet and those lights that wander differently from the others, nor about evolution, nor that there's nothing inherently unique about the Earth, so they wrote a mythology that's consistent with the extent of their knowledge. This doesn't earn them much in the way of "plausibility", because everything is exactly the way it would be if they were just recording their mythology, which, of course, they were.

You proposed an example you thought proved prescient knowledge (that rain comes from clouds). I argued that your example is not valid. I'm not sure what makes this "wandering".
-harry
 
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