Posted on 03/10/2014 6:58:19 AM PDT by Heartlander
I would suggest that we are guiding ourselves, because we can. Humans, are the only species on our planet capable of this level of exploration.
What would happen if there was an "end" to our understanding?
We are always, and have always been digging deeper and deeper because that is our nature. When signs of the Higgs Boson seem to validate its theory, it opens additional avenues for exploration.
What if those avenues ended ?
What would become of our society if "all that is knowable is known"?
I posit, it will be the end of the world or we can "never" know everything, by design.
Don’t know how I missed that, but I’m glad you didn’t! Thanks for the link!
I didn't get time to watch the show, but I did capture this Lunar image and processed the data over the weekend.
59 seconds of video through a Canon 60D, processed, aligned and calibrated into this image.
Center of image is Crater Albategnius. The central peak is about 5000' and the N/E walls of the crater are about 14,000'...The central peak casts a pyramid shaped shadow across the floor of the crater. This crater is not far from the landing site of Apollo 16.
BTW, thanks for that link...
Sometimes I get those foreign names mixed up. I meant the other guy - Savaronola
i rewatched the original all afternoon and enjoyed it. i remember whenb it first came on and i had the soundtrack.
i will give the second one a second chance given this was the intro. i did not care for the graphic novel approach and would have preferred real actors.
i did catch “we are all star stuff.” in both. i remember delan in BABYLON 5 saying that too, i think a few episodes after she emerged from the cocoon. jeeez what a geek am i.
It is possible, I guess, that it is all ourselves and not divine inspiration.
The scientific process...
Each new theory builds from a successful experiment which in turn produces more theories that must be proven by experiment, and so on. And of course, a very detailed and meticulous accounting is a must.
However...
But then there are those Gestalt like insights that pop into the head of a scientist while he is working on a solution to a problem. Almost like divine inspiration. :)
I don’t think that it will ever end or we will know everything. The universe, both large and small, is too complex and too big and we are too much a part of it to be able “to see the forest for the trees.”
Just a crazy idea: I do believe that religion and science will merge sometime in the future. That, while trying to understand the universe through science, we find proof of a “creator.”
I also believe that whatever creator might exist only noticed us when we started attributing our existance to him. That we were just another one of his creations until we devoloped the cognitive ability to theorize that he might exist.
Welcome to geekdom!
Cosmos was pretty inspiring. I actually saw Sagan at an event in the early 80s. Back when I was a youngster.
Funny thing too: I recorded the music from Cosmos from a Hearts of Space broadcast around 15 years ago. It is on my mp3 player. I didn’t realize it and recognized all of the songs while I was watching it yesterday. Lol.
I used to listen to HOS while studying. Yes, I know that it is PBS.
Personally, I think science and religion are merging together now, as opposed to what secular scientists like DeGrasse and Dawkins want us to believe.
As Physics gets more weird and abstract I see an opening for philosophy to regain lost ground. Science has for many many years rejected the "why" question when it comes to explanations. With a continuing stream of unsatisfying conclusions, many will seek a more solid foundation for their beliefs.
It's interesting and ironic to me that the scientific establishment has claimed the "high ground of reason" while relegating their opposition to "Faith".
I note also that Black "chrstians" who have no objections to blasphemy against G-d can't stand it when they are themselves insulted. Maybe they've all joined the "Fiver Percenters" and now think that they're "gxd?"
This version of Cosmos demonstrated how good the original was. Showing this type of production with commercial breaks is dreadful.
hopefully the next episodes have more science and less cartoons.
In 33 years that number has become "billions of billions".
For the hours the Original Cosmos was on it was like listening to a melodious poem, I was enthralled but the commercial interruptions on this version were bad. So much has been learned in the intervening years that this series should be a dead bang hit.
Brian Cox from BBC's "Wonders of the Universe" might have been a better choice for narrator, though Tysons early interaction with Dr. Sagan was touching.
-PJ
Servetus was burned by the Calvinists of Geneva for views that didn't go so far as Bruno's (though admittedly more heretics were executed in Catholic countries).
The original series wasn't that great either. Too many long scenes of Sagan staring in rapture at the approaching stars.
Extrapolating, doesn't that put in question our whole perception of reality including the pseudo reality of the mathematics that describes physics.
For example, it defies common sense that mass is not constant but depends on, of all things, velocity! That time slows down, again depending on velocity. And by simply observing an experiment you can change its outcome. That a particle can behave like a wave and particle and visa versa. And these are the less abstract ideas.
They know all these things and more.
Yet, this is their foundation.
A foundation that is built on uncertainty.
This is where the war is being fought.
The war of ideas and in turn what our political battles will ultimately come down to.
Even the tools of logic and “reason” that they cling to, can’t be explained by them.
Is logic among men an evolutionary oddity?
If so, any and all of both theirs and our foundations are equally valid.
But, their validity as they claim is scientific.
I’ve posted this before, and I find it very enlightening.
Listen carefully.
No Science, No Logic and No Morality: Atheism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxz84kS8k4U
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
As a side note.
I’m very interested in the social structure of belief.
How is it that while there are thousands and thousands of examples of a Christian foundation that includes creation which individually are happily accepted by atheists, but when combined to offer a conclusion are rejected without further thought or consideration?
Is it willful ignorance ?
Bookmarking.
I have two simple questions for physicists. 1. What existed prior to the big bang? 2. What caused the big bang?The proper, honest scientific answers to that are "Unknown." and "Unknown." And the reason for those answers is that there is no scientific evidence available to us (yet, or ever) to tell us with any certainty what was there.
Is Tyson a legit astrophysicist? Or an unworthy AA hack, ie, a Colin Powell of physics?Tyson has a BA in Physics from Harvard and a PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. His research has so far been impeccable.
As Physics gets more weird and abstract I see an opening for philosophy to regain lost ground. Science has for many many years rejected the "why" question when it comes to explanations.The reason why science rejects the "why" question is because it's irrelevant to the scientific process. It doesn't matter Why something opens, only How. The Why of something is not something that should ever be dealt with by science because Why cannot be measured.
How is it that while there are thousands and thousands of examples of a Christian foundation that includes creation which individually are happily accepted by atheists, but when combined to offer a conclusion are rejected without further thought or consideration?What examples might you be speaking of?
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