Posted on 08/19/2008 10:57:10 AM PDT by Raineygoodyear
A "minor planet" with the prosaic name 2006 SQ372 is just over two billion miles from Earth, a bit closer than the planet Neptune. But this lump of ice and rock is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, according to a team of researchers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II). The discovery of this remarkable object was reported today in Chicago, at an international symposium titled "The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Asteroids to Cosmology." A paper describing the discovery technique and the properties of 2006 SQ372 is being prepared for submission ADDITION: Percival Lowell- Born March 13, 1855 Died November 12, 1916 Fields astronomy Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the last decade of his life, which he devoted to the search for Planet X, a hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. Lowell believed that the planets Uranus and Neptune were displaced from their predicted positions by the gravity of the unseen Planet X. Although Lowell's searches from 1905 to 1916 proved unsuccessful, the search continued after his death at Flagstaff in 1916.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Isn’t this info fall in line with all the 2012 Predictions?
Planet X: This was the name given by astronomer Percival Lowell to a planet that he believed existed beyond the orbit of Neptune. Although his calculations were off, and the discovery of Pluto accounted for his observations, some astronomers have suggested that a new Planet X
Most of the stars in our galaxy are binaries. They suggest that interaction between our sun and the brown dwarf may be increasing the temperature of the sun, generating global warming on Earth, and will cause an increase in the severity of the next peak in the 11 year sunspot cycle in the year 2011-2012. These influences may destroy the Earth’s magnetic field, and induce what Emmanuel Velikovsky called a ELE: an Extinction Level Event
Ask me in 2013.
This is a big lump of ice?
Maybe name it planet ***HILLARY***
Well. We lost Pluto two years ago. One down, eight to go. Astrology went down the drain completely.
What are we coming to, for heaven’s sake?
On the other hand, the universe is very large. Perhaps the largest thing there is.
Thought you might be interested in this.
Interesting.
Question #1. Briefly, and in your own words, describe the universe.
Question #1a. Give three examples.
Hmmm Sir -
1. The universe is by definition everything that there is. And we earthlings are inhabitants of that same universe, we are ‘involutions’ into that same universe. That is a strange thought. We may pass away eventually, but since we are matter which is nothing else but an extension in space, or condensed energy if you will, that which constitutes us won’t ever disappear. That is another stange thought. I could calculate how much energy one human being represents, but that would lead to a frightening number of Joules. Mind-boggling, in fact.
Now: I pondered: what is consciousness? It is not possible to locate it in a single bodily spot. Descartes tried it but failed (he placed it in the pineal gland). Modern computer scientists, who call themselves eliminative materialists, will also fail, however pompous they behave themselves at the moment. Since we humans are not closed systems but open to the universe, we might say: the conciousness of each of us is equal to the universe itself. That is not ridiculous. Whenever I look up at the sky, I can look at stars that are millions of light years away. Yet their light catches my eyes, and thereby affects my perception, however tiny that effect may be. So my consciousness is like a net that can be thrown over everything that there is. A strange position to take, since I also conjecture that my consciousness has no extension in space and is thereby immaterial and without mass. Because had it an extension in space, I could by definition locate it.
1a. Do I pretend to be God by the answer above? Of course not. I cannot know Him by definition, nor do I have the powers ascribed to God, or the knowledge.
1b. I only know that I am a material involution into the universe as described above, an involution that at some time in the future can be said to change its form and lose what it takes to be its own consciousness.
1c. When event 1b. will have taken place, I can surmise two things: I will leave some sort of ‘footprint’ behind me, the form of which I cannot know (most likely a changed shape of the matter that constitutes me now, and a shape that will be without what we call consciousness).
The other assumption that is safe is that the consciousness of those that will survive me will be active and perceiving and shaping the world after I am gone.
I am afraid, Sir, that this is all I have to say on the matter for the moment.
Hehehe - the questions were actually tongue-in-cheek, however, you gave some interesting answers, particularly on the subject of consciousness. What would be your conjecture concerning what happens to an individual’s consciousness when it is separated from their material being?
Thank you for the kind reply, HC -
in fact you raised the $M question here. The intriguing thing is: if I take consciousness to be not extended in space, then in theory it is possible that it survives me in full after I am dead. I wrote something to the extent that it wouldn’t be there anymore then, but this is imprecise writing.
Most natural philophers past and present agree that in deep sleep we are unconscious, same in fact when we are anaesthesized in hospital. Yet we regain consciousness in full after those states.
This is most interesting. Because it would mean that people with Alzheimer, who seem to be losing parts of consciousness by and by, theoretically can be said to not have their consciousness destroyed ever more, but that more of it gets to be ‘dormant’ for an unknown time.
By extension this could go for deceased people as well.
I am flabbergasted, Sir, what your tongue-in-cheek questions (and I know that they were meant that way!) have brought about in two simple sessions.
The only axiom in the whole story is that consciousness is not extended in space (i.e. knows no mass).
I will pursue the matter further.
(Cheers matey!)
Good follow up discussion - I like your style, A13! I think you are exactly right about the weight of that question, and I believe it is one that many people have wrestled with for thousands of years.
In particular, I appreciated your comment about Alzheimer’s. As I watched my grandmother progress through the stages, sometimes she would think I was me, sometimes I was my grandfather, sometimes my father, sometimes my uncle. It was like reverse schizophrenia. Always in her eyes was the spark of intelligence, just not always recognition. Once I listened to her vivid and animated description of riding horses across the prairie in about 1915, but then she couldn’t recall having eaten lunch 15 minutes earlier.
Anyway, now the question is really raised to the next level. If there is consciousness (which there obviously is), and if it is not extended into space (has no mass), then we can assume that things (for lack of a better word) exist outside of the material realm. So what are those things, of what do they consist, and what is their existence like?
Hi, in my former post I tried to make paragraphs, but after much fiddling it still did not work, don’t know why.
Better next time.
Good stuff, there. Thanks for the sentiment about my grandmother.
Formatting-wise: I keep this thread bookmarked - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1823580/posts - it has helped me a lot.
Thanks! That’ll help a lot.
Thanks!
Astronomers Find a New “Minor Planet” near Neptune
Universe Today | 8/18/08 | Nancy Atkinson
Posted on 08/18/2008 12:16:43 PM PDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2063873/posts
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