Parallel Universes Are Real

It's in Scientific American, it must be true. This month's cover story: Parallel Universes. "The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 10²⁸ meters from here." That number's a lot bigger than 10 to the 10^1.42 meters, which are the farthest observable objects in what we call our universe. And anyway, twin or not, anyone outside my light-cone is dead to me. That's just a rule I have. If you're skeptical of the multiverse, go read our discussion of a similar article from two days ago.

Comments

So you're the "I exist alone" jerk

[maggard]

... anyone outside my light-cone is dead to me.

So you're the jerk who blocks the bottom of the escalator, stops & starts (invariably as I'm trying to pass!) in the grocery store aisle, and is completely oblivious to anyone and anthing behind or beside you.

Man I hate you.

We used to call it "Mr. Magoo syndrome", now it's "The world is my TV". In any case there should be lesser criminal charges for running folks like you down: "He wasn't in my worth-occupying-volume cone of vision, Officer!"

Re:Buddhism and science tie together reasonably we

[benzapp]

Al-Khwarizmi invented algebra around 780 (both "algebra" and "algorithm" are arabic words).The Bagdad physician, al-Razi, (865-925) produced a medical textbook that was the standard throughout the Islamic world. And Avicenna (Ibn Sina) was like the Isaac Newton of the Islamic world, who in 980 was making advances in medicine, physics and philosophy.

Many agree that many of the advances made in the Western World during the renaissance owe their beginnings to the science, math, and rational thought of the Islamic World.

I don't think so. I hear this a lot from those who seek to counter the obvious fact that Islam is as barbaric a religion as you can get.

What little rational thought has existed in this history of Islam is only because certain military thug lords decided to allow some of their intellectuals the freedom to read classical thought and science. All Islamic "rational" philosophy is nothing more than transposed Aristotle. Most of the medicine you desribed as coming from the arabs was described by Hippocrates. It was the Greeks who bred the unusually powerful Turkish poppy, from which analgesic strength opium can be obtained.

What little advancements existed in the muslim world were simply the result of pillaging the remnants of the Roman Empire. Muslims come, they suck a land dry until its people live in poverty and their culture stagnates. Every muslim area of the world was once vibrant and live, and now its degenerate, stagnant.

In particular what infuriates me about this modern ignorance of Islam is how much they destroyed from the classical world. They burned the great library at Alexandria. They destroyed countless temples, arenas, and theaters from antiquity. They stripped the great pyramid of its protective limestone encasing to build some hideous mosque.

Of course, we won't even get into the discussion of Constantinople.

The Christian world had its problems, but this was mainly due to the vast numbers of people immigrating west. There is a reason the western empire fell before the east. No one did (or still does) want to live in the traditionally Muslim lands. They are a desert wasteland. One of the things which caused the collapse of the Roman empire was changing climate. North africa was the primary source of food for much of the empire. It is no coincidence Islam began to show its ugly head at the exact same time as the desert expanded and the people starved. North Africa has been a hell hole every since.

Also, Lawrence of Arabia was a little misinformed about London. London (and Paris) both achieved their stature because they were the capitals of Britannia and Gaul respectively, their Roman provincial titles. London was hardly a village but a fortified city rather large for the frontier. They had aquaducts, public baths (still unknown in Arabia), plumbing, industry, and heavy fortifications. It was common practice to keep some public illumination, but probably no more than torches. London never WAS a village. It was created from the very beginning to be a fortress, around which grew a city. Since Roman imperial rule was brought to the region for fertile land and raw materials, it ultimately became a trading center.