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Pillars of Creation Destroyed
anthemaniac writes with news about the Pillars of Creation, an iconic structure in the Eagle Nebula some 7,000 light-years distant. The Hubble Space Telescope's image of this structure is one of the most widely recognized astronomy images ever captured. Now a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that the pillars probably toppled 6,000 years ago. From the article: "Astronomers think [a] supernova's shock wave knocked the pillars down about 6,000 years ago. But because light from that region of the sky takes 7,000 years to reach us, the majestic pillars will appear intact to observers on Earth for another 1,000 years or so.'"
Astronomers think [a] supernova's shock wave knocked the pillars down about 6,000 years ago.
Just as the the Earth was being created!
Trolling is a art,
that's it, pack up the space program, nothing left to see out there
Those are some stunning photographs! But as somebody with virtually no astronomy background, what are those "pillars" made of? The article says "gas and dust", but that seems pretty vague. How large to astronomers think that this particulate matter is? Does it range in size from grains of sand up to chunks as large as earth, and beyond?
I wonder if any of us (that is, humans) will be around to see the destruction, or if anyone alive then will ever know what they looked like today?
Meta, Meta, Meta
There was a gimmicky sign left by the pillars of creation:
If you lived in the Eagle Nebula, you'd be destroyed by now.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
What else are we looking at and taking images of that is actually nothing like it is in real time. This also boggles my mind with the fact that much of what we see of our universe is actually just nothing like it currently is since the light takes soooo long to get to us. Perhaps I am wrong with that assumption... maybe somebody knows better than I and can clue me in :)
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Astronomy messes with my head almost as much as time travel...
So, if we have detected a supernova that exploded 6,000-9,000 years ago, and a picture of the Pillars 7,000 years ago, wouldn't that mean that the supernova is some place between us and the pillars, ~1,000-2,000 lightyears closer to the pillars than the median of us and the pillars? IANAA so could someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Demented But Determined.
So the assumption is that the supernova occurred 5 or 6000 light years away from Earth, 7 or 8000 years ago? Striking the nebula 6000 years ago, which we'll notice in another 1000 years... you could just draw a part of a sphere to plot the candidates.
I've no idea where they get the (up to) 9000 years ago angle though.
i find the idea that anything in space can "topple" or "fall down" highly amusing
:)
some of these reporters need to check their gravity
They willan on-have collapsen.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Less than 1% of every US tax dollar goes to space. Do you really think that, if that money were not going to space, it would go to the programs that you want it to go to? Do you not think that the exploration of our universe is a noble cause, worthy of public funding? Even if for no other reason than no other oranization has the money or motivation to fund that kind of exploration? It seems a rather trivial cost to me...
Rhapsody in Numbers
The above poster is correct, in physics parlance, observers will not agree on the temporal ordering of events separated by a space-like interval (outside the light cone, i.e. the two events can't affect each other because you'd have to travel faster than light to connect them), conversely, they will always agree on the temporal ordering ordering of events separated by a time-like interval (inside the light cone, slower than light). This why the concept of information being transmitted faster than light automatically introduces causality issues, because different observers will disagree of what caused what.
:) This is the key to resolution of the so-called "Twin Paradox" as well. As soon as one of the twins turns around his line of simultaneity changes, and what his idea of "right now" changes. The key is that there's never really any "paradox", observers will always agree once they go to "meet each other" at the same point in the same reference frame. The universe doesn't always play by our common sense notions, some concepts like what "right now" means for widely separated events, for instance, may not be meaningful or need to be reinterpreted.
So someone zipping by the Earth at a good percentage of the speed of light away from the Eagle Nebula will say that the collapse hasn't happened yet, although presumably if we were both good scientists, we'd agree that the event exists in the space-time continuum and understand why we disagree.
This article takes the cake! This has to be the oldest story I've seen posted on Slashdot!
HEY! Stop wasting time posting messages on the internet and get back to work on your urgent energy research!
The value is in knowing. The more we know about the universe, the more we can make use of it. Especially when it comes to the point that we *need* to get off this rock. At that point all the AIDS vaccines, wells and roads all over the world become worth squat. Of course I don't think it will happen in our lifetime, and you can certainly debate if it will happen. But I'm sure that more primitive societys saw mucking around with plant extracts as pointless when it was more useful to gather food for the tribe. Of course some of those plant extracts are now medicines.
NASA's budget is 16.8 billion
Isn't the total budget for the US around 2 trillion dollars (from gpoaccess.gov which I got from the source you provided)? And doesn't that make 16.8 billion around 0.8% ?
I think Drake's Equation needs a new term in it's statement in order to explain Fermi's Paradox. We'll call it "1-f_w" where f_w is "the fraction of planets inhabited by whiny bitches who kill all the space programs because the money isn't being spent the way they wanted." From experience, f_w is 1, causing Drake's Equation to equal 0, explaining Fermi's Paradox: we've never picked up another civilization because all the other civilizations are planetbound due to whiners. Likewise, they'll never meet us either.
I'm sure you'll agree that pure physics research has produced led to some pretty useful stuff - electromagnetism and quantum mechanics are behind most of the cool toys geeks love. Just as quantum mecahnics wasn't initially developed with the aim of producing transistors, current theories being developed and tested have no specific technological aim in mind. But it's a certainty that with greater understanding of our universe will come a greater ability to manipulate it. Every advance in physics has brought with it technological advances and I fully expect any future advances will bring further technological advances. Certainly some scientists and engineers need to be working on clean renewable energy tech (and they are), but some need to be working on the tools that those scientists and engineers use - physical theories, mathematical techniques; astronomy is part of that making the science that makes the technology possible.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Basic research often has no short term value that we can see. A hundred years ago a couple of guys tried to measure our speed through the "ether". They found that there was no ether. This lead to the idea that light must travel at the same speed no matter what reference frame you're in. This (and a few other things) lead to the ideas of quantum physics. This ultimately lead to several inventions already with many more on the way.
But a hundred years ago, did anyone see the point in measuring our speed through the ether (which pretty much everyone accepted had to exist)? What would be the point? Just a waste of money.
Astronomical measurements are used to test basic theories of physics. The basic theories of physics are then used to create new and wonderful things. These things save lives and make us more comfortable. Just because we don't know what we'll end up using the information for doesn't mean we should stop searching for it.
Good answer. I'll vote for an extension to NASA's budget :)
I was not actually aware quantum mechanics were involved in transistors. Doesn't that technically make every computer a quantum computer?
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The more we know about the universe, the more we can make use of it. Especially when it comes to the point that we *need* to get off this rock.
How is knowing about a something that doesn't exist any longer going to help us get off of the planet? How is seeing places that we cannot physically even come close to reaching actually helping?
But I'm sure that more primitive societys saw mucking around with plant extracts as pointless when it was more useful to gather food for the tribe. Of course some of those plant extracts are now medicines.
I'm not a doctor, but I'm trying to think of common modern medicines that can trace their existence back to primitive peoples mucking around with plants. Maybe ginsing?
Yes. Which is less than 1%. I wasn't trying to make a point about incorrect math... I was just stating exactly how much was being spent on taking pictures of stuff that no longer exists and that we have no real practical way of ever getting to and probably will never have any real impact on anyone on this planet ever.
Good answer... but I'm shocked to hear that there is no ether... next you're going to tell me Pluto is not a planet.
Um, isn't the IP version field only 4 bits?
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Ambulances use GPS-based navigation systems now to save lives faster by improving dispatch efficiency. GPS has to deal with relativistic effects or it's off in a big way. We wouldn't know about these effects unless we had folks doing this silly science stuff, sometimes on the taxpayer dime.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
> next you're going to tell me Pluto is not a planet.
The names some people choose or don't choose to give chunks of matter in orbit around a star is of little importance to real science.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
.....explain how they can determine something like this if light from that event hasn't even reached us yet? Like, say who now? I assume it just an educated guess based on other activity in the area, but what exactly is it that they look at for clues like this?
adventure-today.com
Physics and Astronomy help us understand the true nature of God (and she's not a vindicitive gay hating abortion clinic bombing fat old white bearded man, FYI). So why not spend at least as much money on Physics and Astronomy to understand the universe, instead of giving money to preachers, who just lie to you, then spend it on crystal meth, blow jobs from gay hustlers, political favors, molesting little kids, and paying off lawsuits for molesting little kids.
-Don
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They were obviously destroyed during the Shadow War, as documented on Babylon 5 episode Into the Fire...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Transistor-based computers, while they rely on quantum effects for their operation, perform calculations using large numbers of quanta (electrons) on a large (in quantum terms) scale. When we look at sufficiently large numbers of quanta on a large enough scale, we analyse the bulk properties as electricity. It's at that larger scale that computation happens in a microchip - they are electrical devices, with many electrons representing each bit. The term 'quantum computer' refers specifically to computers which perform the actual computation at the scale of individual quanta.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
So this is kind of an astronomical weather forecast; :)
"This millennium, a beautiful view of the nebulae, but that's changing next millennium with a much needed nova-storm, showering the region with high energy particles, following clear space for awhile after."
God I wish I could live forever, I want to see this kind of thing.
Especially when it comes to the point that we *need* to get off this rock. At that point all the AIDS vaccines, wells and roads all over the world become worth squat.
I would imagine people with AIDS would respectfully disagree with you.
I came here for a good argument
The parent isn't just picking nits here. A lot of responses say something along the lines of "yes, but in our frame of reference, with x=0,t=0 being Earth and Now, this explosion happens at t0" -- and this is perfectly correct. It's not the case, though, that we're stuck with that frame of reference. 1000 years -- the length of time it will take the explosion's light to reach us -- is a really long time. In 400 years, maybe someone will build a spacecraft that could accelerate fast enough to reach 99.9% of the speed of light (relative to Earth's velocity) -- not an entirely ridiculous proposition.
Looking back at the fast-receding Earth, and the fast-receding Pillars of Creation, our intrepid astronaut could reasonably say "Oh -- those pillars will be destroyed in just a few thousand years, and then the light will take a few thousand more to reach me." And that's not just a technicality -- that's honestly what would be true in the astronaut's frame of reference, even if he were the same fellow who wrote today's article.
The value is that eventually we'll have somewhere to ship you.
Your statement is a bit contradictory. You present your position as if it is opposed to the previous post, but when you argue that the value of knowledge is that we can eventually use it to save ourselves, you are practically saying the same thing as the post you are responding to - that the primary goal of our research and knowledge should accomplish practical objectives. In other words, the value is in the fruits of the knowledge, not in knowing itself. The time period of these objectives just differs. Your example of escaping the planet is a problem that's a bit further down the road than AIDs and energy depletion, but you both seem to be of the opinion that the value of knowledge is in its practical applications. You think we should look further ahead, and the other poster wants to look more at the problems of the present day.
I think it would be much more interesting to look at the position that your first statement suggests - that the value is in knowing itself, or at least something a little further away from the idea that the primary value of knowing about the universe is in using it to our ends. While improving the life of its people might need to be the stated goal of a government organization to a certain point, I think expanding human knowledge and understanding could be its own reward. Yeah, the knowledge may save us some day, but does that need to be the reason we ask the questions? It seems to me that a lot of world-changing questions aren't asked in an attempt to solve a problem. They're inquiries that deeply stir us for what can seem to be no particular reason. The awe the sky inspires must have stirred humans for many ages. For the people who ask these questions, knowledge is its own reward. Sure, people may put it to use hundreds of years later, but finding answers provided a great deal of value to searchers on their quests for knowledge before others found additional value in practical applications.
I think a truly inspired scientist is probably just as interested in the means as the ends.
I wish I could be alive 1,000 years from now so I could watch a time lapse movie of it happening...
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
There's a lot of use in astrophysics, whether it's confirming essential theories about physics, or applying what we know about other systems/galaxies to our own. There's, of course, the pure curiousity of finding out about the universe, but also there's stuff we'd never have a clue about if it wasn't for it - dark matter, et cetera. And some particle physics hinges on it: an awful lot of rare particles come from outer space, and if you're going to go about detecting them it's helpful to know where they came from, what kind of frequency you expect them at (and et cetera).
Also, a lot of the research is multipurpose - I'm sure that you know about the amount of technology that was kickstarted by the moon landings.
Finally, knowledge is an odd thing, in that you never know when you're going to need it. You never would have thought number theory would have been useful, but just look at modern day encryption. It's good to keep everything going at once, because science doesn't require just money - it requires time as well. I should also mention that funding for stuff like this doesn't automatically get granted, a lot of a scientist's time is spent pitching their research projects, showing that they're potentially useful to somebody or something. Nobody's going to fund useless research (or at least, the bias should be against it).
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
All of the comments about time travel, light cones, ect are a complete and utter waste of time. While the article doesn't do a very good job of explaining it, the light from the proposed super nova that will cause changes in the Pillars of Creation has already reached us. What hasn't reached us yet is the light from the changed Pillars of Creation. This difference is due to two factors, one small and one huge. The small one is that fact that the star that went nova is closer to us than the Pillars are. The largest factor is the difference in the progagation of the light from the super nova and that of the wave that will physically re-arrange the Pillars. A simple model is the light and sound from an explosion. You'll see the light flash before you hear the bang.
Great answer. Thanks.
With all the islamofreak dhimmi-wannabes proclaiming slashdot to be liberal-ville going to hell in a handbasket, you would think we have a collective sense of humor. Oh well, you can't mod me down any further than you already have.
Don't make the mistake that all those who believe in God also think evolution is a lie. Some believe that evolution could just be a mechanism and that the bible is full of metaphors and not everything in it is literal. I am one of those. It is also why I loathe most *organized* religions who seem to require everything they read to the literal truth and forget that the book was written by plain ol' men. I don't usually like nor get along with most religious literalists/legalists, or those who can only mimic what ever they read in a book... ANY book... religious or not. You can choose to agree with the book, but it is best if you understand why you agree as opposed to some who just do without thought.
I believe in God. I also have a Darwin fish on the back of my car. It was my protest while living in the bible belt against the ubiquitous Jesus fish that was on so many of the cars there (St. Louis), and the nearly absolute religious literalists that drove those cars (thank goodness not everyone was like that there!). That was were I first ran into the pseudo science creationism of intelligent design... but that is another story already raked over the coals. :-)
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Here is a really good example where the observers don't even need to be going very fast at all, as the great distances involved make the lines of simultaneity vastly different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rietdijk-Putnam_Argum ent. In the Rucker book I mention below there's a thought experiment similiar to this one about a trial to determine if a ship's captain turned on his engines before or after an attack occurred.
Especially when NASA used to do so much more with so much less money. Now we have a bunch of hobbiests taking pictures and bureaucrats pushing pencils living the high life off a budget that is nearly infinitely more than that which put men on the moon and gave me velcro shoes. And they get nearly as much money from commercial and military satellites as well. Think of the research and exploration that could be done with the profits from Sea Launch alone. And by research and exploration I don't mean dirt collectors samples and photos to well connected pedants' moms in front of portholes.
A philosophical position is not the same thing as an article of faith. While you could argue that a given philosophical position is not "proven", inasmuch as you (or perhaps someone besides yourself) may not be convinced by the arguments in it's favor, others may find the argument absolutely convincing such that any disagreement with it seems necessarily irrational.
I wouldn't call myself an atheist exactly (I'm a sort of pantheist), but I'm certainly a naturalist, so lets look at that first "article of faith" you listed:
1) that nothing exists but natural phenomena (matter)
I assume by "natural" or "material" phenomena, you (or they) mean observable phenomena, as in 'observable in principle'; you could by some means, perhaps not *yet* technologically possible, empirically tell whether or not that phenomena in fact occurred. That is, there is some observation you could make, some experiment you could do, that perhaps we are presently unable to do due to practical limits, which would tell you whether the sentence describing that phenomenon was true.
Given that that is what is meant by that, it seems patently absurd to conclude that anything non-natural exists (which is the same thing as to say that there are unknowable truths), on the basis that:
(A) Conceivability is possibility (and vice versa). Something is logically possible if and only if it could be conceived of; if you couldn't even conceive of what it would be for something to be the case, then you clearly have no idea what it even is that is in question, and so that non-idea cannot possibly be true.
(B) One can only conceive what one could, hypothetically, perceive. Consider someone asks you to conceive of "a foo upon a fweep". You have some rough notion of something placed on something else, but in order to conceive of these things, you have to ask "what is a foo?" and "what is a fweep?", and the descriptions which follow in response must ultimately cache out in some sort of perceptual terms (it looks like this, it sounds like this, it feels like this, etc). So to conceive of something, you must understand what it woud be to perceive it; thus, you could only conceive what you could (if such a thing existed) perceive. (As an aside, this does not mean that you must undertake the act of consciously imagining something every time you are asked to conceive of it; it is merely enough to note that "yes, that is a sort of perception I could have; now what about it?")
From A and B, it deductively follows that the only things logically possible are things which are perceivable (a.k.a. observable); so if "natural" or "material" phenomena are understood to be just such observable phenomena, as it seems they are, then it deductively follows that only natural/material phenomena are logically possible. From there, the atheist can perhaps derive his other two items of doctrine, but my point here is not to defend atheism; it is to defend philosophy from the accusation that it is mere baseless comparison of different articles of faith.
Now... maybe you can find some flaw in my argument there. Maybe my premises A and B are false somehow, and I've overlooked something. Maybe my understanding of "natural" or "material" phenomena is not correct, and those terms rightly denote something other than what I take them to. Maybe you can't find any flaws but you just don't buy it anyway. The point is, there is good, some (like I) would say irrefutable evidence to support such a position. I certainly consider such a thing quite easily proven; I have just done so. So to accept naturalism is hardly an article of faith; and it seems that something like atheism - or at least, something quite unlike the supernaturalist theism common to most modern major religions - logically follows from such a position. So the atheist (of a certain variety at least) has good grounds by which to claim that his position is not one of faith.
Now, there are some logical arguments for the existence of God as well, which I'm sure you're aware of; the ontol
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Actually, in the UK ambulances use GPS to kill people... An ambulance crew recently turned what should have been a 20 minute drive across town into a 4+ hour trip between major cities because they just trusted what the GPS told them :(
I hereby nominate this last line for understatement of the month.
There are some aspects of relativity I am not sure I get. Isn't it that in 1,000 years the pillars are going to be knocked down?
If we all had your attitude, we'd have never left the caves.
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I agree 100%. As long as it was funded via tax then one persons subjective sense of value is being forced on an other. People that bleat on about the benefits outweighing the costs are idiots. If that were true you could fund these NASA like jaunts without recourse to tax as the demand for the results would ensure profits to cover the costs. In fact as it is being funded using tax you can 100% guarantee the benefits don't out weigh the costs, else you wouldn't need to force people to hand over their hard earned money, they would do it willingly.
No we left the caves to escape simpletons like you. :)
Seriously though, I would say that most innovation is driven out of necessity even if it is artificial necessity... now several other people have responded to me and pointed out that although the direct value of this research is on par with calculating the total # of daises on the mountains (not much) the mathematics and physics used and tested in these types of exercises is quite valuable. That was of course my original question... why should we do this, and a few of the answers I got back helped me understand.
Not that I have any problem with getting pretty pictures of things. As a kid, the space program really excited and interested me. However, to be honest - we are never going to get off this rock, regardless of need. We can't travel FTL (or at least, that's what I'm told) which pretty much means we're stuck in our solar system. Maybe Mars, maybe Venus, maybe a few asteriods. The moons of Jupiter or Saturn - assuming we can heat them. Any interstellar travel, even at c, would take longer than a human life time. Sure, maybe we could have generational ships that set off and three generations later end up at their destination and start a colony - but even that is doubtful at present. So, until we can change the laws of the universe and go FTL, we're never getting off our own little planet in a meaningful way.
Atheism is a religion in exactly the same way that refusing to ever collecting a stamp is a hobby. :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
That's why it's good to research strange things in Civilisation.
Deleted
Are you saying that God lost his erection?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
No that would be:
Atheism is a religion in exactly the same way that not collecting things that are not stamps is a hobby.
Agnosticism is a religion in exactly the same way that not collecting stamps (and not collecting things that are not stamps) is a hobby.
Atheism believes (without proof or disproof) there is/are no god(s) - ie takes it on faith, add some policitics and look you've got a religion.
Agnosticism freely admits to sitting on the fence (the fence is 2 miles wide, is always in the sun and has a swimming pool and a burger bar - from scepticism inc by Bo Fowler)
I'm sure this will get modded as flame bait but I wish the atheists would get the point (I did, when I was about 14, I looked it up in a dictionary and stopped calling myself an atheist at that point)
In fact as it is being funded using tax you can 100% guarantee the benefits don't out weigh the costs, else you wouldn't need to force people to hand over their hard earned money, they would do it willingly.
I think perhaps your model of human nature needs some work. After all, casinos make thier money by offering a service such that statistically benefits do not outweigh the costs. The so called "house percentage".
And yet many people clamor to avail themselves of this service, gambling.
So why can't the opposite case exist? Where the benefits do outweigh the costs, but some people try to weasel out of thier share of the cost.
Want a more concrete example? A vaccination program can effectively eradicate a disease. (such as has been done Smallpox). So the smart choice is to have the program, right? Of course there will be some people who have a bad reaction to the shot, but the cost in human suffering would be less than not having the program at all.
But unfortunately, some people will not see the decision matrix as VACCINATE/NOT VACCINATE, but as VACCINATE/NOT VACCINATE/VACCINATE EVERYONE BUT ME. For an individual, Option 3 is best, because it has the advantages of having the program, yet avoids the possibility of an adverse reaction. But if many people try for option 3, it becomes effectively option 2.
So then force logically gets involved, even if its just 'Keep away from my family (who may be too young to get vaccinated yet) or I'll use force, you potentially contaminated unvaccinated SOB.'
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
First things first: (A) seems like an axiom to me; I would like you to demonstrate or elaborate that unconceivable entities cannot exist, if possible.
But, furthermore, even if A is a truism, A+B just would prove that if there is a Deity, it's not supernatural -- it's part of the Nature. IOW: A+B = (so-called Supernatural entities/events) is contained in (Natural entities/events). Now, substitute "Nature" for "Next-level Deity" and you have a theism again. Remember that some theisms consider that our Universe is contained in the Deity -- part of it.
You are right that "philosopy is not faith", but faith, OTOH, is a philosophical stance. And to firmly believe in the non-existence of any Deity without any evidence whatsoever that it's true is a faith statement, instead of simply a philosophical statement. Now, not believing in the existence of a Deity (nor believing its non-existence) is a simple philosophical statement, because the subject is not believing something despite the absence of evidence (which would be the definition of "faith").
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Hey! Did you guys hear? The (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/ 09/2330251)Pillars of Creation were destroyed!
The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else's life. -FZ
Sorry for the apparent magnitude joke...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Nebula
And yet many people clamor to avail themselves of this service, gambling.
something, if they do it freely, they benefit from for what ever reason.
When two people trade freely BOTH people benefit otherwise they wouldn't have traded. "Profit" isn't purely a monetary term. When I buy a car I gain a car but lose x amount of money, i've still profited because I wanted the car more than the money (for whatever reason). Both me and the previous car owner has profited (provided the trade wasn't forced by the threat of violence).
Free trade is not a zero sum game. Thats a hugely important fact that politicians would do well to understand.
A hundred years ago a couple of guys tried to measure our speed through the "ether". They found that there was no ether. This lead to the idea that light must travel at the same speed no matter what reference frame you're in. This (and a few other things) lead to the ideas of quantum physics.
That's interesting -- another addition to the always-growing list of things I didn't know. I poked around for a link and found this: Is The Speed of Light Constant? Scroll down to the "Special Relativity" section for a description of how the search for the Speed of Light in the Ether led to the discovery of the slippery notion of "spacetime".
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Ah, A college philosophy major in the process of matriculation!
... well, I think it is an unjustified dismissal in this case, but I'm going to criticize your actual arguments now.
;) ), therefore your argument is, again, semantical and vapid!
I love philosophy, and I do not take issue with your attempt to defend your own personal views; however, I do detect a sent of conceit in your arguments. They would, by many people, be called sophomoric. You seem to discount the intelligence of a great many people, merely calling them irrational hoodlums. Now, this is not always a bad thing to do, I do it with creationists for instance, but
1) Now, it seems to me you are using an overly broad interpretation of naturalism. The accepted public usage of the word, as used by the parent, and which you chose to ignore, would more properly be summarized by "The universe is nothing but Standard Model particles / vibrations in strings / Your favorite physics model." Certainly no one who believed that angles are real would claim that they are theoretically un-observable. [they look like people and teleport through space time. There I have conceived of it. How do they teleport through space time? I don't know, how do quantum entanglements manage to do it?] Therefore, according to you, belief in angles is compatible with a materialistic philosophy. Poppy cock.
2)
> if "God" is supposed to be understood in terms of something
> beyond the universe - which is, by definition, the sum of all
> that exists, which by my above argument must be
> entirely "natural", "material", observable phenomena - then
> that "God" necessarily does not exist, for the very concept is
> utter nonsense
Now let me look at that again. I read that as "something beyond the universe - is utter nonsense; because [the universe is] by definition, the sum of all that exists "
May I point out that many physicist postulate other universes beyond our own. So, starting from the assumption that physicists are not monumentally stupid, I deduce that they are not making the error you are accusing them of, therefore, they are not using your definition of universe. Therefor, your formal definition of universe is not the universally accepted definition (i.e. there exist other definitions
> Why I would criticise the intellectual character of theists (or
> supernaturalists at least, which includes most theists) is rather
> for holding on to a belief against which there is a well-founded
> counterargument: namely, proofs of naturalism like I've given
> above.
Which I believe I just called shenanigans on, so I criticise (sic) you, for criticising (sic) them because of a semantic slight of hand.
When we say god, universe, or naturalism, we must accept that words are metaphors, or isomorphs with reality if you prefer, and have no formal definition. An argument which assigns words a formal definition is fundamentally flawed. You are not talking about the world, you are talking about language. And I have very little interest in such self-referential arguments.
Nice try; but next time, talk about reality instead of words!
That is how I imagined it at first, but after thinking about it more, the supernova doesn't have to be closer to us. For example, consider that the earth, the supernova, and the pillars are arranged in an equilateral triangle, where the sides have a length of x light years. Also for the sake of simplicity assume that there is no significant bending of space due to gravity, along the path between the three. When the supernova occurs the energy from it will travel at roughly the speed of light and reach both the earth and the pillars at the same time x years later. The image of the "toppled" pillars will then take another x years after that to get to the earth.
In fact, given any arrangement of the three objects that is not colinear (any triangle), the straight-line distance between the supernova and the earth will be shorter than the total distance from the supernova to the pillars to the earth, and so in general we should see the supernova before we see any of the effects of the supernova. I think.
I am curious about this idea that we choose our beliefs.
Consider: I would very much like to believe that human beings are basically good and decent. That although we are flawed there is a limit to what we are prepared to do to one another, to how bad we can become.
I cannot, however, believe this, because half an hour's perusal of any history of the twentieth century proves otherwise in the most horrible detail. We're capable of every horror imaginable. I hate it but it's true, and I have no choice to believe it because it happened, over and over again.
Or similarly: I offer you a million dollars to believe that the sky is green. Can you comply? Sure, you can lie to me to get my money, but can you truly look at the sky and believe it is green, if I offer you a large enough sum to do so?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
something, if they do it freely, they benefit from for what ever reason.
So your claim apparenltly is that if a compulsive gambler, loses all his money, loses his job, his home, lets his family go into desperation, and dies penniless in a gutter leaving all his responsibilities for someone else to clean up after, it is somehow a 'benefit' because he was free to it?
Mighty harsh defintion for a word derived from the latin for "good deed"
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
So an atheist could accept a proof of god (and presumably cease to be an atheist as a result) whereas an agnostic would deny the existence of such a proof?
Meanwhile even theists would cease to be theists in face of a proof for god, becoming... what? Knowists?
Anyway, I say foo to all this saying they were toppled 6,000 years ago. For the purposes of causality it hasn't happened yet for us, and won't for another thousand years. It cannot affect us until then. They just don't want to say that they're predicting that it will have happened 6,000 years ago.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The "pillars" that the article is referring to are not massive solid structures that will, all of a sudden, crumble one day; they are gargantuan clouds of "space stuff" (stars, protostars, gases, etc...). Like clouds in our atmosphere, they are continuously, slowly and gradually changing. Wondering if humans 1,000 years from now are going to remember what it looked like to us now is as silly as wondering if the other kids on my 3rd grade field trip remember that cloud that looked like Bugs Bunny's head.
The only press that it might get 1,000 years from now would be from some historian that found this article in his archives and decides to fill a column with pointless reminiscing of "how naive we used to be". It would be today's equivalent of going back to articles written in the 1980's about predictions of "how great life and technology will be 20 years from now" and just pointing out that the author was incredibly off.
If you want perspective, just ponder the sheer SIZE of the Eagle Nebula compared to the size of our planet (which is, for now, the only thing our human civilization can affect directly). We are no more than a speck of sand on the beach dude.
Karma: NaN
Yeah, except that they make it their hobby to tell everyone what an idiot they have a normal hobby :-)
(Cue the "But they _are_ idiots!" cry.)
The electromagnetic radiation won't have much affect on the structure of the nebula unless it is extremely intense, which at any significant distance, it wouldn't be. However, it will illuminate the nebula, cluing us in to the fact that the supernova had occured, even if we can't directly see the star that produced it.
The shockwave is (I presume from the way the term is being used) the matter ejected from the supernova, traveling out at high speed, but definitely slower than light. It's like our solar wind on steroids. The particles carried along with the shockwave are what would interact with and tear apart the pillars.
So in summary (hypothetically):
90% of Christians don't really believe in God; they just like to say they do. If they really believed in the God of the Bible, their behavior would be totally different.
I don't think that is quite accurate. It's more analagous to millions of americans believe in democracy, but still break the law.
It is difficult for mankind to continuously follow any set of laws religious or otherwise, with the exception of physics. So most people try and do the best they can.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
(I had to make a monthly visit to the local jailhouse while I worked in the DA's office, to make sure the inmates were being treated humanly) I will tell you that the only ethical way of dealing -- for instance -- with convicts is to choose to believe that every human being is basically good and decent. If you don't, you de-humanize them and you start treating them like animals. I have seen lots of people working for the recovery of convicts, and they all believe that convicts are good and decent people if you give them the opportunities, a strong guidance, and a clean and simple set of rules. Other people just beat them up and pile them in their cells.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
And thats the point is it not? Who are you to judge what anyone else ranks highest in the priority list? This sounds harsh but its about being an adult who doesn't cry to the state because everything should be provided (at the cost of someone else whether they like it or not). Now if you are this gentlemans/womans partner/family then sure help out, as is your free choice. It might make someone stranger feel better to help out, as is their choice, like freely giving to charity.
Now since you're into extremes to support your arguments how about this. Your opinion of what is valuable is totally wrong. You will do exactly what government decides is best for you. You will have the job determined by the government, you will live where the government determines its best for you to live, you will buy what the government tells you to buy. Every action you take will be determined by the government and you will carry it out or be killed. You may be happy with that, but i'm not. You might be happy for the govt/whoever to take from one group by force to benefit another, but i'm not.
One says "You're an eternal, flaming idiot", and the other says "You'll be in eternal flames, you idiot".
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
My favourite example is the victorian gentleman botanist, bustling away in his study, peering at slices of carrots just to see what he could see.
Everyone reading this post on an LCD screen - say thank you to the carrot-studying gentleman for giving you such nice technology.
But that's just a strawman since practically nobody actually believes anything of the sort. How come? many atheist people in this thread said exactly that they firmly believe in the non-existence of any Deity. They also did not state any evidence that leads them logically to believe in the non-existence of some Deity. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It's also begging the question since you're assuming that there is a god, or at least that belief in one has merit which is what you're trying to demonstrate. No, if you paid attention you would see that I am assuming that believe that there is a Deity has as much merit (none, IMHO) as the believe that there is not any Deity. Given that there is no evidence for a god, then not buying into it is just basic common ense nad the default position. So, given that there is no evidence of superstrings and branes, then not buying into it is just basic common sense and the default position, also? They are in no way symmetrical positions.
One is blind faith in an entirely unsupportable position, while the other is simply not buying into an entirely unsupportable position. Not really, because most atheists (in this whole thread, for instance) affirm categorically that Deities, and other "supernatural" fenomena do not exist. And many theists had experiences that they qualify as real and that make, for them, unreasonable and unsupportable that God does not exist. I don't believe in Zeus either. Do you? Why or why not?
If not, please explain exactly how you mananged to choose between two identically supported views.
It certainly isn't reason though. Rationally every god ever invented is identically likely. I don't know anything about the existence or non-existence of Zeus. I think my position is based on pure logic. And so, logically, one should not believe on the existence or the non-existence of YHVH or $DEITY also.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048