Physicist Explains Cthulhu's "Non-Euclidean Geometry"

An anonymous reader writes "Mathematician Benjamin K. Tippett has written a fascinating and deadpan paper (Pdf) giving insights into Cthulhu. A 'Bubble' of warped Space-Time makes alarmingly consistent sense of the dead God's cyclopean city under the sea. From the paper: 'We calculate the type of matter which would be required to generate such exotic spacetime curvature. Unfortunately, we determine that the required matter is quite unphysical, and possess a nature which is entirely alien to all of the experiences of human science. Indeed, any civilization with mastery over such matter would be able to construct warp drives, cloaking devices, and other exotic geometries required to conveniently travel through the cosmos.'"

Comments

So it's a Sci-Fi?

[tgmarks]

So it's a Sci-Fi article?

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[jest3r]

This unphysical non-Euclidean post brought to you by Hewlett Packard.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[cranq]

Some good SF has some similar roots...

One example that I like is Charles Stross' Laundry series, which starts with this story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atrocity_Archives

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Freddybear]

They're online for free at: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Evil Pete]

A spoof scientific article for Halloween, more likely.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Jonah Hex]

HP Lovecraft was a product of his times, and he recanted these views before his death. He also married a Jewish woman, although at the time he did so he still had some strong feelings against immigrants. There are a few really good documentaries on him that go into this aspect of his life.

Also, he's a huge influence on my own work, the Maniac Loveseat series I do especially. - HEX

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

HP Lovecraft was a product of his times, and he recanted these views before his death. He also married a Jewish woman, although at the time he did so he still had some strong feelings against immigrants. There are a few really good documentaries on him that go into this aspect of his life.

Also, he's a huge influence on my own work, the Maniac Loveseat series I do especially. - HEX

That's an excuse. There were many men of his time who did not subscribe to that brand of virulent racism. Marrying a jew doesn't change what he was, according to his own world view, mixing with jewish stock would have improved his own offspring.

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[PlusFiveTroll]

Excuse or reason? If you were born to parents of racists it's highly likely that you would hold their worldview, at least for some time in your life, till you had the knowledge and experience to form opinions otherwise. It is easy now to look into the past and judge, how will history look upon you and judge what you are ignorant in?

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

Many people are born into racist families and when they are old enough to discover the world for themselves, they become disabused of the notions that their parents held.

Lovecraft was 22 years old when he penned this gem.

• When, long ago, the gods created Earth
  In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
  The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
  Yet were they too remote from humankind.
  To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
  Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
  A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
  Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

There is a difference between the ignorance born of unfamiliarity and race hatred. Lovecraft practiced the latter. Lovecraft lived in a time of northern migration of a lot of blacks who sought to escape the crushing racism of the south. So I can surmise that he encountered some black people who fit the stereotypes that were common in his day but to accept such as the norm is akin to meeting one stingy Jew and operating as if they're all Shylock.

Lovecraft was a piece of shit racist. I don't care how many people enjoy his writing.

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Jonah Hex]

Those are not excuses, they are statements of fact, just like his racist views are facts. A minor point, but it was a cultural racism, not a biological one, he was never concerned with "stock" as you put it. He married a Jew because she was "well assimilated" to the New England ideal. Personally I was glad to learn that he moved beyond his upbringing and experiences in New York/Brooklyn and moderated his views before his early death. There are plenty of other figures throughout history that did great things and never considered if their racist views were wrong, including if I'm not mistaken a few of the Founding Fathers. - HEX

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

Those are not excuses, they are statements of fact, just like his racist views are facts. A minor point, but it was a cultural racism, not a biological one, he was never concerned with "stock" as you put it. He married a Jew because she was "well assimilated" to the New England ideal. Personally I was glad to learn that he moved beyond his upbringing and experiences in New York/Brooklyn and moderated his views before his early death. There are plenty of other figures throughout history that did great things and never considered if their racist views were wrong, including if I'm not mistaken a few of the Founding Fathers. - HEX

Yes. The founding fathers either owned slaves themselves or were tolerant of slavery. I view them with similar disdain.

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[bmo]

So in your opinion, if someone is bad in one area, they are all bad, and they cannot redeem themselves ever?

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

--
BMO

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[aekafan]

In the end, I have to so the fark what? If we reject in their entirety the ideas of a person who holds some views that we disagree with, we would quickly have no ideas left Yes he was a racist, but also a good writer. Everyone has bad parts.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[torsmo]

It is ironic that the leading figure in Lovecraftian mythos and literature is S.T. Joshi.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Interfacer]

I don't think that was his point.

Whenever the constitution (or anything involving the founding of the US) gets discussed, conservatives drag the founders into the discussion, arguing that they did or did not mean X when they wrote Y. As if the founders were somehow wise sages, and we're not worthy. The reality is that they were fallible people with their own bad and nasty sides. Just because they would not have agreed with something is no reason not to do it.

At least, that's what I think the point was.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[wdef]

So in your opinion, if someone is bad in one area, they are all bad, and they cannot redeem themselves ever?

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

-- BMO

Many people seem to think like this. Really stupid thinking that results in damning different sections of humanity to the pit every 50 years or so. Used to be gays, women: now it's pedophiles and immigrants.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[bmo]

No, his point is that since Lovecraft was a racist that he was a *bad person* and that other people, like the founders of the US who were also racists are "all bad" because people like Jefferson had slaves and that being a product of the times is not an excuse.

Read LK's other post where he calls Lovecraft a "piece of shit"

It is judging the past with the so-called enlightened eyes of the present. It's bullshit. it's bullshit because when we are dead like the founders and Lovecraft, we will also be judged on our failings, even though we consider ourselves enlightened.

It is a blinkered and hypocritical world view.

--
BMO

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he was a bad writer, but great visionaire. And his racism is bad only because your own viewpoint. For some people he is good due to his racism.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[awrowe]

What I find fascinating is the propensity of supposedly intelligent people to judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period they are being so judgemental of.

Equally interesting and rather more worrying is the tendency to want to completely erase a person from history when it is discovered the person has a flaw.

So Lovecraft was a racist. So were many of his era, to the point where not holding those views was unusual at best. Does that really invalidate the literary merit of his work?

No person is defined by a single aspect of their personality, we are far too complex for that. If that were the case, people would not be able to learn and adjust to new viewpoints of any kind, much less moral viewpoints.

We do not change reality by changing the law, says your sig. It's true, we don't. We also don't change the past by denying it. And we can't change the future without learning from our past.

Finally - and this is intended to be thought provoking rather than insulting - how is your prejudice against people because of the views they hold any different from the prejudice against people because of the colour of their skin? You are placing them in a box labelled "arsehole", purely because of the views they hold, in spite of the fact that their racism was culturally normal and was only a single aspect of their humanity, much like a black man's skin. I'd be uncomfortable with that myself.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Canazza]

yes, and by 2050 we'll all accept Paedos and Immigrants and we'll be oppressing Rapists and Furries...

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[ghostdoc]

agree completely.

We live in an 'enlightened' age where we realise that racism is a bad thing. But we subscribe to plenty of other virulent irrational hatreds (according to another age's moral viewpoint). How would we feel if the best and brightest of our generation were discarded from future history books for being religious, or disagreeing with homosexual marriage, or eating meat, or supporting climate alarmism, or driving cars, or any one of a hundred other things that we consider normal now?

Our current views are incomprehensible to an educated person of 200 years ago. An educated person of 200 year's time will probably find our current worldview primitive beyond belief.

Hesitate to judge, lest ye be judged in turn. Appreciate the genius of Lovecraft's writing and ignore his irrational prejudices.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[myowntrueself]

What I find fascinating is the propensity of supposedly intelligent people to judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period they are being so judgemental of.

Equally interesting and rather more worrying is the tendency to want to completely erase a person from history when it is discovered the person has a flaw.

And Gary Glitter is, today, a pedophile. Yet any of the girls I went to school with would have done anything to have sex with him; they'd have been throwing themselves at him. I think that at the time everyone expected that he was having sex with young girls and the shock would have been if it turned out he *wasn't*.

The past is a different country.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[wdef]

Quite possibly. The point I was making is that human society seems to need people - The Other - who can be stripped of any humanity on the basis of one labelled characteristic or another. But show me some evidence that says stripping anyone of their humanity actually improves society. There's no evidence to support the death penalty as a successful deterrent for example. Yet it is still used as the ultimate demonstration of State power and to satisfy a sadistic yearning and frustration in the populace. That is what it is for; it has nothing to do with "justice" or crime prevention, anyone who believes so is an idiot. The labels change but the process itself of identifying sections of society to be ostracized, even tortured while society stands by approvingly (eg society facilitates rape in prison since stopping this crime is actually a quite easy problem to solve - all it needs is surveillance +/- single occupant cells). Usually the process is irrational - if not outright counterproductive - and its ostensible goals quite irrelevant to what is actually happening (which few admit so as not to "side with the enemy") but it's a highly successful tool for manipulating the unwashed. All we need is some justification, oftentimes a recourse to old falsehoods, half truths or ingrained, dangerously simplistic ideas about good/evil.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying that the poster is prejudiced about racists?

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[circletimessquare]

1. there were plenty of people who were not racist in lovecraft's time, or any time period or culture before that. that the majority had bad beliefs doesn't excuse anyone from any time. in the future, if they condemn our time as a bunch of crass plutocrats and people worshipping money and selfishness, i'd be pissed if they grouped me in with the loud ignorant assholes of our time. guilt by temporal association?

2. it is entirely possible to discount lovecraft as an asshole racist and not commit any sort of intellectual dishonesty. how? by discounting the entire era as a dimmer darker time of humanity. mankind is progressing. progress is real. to progress requires a past where we were dumber, less moral, and more brutal. it's entirely accurate and intellectually coherent to see progress and therefore discount the entirety of civilization that came before (and discount individuals who swam with the dominant opinions, and reward those iconoclasts who held beliefs ahead of their time like race equality, when that was a minority belief)

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[circletimessquare]

why can't you do both? why must you ignore the bad parts? i think lovecraft was a great writer. and i think he was an asshole racist. i can balance both thoughts in my head. why do i have to discount that he was an asshole racist because he was a good writer? because asshole racism was the dominant opinion of his time? well then i simply say the entire culture of that time is brutal and ugly. there's no intellectual dishonesty in that. what is intellectually dishonest is ignoring the bad parts or excusing the bad parts or minimizing the bad parts

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[timq]

You are advocating not questioning the cultural habits of your time and society, instead you seem to think it's alright for people to follow them blindly.

Besides, Lovecraft's merits are less literary than due to his wild imagination and his ability to let it flow.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[HeckRuler]

judge the past using the morals of the present, without taking into account the prevailing culture of that period

Well duh. Morals are relative. You seem to think that means they're rooted to their associated culture, but that's not really how it has to be. My views on morals are relative to me. So I can say that something is horrendously atrocious ...to me. And I frankly don't care about context or the social norms of the time and the environment in which this guy was raised. (Actually, I do take that into account, but it doesn't sway me much. But hey, that's just me.)
Sure, it might not seem racist *to them* at the time. To them it might seem perfectly normal. But *to me*, it's still racism.

But I have to agree with you that just because the guy is racist, and I see him as a raging racist, doesn't mean his works are somehow inherently bad because of it. It just means the sections that pertain to race are probably a bit off.
Like how Heinlein has some seriously fucked up issues when it comes to women. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is still a good book. Just take the part about polygamy with a grain of salt. (and his issues don't really come out all that bad in that book).
Or Foxnews. Just because they're political arm of Murdoch and his republican ways doesn't mean everything they report is bad. You just have to accept that it's being presented by a propaganda machine.

The works of an author are not necessarily tainted by the flaws of the author. Even when they are tainted, as long as you understand the flawed premise, the remainder of the work can still be of quality. And all that said, were I alive at the time I would probably pirate his work rather than give the racist a dime.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Xaositecte]

You change throughout your life, and can realize the views you're holding are wrong. I was certainly a little shit when I was younger, and will probably look back at the views I hold today and be at least a little embarrassed.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, that solves the mysteries involved in printing my CAD work with an HP printer. Those parallel, intersecting lines don't produce very accessible buildings.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

So in your opinion, if someone is bad in one area, they are all bad, and they cannot redeem themselves ever?

Not quite. But if someone is bad enough in one area, it takes more for redemption than writing some interesting stories.

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[bmo]

The self-importantce and "my shit doesn't stink, but everyone else's does" just bleeds from your posts.

Just... wow.

Martin Luther King's assassination was long after HP Lovecraft died. HP Lovecraft lived in a different world than you do where it wasn't so obvious that racism was bad. Indeed, in most places it was *required.*

Judging the past through the the eyes of the present blinds you to your own faults in the present because you assume that your worldview is enlightened.

--
BMO

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Mufasa_ooh_sayitagai]

The points being made were quite valid up until this comment:
"how is your prejudice against people because of the views they hold any different from the prejudice against people because of the colour of their skin? "

In fact, the only appropriate points of judgement are upon one's views and how one manifests them. Remember what "prejudice" means. It means to pre-judge. Once I actually know your views and/or witness your acts I am not pre-judging you. I am judging you. My thoughts on who you are have not been formed from a preconception but by an actual observation of your character.

That being said, we need to judge historical figures on a bell curve. Pretty much every human on the planet was racist (in loose interpretation and by current ideals) up until about 5 decades ago.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Mufasa_ooh_sayitagai]

22 years old does not count as having enough life experience to shake off that which was taught to them by their parents. Even if they did rebel against their parents they would still harbor certain preconceptions that would probably seem more real than their new hypotheses on life.

George Washington was a racist.
Freud was a racist.
John F. Kennedy was a racist.
I'm pretty certain that Einstein wouldn't want me marrying into his family.

Keep everyone in context.

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[cwsumner]

Lovecraft was a piece of shit racist. I don't care how many people enjoy his writing.

LK

If you were born in that day and age, it is very likely that you would be too. Most people do what is accepted, and those that didn't talk like that were shunned. If you don't think that you would, then you are probably very young...

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

The self-importantce and "my shit doesn't stink, but everyone else's does" just bleeds from your posts.

Oh, my shit stinks too. I'm just not willing to go along with the charade that Lovecraft's shit was somehow less stinky because he had a vivid imagination.

Martin Luther King's assassination was long after HP Lovecraft died. HP Lovecraft lived in a different world than you do where it wasn't so obvious that racism was bad. Indeed, in most places it was *required.*

So then, he wasn't such a visionary after all. Right? He was only an average thinker for his day...

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[Lord Kano]

I am a non-conformist. I am certain that I would have examined every societal convention and decided for myself how I felt about it.

It is entirely possible that I would have been shunned. I need no one's approval other than my own.

I'm also 100% positive that I wouldn't have shared Lovecraft's views on race, namely because I am a member of a racial minority.

LK

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[bmo]

>So then, he wasn't such a visionary after all. Right? He was only an average thinker for his day...

People aren't visionary in every subject. Einstein was a genius with physics, but he was a terrible husband. Does that make him "a piece of shit"? Your argument is that if someone is flawed that they are just "average thinkers" and "pieces of shit" no matter what else they've contributed.

What about you? Do your faults negate all the positive stuff that you contribute to the people around you?

I think that's bullshit.

--
BMO

Re:So it's a Sci-Fi?

[cwsumner]

Curses! It keeps switching to anonymous...

A still mainly unexplored genre

[CRCulver]

Satirical scientific articles are a field of literature ripe for expansion. The only one I know of to have really found a wide readership (at least among those who follow modern literature) is Georges Perec's Cantatrix Sopranica L. . Of course, the Sokal hoax paper is also a brilliant piece of writing.

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[cranq]

Along the lines of this classic by Larry Niven... http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[runeghost]

Or this one by Issac Asimov:
http://asimov.info/the-endochronic-properties-of-resublimated-thiotimoline

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[Guy Harris]

Satirical scientific articles are a field of literature ripe for expansion. The only one I know of to have really found a wide readership (at least among those who follow modern literature) is Georges Perec's Cantatrix Sopranica L. .

Or this paper.

Of course, the Sokal hoax paper is also a brilliant piece of writing.

And here ya go.

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[CRCulver]

Or this paper.

Not quite the same thing. You've linked to the short single work "Cantatrix Soprano L.", while the book I linked to at Amazon (an anthology of the same title) includes not only that, but Perec's other faux-scientific articles.

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[horizontech10]

Youngsters, forgetting the classics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[smugfunt]

The Endochronic Properties of Resublimted Thiotimoline by Isaac Asimov.
A spoof chemistry paper which he told Campbell to publish pseudonymously in case it prejudice his upcoming thesis examination. Campbell used his real name, his examiners asked about it, and still gave him his doctorate.

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[gstoddart]

Satirical scientific articles are a field of literature ripe for expansion.

I don't think it's so much satirical as a though experiment, albeit slightly bizarre.

It reads more like he took a description of the environment, and said "OK, if we were to experience this, it could be because these things would have to be true".

The material is fanciful, but what he's doing seems like he's doing solid math -- though, I confess, the math is mostly beyond me except in the abstract. But it reads more like Flatland and other things which try to describe Big Concepts with a little fun thrown in.

Conversely, what is the probability that the imagination of a layperson in the 1920â(TM)s would be able to accidentally
describe not just the effects of gravitational lensing but also the consequential anomalous relationship between lines,
angles and areas in a curved space?

Sounds much more like pointing out that there's some pretty accurate descriptions of some cool physics in Lovecraft.

Or, he's really reaching. Like I said, the math is a little beyond me. :-P

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[Anonymous Coward]

Krugman's Theory of Interstellar Trade
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[steppedleader]

I wonder if there are more of these sorts of papers out there than people realize. Maybe a lot of them just don't get much attention outside the field of the writer. On that note, here's a meteorology one: Case Analysis Of A Historic Killer Tornado Event In Kansas On 10 June 1938

Re:A still mainly unexplored genre

[mcgrew]

IMO that was the most interesting one. He used the thiotimoline gag in a couple other short stories. The interesting part is when he did his doctoral dissertation. From wikipedia:

The story of the genesis of this spoof was one of Asimov's favorite personal anecdotes, one he retold a number of times in print. In the spring of 1947, Asimov was engaged in doctoral research in biochemistry and, as part of his experimental procedure, he needed to dissolve catechol in water. As he observed the crystals dissolve as soon as they hit the water's surface, it occurred to him that if catechol were any more soluble, then it would dissolve before it encountered the water.

By that time Asimov had been writing professionally for nine years and was shortly to face the challenge of writing up his research as a doctoral dissertation. He feared that the experience of writing readable prose for publication might have impaired his ability to write the prose typical of academic discourse, and decided to practice with a spoof article (including charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles in nonexistent journals) describing experiments on a compound, thiotimoline, that was so soluble that it dissolved in water up to 1.12 seconds before the water was added.

Asimov wrote the article on 8 June 1947, but he was uncertain as to whether the resulting work of fiction was publishable. He finally offered it to John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, his preferred publication outlet. Campbell was delighted with the piece, and accepted it for publication, agreeing to Asimov's request that it appear under a pseudonym in deference to Asimov's concern that he might alienate potential doctoral examiners at Columbia University if he were revealed as the author.

Some months later Asimov was shocked to see the piece appear in the March 1948 issue of Astounding under his own name. In later years Campbell insisted that this was an oversight, though Asimov maintained a suspicion that Campbell had acted deliberately out of greater worldliness, for, in Asimov's words, "The Columbia Chemistry Department proved far less stuffy than I had feared" and his examiners effectively delivered their favorable verdict on his dissertation by good-naturedly asking him a final question about thiotimoline. In Opus 100 (1969) Asimov called the thiotimoline article "an utter success", and noted that the New York Public Library "was pestered for days by eager youngsters trying to find the nonexistent journals so they could read more on the subject".

Mathematician or parapsychologist?

[Horshu]

This is the point where his boss should tell him, "The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. You are a poor scientist, Dr. Tippett."

Re:Mathematician or parapsychologist?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

It's a sad day when there's two people in the world who don't recognize a Ghostbusters quote :(

Re:Mathematician or parapsychologist?

[jaxtherat]

Way to miss the Ghostbusters quote dumbass.

Re:Mathematician or parapsychologist?

[EdIII]

The best come back ever came from this movie:

"Yes, it's true. This man has no dick" - Bill Murray.

Gods with pitchforks.

[Anachragnome]

Why the fuck would any self-respecting god need technology? I was always under the impression technology was humanity's attempts at mitigating our shortcomings as NON-Gods.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[RanCossack]

What does God need with a starship?

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[lexarius]

Keep in mind that most gods are not assumed to be omnipotent, except in a few monotheistic religions. Non-omnipotence implies that they have to obey the basic rules of whatever reality they inhabit, or at least some of them. A non-omnipotent god probably can't do instant teleportation through space. Maybe they can convert themselves into light and travel at light speed, but as far as we know you need to warp space to do better than that. Perhaps they can warp space with willpower alone, but that might be tiring over vast distances. It isn't unusual for a god to be portrayed as using a chariot or steed, so why not a ship? If it's easier for the god to build a warp drive and take a relaxing boat trip across the cosmos, why not? Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[Agent ME]

As technology increases, it becomes more and more indistinguishable from magic.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[Anonymous Coward]

He built this planet on ROCK AND ROLL.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lovecraft's various creatures, including Cthulhu and others variously described as "gods", had extraterrestrial origins (eg. "from outer spheres"). Basically the idea was that they were ancient and vastly powerful extra-dimensional beings, not gods in the sense that you're thinking.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[snadrus]

I can build a brick house to completion with my bare hands and simple tools, but it's intensively tiring. So instead I use wisdom to find indirect ways to accomplish the same goal (getting a completed house). I'd assume anything more brilliant than I would do the same. Put this way, I'm starting to feel like an "indirect way" myself.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[__aaltlg1547]

What does God need with a starship?

That depends. Jefferson or Cobra?

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[guttentag]

Why the fuck would any self-respecting god need technology? I was always under the impression technology was humanity's attempts at mitigating our shortcomings as NON-Gods.

First of all: Villagers use pitchforks. Gods use tridents. That being said, the trident is a tool. In theory, mythological gods used tools to do things so they wouldn't have to do things themselves. The most-commonly-used tools of the gods were people. If you have to do everything yourself, you're not a god, you're just that guy in the cubicle at the end of the row who doesn't understand shell scripting.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[Empiric]

Non-omnipotence implies that they have to obey the basic rules of whatever reality they inhabit, or at least some of them.

Omnipotence generally implies this as well, with respect to the constraints of logical non-contradiction--on the basis of (in brief), if you object that a supposedly omnipotent God cannot, say, make a square circle, you have not in fact identified a limitation on omnipotence, rather, at base you have failed to use language meaningfully.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[lexarius]

I'm not talking about drawing square circles or making rocks so heavy even they can't lift them. I'm talking more in the realm of violating relativity, thermodynamics, etc. In my mind, omnipotence is the ability to cause the universe to transition into a state that, while perfectly valid and non-contradictory under the laws of that universe, could not have been reached via any application of said laws from the previous state.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[Zontar The Mindless]

If you have to do everything yourself, you're not a god, you're just that guy in the cubicle at the end of the row who doesn't understand shell scripting.

Alas, that' s probably too long to fit on a T-shirt, else I'd have one printed. :)

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[maxwell demon]

Only gods which want to participate in the material world need it. Think of the material representation as an avatar. The god itself is outside the universe, but to act in the universe (as opposed to just affect it), the god needs an avatar inside the world, which is then bound to the laws of the world (which the god can, of course, tweak to its liking, e.g. by introducing exotic matter which doesn't otherwise exist, but the laws cannot be completely lifted because that would mean to destroy the world that is built on the rules).

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[alexgieg]

In my mind, omnipotence is the ability to cause the universe to transition into a state that, while perfectly valid and non-contradictory under the laws of that universe, could not have been reached via any application of said laws from the previous state.

Well, in monotheistic theologies, particularly Christian ones, omnipotence is defined not as "the power to do anything", but as the attribute of "being all that's possible", that is, the "can" in each and every sentence of the form "x can y" (provided "x" and "y" are both real). That works more or less like when you define God as "the Being", that is, as the "is" in any sentence of the form "x is y" (also provided "x" and "y" are both real). When 'x' and/or 'y' aren't real, on the other hand, it just adds a layer of abstraction, but otherwise works the same, as in this case the resulting real sentence is "one can say 'x can y'", God's omnipotence attribute in action being the first "can", not the second one.

Omniscience ("x knowns y"), omnipresence ("x located-in y") and other such language-based attributes all work similarly.

Re:Gods with pitchforks.

[tragedy]

First of all: Villagers use pitchforks. Gods use tridents.

A trident is actually a fisherman's tool. Unlike a pitchfork, the tines on a trident are usually barbed or angled so as to trap prey, whereas the tines on a pitchfork are designed so that things will slip off easily when they're being pitched. There's no need to compare the tridents some gods are depicted with to pitchforks when comparing them to regular old human tridents will work just fine.

Why settle for the lesser evil?

[stevegee58]

Cthulhu 2012!

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

I demand to see Cthulhu's birth certificate.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

I demand to see Cthulhu's Death certificate.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who views the birth certificate goes mad, so it is really hard to verify.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

He ain't dead, he's restin'. Remarkable tentacles on him.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Grayhand]

I demand to see Cthulhu's birth certificate.

Actually if he came from another dimension that occupied the same space as the US he could conceivable claim citizenship. McCain had a bigger stretch since he was born in Panama.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[rossdee]

"He ain't dead, he's restin'"

and don't forget that the Fiords he is pining for were designed and built by Slartibardfast.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[Lord Kano]

Doesn't matter where McCain was born. His parents were citizens, he's a citizen.

That's the thing that pisses me off the most about those idiot birthers. It doesn't matter if Obama was born in Hawaii, Nairobi or on the moon. His mother was a citizen, he's a citizen.

LK

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[RubberDogBone]

Well, that doesn't matter. Most of the birther challengers fundamentally reject the idea that the man is legitimate, reject that he possibly can even BE president, and basically have pushed themselves into a logic corner where something cannot possibly be true, so it is simply not true regardless of facts, paperwork, evidence one way or the other, and so on. So, in their eyes, he is not a citizen because he cannot be. That's all. There is no other answer.

The alternative -that he is a citizen and was a legitimate candidate- is too difficult to even consider, so it is automatically not true. It cannot be true. It is not true. Done.

This is some of the same thinking I see around UFOs and aliens and the like. Regardless of whether it's true or not, there are many people who feel, without doing any investigation, that none of it can possibly be true because the alternative, if it IS true, is impossible to accept. So, it is not true. Done.

Whether it's true or not is not material. The problem comes when you choose a position (It's not true, or it is true; either way) and decide you'll never change, regardless of any investigation or evidence or lack thereof. A more scientific approach is to consider what the evidence tells you and then form a conclusion. Most people can't or won't keep an open mind long enough on anything to ever do that. Snap judgment is more the rule, especially in politics. Or little grey men.

It's a bit like closing your eyes and pretending the car about to run you over is not actually there because you can't see it any more. And it you cannot see it, it's not there and not about to run you over. Done. Whether you can see it, or whether you believe evidence or not, does not change the fact that you might not enjoy what is about to happen.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[staalmannen]

Anyone else noticed the similarities between tentacles and noodly appendages? The flying spaghetti monster - Chutulu's second coming?

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[narcc]

A more scientific approach is to consider what the evidence tells you and then form a conclusion. A more scientific approach is to consider what the evidence tells you and then form a conclusion.

It should be noted that the conclusion will often be "a conclusion cannot be formed", assuming a scientific approach.

There's a lot of nonsense in the science cheerleader community -- non-scientific concepts like 'default position' (related to the above) do more harm than good. In their effort to defend science against some perceived threat or defend some ideological position, they've abandoned science, reason, and logic; they've become an even more dangerous threat to science than any creationist group could ever hope to be!

Remember these three simple things: 1) Science has a finite scope 2) Science neither presumes nor tends toward truth. 3) A conclusion drawn exclusively or predominantly from the metaphysics upon which natural science is based does not make that conclusion scientific.

Science depends upon constraint. Trying to expand science beyond its scope epistemologically or methodologically is far more dangerous than anything a few nuts with some bronze-age scribblings or an army of parade magazine quality science "journalists" could ever manage.

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[dkleinsc]

Beat me to it (check the sig).

Re:Why settle for the lesser evil?

[damien_kane]

He ain't dead, he's restin'. Remarkable tentacles on him.

In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming

He is both quite dead, and, at the same time, functioning
Altered reality can do that for you, too.

Fitted Sheets

[ShakaUVM]

If you truly wish to understand non-Euclidean geometry, simply try putting those damn fitted sheets on a bed. No matter which way you rotate it, you always end up with the short side in your hands.

It is enough to drive a man insane.

Re:Fitted Sheets

[oodaloop]

That's why I always buy sheets with vertical stripes. As long as the stripes are going foot to head, instead of side to side, the sheet will always fit.

Re:Fitted Sheets

[Svartormr]

And then they alternate between fitting either way and not fitting at all. Obviously what we see is a malluable 3-dimension slice of a complex multidimensional object that is rotated by the one multidimensional manipulation tool we currently possess: the tumble dryer.

Re:Fitted Sheets

[SQLGuru]

It's even worse when you try to figure out how to fold them.......

Re:Fitted Sheets

[ShakaUVM]

Doesn't matter. All the sides are the short side.

Re:Fitted Sheets

[White Flame]

Clearly, then, fitted sheets are related to the fascinating Hexaflexagon.

Re:Fitted Sheets

[jgtg32a]

Same with USB devices, those things have to be rotated at least 540 degrees before they will fit into a slot.

Not the kind of technology you are used to

[Andy Prough]

What would a "God" really be? Someone with vastly higher intelligence, using technology that you can't comprehend. Everything they did would seem magical, mystical, miraculous. Since you couldn't even comprehend their world, all you would be able to do is make up myths and legends and tall tales to explain their "Godliness".

Re:Not the kind of technology you are used to

[tycoex]

The Goa'uld are not gods! :)

Re:Not the kind of technology you are used to

[runeghost]

What about a weakly-godlike entity?

Re:Not the kind of technology you are used to

[dywolf]

Clark's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
(ie, the scifi author's excuse to hand wave anything away :P )

Re:Not the kind of technology you are used to

[TemporalBeing]

What would a "God" really be? Someone with vastly higher intelligence, using technology that you can't comprehend. Everything they did would seem magical, mystical, miraculous. Since you couldn't even comprehend their world, all you would be able to do is make up myths and legends and tall tales to explain their "Godliness".

A God would not need technology to do that.

True, a race using a higher technology than another race would appear to have god-like powers, but only until the technology was unveiled to the other race.

Hmm...

[tool462]

As long as the exotic matter isn't made of midichlorians, we can still be friends.

Re:Hmm...

[jd2112]

As long as the exotic matter isn't made of midichlorians, we can still be friends.

This just in : Disney has bought out the. H.P. Lovecraft estate. A Star Wars/Marvel/Cthuluhu/Disney Princess animated film is rumored to be in production.

Re:Hmm...

[Grayhand]

As long as the exotic matter isn't made of midichlorians, we can still be friends.

This just in : Disney has bought out the. H.P. Lovecraft estate. A Star Wars/Marvel/Cthuluhu/Disney Princess animated film is rumored to be in production.

Sorry it's all public domain. His aunts died years ago and the last issues over so shared ownership rights expired. The rights have been questionable for years since it was mostly August Derleth claiming he changed a number of stories and got them republished as collections. All that has expired and he's been dead a long time. Even Burrough's stuff is entering public domain. It's why they were able to make that cheesy A Princess of Mars film, I mean the cheapie one not the big budget cheesy film which Disney had in development for decades.

Re:Hmm...

[SternisheFan]

This just in : Disney has bought out the. H.P. Lovecraft estate. A Star Wars/Marvel/Cthuluhu/Disney Princess animated film is rumored to be in production.

I'm glad Lucas sold to Disney, if he hadn't we'd never have this p.r. pic... http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/1101/1224325975225.html

Re:Hmm...

[gman003]

Sorry it's all public domain.

And since when has that stopped Disney from claiming "ownership" of something?

Just wondering about the tags..

[Sangui5]

..but HP?

Is the new printer lineup Lovecraftian? Has Meg Whitman been conducting dark rituals? Is Itanium powered by the souls of the innocent?

Wouldn't MS be more appropriate? I'm pretty sure IE is *actually* powered by the souls of the innocent, and there certainly is something evil about the entire OS lineup.

Re:Just wondering about the tags..

[tftp]

Is Itanium powered by the souls of the innocent?

You cannot power anything with the souls of the innocent. There are too few of those to have commercial value.

Re:Just wondering about the tags..

[Shimbo]

..but HP?

Is the new printer lineup Lovecraftian?

No, just the drivers.

Re:Just wondering about the tags..

[Fned]

Well, you've gone and made this obligatory, haven't you.

Any sufficiently advanced technology..

[caveat]

..is indistinguishable from magic, or divinity.

Re:Any sufficiently advanced technology..

[Cro Magnon]

Fart Apps are a true sign of divinity. However, iOS6 maps are a tool of Satan, designed to lure you into dangerous places.

cliche

[ZombieBraintrust]

Everyone who views the birth certificate goes mad, so it is really hard to verify.

You can't prove a negative without non-Euclidean geometry.

Re:cliche

[Darby]

You can't prove a negative without non-Euclidean geometry.

Sure you can: "There do not exist two integers you can divide to get the square root of two. " is pretty easy to prove.

The proof is attributed to Euclid, but it's not geometry.
I guess that would be non-geometric Euclidianism.

Don't use transistors, either!

[Dr. Manhattan]

They were invented by a racist, too.

Bel-Shamharoth?

[Opyros]

That may take care of Cthulhu, but what about the geometry of the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth? It had a tessellation made of octagons. Assuming that they were convex octagons, what kind of non-euclidean geometry would be necessary for such a tiling to exist? (In euclidean geometry, no convex polygon with more than six sides can possibly tile the plane.)

Re:Bel-Shamharoth?

[HalfFlat]

This, too, might be accommodated in a space of negative curvature: hyperbolic space admits a tiling by regular octagons.

Zermelo-Fraenkel-Cthulhu set theory

[howlingfrog]

Back in college, a friend and I were trying to figure out what could possibly make people go mad from the mere sight of Cthulhu. We decided it must have uncountably infinitely many tentacles. A mere countable infinity of tentacles could be visually comprehensible, so long as each one is half the size of its predecessor, or if they were arranged in a fractal tree structure of tentacles upon tentacles. But uncountably many tentacles would drive you insane at first sight.

Re:Zermelo-Fraenkel-Cthulhu set theory

[VortexCortex]

If it's dark where you are... Never Look Up.

Re:Zermelo-Fraenkel-Cthulhu set theory

[HeckRuler]

But there are a countable number of (visible) stars, it's just a large number. And the infinity of space is literally unobservable. It's just black. So you're not seeing an uncountably infinite number of anything up there.
Just don't think too hard about it, otherwise you'll face something similar to the Total Perspective Vortex

Cthulhu printers...

[Anonymous Coward]

So THAT'S why the printer ink runs out so quickly... all becomes clear.

Re:Cthulhu printers...

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

So THAT'S why the printer ink runs out so quickly... all becomes clear.

Literally clear. The non-Euclidean ink doesn't reflect light in the same way in our space-time continuum.

Re:Cthulhu printers...

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Also why reading the owner's manual drives people insane.

HAH!

[idbeholda]

Wait until they discover the universe *IS* the Higgs-Boson. Their so-called scientific "theories" and "methods" will be left in utter shambles in accordance with the prophecy. The stars fall from the sky and the heavens will be aligned, properly allowing the opening of The Dark Portal, which will allow The Ancients to be summoned from the other side of The Great Cosmic Divide, unleashing 10000 years of darkness upon the land and skies. Only then will The Keeper Of The Threshold be satisfied with a crop most bountiful. Pray that you will be eaten first. PRAY THAT YOU WILL BE EATEN FIRST.

No, it's not Sci-Fi

[wdef]

It's speculative inquiry and it's perfectly fine scientific activity. It's quite common in theoretical physics to imagine or concoct various system parameters - either reasonable or wild - and see where those assumptions lead. Einstein's choice of the GR field equations was in part an educated stab that turned out to work. Physics is full of ideas that we accept as ok but that began life as a guess.

Re:Hurricane Sandy is alarmism?

[ghostdoc]

shush now... I was merely attempting to balance a predominantly 'PC' representation of our current worldview with a balanced counter-opinion. I'm actually climate-agnostic these days.

and if that's the one thing you picked up on from the points I raised, then, yes, it's clearly the frontrunner candidate for being something that future generations will dispute and/or laugh at us for.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Let me guess...

[iq145]

...Somebody is an avid D & D fan, right?