:P I was looking for a link directly to the unit itself, with a nice pic and description, and the first few from my google weren't so hot and I had to run.
Yeah these units are pretty sweet. The removable CF (no moving parts, and you can keep expanding your capacity), and the fact it runs off of standard AA cells is what made it the perfect unit for me. It fits great in most accessories (like an armband) designed for a MiniDisc player.
It also sports very decent sound quality... 95dB S/N ratio, 0.5% distortion, 30W @ 32Ohm. It blows the hell out of my friend's iPod when we hook them up to externals.
I only wish it had an auto shut-off... I keep hitting Stop and fogetting to turn the unit off, pull it out of my pocket the next day to discover the batteries are toast. Oh well that's why we use rechargables.;)
Or a Frontier Labs NEX ia+ (don't have time to find link sorry)
It's an MP3 player that costs about $89, BYOCF. (Bring Your Own Compact Flash/microdrive), and runs off a pair of AAs. Also records microphone, radio direct to MP3.
Well, thanks again for the time I'm sure you put into that. I tend to check my replies (I can only assume you do as well), the question is will anyone ELSE ever see this?;)
Ya know, I deliberately chose to use the simplistic term 'explosion' to see if you'd jump on it, which you did with zeal.
"The Big Bang model does not involve "a big explosion" of any kind. Qualitatively, the Big Bang model posits that a long time ago, the contents of the Universe were everywhere very hot and very dense, and that since then, space has been expanding and those contents have been cooling because of that expansion. That's it. That's all. Note that I didn't say anything at all about a singularity, or the beginning of time, or stuff exploding out from a point, or anything like that"
First of all, you're describing an explosion. What is an explosion but an expansion and concordant cooling? Yes, in common usage, it usually refers to a violent and sudden event, but those are relative qualifiers anyway. Where in the definition of an explosion does it mention a single point, or singularity? Dictionary.com lists an explosion as (most generally) "A sudden, great increase"... but perhaps you object to the word "sudden"?
Nasa.gov says "According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.".
Cambridge Cosmology says "About ten billion years ago, the Universe began in a gigantic explosion"
That's the first three results. How about Dictionary.com? "big bang [n.] The cosmic explosion that marked the origin of the universe according to the big bang theory."
So if I'm wrong in referring to it, in general and metaphorical terms (like the name "big bang" itself), as an "explosion", at least I stand in good company. So now that I've spent all this time defending my use of a single word, I can actually get to the relevant parts of your post (I don't mean anything personal by that, I promise;)
I already admitted the error of attempting to tie an accelerating universe to problems with the Big Bang, I don't know why you wrote so much more about it, but thanks anyway, interesting stuff. I do find the accelerating universe a fascinating tangential subject. (If your response contains something along the lines of "the fact you think acceleration and the big bang are tangential to each other shows your complete ignorance, etc etc" I will stop reading)
'The mathematics of the Big Bang model are easier to work with when the vacuum energy density is zero: the equations are simpler, and various things are easier to calculate . ..and physicists will always consider the simplest case first.'
Yes, and I believe that eliminating the "ZPE" components because they complicated the equations has done enormous harm to our understanding of physics. (Similar to what happened to Maxwell's original equations when Heaviside butchered them)
I can tell you are a strong adherent to good experimental data (as am I)... a book I cannot recommend strongly enough to you is "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart. (Think I mentioned this in an ancestor post) It is chock full of recent experimental results concerning quantum physics and consciousness, from good solid double-blind placebo controlled studies. I am not given to superlatives, but this book will blow your
By the way, to answer you in a different way concerning the "many universes" or anthropic theory, allow me to quote one of the scientists from TFA:
PAUL STEINHARDT Albert Einstein Professor of Physics, Princeton University.
'I believe that our universe is not accidental, but I cannot prove it.
Historically, most physicists have shared this point-of-view. For centuries, most of us have believed that the universe is governed by a simple set of physical laws that are the same everywhere and that these laws derive from a simple unified theory.
However, in the last few years, an increasing number of my most respected colleagues have become enamored with the anthropic principle--the idea that there is an enormous multiplicity of universes with widely different physical properties and the properties of our particular observable universe arise from pure accident. The only special feature of our universe is that its properties are compatible with the evolution of intelligent life. The change in attitude is motivated, in part, by the failure to date to find a unified theory that predicts our universe as the unique possibility. According to some recent calculations, the current best hope for a unified theory--superstring theory--allows an exponentially large number of different universes, most of which look nothing like our own. String theorists have turned to the anthropic principle for salvation.
Frankly, I view this as an act of desperation. I don't have much patience for the anthropic principle. I think the concept is, at heart, non-scientific. A proper scientific theory is based on testable assumptions and is judged by its predictive power. The anthropic principle makes an enormous number of assumptions--regarding the existence of multiple universes, a random creation process, probability distributions that determine the likelihood of different features, etc.--none of which are testable because they entail hypothetical regions of spacetime that are forever beyond the reach of observation. As for predictions, there are very few, if any. In the case of string theory, the principle is invoked only to explain known observations, not to predict new ones. (In other versions of the anthropic principle where predictions are made, the predictions have proven to be wrong. Some physicists cite the recent evidence for a cosmological constant as having anticipated by anthropic argument; however, the observed value does not agree with the anthropically predicted value.)
I find the desperation especially unwarranted since I see no evidence that our universe arose by a random process. Quite the contrary, recent observations and experiments suggest that our universe is extremely simple. The distribution of matter and energy is remarkably uniform. The hierarchy of complex structures ranging from galaxy clusters to subnuclear particles can all be described in terms of a few dozen elementary constituents and less than a handful of forces, all related by simple symmetries. A simple universe demands a simple explanation. Why do we need to postulate an infinite number of universes with all sorts of different properties just to explain our one?
Of course, my colleagues and I are anxious for further reductionism. But I view the current failure of string theory to find a unique universe simply as a sign that our understanding of string theory is still immature (or perhaps that string theory is wrong). Decades from now, I hope that physicists will be pursuing once again their dreams of a truly scientific "final theory" and will look back at the current anthropic craze as millennial madness.'
Thanks for the informative and well though-out post.
You're absolutely right that an accelerating universe doesn't disprove a Big Bang; I thought about that right after I posted. I'm not sure why I threw that in.. I was thinking about what initial conditions of the Big Bang we can try to deduce from observational data. An accelerating universe does however, make us step back, and consider that there must be "more to it" than a big explosion acted on merely by gravity.
"the middle one (the accelerating expansion) isn't a problem at all, of any sort, and someone who suggests it is doesn't understand physical cosmology."
HUH? Please explain it to me then. From everything I've read, scientists were shocked to find out the universe is accelerating. There is absolutely no explanation for it, which is why the concept of "Dark Energy" was created in the first place (which has never been experimentally observed).
You are also right that the "tuning" problem doesn't disprove that the Big Bang actually could've happened... but it is an issue that the Big Bang has no explanation for, for the Big Bang proposes randum fluctuations in the vacuum, IIRC. Perhaps there is a better theory that would be able to explain this, that's all. (I have some ideas about that but am not going to get into it now)
As for the Horizon Problem, it DOES present a problem for the Big Bang, BUT, as you say, inflationary theory would solve that, BUT inflationary theory is kinda questionable....
The bottom line is we're not going to solve any universal truths in this thread, but thanks for the discussion and pointers!:)
'There is no way I am going to read a book with "Akashic Field" in the title, leastways not without laughing.'
Then I'm afraid I must accuse you of judging a book by its cover.;)
The fact is, there is no formal name yet for the so called "zero-point field", the sea of quantum energy fluctuations that exists even at near 0K. This particular author chose to call it Akashic (or the A-field, like the EM-field, the G-field, etc), based on an Indian philosophy about an information field that encodes all of existence. So what?
This book can be found in the "Science" section at your bookstore, not the "New Age" section, if that's what you're gettings at.
But I'd recommend Lynne McTaggart's "The Field" first anyway. It's essentially a catalog of recent experiments, whereas "Akashic" is far more speculative.
"No effect propagates faster than the speed of light."
Ah... but it DOES.
Quantum Entanglement. Einstein's "Spooky action at a distance", which was why he was always wary of quantum theory, but has been proven to exist in modern times.
Two particles that become entangled, will reflect each other's states across any distance. Are they exchanging information faster than the speed of light? Or are they somehow connected on a dimension we cannot perceive?
Anyway, I do understand what you're saying about the lightspeed limit, but that doesn't solve the Horizon Problem... what we CAN see is remarkably, inexplicably consistent.
First off, regardless of any insights you may have, you're an insulting and abrasive jerk. It is a weak mind that resorts to insults before a discussion of ideas. My "primitive and immature logic?" "Any beginning computer programmer?" I have nearly 20 years of programming experience, and a heavy math & logic background, plus some physics & philosophy. And just for the record, I'm agnostic.
No, I haven't taken advanced courses in quantum physics, nor read the specific books you mentioned (I've been trying to read newer stuff, those two are more than a decade old.. I will certainly add them to my list though) This is a relatively new area of study for me, I'm sorry if that means my thoughts are inadequate to the discussion, Mr. Look at my Grasp of the Infinite.
What you are rambling about in your above post (aside from the ill-placed diatribe on the nature of truth), is the multiverse or many-universes hypothesis. It's not as complicated, or firm a theory (ie, supported by all of zero experimental data), as you seem to think it is, but you apparently have convinced yourself that this is the one and only true way of thinking about things. Good for you, but there are other theories out there.
You know what I believe (but cannot prove)? That all consciousness is connected at the quantum level. I believe this because of credible research experiments I have read about, in the books I mentioned earlier. Maybe that unity is "god", which we are all a part of, and works to create coherence (or "tuning") in the universe. Or maybe this universe's physical properties were inherited from the one that preceded it. Who knows? Not I, and certainly not you.
Well, of course if the density was such that a Big Crunch would occur in "thousands or millions of years", life would not have a chance to develop.
But if the Big Crunch happened in trillions of years, life would have a chance to develop, and by definition it would still be a closed universe, would it not? Or is that what you mean by "nearly flat?"
Same for an open universe... of course there is a threshhold of expansion where we would not expect life to be able to form, but would that threshhold be crossed as soon as we go from perfectly flat to barely open?
In fact, the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating (which seems pretty darned open to me), in contradiction to both its measured flatness, and what we think we know about gravity. And yet we're here.
But of course, I'm no cosmologist... if you have any links/refs which shed more light on this I'd be happy to educate myself. Thanks for the insight.
"one final thought for those of disbelief...if i am wrong(which i know i am not) then i lose nothing. if you are wrong then you lose everything."
Another responder correctly identified this as Pascal's Wager.
It is a classic example of the False Dilemma logical fallacy (also known as "Black and White thinking"). It assumes there are only two possibilities:
1. the Christian God exists and punishes or rewards as stated in the Bible, or 2. no God exists.
The problem with this is that there are a lot of other possibilities. As one obvious example, maybe there's a DIFFERENT god, who will be mightily pissed about your beliefs, and reward skeptics. I'm afraid that blows your "safe bet" into a thousand pieces.
"I believe that free will is an epiphenomenon of random processes in the brain."
Ah... but if it's RANDOM, we didn't really CHOOSE it, did we? So how can that be an expression of WILL?
And if it's NOT random, it's deterministic, which by definition ain't free will either.
Thought experiment: Bob makes a choice. Then, the universe is reset to the exact same state, right down to the subatomic level, and even levels we haven't discovered yet. Can Bob make a different choice? If not, the universe is purely deterministic. If he can make a different choice, isn't it due to some truly random process that Bob has no control over?
"The odds of the universe being very nearly flat are 1 in 1, since we wouldn't be around to calculate those odds if it didn't pan out that way."
You are incorrect here, there is nothing about a curved universe that would prevent us from being here, in fact I believe Einstein predicted a curved universe. The fact that there is precisely the right amount of matter in the universe to make it flat (ie Cartesian), remains an unexplained statistical wonder.
You're right about the constants needed for the universe to support life, of course.
Yes, there are some three dozen physical constants that are perfectly tuned to allow life.
What about that makes you believe that the god described in the Bible is responsible, though?
Personally, my readings have lead me to believe that if there is some universal "god" that has guided the forming of the cosmos, it is a collective and pervasive consciousness that we are all conected to at the quantum level, which has a tendency to move towards greater coherence... not some schizophrenic authority figure in a 2000 year old book. I believe (but cannot prove;) that the god of the Bible is actually an amalgamation of two (or more) advanced extraterrestrial figures, known in Sumerian legends as Enki and Enlil. Indeed, with a bit of research one finds that the Book of Genesis is a sort of 'executive summary' of the Sumerian Epic of Creation, word for word in some places. The Hebrews likely copied it during Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian captivity.
Absolutely, and probably more profoundly than you even suspect.
Read "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart. It chronicles a number of recent experiments with consciousness and quantum physics. They found, for example, that if 1 percent of the population of a city practiced transcendental meditation, crime dropped to 24%. This experiment has been rigorously studied, and reproduced dozens of times, including in Washington DC.
The inescapable conclusion is that our own consciousness affects others. Individual stress collectively leads to world stress. We are all connected through nonlocal quantum effects.
That's a lovely bit of pigeonholing. I have recently become interested in the ID hypothesis, and it has nothing to do with the god of the Bible, thank you.
It has more to do with quantum physics, and the idea that consciousness itself creates coherence.
Read "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart if you're interested in this.
"The Big Bang theory isn't about beliefs as you seem to use the word. It's about the best explanation that fits the evidence."
It is perhaps the best CURRENT explanation. But it is not as good a theory as it was even a few years ago. There are questions that the Big Bang theory has no explanation for.
For example, as recently as 1998 it was discovered that the universe is "flat". A tiny difference in the density of the universe, either up or down, would make it curved. This means the Big Bang was "tuned" to produce exactly this density. The odds of that happening by chance are estimated at 1 to 10^50.
The Big Bang theory does not adequately explain (IMHO) the "Horizon Problem", which is that the universe looks uniform in all directions, from galaxy evolution to background radiation. (Yes, I am aware of "Inflation Theory", which seeks to address the Horizon Problem, but it's pretty shaky. Here's a paper disputing the ability of the inflationary model to produce homogenous CMBR if you are interested.)
Dead-Tree References: "The Field", Lynne McTaggart - Recommended for everyone, written for laymen. "Science and the Akashic Field", Ervin Laszlo - This is a bit more technical.
"I believe, though I can't prove, that the universe presented to me by my senses is not an artifact of my own existence but exists separately from me, is consistent and will remain consistent after I am dead."
What do you think of quantum experiments which show that matter only exists as a probability waveform (the superposition of many possible states), until it is observed?
Hear hear. The OSS trumpeteers totally mislabelled this article. If you RTA, it's talking about "Pro-Ams" in general and only mentions the term "open source" once in passing, as a specific characteristic of their case subject.
That kinda irks me (the article mistitle) because it seems to be dismissing all the people & groups that build free software and/or services, which contribute greatly, even if they don't actually "open source" them.
OSS is awesome for a wide variety of collaborative projects, but it isn't the be-all and end-all of generosity.
No, we're NOT all thinking it, as several others have already confirmed. People usually don't like being spoken for like that.
Yes, I read your rant agaist the other guy about how that's just your opinion, but you need to learn how to phrase it as your opinion, and not as a generalization.
What's wrong with saying, "I bet we're all thinking it", "I imagine we're all thinking it", "I suspect we're all thinking it", "I'm sure we're all thinking it", or something along those lines?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I'm sure you're right, I was just joking.
;)
I still maintain however, that bowling in high turbulence is a potential comedic/disaster goldmine.
"One idea I happen to know about is building a bowling lane into the lower deck.
;D
And no, swimming pools are not realistic. You can't keep that much water under control in turbulences."
But hurling heavy balls at high velocity, now THAT'S the kind of thing that's just perfect for extreme turbulence, hehe.
:P I was looking for a link directly to the unit itself, with a nice pic and description, and the first few from my google weren't so hot and I had to run.
;)
Yeah these units are pretty sweet. The removable CF (no moving parts, and you can keep expanding your capacity), and the fact it runs off of standard AA cells is what made it the perfect unit for me. It fits great in most accessories (like an armband) designed for a MiniDisc player.
It also sports very decent sound quality... 95dB S/N ratio, 0.5% distortion, 30W @ 32Ohm. It blows the hell out of my friend's iPod when we hook them up to externals.
I only wish it had an auto shut-off... I keep hitting Stop and fogetting to turn the unit off, pull it out of my pocket the next day to discover the batteries are toast. Oh well that's why we use rechargables.
Or a Frontier Labs NEX ia+ (don't have time to find link sorry)
It's an MP3 player that costs about $89, BYOCF. (Bring Your Own Compact Flash/microdrive), and runs off a pair of AAs. Also records microphone, radio direct to MP3.
MIT is trying out their new mint-case sized $50 web server this weekend.
"For those of you with a little extra time this afternoon..."
;P
Congratulations, you just defined a Slashdotter.
Ya know, I deliberately chose to use the simplistic term 'explosion' to see if you'd jump on it, which you did with zeal.
"The Big Bang model does not involve "a big explosion" of any kind. Qualitatively, the Big Bang model posits that a long time ago, the contents of the Universe were everywhere very hot and very dense, and that since then, space has been expanding and those contents have been cooling because of that expansion. That's it. That's all. Note that I didn't say anything at all about a singularity, or the beginning of time, or stuff exploding out from a point, or anything like that"
First of all, you're describing an explosion. What is an explosion but an expansion and concordant cooling? Yes, in common usage, it usually refers to a violent and sudden event, but those are relative qualifiers anyway. Where in the definition of an explosion does it mention a single point, or singularity? Dictionary.com lists an explosion as (most generally) "A sudden, great increase"... but perhaps you object to the word "sudden"?
Well, let's see what a google for 'big bang' turns up...
That's the first three results. How about Dictionary.com? "big bang [n.] The cosmic explosion that marked the origin of the universe according to the big bang theory."
;)
.and physicists will always consider the simplest case first.'
So if I'm wrong in referring to it, in general and metaphorical terms (like the name "big bang" itself), as an "explosion", at least I stand in good company. So now that I've spent all this time defending my use of a single word, I can actually get to the relevant parts of your post (I don't mean anything personal by that, I promise
I already admitted the error of attempting to tie an accelerating universe to problems with the Big Bang, I don't know why you wrote so much more about it, but thanks anyway, interesting stuff. I do find the accelerating universe a fascinating tangential subject. (If your response contains something along the lines of "the fact you think acceleration and the big bang are tangential to each other shows your complete ignorance, etc etc" I will stop reading)
'The mathematics of the Big Bang model are easier to work with when the vacuum energy density is zero: the equations are simpler, and various things are easier to calculate . .
Yes, and I believe that eliminating the "ZPE" components because they complicated the equations has done enormous harm to our understanding of physics. (Similar to what happened to Maxwell's original equations when Heaviside butchered them)
I can tell you are a strong adherent to good experimental data (as am I)... a book I cannot recommend strongly enough to you is "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart. (Think I mentioned this in an ancestor post) It is chock full of recent experimental results concerning quantum physics and consciousness, from good solid double-blind placebo controlled studies. I am not given to superlatives, but this book will blow your
PAUL STEINHARDT
Albert Einstein Professor of Physics, Princeton University.
Thanks for the informative and well though-out post.
:)
You're absolutely right that an accelerating universe doesn't disprove a Big Bang; I thought about that right after I posted. I'm not sure why I threw that in.. I was thinking about what initial conditions of the Big Bang we can try to deduce from observational data. An accelerating universe does however, make us step back, and consider that there must be "more to it" than a big explosion acted on merely by gravity.
"the middle one (the accelerating expansion) isn't a problem at all, of any sort, and someone who suggests it is doesn't understand physical cosmology."
HUH? Please explain it to me then. From everything I've read, scientists were shocked to find out the universe is accelerating. There is absolutely no explanation for it, which is why the concept of "Dark Energy" was created in the first place (which has never been experimentally observed).
You are also right that the "tuning" problem doesn't disprove that the Big Bang actually could've happened... but it is an issue that the Big Bang has no explanation for, for the Big Bang proposes randum fluctuations in the vacuum, IIRC. Perhaps there is a better theory that would be able to explain this, that's all. (I have some ideas about that but am not going to get into it now)
As for the Horizon Problem, it DOES present a problem for the Big Bang, BUT, as you say, inflationary theory would solve that, BUT inflationary theory is kinda questionable....
The bottom line is we're not going to solve any universal truths in this thread, but thanks for the discussion and pointers!
'There is no way I am going to read a book with "Akashic Field" in the title, leastways not without laughing.'
;)
;)
Then I'm afraid I must accuse you of judging a book by its cover.
The fact is, there is no formal name yet for the so called "zero-point field", the sea of quantum energy fluctuations that exists even at near 0K. This particular author chose to call it Akashic (or the A-field, like the EM-field, the G-field, etc), based on an Indian philosophy about an information field that encodes all of existence. So what?
This book can be found in the "Science" section at your bookstore, not the "New Age" section, if that's what you're gettings at.
But I'd recommend Lynne McTaggart's "The Field" first anyway. It's essentially a catalog of recent experiments, whereas "Akashic" is far more speculative.
PS I liked the rest of your post.
"No effect propagates faster than the speed of light."
Ah... but it DOES.
Quantum Entanglement. Einstein's "Spooky action at a distance", which was why he was always wary of quantum theory, but has been proven to exist in modern times.
Two particles that become entangled, will reflect each other's states across any distance. Are they exchanging information faster than the speed of light? Or are they somehow connected on a dimension we cannot perceive?
Anyway, I do understand what you're saying about the lightspeed limit, but that doesn't solve the Horizon Problem... what we CAN see is remarkably, inexplicably consistent.
First off, regardless of any insights you may have, you're an insulting and abrasive jerk. It is a weak mind that resorts to insults before a discussion of ideas. My "primitive and immature logic?" "Any beginning computer programmer?" I have nearly 20 years of programming experience, and a heavy math & logic background, plus some physics & philosophy. And just for the record, I'm agnostic.
No, I haven't taken advanced courses in quantum physics, nor read the specific books you mentioned (I've been trying to read newer stuff, those two are more than a decade old.. I will certainly add them to my list though) This is a relatively new area of study for me, I'm sorry if that means my thoughts are inadequate to the discussion, Mr. Look at my Grasp of the Infinite.
What you are rambling about in your above post (aside from the ill-placed diatribe on the nature of truth), is the multiverse or many-universes hypothesis. It's not as complicated, or firm a theory (ie, supported by all of zero experimental data), as you seem to think it is, but you apparently have convinced yourself that this is the one and only true way of thinking about things. Good for you, but there are other theories out there.
You know what I believe (but cannot prove)? That all consciousness is connected at the quantum level. I believe this because of credible research experiments I have read about, in the books I mentioned earlier. Maybe that unity is "god", which we are all a part of, and works to create coherence (or "tuning") in the universe. Or maybe this universe's physical properties were inherited from the one that preceded it. Who knows? Not I, and certainly not you.
Well, of course if the density was such that a Big Crunch would occur in "thousands or millions of years", life would not have a chance to develop.
But if the Big Crunch happened in trillions of years, life would have a chance to develop, and by definition it would still be a closed universe, would it not? Or is that what you mean by "nearly flat?"
Same for an open universe... of course there is a threshhold of expansion where we would not expect life to be able to form, but would that threshhold be crossed as soon as we go from perfectly flat to barely open?
In fact, the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating (which seems pretty darned open to me), in contradiction to both its measured flatness, and what we think we know about gravity. And yet we're here.
But of course, I'm no cosmologist... if you have any links/refs which shed more light on this I'd be happy to educate myself. Thanks for the insight.
Cheers.
"one final thought for those of disbelief...if i am wrong(which i know i am not) then i lose nothing. if you are wrong then you lose everything."
Another responder correctly identified this as Pascal's Wager.
It is a classic example of the False Dilemma logical fallacy (also known as "Black and White thinking"). It assumes there are only two possibilities:
1. the Christian God exists and punishes or rewards as stated in the Bible, or
2. no God exists.
The problem with this is that there are a lot of other possibilities. As one obvious example, maybe there's a DIFFERENT god, who will be mightily pissed about your beliefs, and reward skeptics. I'm afraid that blows your "safe bet" into a thousand pieces.
"I believe that free will is an epiphenomenon of random processes in the brain."
Ah... but if it's RANDOM, we didn't really CHOOSE it, did we? So how can that be an expression of WILL?
And if it's NOT random, it's deterministic, which by definition ain't free will either.
Thought experiment: Bob makes a choice. Then, the universe is reset to the exact same state, right down to the subatomic level, and even levels we haven't discovered yet. Can Bob make a different choice? If not, the universe is purely deterministic. If he can make a different choice, isn't it due to some truly random process that Bob has no control over?
"The odds of the universe being very nearly flat are 1 in 1, since we wouldn't be around to calculate those odds if it didn't pan out that way."
You are incorrect here, there is nothing about a curved universe that would prevent us from being here, in fact I believe Einstein predicted a curved universe. The fact that there is precisely the right amount of matter in the universe to make it flat (ie Cartesian), remains an unexplained statistical wonder.
You're right about the constants needed for the universe to support life, of course.
Yes, there are some three dozen physical constants that are perfectly tuned to allow life.
;) that the god of the Bible is actually an amalgamation of two (or more) advanced extraterrestrial figures, known in Sumerian legends as Enki and Enlil. Indeed, with a bit of research one finds that the Book of Genesis is a sort of 'executive summary' of the Sumerian Epic of Creation, word for word in some places. The Hebrews likely copied it during Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian captivity.
What about that makes you believe that the god described in the Bible is responsible, though?
Personally, my readings have lead me to believe that if there is some universal "god" that has guided the forming of the cosmos, it is a collective and pervasive consciousness that we are all conected to at the quantum level, which has a tendency to move towards greater coherence... not some schizophrenic authority figure in a 2000 year old book. I believe (but cannot prove
Absolutely, and probably more profoundly than you even suspect.
Read "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart. It chronicles a number of recent experiments with consciousness and quantum physics. They found, for example, that if 1 percent of the population of a city practiced transcendental meditation, crime dropped to 24%. This experiment has been rigorously studied, and reproduced dozens of times, including in Washington DC.
The inescapable conclusion is that our own consciousness affects others. Individual stress collectively leads to world stress. We are all connected through nonlocal quantum effects.
That's a lovely bit of pigeonholing. I have recently become interested in the ID hypothesis, and it has nothing to do with the god of the Bible, thank you.
It has more to do with quantum physics, and the idea that consciousness itself creates coherence.
Read "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart if you're interested in this.
"The Big Bang theory isn't about beliefs as you seem to use the word. It's about the best explanation that fits the evidence."
.
It is perhaps the best CURRENT explanation. But it is not as good a theory as it was even a few years ago. There are questions that the Big Bang theory has no explanation for.
For example, as recently as 1998 it was discovered that the universe is "flat". A tiny difference in the density of the universe, either up or down, would make it curved. This means the Big Bang was "tuned" to produce exactly this density. The odds of that happening by chance are estimated at 1 to 10^50.
The Big Bang does not explain the increasing evidence that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating
The Big Bang theory does not adequately explain (IMHO) the "Horizon Problem", which is that the universe looks uniform in all directions, from galaxy evolution to background radiation. (Yes, I am aware of "Inflation Theory", which seeks to address the Horizon Problem, but it's pretty shaky. Here's a paper disputing the ability of the inflationary model to produce homogenous CMBR if you are interested.)
Dead-Tree References:
"The Field", Lynne McTaggart - Recommended for everyone, written for laymen.
"Science and the Akashic Field", Ervin Laszlo - This is a bit more technical.
"I believe, though I can't prove, that the universe presented to me by my senses is not an artifact of my own existence but exists separately from me, is consistent and will remain consistent after I am dead."
What do you think of quantum experiments which show that matter only exists as a probability waveform (the superposition of many possible states), until it is observed?
I've always thought a .xxx TLD would be a great idea. Then make all porn sites use it, and presto, you have a perfect and simple porn filter.
;P
Cuz ya know, we have to think of the children.
Hear hear. The OSS trumpeteers totally mislabelled this article. If you RTA, it's talking about "Pro-Ams" in general and only mentions the term "open source" once in passing, as a specific characteristic of their case subject.
That kinda irks me (the article mistitle) because it seems to be dismissing all the people & groups that build free software and/or services, which contribute greatly, even if they don't actually "open source" them.
OSS is awesome for a wide variety of collaborative projects, but it isn't the be-all and end-all of generosity.
Just curious... ever read anything by David Icke?
"Yeah, I said it, but we're all thinking it!"
No, we're NOT all thinking it, as several others have already confirmed. People usually don't like being spoken for like that.
Yes, I read your rant agaist the other guy about how that's just your opinion, but you need to learn how to phrase it as your opinion, and not as a generalization.
What's wrong with saying, "I bet we're all thinking it", "I imagine we're all thinking it", "I suspect we're all thinking it", "I'm sure we're all thinking it", or something along those lines?