Messages

You want a revolution?  You technically can have one.
But ALL of you want one YOUR way (burger king, anyone?).
The Black Iron prison & fnord and the Machine are all very interesting (I've only got to the Machine),
but the only way to really get your revolution is this, and it's simple:
take out the american aristocracy who keep ruining it for you.
Now, how to do that?
I could plan that, but no fuckin way am I gonna plan that here.
And another aside - this entire site is probably already monitered by the CIA, so watch what you freakin do!
I'm in a psyche unit and I'm sane.  Think about that.

I think that we will come up with lots of new models which fit new data as its discovered... and

I think that's really OK. I doubt that we will ever KNOW what happened to cause life, or if anything happened at all.... Maybe the idea that the Universe 'started' is based solely on our tendency to perceive things in a linear fashion. For example, Peter Carroll, well known Chaos Magician, quit Chaos Magic for awhile and holed up with some physicists. He came out of that experience with a concept called H6D, which models the Universe as a 6 dimensional hypercube (3 dimensions HxLxW and 3 time diminsions PastxPresentxFuture). In some cases his model addresses some flaws that the current Big Bang model has... I don't believe its true, but the model does seem interesting and potentially useful, if it can account for some things which BB cannot.

Here's an overview:
http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=51

Holy Jumping Jesus Jack Flash!  This is goin in my notebook of amazing theories (it exists in outer space somewhere I think).  You truly are the master of all things science around here (it certainly seems to me).
P.S. I'm getting all excited cos I'm a soon-to-be math major (possibly physics major also now).

Science is a process.  It is a method.  It is a verb.

Booty, stop treating it like a noun.

Lol.  Yessir.  I scienced all day yesterday.  It was truly ridiculous (I even scienced with some "NyQuil" to get some rest afterwards lol  Ya never can science too much actually).

science is more a way of think
trying to explain things through observations, experiments, ect.
thats all it is
your personal believes should have nothing to do with it
most scientists have had more their theories torn to pieces when someone shows the evidence does not hold then have found models that work


my only real problem with modern science is that most scientists are very poor at explaining things to the general public
and mahy believe that being correct or having the correct caculations or evidence will actually win the public to your side (ie the supposed Darwinism debate)
being correct has nothing to do with winning a debate when its in the public demain
some of it is cause people don't have the time to do all the research for themself, but mostely cause people don't care... they want the world to be molded into their own belief system
and sometimes its just not in their best interests... and acting rationaly is going against humanities natural instinct

Thank you very much actually.  That was almost exactly what I was trying to say.

Oops lol.  That was what I was thinking. (lol - I'm stoopid today)

I have my own Big Bang theory

No, it has nothing to do with what you're thinking, SHUT UP.

The universe is a big cone, you see, and all of the matter settled in the point. Matter is always trying to achieve an equilibrium, but it can't, for reasons that are complicated, like relationships.

So the matter all settles in the point of the cone, and then it's all too close together and repels everything from itself, so it starts to "expand", ie migrate away from other matter. It expands and expands, and as it expands, the cone flattens, until it can flatten no more, and the matter all freaks out by how far away it all is from the other matter, and starts to contract, on the other plane of the cone. It contracts and contracts and the cone gets conier and conier, until all the matter is too close together in the tip of the cone, and then...

It's basically the same as the doughnut model, but way more fun.

I actually laughed my ass off, and have to stand up to type this.

Is this what Hawking would call a "light cone?"

This is my new favorite motto:  Keep getting ahead of yourself - don't get ahead of anyone "better, smarter, stronger, wiser, or riskier"  (because then you'll be just like them).

Where did the Universe come from?  Wait.. what is the Universe?  Wait.. what is the definition of "is?"  No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from.  We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us).  Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously.  But, to keep the record straight:  What does the Universe look like?  A ball?  A brane?  Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects?  Or do we even know?  It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is.  So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible?  We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other."  But was there only a single point?  Were there multiple "origins?"  Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?)  If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?

They have found evidence that galaxyies stars etc. are moving the way they would if big bang actually occurred..
So big bang is almost surely happened, if and how it started Being and Matter and Time and .. is still unproven.
It's not like I believe that everithing can be found out anyway, and before the bang pressure and gravitation and temperature were so different from the ones we know that most likely phisics as we know it didn't apply..no surprise if we'll never find out what "creation" really means...
that's far from a bug in the system though, it's again logically implied in the system that creation is hard (maybe impossible) to explain

I'm gonna do another thread on this (the Origin of the Universe).

Found it!  It was Sagan (Demon Haunted World, to be exact):

It is.  I read it when I was 18.  I loved it - although it was a shock to the system at first (in that it made me psycho).

All quotes from OP (thx for the info Verbatim on quote tags):

"Now, take a moment to assimilate the implications here. It sounds extreme to say that Western Culture is flat-out incompatible with Middle-Eastern culture. It sounds terrible, even racist. But think about what is going on, and what the arguments are. If you say "Islamic Culture," you sound like an extremist. But how compatible, for example, is the US Constitution with Sharia Law? And it is that Sharia Law that defines millions of the people in question. It is not an incompatibility because they are inherently inferior or because they are different, but because they subscribe to a mass ideology which is itself constructed of assumptions and beliefs which directly counter the assumptions and beliefs that comprise the overall ideology of Western civilization."

"Islamic Culture" is only a racist phrase when you use it in racist ways.  2 contradictory belief systems does not imply superiority of one over the other (can you say Christianity is always better than Satanism?  Or vice versa?).

"Some sources claim that by 2050, France will be a predominantly Muslim country, and other EU nations are on the same track. And there is, as I understand it, already a history of struggle between Muslim immigrants and their adoptive countries that seems to foreshadow a situation that when that political tipping point is reached in France, France will not only be a Muslim nation but a fairly traditional Muslim country, possibly complete with Sharia Law. I know that's a "worst-case scenario," but the possibility exists -- and even calling it a worst-case is to my mind an implicit acknowledgment that France and other nations need to do something to stop it from happening."

There is a power struggle going on between 2 competing ideologies: neoconservatism and  Qutb's ideology.  How will France become Muslim, however?

"My own conjecture on the topic tells me that this line of thinking, that the West and its ideologies face a cultural impasse with the Middle East and its ideologies, should bring to our attention a few prospects.


First, the prospect of Total Cultural War. As unappetizing as this is, it's fair at this point to say that a cultural impasse, if it really exists, could lead to such a war. As high as our opinions of ourselves may be, there is a very real possibility that the rosy future painted by well-meaning Science Fiction is simply untenable and unrealistic. Human history has shown more times than anyone can count that when two peoples who cannot stand one another are forced to share resources or space, there is a war. And if it comes to that with the current situation, it will be a very big war."

What is culture war?  How is it not already happening?  Japanese video games are one example.  You can think of many others, I'm sure.

"We are not talking about an aggressive military power with specific military aims. We are not even talking about a conscious movement of people with intentional collective goals. We are talking about a cultural border that is growing and becoming more complex -- but hardly ever blurring -- at an exponential rate. If you accept that Western society is inherently and fundamentally incompatible with Islamic society, and you add to that the fact that because of natural resources and technology and international politics these people are destined to be face-to-face with each other on a regular basis, then you could come to the conclusion that something here is not going to end well.


This brings us to the next prospect we should consider -- the complete erasure of the Enlightenment. In the West, societies are defined and governed (by varying degrees) by the rule of law and liberal democracy. These are ideas for which many thousands of Westerners have fought and died for -- even if that is an overused cliche', it is still in many respects true."

Whuaaaa?  Erasure of the Enlightenment?  How? When? Who? What? Where? Why?

"The political ramifications of the Enlightenment are felt throughout the West. But the great strides we have taken to open our societies to self-government, to welcoming immigrants, a decent respect for other people on their own merits regardless of whether or not they agree with us on everything; these are at the heart of who and what the West believes itself to be. But these are also the very things that have opened the West to the prospect of being consumed by an incompatible culture."

West will not be consumed by Muslims anytime soon.  They have no WMDs (except the ones we gave them. and except Pakistan).

"If we believe in these ideals, then we must fight to protect them. We must fight for the individual dignity and rights of every single person. We must fight to preserve our open societies and mutual respect, to prolong the rule of law, and to maintain oversight of our governments by the People. But when presented with a cultural "enemy" (note - I only use that term to define the situation, not to define Muslims in general) that can and will use the prized open self-government systems of the West to undermine the West as a whole, how does the West fight back?"

With Mickey Mouse!

"How can the West stop its own political infrastructure from allowing what it was designed in the first place to allow? How can we fight to protect our values and our way of life, without declaring them superior to something in order to exclude what some call a poisonous influence? How can we keep from devouring and discarding the rights of all people in pursuit of an enemy that uses those rights against the society that enforces them?"

The West only faces miniscule threats.  Therefore, a collapse of the "political infrastructure" (read: real infrastructure through terror attacks, I'm guessing) is virtually impossible.  The real issue is that isolated incidents (9/11 was an isolated incident.  How many successful airplane hijacks have their been compared to failed ones?)  being exploited for political/economic gain.  And that's where your threat to our infrastructure comes from.  Not terrorists or communists or even drunken perversion.

"Finally, the prospect of Westernizing the Islamic World. This is, I think, the one glimmer of hope in this whole situation. And it is here where I can actually see the value in (some of the) policies and actions taken by the Bush White House. If we live in a world where a clash of civilizations threatens the very definition of the West, and we want to maintain that definition at all, then there is only one choice: Westernizing the Islamic world."

I'm gonna screw up this line but here goes: "Why does George Bush love Mickey Mouse?" -"3 Kings"

"To do that, you have to keep the political game in stalemate while cultural forces work to undermine and transform a culture of deep repression into one that is at the very least respectful of different points of view. The line parroted by many "Liberals" is that "American Values aren't for everyone." That is true, but neither are Islamic values. And while Islamic nations are not officially pursuing a policy of exporting and enforcing those values around the world, their influence is spreading on auto-pilot. And this influence threatens the stability of the West."

See: The similarities between Islamic Law (Qutb) and Neoconservatism (Strauss).  Good for a read or two.

"The civilized response to every confrontation is diplomacy and compromise. Between two nations, this can happen "at a governmental and political level. But between two cultures, governments are essentially powerless. The diplomacy and compromise here must take place on a purely cultural level.

I strongly disagree with the military actions taken by the President, but I can see the value in what he says the West is facing, even if he chooses to use drastically oversimplified terms and bad analogies, and follow through on what he says with badly-planned operations that result in the loss of life on a nearly astronomical scale. The mistake of the Bush White House, in my opinion, has not been its overall view of global events but a lack of depth in its understanding of those events and the conditions that motivate those events that has lead to terrible foreign and military policy.

I identify myself most often as a "liberal," one who sees and appreciates the value of Enlightenment ideals taken to logical and reasonable conclusions. But I am also convinced that the West faces a serious test of its ability to stand by those ideals in the coming decades."

You know, there is truth in everything.  But this is only Bush's truth.  Don't forget the people living there (and fighting for the US).

Ok, this comment made no sense (I confused the first clause and the second).

Let me rephrase:  Science is an ideal because we believe (that is a key thing - you cannot just have no beliefs.  Try it and see what happens) truth is superior to lies.  Science systematically erodes the inconsistencies within theories (in the case I made, it is used to destroy religion - and thus, science has kind of become a religion because we believe it is the "best"), and, therefore, smooths them out over time (hopefully).  We can do better; just not yet (or anytime soon, I'm guessing).  So, in that sense, yes, scientific thinking is idealistic.

wait one minute booty are you saying science is an "Ideal"?

Yes.  Sort of.  Believing in what is "real" or "generally true" is sometimes scientific (in this case, taking science out of religion - that is, not deconstructing the Bible with bullet points), and is therefore more likely to be "right" in the sense that is in Nature (outside of you), and in that sense, is most certainly an ideal (in that you may believe it is a noble thing to do).

The alternative is believing what you want, which is uh...yeah.

For me, I tend to accept things in gradients. So, changes within a species, considering the available evidence seems to hit at about 99%... there's the 1% which says "I didn't see it and the guy who did might be a fruitcake". Changes from one species to another, I stick at about 95%, mostly cause species seems like a convenient made series of labels which we apply to patterns... versus what may actually just be one huge constantly changing series of life. Also, I put it at 95% because, there could be other reasons that we see what we see. All of life evolving from some random soup that got hit by lightning drops to about 65% mostly because I think there's not enough evidence and there are some competing models I like better (like panspermia). The entire universe coming from a big bang... I stick that about about 50% mostly because it seems idiotic to argue that it IS or ISN"T true and I imagine that we'll come up with something better.

And before that, well that's where I stick the biggest ? of all.

Now, compare that to the Genesis Young Earth model and I give it about .001%, mostly because it makes no real sense and there's plenty of data that doesn't fit. The Sumerian Enki myths... I stick at .002% mostly cause it would be cool if Enki were really an alien that came down and mucked about with monkey DNA and made humans.

The Alien trash dump theory, as discussed in Venus on the Half Shell, I give 99.999% likelihood to, since it combines all of the above and humans coming from an accidental trash heap explains so much.

I read a book recently (might have been Sagan) that suggested that every political speech and sermon had a P-value attached to it.  It made me laugh more than it should have.

Your comment has a P-value of 47!! (out of who knows)

I wanna give everybody mittens, but I really liked this one.