Holy mother of awesome! Galaxies Collide

[ProZachNation]

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Hubble...3213266860.jpg

That shit is bananas yo

[Lukie]

Very cool. I don't think most people can understand the sheer magnitude of even a single galaxy.

[BankItDrew]

old news...

[ProZachNation]

old news...

ITS NEWS TO ME

[BankItDrew]

it's news to everyone... still happened a fuckload long time ago. Nice thread btw, i was just messing with ya.

[givememyleg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81aJmjUK08s

[pantherhound]

its not old news in the scheme of space and time.

Boggles the mind when u look at that pic and realise that one millimetre across represents an unfathamable distance- and this whole picture represents a microscopic part of the universe as a whole.

i just read that back, and it is a very banal, cliched comment. but true.

[Deanglow]

The Milky Way is going to combine with Andromeda in a few billion years afaik

[givememyleg]

The Milky Way is going to combine with Andromeda in a few billion years afaik

WERE DOOOOMED!!!!!

nah we prolly wont even be alive then anyway.

[Lukie]

its not old news in the scheme of space and time.

Boggles the mind when u look at that pic and realise that one millimetre across represents an unfathamable distance- and this whole picture represents a microscopic part of the universe as a whole.

i just read that back, and it is a very banal, cliched comment. but true.

definitely.

i've always wondered what else is out there. hundreds of billions of stars per galaxy, hundreds of billions of galaxies (that we know of). there's gotta be a lot of crazy shit out there, including other intelligent life.

great topic btw

Very cool. I don't think most people can understand the sheer magnitude of even a single galaxy.

Yeah its erm really big. Like hundreds of miles long.

[mrhappy333]

cool pics

[Lukie]

quadrillions of miles in diameter for an average galaxy

how do you even describe that? and really, it's just a diny dot in the universe.

[wufwugy]

this is like half an inch of sky from earth or something, and it reveals about a thousand or so galaxies. i dont remember exact numbers.






see that teeny tiny dot? thats earth from the edge of our solar system

many more awesome pictures if you look. hubble scope was one of the best things to happen to science


i absolutely adore cosmology and astronomy. for anybody else who loves that type of stuff you can find the best ive found on the web at internet infidels forum. basically a forum for scientists and atheists. very cool

[pantherhound]

that is absolutely insane. This thread should be bumped with some more interesting stuff every day.

when you think of the fact that if any of the finely tuned physical properties of the universe were even a billionth off slightly, the laws of nature and life could not exist, so basically either there are billions of universes of which ours is that one in a billion supporting life, or there is a God or higher being who determined those values to be exactly correct.

somewhere there are other forms of life- there must be. its kind of frustrating to not know what or where.

[wesrman]

Awesome.

[ProZachNation]

I think it was TED talks I heard some physicist from Cambridge talk about how the universe is expanding and still accelerating when by conventional wisdom you would think it would be slowing down.

That would be like throwing a ball up and it keeps going up faster and faster, its nuts.

[gabe]

little known fact: i have a minor in astronomy

[boost]

so basically either there are billions of universes of which ours is that one in a billion supporting life, or there is a God or higher being who determined those values to be exactly correct.

faulty logic imo.

The chances of winning the mega millions lottery are 1:175,711,536. I won. I have not played 175,711,536 times. Therefore there is a god.

[wufwugy]

well im pissed off, i typed up a whole thing but accidently deleted like half of it so had to fill the blanks so its a little jumbled, but oh wells its still good

that is absolutely insane. This thread should be bumped with some more interesting stuff every day.

when you think of the fact that if any of the finely tuned physical properties of the universe were even a billionth off slightly, the laws of nature and life could not exist, so basically either there are billions of universes of which ours is that one in a billion supporting life, or there is a God or higher being who determined those values to be exactly correct.

somewhere there are other forms of life- there must be. its kind of frustrating to not know what or where.

theres something called the fermi paradox, its not actually a paradox imo, but when it was first designated it was thought to be one. its basically that the size and scope of the universe suggests that theres masses and masses of life throughout, but we know nothing about any. like i said i dont think its a paradox simply because our ability to detect alien life is a few steps behind garbage. with our technology and chronology we couldn't detect alien life if it was scratching our asses with a laser beam from outerspace. check out the wiki entry on fermi paradox and youll see some really cool reasons for why this is as well as really cool stuff about the theories of evolution of species and civilizations.

creation of the universe is not necessarily necessary in a 'finely tuned universe'. we are coming to understand this via quantum theory. funny thing about quantum theory is that we know pretty much nothing about it, yet it holds up experimentally categorically. anyways ill explain some reasons why creation on any level probably isn't required.

1. in a quantum vacuum, quantum particles pop in and out of existence randomly. a theory is that over infinite time in a vacuum anything possible to exist will exist. like at some point a lexus will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly; tiger woods will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly. this is absolutely mind blowing to us, but its pretty much how it may be. the quantum world is about as illogical to us as it gets. our understand of quantum theory is next to nill and will remain the same for a long time imo.

a big reason why its so hard to understand quantum theory is that our species has evolved around our world, our 'plane' of interaction and experience. things like gravity make total sense to us because we have evolved experiencing it. this is not the case with the quantum world. quantum mechanics is illogical to us and will always remain so, yet if we were conscious quantum particles it would probably make worlds of sense to us while general relativity blows our minds.

2. laws of physics are descriptions of observations by and for humans. we exist and thus describe our existence. our descriptoins are always theoretical and are under constant change. the role of science is never in proving anything. in fact, nothing has ever been truly proven ever. only math, yet with a catch. mathematics is based upon numerous experimentally infallable assumptions. two plus two equaling four has never been proven to be true, it is however considered a true assumption, and all mathematics is based upon such things.

the laws we know, like say gravity, are not truly laws. newtons idea was right but also wrong, we see why now. we are beginning to see the same with einsteins idea. everything we understand in science, in existence, is founded in theory, and theory is a mere description of observations. descriptions that could be far from the truth or right on the money. our descriptoins are often very finely tuned, but that could be the furthest from the truth of the universe. as we see with quantum mechanics, it may very well be that the universe is not nearly as 'perfect' as our descriptions suggest.

3. the age old problem of having a creator is that the creator must then be created. this is a philosophical conundrum, yet may actually be unimportant. the reason for this is that creation may not be necessary for existence. we think in the realm of time, yet if there was a creation then there was a time before time. but thats not possible because time didn't exist before time existed. this lends to the idea that with the existence of time comes existence itself. this means that there could not have been a creator because nothing can exist before time. our understanding of quantum mechanics suggests that existence may be completely random and based in nothing, and so creation wouldn't then be a factor.

on the flip side, it is extremely plausible that our universe was created in a similar fashion that a cell is created by a body, or some other way

[wufwugy]

I think it was TED talks I heard some physicist from Cambridge talk about how the universe is expanding and still accelerating when by conventional wisdom you would think it would be slowing down.

That would be like throwing a ball up and it keeps going up faster and faster, its nuts.

if the gravitational/energetic pull on it from where's its heading is more than where its coming from it will accelerate.

the ideas of expanding/contracting universe are based pretty much in gravity. at first scientists thought the universe should be slowing down given total mass, yet given latter observations it wasn't, so they had to come up with reasons why. dark matter and dark energy are the foremost theories. i dont know much about them because they're kinda hard to understand but eh

[wufwugy]

another cool thing is that some theory is that if the universe begins collapsing then time will reverse. that is insane

[boost]

wow, I love this stuff.

With all the drama lately its so nice to run into an awesome thread like this.

[pocketfours]

it's news to everyone... still happened a fuckload long time ago. Nice thread btw, i was just messing with ya.

Yeah, this shit happened 500 million years ago, but the photons that escaped the incident have just recently hit our homeplanet.

It's a long journey for a traveling light particle, and think about the odds of a randomly selected photon shooting away from these colliding galaxies, hitting a telescope on our planet 2939249905000000000000 miles away (5,8 * 10^12 miles/ly * 500 * 10^6).

[boost]

err what exactly would your suggest is going to stop this "random" photon? I mean its not like this event let off one photon, it let off enormous amount in every direction.

[pocketfours]

err what exactly would your suggest is going to stop this "random" photon? I mean its not like this event let off one photon, it let off enormous amount in every direction.

I was just thinking how lucky a photon is to start it's journey 500 million years ago and then landing in another galaxy, on a planet inhabited with astronomers, and finally flying through the lens of a telescope.

Okay, loads of photons actually flew through that telescope, and obviously a mother of a shitload of photons left that galaxy during that incident. Just wanted to point out that this collision actually happened a really long time ago and that it's funny that light doesn't fade out more than it does.

[ProZachNation]

cliff notes: Some photons flip good

[pocketfours]

Thinking too much about this stuff can make one realize that there is no such thing as free will, and that might cause serious tilt. It tilted me pretty badly at least when I figured it out.

Hard determinism FTW.

[boost]

Thinking too much about this stuff can make one realize that there is no such thing as free will, and that might cause serious tilt. It tilted me pretty badly at least when I figured it out.

Hard determinism FTW.

ya this does seem to be the conclusion that is reached through this thought. You gotta just think of it as an awesome movie though. Sure You cant take part in lightsaber duals, but that doesnt make the trilogy suck.

[pocketfours]

The chances of winning the mega millions lottery are 1:175,711,536. I won. I have not played 175,711,536 times. Therefore there is a god.

By the way, do you know what is the likelyhood of becoming a lottery winner if you play 175,711,536 times and the odds of winning are 1:175,711,536?

[pocketfours]

Thinking too much about this stuff can make one realize that there is no such thing as free will, and that might cause serious tilt. It tilted me pretty badly at least when I figured it out.

Hard determinism FTW.

ya this does seem to be the conclusion that is reached through this thought. You gotta just think of it as an awesome movie though. Sure You cant take part in lightsaber duals, but that doesnt make the trilogy suck.

This finding didn't tilt you at all? You seem to be taking it pretty well

[boost]

The chances of winning the mega millions lottery are 1:175,711,536. I won. I have not played 175,711,536 times. Therefore there is a god.

By the way, do you know what is the likelyhood of becoming a lottery winner if you play 175,711,536 times and the odds of winning are 1:175,711,536?

if you play 175,711,536 different numbers in the same drawing or if you play one number in 175,711,536 different drawings?

[a500lbgorilla]

Very cool. I don't think most people can understand the sheer magnitude of even a single galaxy.

Lol, galaxies colliding is lame. Neutron stars colliding release more energy than the sum of all the stars in the universe. What would happen if 2 black holes collided?

[boost]

Very cool. I don't think most people can understand the sheer magnitude of even a single galaxy.

Lol, galaxies colliding is lame. Neutron stars colliding release more energy than the sum of all the stars in the universe. What would happen if 2 black holes collided?

chocolate scissors?

[a500lbgorilla]

quadrillions of miles in diameter for an average galaxy

how do you even describe that? and really, it's just a diny dot in the universe.

6000 light years in diameter vrs 16 billion light year diameter of the universe. What's awesome is that we can see 99% into the past of the universe if I recall a "structure of the universe" lecture i attended correctly. EDIT and by into the past, i mean the repeating structure of the universe allows us to see some sort of "afterglow" from the big bang. But the details of that lecture were so crazy over my head I may be wrong.

[a500lbgorilla]

Very cool. I don't think most people can understand the sheer magnitude of even a single galaxy.

Lol, galaxies colliding is lame. Neutron stars colliding release more energy than the sum of all the stars in the universe. What would happen if 2 black holes collided?

chocolate scissors?

you tickle me with your comments

[Lukie]

i absolutely adore cosmology and astronomy. for anybody else who loves that type of stuff you can find the best ive found on the web at internet infidels forum. basically a forum for scientists and atheists. very cool

same here. science in general intrigues me. i'm into physics and ideas in general although i'll be the first to admit that i'm far from the most knowledable person on these subjects.

[Taxi]

This is so my thing!

I did Physics & Astronomy at university, at the Astrophyscis Research Institute in Liverpool, so cool!

Covered stars and galaxies and the universe and everything, in our last year we did our own research project, mine was on an unusual star with a ring around it (just like Saturn) which was even more awesome (even tho it involved a lot of computer work, I made my own simulation of this star to try and match different structures with the observed spectrum) my project was then (due to be) used by my tutor as his application for telescope time on the Liverpool Telescope (yes I know, I was doing his donkey work lol)
Some of maths and theory was mind blowing, but amazing, studying our Sun was some of the most complicated maths stuff, and the stuff looking at the universe was obviously some of the hardest stuff to get your head round, you just had to sort of accept what the guys telling you then spend the next week thinking WTF WTF WTF.

But its all about the pretty pictures!
We spent a week in Tenerife looking through a small (2 ft) and ancient telescope, we did see some cool stuff though, such as (these aren't the images we took, ill try and dig some up later)

Ring Nebula (its actually about as big as Jupiter in the sky, which is big! but too feint to see w/o a telescope)


Sombrero Galaxy (wufwugy posted it earlier)


Mega close ups of the moon, you could see the shadows in the craters and everything


And (my favourite) Whirlpool Galaxy: (our tutor told us our group took the best image he'd ever seen with that telescope, of this galaxy, so I have to have to have to find that)


We did mini research projects in groups, ours was looking at a variable star system, (it was two stars orbiting around each other quickly, blocking the light of each other) and trying to work out the period of rotation etc.
Funnily enough the best bit was without the telescope, you can see SO much more in a place like that, 2400 metre above sea level, so many more stars, and you can quite clearly see the milky way.

We also got a trip to Jodrell Bank:


No they didn't let us loose on that thing, but it is OMFG huge.
We used a (much) smaller version to measure the speed of the spiral arms in the Milky Way tho, fun.

And now I'm on life tilt for not carrying on doing this when I could, I will go back one day, I keep telling myself.

[pantherhound]

[quote="Lukie"]

same here. science in general intrigues me. i'm into physics and ideas in general although i'll be the first to admit that i'm far from the most knowledable person on these subjects.

me too, i had to make do with a quantum mechanics for dummies module in my undergrad. It made me wish I was good at science. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to be a cosmologist at the cusp of an earth-shattering discovery about the universe

boost, about the 1 in a billion comment, someone is likely going to win the lottery, but the 1 in a billion law of nature is very different since its more of an insane coincidence that all of the physical laws happened to be perfect.

like i said though, im not an expert, just something I heard.

[pocketfours]

The chances of winning the mega millions lottery are 1:175,711,536. I won. I have not played 175,711,536 times. Therefore there is a god.

By the way, do you know what is the likelyhood of becoming a lottery winner if you play 175,711,536 times and the odds of winning are 1:175,711,536?

if you play 175,711,536 different numbers in the same drawing or if you play one number in 175,711,536 different drawings?

It's pretty obvious to most what the odds are if you play all the different numbers in the same drawing. How much did you win?

[Taxi]

Can you imagine how awesome it would be to be a cosmologist at the cusp of an earth-shattering discovery about the universe

Dont think its really like that, unfortunately.

Its not like you ever get big breakthroughs.
Like your theory stuff has to be peer reviewed, if you have a big idea you have to work years on it, have collaborators, prove it fits with other proven models, which means researching endless other papers etc, you get the idea.

I mean your not gonna get another Albert Einstein or whatever again, although there are some ppl of comparable brilliance now, a research project requires big $$$$$$$$, and huge teams, all working on one little bit, to come together with a big picture. For example, CERN's large hadron collider, the biggest physics experiment ever, cost somewhere around $5 - $10 billion dollars. You'll then you have to apply to get you experiment done, which might take years etc etc.

[wufwugy]

taxi, awesome stuff

panther, check out the guys looking for dark matter. they've been working in the same underground laboratory for like a decade or two, and have found absolutely nothing. talk about a thrilling job.

isaac newton was quite likely insane. he was definitely as antisocial as they come. the man did basically nothing other than study and work physics by himself.

however, if i was a scientist on the cusp of an earth shattering discovery i would hope it to have to do with sexbots.

[BankItDrew]

The chances of winning the mega millions lottery are 1:175,711,536. I won. I have not played 175,711,536 times. Therefore there is a god.

By the way, do you know what is the likelyhood of becoming a lottery winner if you play 175,711,536 times and the odds of winning are 1:175,711,536?

if you play 175,711,536 different numbers in the same drawing or if you play one number in 175,711,536 different drawings?

It's pretty obvious to most what the odds are if you play all the different numbers in the same drawing. How much did you win?

This is why I call lotteries a tax on the stupid.

[will641]

those pics are freaking amazing. space is one of those things where i dont think i will ever be able to comprehend.

[a500lbgorilla]

that is absolutely insane. This thread should be bumped with some more interesting stuff every day.

when you think of the fact that if any of the finely tuned physical properties of the universe were even a billionth off slightly, the laws of nature and life could not exist, so basically either there are billions of universes of which ours is that one in a billion supporting life, or there is a God or higher being who determined those values to be exactly correct.

somewhere there are other forms of life- there must be. its kind of frustrating to not know what or where.

This post is really interesting. I think it shows the fine differences between some people of faith and myself. Where you see finely tuned laws, I see beautifully simple laws. It's interesting within my studies how the biggest breakthroughs always result in the simplest and incredibly accurate equations. While you still constantly run across equations which are excellent numerical approximations with some good understanding put behind them (like hypersonic heat transfer equations), I always believe that one more piece of information, easily understood but probably non-intuitive, would help reduce those convoluted equations incredibly. Though maybe not completely.

So when I consider the laws at work in that picture of a half inch of the nights sky, the nuclear fission occuring in stars, the production of elements to scatter across the universe, and the huge collections of dense matter, stars, planets, black holes and powerful forces of gravity which help describe the motion of the universe, and the distribution of matter within it, I don't see a designer. I see a set of rules for the interactions of all particles. A long and layered set, working in parallel many times, describing the process of the universe.

The only difficult part is when you make the jump from the universe to the human brain. If I was going to find faith in a creator, it would be because I could never comprehend the minds of you and I.

[a500lbgorilla]

well im pissed off, i typed up a whole thing but accidently deleted like half of it so had to fill the blanks so its a little jumbled, but oh wells its still good

that is absolutely insane. This thread should be bumped with some more interesting stuff every day.

when you think of the fact that if any of the finely tuned physical properties of the universe were even a billionth off slightly, the laws of nature and life could not exist, so basically either there are billions of universes of which ours is that one in a billion supporting life, or there is a God or higher being who determined those values to be exactly correct.

somewhere there are other forms of life- there must be. its kind of frustrating to not know what or where.

theres something called the fermi paradox, its not actually a paradox imo, but when it was first designated it was thought to be one. its basically that the size and scope of the universe suggests that theres masses and masses of life throughout, but we know nothing about any. like i said i dont think its a paradox simply because our ability to detect alien life is a few steps behind garbage. with our technology and chronology we couldn't detect alien life if it was scratching our asses with a laser beam from outerspace. check out the wiki entry on fermi paradox and youll see some really cool reasons for why this is as well as really cool stuff about the theories of evolution of species and civilizations.

creation of the universe is not necessarily necessary in a 'finely tuned universe'. we are coming to understand this via quantum theory. funny thing about quantum theory is that we know pretty much nothing about it, yet it holds up experimentally categorically. anyways ill explain some reasons why creation on any level probably isn't required.

1. in a quantum vacuum, quantum particles pop in and out of existence randomly. a theory is that over infinite time in a vacuum anything possible to exist will exist. like at some point a lexus will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly; tiger woods will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly. this is absolutely mind blowing to us, but its pretty much how it may be. the quantum world is about as illogical to us as it gets. our understand of quantum theory is next to nill and will remain the same for a long time imo. It's non-intuitive. But if I told you 1000 years ago that the Earth was spinning around at a thousand miles per hour on the surface and the Earth was shooting through space at an incredible speed, you would think I was crazy because we're sitting so peacefully here on the surface enjoying a beautiful summer's breeze. Leaps from the intuitive are a lot fun.

a big reason why its so hard to understand quantum theory is that our species has evolved around our world, our 'plane' of interaction and experience. things like gravity make total sense to us because we have evolved experiencing it. I'd say it's because we've been taught it. Please read above. this is not the case with the quantum world. quantum mechanics is illogical to us and will always remain so, yet if we were conscious quantum particles it would probably make worlds of sense to us while general relativity blows our minds.

2. laws of physics are descriptions of observations by and for humans. we exist and thus describe our existence. our descriptoins are always theoretical and are under constant change. the role of science is never in proving anything. in fact, nothing has ever been truly proven ever. only math, yet with a catch. mathematics is based upon numerous experimentally infallable assumptions. two plus two equaling four has never been proven to be true, it is however considered a true assumption, and all mathematics is based upon such things. Awesome

the laws we know, like say gravity, are not truly laws. newtons idea was right but also wrong, we see why now. we are beginning to see the same with einsteins idea. everything we understand in science, in existence, is founded in theory, and theory is a mere description of observations. descriptions that could be far from the truth or right on the money. our descriptions are often very finely tuned, but that could be the furthest from the truth of the universe. as we see with quantum mechanics, it may very well be that the universe is not nearly as 'perfect' as our descriptions suggest. This is one of the best posts I've read in a long time

3. the age old problem of having a creator is that the creator must then be created. Yah, it's interesting. If we can fully describe the universe perfectly, could we then create a universe? In say a computer. How long before they fully understand their universe and create another one? What if we weren't the first? I'm gonna go watch the Matrix now... this is a philosophical conundrum, yet may actually be unimportant. the reason for this is that creation may not be necessary for existence. we think in the realm of time, yet if there was a creation then there was a time before time. but thats not possible because time didn't exist before time existed. this lends to the idea that with the existence of time comes existence itself. this means that there could not have been a creator because nothing can exist before time. our understanding of quantum mechanics suggests that existence may be completely random and based in nothing, and so creation wouldn't then be a factor.

on the flip side, it is extremely plausible that our universe was created in a similar fashion that a cell is created by a body, or some other way

A great read!

[a500lbgorilla]

I think it was TED talks I heard some physicist from Cambridge talk about how the universe is expanding and still accelerating when by conventional wisdom you would think it would be slowing down.

That would be like throwing a ball up and it keeps going up faster and faster, its nuts.

if the gravitational/energetic pull on it from where's its heading is more than where its coming from it will accelerate.

the ideas of expanding/contracting universe are based pretty much in gravity. at first scientists thought the universe should be slowing down given total mass, yet given latter observations it wasn't, so they had to come up with reasons why. dark matter and dark energy are the foremost theories. i dont know much about them because they're kinda hard to understand but eh

I attended a structure of the universe lecture which suggested (and proved with some incredibly convoluted data and observations way outside my understanding) that the universe had a repeating structure. That there could be light in the sky, viewed by us, created by the milky way of some time ago.

[a500lbgorilla]

they call it the Horsehead Nebula....
Christians look at that, Father, and see the amazing splendour of creation laid out before them... Atheists, they look at it and see the vast natural complexity and awe inspiring depth of the universe. But at least one person looked at that and said 'Cor - looks a bit like a horses head'. And that gives me a strange kind of hope in humanity.

Private Stan: It's beautiful

Father Sonny: It's terrifying

Private Stan: it...

Goom: Looks a bit like a horses head?

Private Stan: Yeah



-- Citizen Goom, Saviour of the Universe

[pocketfours]

Thinking too much about this stuff can make one realize that there is no such thing as free will

If you think about it harder, you'll reason yourself out of it. Then you'll have a laugh.

Wrong. It is totally clear and obvious to me that free will doesn't exist. It was even clear to me before I read anything at all on the subject. When I couldn't reason myself out of it I looked it up on the net and found out about hard determinism and felt that it matched my views quite closely. I felt really sick and depressed for several weeks and I'm still not over it.

We are nothing more than advanced biological 'robots'. Free will is merely an illusion and I didn't write this post because I chose to, I wrote it because all the particles in the universe dictated that I was destined to do it.

We are programmed (by evolution) to always choose what is best for us. Think of a man like a mosquito flying through air. The mosquito might think that it can stop beating its wings at any moment - but it's an illusion. It's not 'programmed' to stop beating its wings in mid-air.

A similar thought is that while driving on a freeway you feel like you could suddenly turn the wheel and crash hard. It's just an illusion, you couldn't do it. You simply COULD NOT do it. You could only do it if you wanted to harm yourself, but still you feel like you could do it - even if you didn't want to do it.

I think the most ridiculous thing is that the particles we are made of are so advanced, that by simply flowing around for millions of years, they group in such away that they create beings that realize that they are only freely flowing particles flying around. This tought still tilts me.

I really like what boost said about this, and I'm just happy that the 'movie' I'm watching has been really great, so far. And because 'my movie' is so good, I've got to take all the bad things in my life and realize that none of the good things could ever have happened without them. It's a good method for real-life tilt control.

[pocketfours]

personally i think the idea of no free will is awesome. i found peace in realizing that i couldn't blame my misfortune or thank my fortune on religious deities, and i like the idea that there is no free will. however, postulating there is no free will is basically postulating nothing. there is no way we can know one way or the other so its kinda pointless other than to provide some kind of psychological comfort or something.

heres some interesting work on the brain that suggests that we may not have free will. http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=241529 . i could go either way on the subject simply because i think theres no way of knowing. anyways im looking forward to what aboogorilla has to say.

We can know and we do. Unless we possess some kind of divine powers that can change the laws of physics within our body then free will isn't possible.

[wesrman]

Nice pics.

[Taxi]

Just found out someone on the same undergraduate course as me is now working at the ARI I mentioned above, so I should be able to get the images we took in Tenerife.

[wufwugy]

sweeee

[wufwugy]

I think it was TED talks I heard some physicist from Cambridge talk about how the universe is expanding and still accelerating when by conventional wisdom you would think it would be slowing down.

That would be like throwing a ball up and it keeps going up faster and faster, its nuts.

if the gravitational/energetic pull on it from where's its heading is more than where its coming from it will accelerate.

the ideas of expanding/contracting universe are based pretty much in gravity. at first scientists thought the universe should be slowing down given total mass, yet given latter observations it wasn't, so they had to come up with reasons why. dark matter and dark energy are the foremost theories. i dont know much about them because they're kinda hard to understand but eh

I attended a structure of the universe lecture which suggested (and proved with some incredibly convoluted data and observations way outside my understanding) that the universe had a repeating structure. That there could be light in the sky, viewed by us, created by the milky way of some time ago.

i would really like to read something catered to the lay about this if you ever come across it.

[wufwugy]

1. in a quantum vacuum, quantum particles pop in and out of existence randomly. a theory is that over infinite time in a vacuum anything possible to exist will exist. like at some point a lexus will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly; tiger woods will exist suddenly then not exist suddenly. this is absolutely mind blowing to us, but its pretty much how it may be. the quantum world is about as illogical to us as it gets. our understand of quantum theory is next to nill and will remain the same for a long time imo. It's non-intuitive. But if I told you 1000 years ago that the Earth was spinning around at a thousand miles per hour on the surface and the Earth was shooting through space at an incredible speed, you would think I was crazy because we're sitting so peacefully here on the surface enjoying a beautiful summer's breeze. Leaps from the intuitive are a lot fun.

a big reason why its so hard to understand quantum theory is that our species has evolved around our world, our 'plane' of interaction and experience. things like gravity make total sense to us because we have evolved experiencing it. I'd say it's because we've been taught it. Please read above.

3. the age old problem of having a creator is that the creator must then be created. Yah, it's interesting. If we can fully describe the universe perfectly, could we then create a universe? In say a computer. How long before they fully understand their universe and create another one? What if we weren't the first? I'm gonna go watch the Matrix now...

1. pretty much always when it comes to nature vs nurture its a little of both. exactly how much is hard to say. the spinning earth is very counter-intuitive, and possibly its only fine with us now because we grew up being taught it, but also it could be that quantum theory is substantially more counter-intuitive. i wonder how much our intuition is nurture. i wonder how simple (if at all) to grasp quantum theory will be for those who learn it taught succinctly and accurately in grade school will be. maybe our evolution has no place with how we think with regards to science, but that just sounds wrong to me.

2. i found quite interesting in the fermi paradox entry on wiki how one postulated theory for earth-life's role in the universe is that we were planted by super advanced species for the purpose of experimentation, and thats why we have no contact with them. its called like the 'the zoo effect' or something i dont remember the third word. basically we're not being 'contacted' by superior life because experimentation needs to remain pristine. or maybe we've been discovered yet only once we achieve a species-wide level of political and social development are we allowed in on the elite club.

i speculate that possibly no alien civilizations have ever or will ever communicate with each other except possibly via a one way probe (which still isn't really communication). they'd have to both arise at the same space-time and be super close to each other, and even at the point of elite technology intelligent life may be on the nano scale or something.

also advanced life is probably all super predators (like humans) and it could very well be that they all kill themselves off. or actually more likely they overconsume themselves to death. viruses do it by being too efficient at killing hosts while advanced life could do that by being too efficient at technology and altering their world (like global warming stuff) or creating superbeings (like i mentioned in the other thread)

or maybe we will discover an alien civilization somewhere by viewing a dyson sphere or some other device that could be seen across galaxies, but still never ever actually make contact.

that said, alien contact would be so incredible. beyond incredible. what i would find hilarious (or not) is if they were indeed hostile like scifi fantasizes about and some theories about predatory behavior suggests.

[boost]

I dont have much to add at this point, however I really liked your post wuf so I figured Id say as much.

[a500lbgorilla]

I dont have much to add at this point, however I really liked your post wuf so I figured Id say as much.

yah I'm really enjoying wufwugy's posts.

[wufwugy]

thanks guys.

whats funny is that i recently left the main forum ive posted on partly because most of them have come to hate me over the last year. its their problem because they're a bunch of uptight twats who wouldnt know a good jopke if it smashed their faces into a jelly. they also thinking playing poker for a living is dumb and not hooking up with a clusterfuck of a woman is also wrong. fuck em, that site was boring as shit anyways. extremely good for diet/exercise information, but i already got that shit down pat.

[a500lbgorilla]

Welcome, wayward soul, to the FTR forums. I hope you find comfort here.