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iNow, "Our points" are an interesting analogy to religion. That is where discussion (in an objective, somewhat detached, stick to the facts way,) of the emotionality these areas raises is crucial. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJillSwift, and Forufes, I hope I didn't hurt your feeling, or make you think I was talking negatively about you at all, in my post suggesting we had some interesting mix of brains and viewpoints to add realistic info to the discussion. It might not be the usual scientific info, with proper study, and correlation, and error bars. But it does provide a certain level of peer review, being that we all have brains. I did however assume that you would be open to be "experimented" on. Which might not be the case. Not that I am planning any secret agenda, or setting any traps, but how we respond to each other, what beliefs we hold, what ideas we protect, and what ideas we attack have a lot to do with the topic. That being "what nuerocortical structures and mechanisms, (hijacked or adapted) are in play when it comes to beliefs and religion". (iNow, forgive my rewording, I don't think we are not talking about "How Religion Hijacks Neurocortical Mechanisms, and Why So Many Believe in a Deity", just wanted to give an idea of how I (TAR) am approaching the discussion.) For instance, iNow uses an example to Forufes, saying more or less "if you were born in such and such a place with such and such religious and cultural background, you would have Muslim beliefs or Hindu beliefs, or whatever you were brought up believing." What I found interesting about the example was, number one, a scientist (iNow), talking about Forufes's soul, as a thing that was detachable from Forufes's body, and placable in a different human body, with different history, in a different setting. And number two, the fact that a human soul was being considered (in the example) in some plain vanilla version, that was as interchangable as an electron. My point being, the person would not be Forufes. He/she would have different genes, different parents, different history, different culture, different lessons, different enemies, different friends, a completely different person. It would not be Forufes. It would be Abdul. Now, I know what iNow meant. "Imagine" you are this other person. But he didn't say that. And our ability to imagine what other people are thinking and feeling, and our ability to misunderstand what other people are thinking and feeling, based on what we think they should be thinking and feeling if we were "in their shoes", is at the very heart of this topic. Regards, TAR

iNow, "I think you missed the point of my analogy. The point is, the systems evolved independently. When they come together in one organism, the result is the emergent property of belief. Let's not stretch the analogy too far. No matter how many philosophers you quote in an attempt to demonstrate otherwise, we still evolved specific solutions to specific problems, and when taken together, those solutions result in things like a predisposition toward belief." My point in approaching your analogy the way I did, was not an indication of me not understanding your point, it was an attempt to lead you to insights and points that I have. My insights and points, derived from a lifetime of "looking at the evidence", are not exactly the same as your points, derived as well from a lifetime of "looking at the evidence". There therefore resides an area, where my points and yours, are both valid points. Its exploring this area, and that there is such an area, that I think has crucial pertinence to this thread. Current participant in this thread, are both observers, and the observed, we each have ourselves, and the others to inspect for "points" and why they are reached, in respect to the subjectively viewed "human brain". iNow an atheist and scientist. JillSwift, a scientist who has found out she is an excellent person to understand when exploring this topic, since she doesn't have the exact same neurocortical facilities as most other humans. Forufes who has "found" Christ. TAR who has arrived at a worldview that parses the figurative and literal components of everybodies beliefs, to arrive at what is literally true, and what is figuratively true. We are all here. We have knowledge of the world, we have knowledge of history, we have the internet to explore any aspect of reality, and any view of it we find pertinent. AND we all have brains, and we all are making points. Seems we might learn something. Regards, TAR

iNow, The poison meal is certainly possible, but not really likely, cause kitchen lore, was probably built up over the years, to warn people against preparing or not preparing foods in a way that would result in chemicals that would kill you if combined with the chemicals produced if another food was prepared or not prepared in a certain way. The combination you presented may have been unique, but the particular combination which formed the poison, would have been present in a great number of other unique meal combinations, and should have been run across before and been added to kitchen lore, or into law. (Though shall not eat beasts, killed by unknown cause, lying on the side of the road.) Besides, reality usually does not come up with things out of nowhere, with no other consequence or connections. Some of your guests should have found that they had a "funny" taste in their mouth between course three and four, or a few guests may had decided not to finish their tapioca after seeing Burt keel over, or people may have reason to put down their forks when the peice of strawberry, dropped accidentally into the salad dressing left on the salad plate, turned blue and started smoking. No, religion has too many connections, on too many levels to be tossed off as a bad aftertaste. We are talking about reality here, and reality doesn't miss a thing. Religion has been a part of human society, since there was human society. Guy at work brought back a bunch of posters from a printing show and I latched on to a huge poster, of a beautiful ornate library. We guessed it was in some palace in Viena. Goolged "beautiful libraries" and found it. Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria http://my.opera.com/RichardCooper/albums/showpic.dml?album=467365&picture=6474208 Hardly the work of ignorant folks. "This library is one of the most important cultural properties of our country and is one of the largest late Baroque works of art in Europe. Perhaps a little overenthusiastically but at the same quite justifiably, since the early 19th century the Admont library has been called the “eighth wonder of the world”. It represents a repository of knowledge containing examples of the artistic and historical development of books over the centuries - from the manuscripts of the medieval Admont writing school over the collection of incunabula (early printed books) to the fully developed printing process." And check out http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6142691.ece "Stanley Jaki, a Benedictine priest and a physicist, was best known for his scholarly contributions to the philosophy of science and theology. In 1987 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for his work on analysing “the importance of differences as well as similarities between science and religion, adding significant, balanced enlightenment to the field" As believers in Anthropomorfic Gods, and people who take the Bible as literal truth, should not ignore the evidence, so to, the truth, of our inextricable connection to the universe, should not be ignored by the rest of us. The evidence that we are of and in reality is clear. Our proclivity, neurocortically based, to notice the universe, forces us to...um... notice the universe. Now, none of us have the only brain. And, none of us are blocked from noticing reality by someone else's worldview. So, the "truth" is automatically accessable to any of us, access does not depend on our religious beliefs. Belief, is not a requirement to be a part of reality. It's automatic. If you are human, you are real. Belief, is not a requirement to notice reality. It's automatic. If you are human, you notice reality. Points being; if you think that your worldview is the only way to access truth, you are mistaken, and if you think someone else can't see the truth, you are mistaken. Whoops, that was a long way to go, just to get to an insight we already had when we heard the "blindmen and the elephant" story. Sorry. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, A suggestion. If its real, somebody probably already thought of it. And most likely, suprisingly early, like 1897 or something. There is a funny thing, about ideas, that are about the real world. They actually fit, they are actually real. And being that there are 4 billion minds around and a whole bunch who were around earlier, a lot of things about reality have been noticed. Even before the internet, I noticed that you could hear a joke for the first time, and then from a completely different source, unconnected in any way you knew of, you would hear the same joke, (different wording perhaps) later that day. Such I think it is with ideas. Something happens in the world, some new information surfaces, through technology or observation, or study, or experimentation, and lots of somebodies have novel ideas that stem from it. They put the same two and two together, as somebody else does. And good ideas seem to spread like wild fire, like a good joke. And bad ideas, just don't fit, just don't work, and are quickly debunked and discarded. In individual minds, and in the greater, peer review sense. Float your idea, and if its good, it will be improved upon, refined, tested, and merged into the activities and thoughts it pertains to. If someone else takes it, and does the work, and gets the name, and becomes a millionaire and immortal to boot... then whoops, bad suggestion. You should have done the work and written the paper. Regards, TAR

iNow, I had some ideas I wanted to explore, concerning "intention" and purpose and such, but after being surprised by the fact (in the clip) that so many people still "actually" ignore the evidence and think the world was literally created by God just several thousand years ago, I will cease and disist. My debate was intended for like minded individuals, concerning some fine points. Not suited for the gross point debate that is obviouly and unbelievably still alive. I will supply no fodder for ignorance. Regards, TAR

iNow, So back to the hijacking. Had a thought, that hijacking was an odd term for an adaptation. Seems that part of what a living organism does is adapt to the situation. That would include the environment, and the tools brought to the party, in the form of the organism itself. Now some of those problem solving tools, may have been developed for earlier reasons (successful adaptions), but we are talking about a complex organism here that continually built the next set of features and characteristics off of earlier successes. If your eyes developed because you could look for food, doesn't mean you can't use them to spot a mate, or see approaching danger, or read smoke signals, ...or a computer screen. Are we hijacking our eyes, and our optical cortex, when we read a post? And just a little question on "an area of the brain lighting up." If an area lights up when thoughts of a moral, decision making nature, are had, and this is framed circuitously as an area of the brain that religion has hijacked, or vice-a-versa, doesn't that say more about the link between religion and morality, then what hijacked the others neurocortextural adaptation? Regards, TAR

Forufes, At iNow's suggestion, I join you on this thread. I think I know what you are asking. How do we get from dead, unintentional stuff, to stuff that is purposely trying to live and reproduce and survive. And I don't think a realistic answer is too difficult. Although I don't know all the details, and can't fill in all the gaps I think it goes something like this. The Earth formed from a collection of elements, including the heavier elements that were formed in the nuclear furnace of a former star that exploded and left its bits about to gather together with gravities help to form the sun and the planets and the asteroids and the other items in our solar system. As molten stuff on Earth cooled, the contituent minerals formed. Oxygen, aluminum, silicon, different elements joined together with chemical bonds to form compounds that because of their atomic shapes and nature, formed crystals, when bonds that fit were near. The crystals grew. They knew not what shape they would take, but the crystals actually grew. No mind involved. No intention. What fit, fit, and kept on fitting. And the crystal grew. Then on the surface, hydrogen and oxygen, formed water, and the atmosphere developed from nitrogen and other gases, pools formed from rain and evaporation and rain again. Lightning storms, molten lava about, energy from the sun, kept things mixed up and moving about, dissolving things, salts and chemicals. Phosphates, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon. Forming rings and bonds, breaking apart, forming again, depending upon what was around, next to each other, and how thing where mixed up. If stuff fit, it fit, and kept fitting together. Can't tell you the exact order that what occurred occured in, or the exact mechanisms involved in each step but organic compounds formed and dissolved and formed again. The right combinations occurred to form RNA and DNA components, clumps and modules of the stuff mixing about and grouping for various chemical reasons, with the energy of the sun, and the heat of the Earth keeping things churning. RNA DNA, Mitochondria, metabolism, cellular structure, evolving. What fit fit, and kept fitting together. What didn't fit, didn't happen. If movement aided in gathering chemicals, those chemicals combinations that created movement worked better than those that didn't. The key was that at some point in the above, some arrangement of stuff was complex enough, and fit together well enough with its environment of pressure, heat, and available chemicals, that it could split and recombine with unorganized chemicals to make two of itself. To reproduce the pattern. To reproduce its pattern. To live, and reproduce. The rest is history. Perhaps we are the offspring of the first mitochondria, as surely as we are the offspring of Lucy. Regards TAR P.S. Interesting to me, is the fact that women are born with a full complement of eggs in their ovaries. That means that half the chemical instructions, to put you together are as old as your mom. One quarter as old as your grandma. One eighth as old as your great grandma. One ?th as old as Lucy. One ?th as old as that piece of RNA in my above example.

iNOW, I shall seek an evolution thread to carry on my thought. (but I do think it applies to this one.) Regards, TAR

iNow, Forufes is jumping to a lot of conclusions, and being a bit rude and defensive to boot. But I have also noticed in scientific discussions of evolution that particular care is made to avoid the ideas of direction, or design, or planning, since they suggest the guiding hand of a diety. And in discussing Why So Many Believe in a Deity, the fact that things appear so well put together, to humans, has to be investigated. Also, there seems to be a human aspiration, since at least the "enlightenment", to transcend our own humanity. To figure we can take a stance, and observe ourselves, free from the animal beginnings, that formed our neurostructure. That we are somehow better than human. As in the H+ link you pointed out to us somewhere. Now this need for immortality is wound up in religion, and it is wound up in H+. The sources of the need for immortality are probably very similar in diety believing humans, atheist humans, agnostic humans, and H+ humans. And it could be as easily explained as "we know we are going to die, and we don't want it to happen." So we look for a rationale to expect it is not as final as it appears, when we lose a tribe member. So we think about the spirit of the tribe member in some way or another, continuing. He/she is still in our memory, we still see the body, we can still talk to him/her in our imaginations and imagine what they would say back, the things he/she built are still standing, his children are running around. How could his/her consciousness have just winked out, and disapeared. Must be in the loving embrace of Jesus Christ. Must have returned to the force. Must be with God. Must be in a holding room, waiting to come back as a horse, or a rat or is the soul in the baby just being born. Or maybe his/her consiousness can be transferred to a man made machine through advanced technology. Just end? How could that be? What's the point in that? How is that even possible? How can you be of and in reality, inescapably, and suddenly be removed from it? Doesn't follow the law of conservation of counsiousness. (made that up for the scientists among us.) I know I talk to a lot of atheists on this board. I am one myself, but I have also admitted defeat when it comes to what happens to my consciousness when I die. TAR is gone. Only my works, and the thoughts I shared, and the memory of me, in other human minds remains. And my children and the others I assisted in staying alive. But still, even though I tell myself that, and I say that, and I believe that, I still entertain the thought that my consciousness somehow returns to the general stuff and nature of the universe. Whatever my consciouness was, before I was born, it will be again. Not TAR, but something. That I was able to experience the universe as TAR, and once I die, I will just be an unaware part of the universe, but still a part. We have some requirement for belief in spirit, and an explanation. I don't think that is a bad thing. I don't think that is something we need to rise above. I don't think that is something we CAN rise above. And although others may have a worldview that differs from mine, I don't think one can detach their consciousness sufficiently enough, from their physical, animal, human form, to consider themselves more than human. We are more or less stuck with being us. To imagine more than that is to believe in a supernatural thing. And that puts everybody, pretty much on an equal par when it comes to dealing with mortality. Regards, TAR

Spyman, Hadn't really thought of a "dark ages", although I had seen it mentioned, it didn't make any sense to me. Sure, no star light, before stars. But I figured if the photons from the cosmic background radiation could reach us now, then the material that was emitting the photons was hot enough to be releasing a black body spectrum peaking in the visible wave lengths, which have been stretched out to microwave frequencies. It probably didn't go cold right away, and would still have been releasing some photons, at some frequency. Even if the matter, as it cooled, gave off infrared, then microwave, then radio wave, black body spectrum, it is still "light", and as such, should still be "visible". Even if it was to get to us as radio waves, of longer and longer wavelengths as the matter cooled and expanded. But at some point, early on, the voids we notice in space, must have begun to grow, as the matter began to clump. The matter as it clumped and gathered would be hotter than the voids, the expanding space trading off larger voids for more matter filled areas. I would think that the matter clumps would continue to give off infrared light, as gravity pressurized the incoming atoms. In any case, although the nuclear reactions had not started up yet, giving of gamma and x-ray and ultraviolet and visible and infrared light, some light, of some wavelength should have been emitted by the gathering matter. Now I know we think of things as dark, when they emit no visible wavelengths, but we have equipment that can sense well below visible. Perhaps what is coming into us, radiowave wise is too difused by our atmosphere and too mixed with all other sources, to have been noticed and studied much. But I think it should be there. Perhaps even the Oort cloud somehow disrupts radio waves and makes them hard to identify, in terms of the distance and nature of their source. But we are pretting clever, I would think we could find a way to see it, if we looked for it. Regards, TAR

Padren, You are right, about the derail your speech portion. It was a rude, emotional outburst that was indeed out of place. If Wilson has valid, reasonable points to make, he has plenty of oppurtunity, and the right venues to do it in. I withdraw my defense of his outburst. And sure, I was exaggerating, I don't think he is an evil dictator. But you have to admit, that given the circumstances that the country is in, and the force of his personality and charisma, combined with his reasonable pragmatic approach, combined with a democratic congress, combined with the power of his office, which is arguably the most powerful position in the world, he is in a position to dictate what happens, in a way that no other President in my lifetime has ever been. People in this country have always looked out for the people that couldn't look out for themselves. There has always been charity, and people that had the social good in mind, in their every day actions. That won't change. And I have faith, that anything overdone or wrongly done in the law will work itself out. We do have a good county, and a lot of good people in it. However, laws are powerful. They represent the way we all (or close to all of us) want to see things go. They should be made about the things we all agree on. They shouldn't be reactions to single events. They shouldn't benefit one honest, reasonable group, over another honest reasonable group. And they shouldn't micromanage. And idealy they should be timeless, not topical. People structure their lives, to live by the rules, and be protected by the rules, and foster in their children the reasons for obiedience of the rules. I like to think of the laws of my country, as my laws, my rules, what I fight to maintain, what I count on to structure my life, what I trust in, to structure the lives of those around me. I just don't like seeing laws that uproot everything, and change the way everybody has to act. The way we act is already reasonable, already good, already thought out, and tested as workable. Sure we can fine tune stuff. Get rid of unworkable stuff. Establish laws that better reflect our current consensus. But lets be careful to not disturb what is already working. Regards, TAR

Padren, "Shouting over a president's speech to a joint session of Congress is not part of that system." Maybe not shouting, but groans and moans and incredulity from the opposition, and cheers and yesses from the aggreers are expected and allowed. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergediNow, From Wiki. "In modern usage, the term "dictator" is generally used to describe a leader who holds and/or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power, especially the power to make laws without effective restraint by a legislative assembly[citation needed]. see TfD Dictatorships are often characterized by some of the following traits: suspension of elections and of civil liberties; proclamation of a state of emergency; rule by decree; repression of political opponents without abiding by rule of law procedures; these include single-party state, and cult of personality." New York and Chicago have historically been the capital centers of our nation. The capital center is currently in the capitol. The President, by the laws he is promoting, and by moral suasion, is limiting the compensation of executives of companies, deciding what risks people are allowed to take, deciding who has benefited "unfairly" and deciding how capital should be allocated. The FED buys treasuries to fund the government, the people buy the treasuries, the capital flows into the hands and the control of the President, and his congress. No one is allowed to "game the system" for personal gain. Private wealth is a "no-no". Financial instruments held, are effectively "disallowed" and rendered worthless. Rules, and agreements that people built strategies and investment plans around have been changed, with more changes to follow. If you have private wealth, it will be taxed. The more you have, the larger percentage will be taken. If you and the company you work for, has purchased health insurance, you can continue to pay, but there will be changes to the care you will receive. In addition, your company must pay more, and you must pay more, to fund the coverage of people that have not paid for coverage. Everybody that is providing care will have to provide more and better care, for less compensation. "Waste" and "fraud" will be eliminated to pay for it? If the government borrows money, there are only two ways to pay the money back. Taxes increase, or inflation increases (or both.) As a scientist, you would probably agree, that you cannot get something, for nothing. Who is paying for universal health care, how will that payment be extracted, and who will decide what level of care is appropriate, has always been the issue. There is no solution, that does not create winners and losers. There is no solution that does not put decisions into hands, other than yours. There is no solution that eliminates the need for somebody to pay. Regards, TAR

iNow, Yes. I couldn't come up with a better word to describe my opposition. Perhaps "concern that following the presidents plan will continue to take us down a path that I do not like, and find strong reasons to avoid if I can" I am "afraid" that certain unsavory consequences will result. There I am sure is such thing as irrational fear, I hope you are not suggesting that my fears are irrational. I would hope that you do not think, that in this world of 4 billion competing wills, there is no room for the fear that someones will, will dominate yours, and cause your own plans, your own sacrifices, your own effort, to forward your will to be changed, done in vain, countered and squelched. Can we just rationally be afraid of threats from outside the borders of the U.S. if we are U.S. citizens? Can we rationally be "afraid" of threats? What are you allowing us? "There are no threats", is not a true statement. Parsing the threats is something everybody does. Everybody is afraid of certain outcomes, and desires others. We have a world that automatically picks winners and loser. Every victory for one group is a loss for the opposition. Now it would be great, if we could arrange things so a victory for one, was a victory for all. But this is usually not the case. Every problem we solve has a vast body of unintended consequence that follow it. Even unamious decisions, often have weaknesses, that show up later. Many of the decisions that we have made over the centuries, in terms of how to structure a society, have been made for good, altruistic, sound reasons. But always, there is human will involved. And always a balance is reached between competing wills. Sometimes by force, sometimes by reason. "The pen is mightier than the sword" is a testament to the fact that "ideas" are powerful, and can threaten and affect one's desired world as surely as an encroaching army. I have a little joke I tell myself about our recent presidental election. "We voted for change, but neglected to specify." To expect that the United States, has been doing it all wrong, for the last 200+ years. and now, in the hands of a benevolent, pragmatic, charismatic, dictator, we will do everything right, is a dangerous and false expectation. Our president is now in control of GM, and Citi. He has the production and capital, the ability to write the laws and the ability to enforce the laws. His will, will be done. Any objections? Regards, TAR

Bascule, Do you figure the opacity is on this side of the surface of last scattering, or the far side?

Is anything a Republican says racist, bigoted, ill-informed and mean, by definition? I had heard of the incident, but did not watch the clip until I checked in on this thread. First thing I heard was the President calling his opponents liars. Then I heard a vocal response to his statement that illegal aliens would not be covered under his plan. I didn't hear Wilson's words in particular, just the general response of incredulity. A response that seemed appropriate to me, considering the President had already called his opponents liars. Can't the President's plan be opposed? My opposition is based on many things, fear of increased taxes as a result, fear of managed care of my life and choices as a result, fear of my company having to pay more toward health care as result, fear of socialism, fear of government making life decisions for me, telling me what to eat, taxing soda, changing the rules, and taking a portion of my wealth from me to redistribute in the "proper" fashion, to insure the same level of health care, for everybody. I know I was out voted back in November. Majority rules. My views have little voice for the next two years. And I have a healthy regard for the wisdom of my fellow citizens. I can be wrong, I can be out voted, and I will in any case, still respect my President, follow the laws my congress passes, and live with the resulting changes to my life and the lives of those around me. And "I told you so" won't do much good for anyone, once the laws are put into motion. The time for opposition is before the law is passed, the time for incredulity is now. The outburst was not out of place. Regards, TAR

iNow, "Your logic is broken. However, again, this thread is not about the existence of god, but about the existence of our beliefs in god." Important here to consider, is what one person's concept of God is, as compared to another person's visualization of the thought of God that that person is entertaining. You sensed, by the thoughts posted, what image of God, the poster might be entertaining. And where the poster's reasoning was faulty. You could not have had this understanding, without having already have conceptualized and tested against reality, some image of a creator type entity. (a test which I am projecting, failed in your mind in much the same way as it failed in mine.) The point I am trying to get to, is that the attributes assigned by one mind to an entity that created everything we know, may not be the same attributes assigned in another mind. And often, if not always, when such an entity is considered, it is considered in a figurative fashion. What I mean is that whatever attributes are assigned, are being assigned in your imagination. Any literal, related claims can easily be checked against reality, by peer review, by observation, by science, by logic and reason. So we each are in possession of an ability, to imagine, what another human is imagining. We can realistically deal with entities that two of us, imagine in the same way. We can both imagine the same pink unicorn, and as long as we each attribute the same characteristics to it, it is real to both of us. Let's imagine that it is eating grass in our backyard. Well wait, if I look out my window and were to see it, and you look out your window and were to see it, then, since we live in different places, it couldn't be the same pink unicorn, there would have to be two, or perhaps the one has the ability to be two places at once. Let's look out the window...no unicorn of any sort...maybe there is just the one we are both imagining, but its eating grass in Indiana. Let’s check with the Indiana state police, we will put out an APB...no unicorn, hum, maybe it’s in some remote field in Canada and nobody is close enough to see it, or it lives on Planet Zork. We still both have the exact same image, of the exact same Pink Unicorn, eating grass in a field somewhere. We just don't know where the field is. Maybe it is just an image we both have in our imaginations. There are very large number of concepts that humans have, that are imaginary concepts, that don't "really" exist anywhere, except by consensus, and mutual acknowledgement. The border between Canada and the US exists for humans, and there are actual fences some places, but most places on the border can be crossed by fish and/or birds, which have eyes and ears, and they would see nothing there. Even a human with no political map, and GPS, could cross with no way to sense that they actually did. I envision a "common consciousness", the sum total of all the thoughts we have shared and brought into reality through technology, literature, science, religion, philosophy, buildings, roads, ships, works of art, laws, morals, cultures and nations. All the things we have established, and maintained, real to any one of us, totaled together to be imagined as one common mind. But it doesn't exist. There is no "common mind" that sits in a room in Chicago, and thinks. It is just a concept. But it is a concept that another human could easily, realistically imagine. Regards, TAR

Spyman, Thanks. Read the links and portions of the links in the links. Martin's angular size thread, and so on. Was particularly taken by the diagrams that plotted space and our observation line. Like the one at http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_02.htm#DT "if we plot exactly the same space-time in the special relativistic x and t coordinates we get:" (found about half way through the article) "The distance covered by a photon, through space, during 13.73 billion years is 13.73 billion lightyears. The distance changes like the rubber band analogy in post #47." Well sounds right, but I think that only works if you are looking at it from the photons perspective. When the photon reaches us, it tells us a different story, cause we know it lost energy during the trip, by measuring its redshift. Now light doesn't get tired so it has to be telling us something about the distance it has traveled, combined with the relative motion of the atom that emitted it, to an observer (not us now) located at our position in the universe then. Now the observer, then, does not actually observe the photon till 13.73 bilion years later, from the moment of the emission. And regardless of the recession speed of the atom, then, the photon is immediately on its own, travelling through an expanding space for 13.73 billion years to reach the observer. It therefore has to have traveled through more than 13.73 billion lys of space to reach the observer. Its energy has been stretched out over that distance. It has been calculated to a scale factor of 1200 or something like that. So we observe the scale factor and attribute it to the expansion of space. But I think it is important to note that the "velocity away" is a number contrived after the fact, that includes the effects that exanding space had on the state in which the photon would arrive at the observer. Hence I believe that the redshift observed is a combination of velocity away, then, and the effects of expanding space on the photon we observe. In any case, when considering observing the surface of the last scattering, one has to consider that they are seeing a photon emitted from an atom, that is in a region of space, that a milky way observer, has never before today received a photon from. It is the "first light" from that 379,000 year old region of space. Hence if that light is observed at Z=1000, there should be photons arriving from Z=999,998,997...each emitted from a successively older and closer shell of our visible universe. Each increasing smaller spherical shell representing a smaller and smaller percentage of the atoms in the visible universe. The blackbody spectrum of the sum of the photons coming from each shell, should be evident, at smaller and smaller wavelengths, as closer and older shells are observed and studied, the blackbody spectrum, peaking at higher and higher frequencies in the microwave...infrared, and closest and oldest shells in the visible wavelengths. This picture, I believe is consistant with current theory and observation. What seems to me, to be missing from the liturature is observations of all the stuff in the shells farther away, and younger, than Z=5 or 6 or so. Consequences of the fact that we can see Z=6 and z=1000, are that we can also see Z=100 and Z=822 and so on. Z=822 being a spherical shell of our visible universe, much more massive and distant and younger, than the shell we see at Z=2, and also much less massive, and closer and older, than the shell we see at z=1000. Regards, TAR

iNow, "The intent of this thread is to explain, via evolutionary processes, why so many people believe in deities and why so many people are religious." The OP video presenter, used the idea that religion hijacks genetically predisposed facilities meant for other survival related things. I don't doubt the findings of certain areas of the brain lighting up with certain kinds of thoughts, nor the notion that we have wiring that has been redirected (hijacked) for uses other than the initial problem solving use. But I put it together in a slightly different way. Looking at the map of religions of the world, one can easily picture the influence of Moses, Christ, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Confucius and their subsequent followers, laws, political systems, armies, societies and cultures. Philosophers all, who hijacked the authority of reality to forward their philosophy and societal rules. (I have read the Bible, old and new testament, the Koran a couple times, was brought up Presbyterian, and read some Tao stuff. I have visited the Mayan temples, and learned about the Dogon and Egyptian religions. I had a long talk with God one night in bed when I was 13 and understood him, I "felt" the love of Jesus in the air when I was 18. In college where I took Philosophy, I read about the thoughts of many a mind, and decided upon my definition of God, which was "that which is beyond our understanding." As a 24 year old serviceman on a hilltop in (peacetime) Germany for a month I had a "revelation" of sorts where I understood the nature of treeness from beginning to end, and hence life on this planet, and the way life has grabbed hold of form and structure and passed the pattern on for a fleeting instant in the enormity of a universe tending toward entropy.) So, religous beliefs, to me, are a combination of our personal relationship with the universe, and the teachings of philosphers that usurp the power and authority of the universe and use it, as their own, to establish an authoritative and legitimized political power. This is mostly done to unify the particular set of believers, and cause them to work together, take care of each other, and make sacrifices in the name of the universe, and truth, for the leadership and the set of rules and morals that the group holds dear. Now this is not bad, its good, and promotes the survival of the group, and all its members over individual selfish considerations, and hence has survival value, and might be woven in some manner into adaptive problem solving evolution theory. But that is not the way I look at it. To me, it is, what it appears to be. Philosophy, based on reality, used to substantiate, the adherence to the insights of a Philosophy that solves human problems. Whatever wiring we have that would naturally allow us to visualize and listen to the thinking of our parents, and think of them quite truely as our creators and protectors and teachers (our authority) combined with our "gap filling" ability would naturally allow us to visualize, maybe even require, an authority that our parents must rely on. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedP.S. Forgot to mention Buddah. P.P.S According to Wiki;"Hinduism is formed of diverse traditions and has no single founder.[8]" So, I suppose my suggestion about Philosophers is not such a clean explanation. Except, Krishna does gives us a nice half diety, half person, to inspect. He can be either literal or figurative. We can respect the authority of his teachings, AND know we made him up.

Spyman, I had read that the observable universe is 2% larger than the visible universe by virture of the fact that gravity could be felt, earlier than light could been seen, in a time period just before the last scattering. What do scientists think the expansion rate of the universe was, at 379,000 years old? Do we have some guesses as to how the expansion rate changed from then to now? (to get us from that size, to our current size) How big (degree, or minute or secondwise) would the Milkyway look at various distances, say 1 billion lys, 4 billion light years, 10 billion lys, 20 billion lys, and 50 billion lys? If light travels for 13.73 billion years, through space, that in that time expands to 1200 times its original size, how much distance has that photon covered? How does that distance change according to the rate of expansion during different phases of the photon's trip? Regards, TAR

iNow, Yes, thanks. I read a bit, and it sounds interesting. My computer seems to have some purposes of its own, and is not paying close attention to what I am trying to do, hence I didn't get too far through the first speaker due to slow, interrupted download. You have a lot there and a number of links, and its 3am here. I have to pick it up tommorrow after work. I will say though that I am going into it a bit biased. I am not convinced that this compartmentalized approach, with this modality and that, is going to turn out to be the most accurate way to understand the whole deal. I'm thinking our thinking is a bit more holistic than that. And I get a feeling that scientist studying this stuff think they can be more objective than is humanly possible. We are what we study, and my personal bias says that the agency we see in the world around us is not so unhuman as they think, in that our human agency and purpose, is an outgrowth of the agency embedded in all matter and life that has found ways to reproduce its pattern. But more later, after I finish your thread. Regards, TAR

JohnB, I don't think we ever have to worry about getting bored. Figuring something out, and having a solid model to match reality against, is a victory, and a completion of a sort, but a very valuable one that sets the stage, for the next step, which makes it a beginning of the next pursuit, which is undertaken with more knowledge, and down one or more of the myriad of paths, the new knowledge has opened up. We tend to take a lot of things for granted, without realizing or thinking about all the people, all the insights, all the effort, that caused those things to be. Pick just about anything around you right now (man made) and consider the long chain of human effort and knowledge it took, to get that thing into it's present useful form. Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Biology, probably all the sciences, were utilized, and as such, all the work that was done in all the fields by all the people, down through history, was done in small part, for you. Together mankind, found the mines and built the tools to dig out the right stuff, put it together and ship it to your neighborhood. Every step involved, was similarily dependent on all the victories that came before it. The gear in the truck, the asphalt in the road, the match that lit the dyamite that blasted the hill that the road ran through, each with its history of human effort and the application of scientific knowledge, passed along, giving us ever increasing ability to manipulate our world and open new doors for our generation, and the next. I don't think we will ever get bored of it. It's too big, and too long lived, to ever run out. On another thread I am trying to build a model in my head, that makes sense (to me) concerning the nature of the universe. What it looked like 13.73 billion years ago from this region, what it looks like now, and what we are looking at, when we see it. Funny thing is, I am dealing with strings of galaxies in between voids like froth between clay balls, that I might be able to build a mental model with that would contain the entire visible universe. I forget that one of those little dots in the froth, is the Milky Way Galaxy which, by itself is so huge that LIGHT, which flashes around here, faster than fast can be, would take 4,000 human generations to cross from one end to the other. That's your kid's, kids, and their kids, and their kids and 3,994 more generations. Seems that even if we learn a way to reach Alpha Centauri, we will still have a whole lot of playgound left to explore, before we exhaust the wonders, even in our immediate neighborhood. Yes, reality won't ever be exhausted. Not by us humans. We can build a realistic globe, but that still leaves a lot of places on the Earth, that no human has ever stood. I would bet that I could find a small patch of forest within 20 miles of my home, that no human has explored in 100 years. Of course I might be lost, at that point, with no trails to follow back to the road. Hopefully that pack of wolves that raised my earlier example would look after me. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJillSwift, Scientifically speaking, I believe it's been proven, that much of our perception involves "filling in the gaps." We look for patterns, we think in patterns, and just a few dots and lines in the proper relationship to each other, can suggest a human form, or a face, cause we fill in the gaps. We see "the man in the moon" when we are actually looking at crater shadows and such. I don't think, that you should think that "filling in the gaps" with speculation is a bad thing. In fact, it may well be, exactly how we think, and why we are capable of what we are capable of. It may be a very important part of what us thinking humans are. In fact, I would be willing to say, that any scientist, that thought they could think, without "filling in the gaps" with speculation, would be thinking that they had a way to think, in an unhuman fashion, which would be rather impossible, considering that they are humans. That being said, I would like to suggest a bridge between religion and science. A bridge I have built for myself, having had as you had, an early religious upbringing and a subsequent reasoned abandonment of early beliefs. Mindless superstitions, and pointless rituals, seemingly abound in the human population. But I have come to the conclusion that they might not be as mindless and pointless as they appear. Some people "find" religion later in life, like the "born again" Christians. Others, like you and me, have it at first, and later discover it is not true. But consider this. Of a congregation, in any church or mosque or sinagoge, or shrine, there are young and old, learned and unaware, strong believers and those of shaken faith. The tenets of any religion are often modified and evolve over time with the society that practices the religion. And those who go to gatherings go for many reasons, some of them social, some political, some economic, some psychological, some emotional and some of them, actually having to do with ones relationship with objective reality, or truth, or the universe, or God. We as a race have been trying to figure this thing out, since we first had words in our heads. A lot of good insights, have been had along the way, and shared with others. We have built societies, where individuals care about each other, protect each other, share with each other, teach each other, and we have established laws and rules, and morals, and institutions that live on, beyond the years of any individual human. So take all the false imagery from each religion, and you are left with the same reality, that each is describing in their own fashion. You are left with the exact same reality that you and I are of and in. And both you and I know we are part of something that existed before we were born, and will continue after we die. And every conscious human knows the same thing. So hence my bridge. Reality is true, we are real, we are conscious of reality BECAUSE of our individual human mortal perspectives. Whatever ways we develop to share our consciousness with other humans, whatever ways we develop to maintain and enjoy our consciousness and make it possible for others to maintain and enjoy it and continue to maintain and enjoy it after we die, are good ways. Where it takes science, we use science. Where it takes "filling in the gaps" we'll use cosmic turtles, angels, Santa Clause and other figurative made up stuff. We're still talking about the same thing. Regards, TAR

Spyman, Well then, how come we are just seeing the surface of the last scattering now, coming from so far away, in all directions? Yes I know, inflation. The photons started out, coming toward us at the speed of light, but were not making any progress, and were actually getting farther away as space was expanding so fast that the distance between the photon and us was actually increasing. Fine, I can accept that, seems reasonable, seems real, seems true. But the number of galaxies in the universe seems to have been carefully figured out to be 80 billion galaxies. 80 billion, in an infinite universe, would make no sense, so the number must be either 80 billion in the observable universe, 80 billion in the visible universe, or 80 billion in a finite universe that we are able to see the photons from a certain percent of. Do you know which the 80 billion is referring to? Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI see it says observable, but I am trying to subtract the 2% to get visible, and I am not sure what to take the 2% from.

Forufes, "what i'm trying to say is, truth doesn't follow science, science follows truth(and you can substitute "reality" for "truth")" But when it comes to saying what is real, and what is true, science has the best approach. A single human, born in the woods, raised by wolfs would certainly be able, to by himself/herself experience reality, and by himself/herself determine what is real, and what is true. You have to run to catch a meal, it gets cold periodically and hot, certain places and things and creatures are dangerous, others good to eat, a big hot bright thing appears sometimes in the sky, etc. etc. But he doesn't have any words for these things, other than wolf body language, grunts and howls. He might learn the things the pack knows, which were probably learned by trial and error, by watching and imitating them. Maybe he howls at the moon because he is sad that the hot thing isn't giving him any warmth. He would probably be better able to plan his day, and arrange his activities, if he had a little science. If he knew a bit more truth about reality. If he knew when the seasons would change, when the night would come, if he knew how to locate and form materials with certain properties into tools and clothes and structures and traps and weapons and such. Takes a lot of trial and error to figure that all out. It is good that the people before and around us are taking the time to experiment and figure out, exactly what is going on in reality, writing it down, checking it against everybody elses information, and advancing the total knowledge, the amount of truth, that the human race has access to. Regards, TAR P.S. Reality would not let him continue living in such a state.(the cracked skull guy with no brain.)

JillSwift, I find it hard as well (to say "I dont know"). I like to think that it does though make sense, and fit together in some way. It sort of has to. And as such, the possibility exists that someone else does know, or at least has a better, more realistic explaination of those things I don't understand. And even if something has never been figured out, and written down, or shared with other humans, I still imagine the possibility that someone else, has put the right 2 and 2 together, to grasp the truth of a given situation. And even if the sum total of all knowledge, however gleaned, from the beginning of life on this planet, until now, falls short of explaining certain real things, I still hold open the hope, and the possibility, that at some point, someone, or some group of somebodies, will figure it out. The exact conditions of my ghost experience cannot be restaged, but others have had unexplained, but real experiences along the same lines. As the evidence mounts, concerning what is and isn't present, in similar experiences, there will probably come a point at which most reasonable people would agree upon what it is that really is happening in those similar type situations. I do not rule out far fetched explanations. Just unreal explainations. If there is no real mechanism, that fits in with the rest of reality, then it just ain't real. It just ain't true, it just doesn't explain it. For instance.(far fetched.) Perhaps humans have the ability to sense the imprint of other humans on a location where a human has passed. Indian trackers can glean such info from disturbed leaves, and subtle imprints in moss and such. Humans leave a scent, obvious to dogs, but perhaps slightly perceptible to other humans as well. The vibrations of a human voice can leave an imprint on vinyl if the vibrations vibrate a needle pressed against it, and can be "heard" again if the needle is allowed to ride along the same track, and repeat the exact vibrations. What other things in our surroundings are imprinted with the photons, chemicals and vibrations, eminating from or reflected off our being? However we effect reality, does not ever really have a way to be erased. It does not seem to be reality's way. Reality just seems to absorb it, and incorporate it, into what is. Far fetched, but not unrealistic, that humans can experience another human, even after they are dead. As a strange example. My mother, as she was a week away from dying of cancer, signed a series of birthday cards, with her weakened scrawl, and gave my sister her small savings, with the understanding that my sister would mail them with included bills, at the appropriate times. Rather strange for my daughters to receive birthday wishes for years after, from their departed Grandmother, but there was no doubt that they were indeed from her.(with some assistance from my sister and the post office.) But her imprint was truely experienced. Regards, TAR P.S. Random thought. When the relected photons off your body reach the eyes of your neighbor, he/she sees you, you are real, and alive. Other photons reach other eyes, farther away. Maybe a photon or two gathered carefully by a device on Alpha Centauri will announce your presence in reality today, 4.3 years from now. Or what you were up to 4.3 years ago is real, NOW (minds eye view of universal now) on Alpha Centauri. Far enough away, and you are just being born. Or an observer at the proper distance, could just NOW (universal now, again) be witnessing the day on Earth that my mom signed the cards.

JillSwift, "Science as a method isn't interchangeable with "truth". It's how we discover truth." Okay, you can't use the words interchangably, they each have their own meaning, however I will stick to the idea that reality is true, and science is a rather good way to discover the truth. And I fully accept your other points as to the truth and reality of experience, and the limitations of applying scientific method on past events where all the contributing factors are no longer present to study. But even still, certain scientifically based explainations can be made in retrospect. I continually attempt to find the real explaination for my one "saw a ghost" experience. Mass hypnosis, embellishing my memory based on other recounts of the events, adjusting my memory of the events based on later obtained information, my minds attempts to justify emotions and actions at the time, etc. etc.. I even explore the possibility that ghosts are real somethings and we trick ourselves into NOT experiencing them, and discount their existence because otherwise we would have to deal with them, and the consequences of their presence, which we may have already decided was unuseful or undesirable. I don't "believe" in ghosts, they have no known mechanisms within/which to operate under and exist. However I have an image of a man standing in a location where a man of that description would probably not have been standing, and the knowledge that a man of that description once did exist, and in fact hung himself at that location. I could easily attribute the image to suggestion and imagination, if I had known about the way the man dressed, and that he hung himself at that spot, before I obtained the image of him standing there. However I had the experience first and gained the knowledge latter. I suppose there is a good possibility that I superimposed the image of the man standing there, on my memory of the day, in the years after the incident, and if I could remember the actual "turning of the corner" without any post-concieved notions, I might not have seen anybody standing there at all. In reality, we may just all have been feeding off of each other's apprehensions and discomfort, decided it would be better to leave, tightened the distributor cap, and left. Later, we embellished and justified, after learning a man had commited suicide at the place. Regards, TAR