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

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iNow,

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

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P.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

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JillSwift,

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

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I 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

ut still, the question is "have you experienced something that science cannot explain?"

And here, after JillSwift's added insight, the question is not if scientists, or our current accumulation of the facts, can explain it. The question is, "have you experienced something that science cannot explain?"

And as such, any experience would have to fall into two basic catagories. Real and imagined. Considering as well, that elements of each, were involved in the experience.

Unsticking the real from the imagined is not easy for a human, considering that most of our thoughts are occurring inside our brain, where, in a sense, everything is imagined, built upon analogues of the external world, gathered by our senses, and our subsequent fitting together of the constant inflow of images.

Unsticking is hard, but not impossible. Hence with peer review, and experimentation, measurement, and repeatability, the facts can be separated from the falsehoods. The real can be separated from the imagined.

And it follows, that if it is real, then it is true and can be explained by science, which only deals with that which is true.

Hence one cannot have an experience which is not explainable by science.

The experience could have been partially illusion, misinterpreted, misremembered, partially imagined, or the experiencer could have been "fooled" in a myriad of ways, but the real parts of it, are explainable by science. And since it is also true, that we as experiencers are subject to the limitations and characteristics of our senses and brain and emotions, then the imagined portion of the experience can be explained by truth, as well.

Therefore reality and truth and science can be probably each be used interchangably, and the question becomes "have you ever experienced anything that wasn't true?" Or have you ever experienced anything that wasn't real?".

Regards, TAR

JillSwift,

"Science is a method - an epistemology. It is not the accumulated information."

Thank you, for that insight. And your post. Very nice.

It redirected my thinking a bit. I had been forming a false opinion of science, where I was drawing analogies between science and religion, viewing large bodies of accumulated information as dogmas, that scientists "believed" in. Falsely thinking that scientists were merely replacing the idea of God (or gods) with the belief in the objective view of "Science". Worshipping the atom, and math, so to speak.

This I see now, is not the case. Science has more to do with entertaining ideas and models that fit the facts. Good ideas fit reality and are entertained and improved upon. Bad ideas, are quickly debunked and discarded, cause they just don't fit reality. And as you point out, even widely held ideas are modified and corrected to fit new information about the real world, as it becomes available. Where there is cognitive dissonace, efforts are made to identify the irregularity and make the tie-in, that fits all the facts, and relates the facts that appear to be in conflict.

Reality can be surprising, fantastic, huge, tiny, fleetingly instantaneous, or immensely durable, but never wrong. And finding the truth, is what science does.

Regards, TAR

Spyman,

But, after a hundred seconds the ant is more than 100cm from your hand. After a billion seconds it will be much more than a billion cm from your hand. My question is not how long it would take the ant, at this point, to turn around and come back. My question pertains to the marks we made on the rubber band before we starting stretching it. After a billion seconds, the ant is at one of those marks, one of those regions in space. If we would take note of that mark, and repeat the experiment, this time placing a second ant at that mark, and point him/her/it toward our hand and begin the stretching again, the second ant would arrive at our hand, at exactly the same moment as the first ant reached the mark.

Regards, TAR

dr.syntax,

I have one. Although I probably don't qualify as a scientist.

18 years old, in Pennsylvanian farmland, living with my cousins, my female cousin was housesitting while the owners were away at a home a couple miles away. She came home a bit shaken, saying that while she was feeding the animals in the kitchen, she heard the piano playing in the livingroom, went in and saw no one there. She was alone (other than the animals) in the house. Over the next couple days, she returned with stories of furniture being moved, SEEING someone at the piano and got to the point were she was afraid to return again to the house alone. A number of us brave, scientific minded 18 year olds accompanied her to the house, a few of us waited by the car, as others escorted her into the house to take care of the animals. They came out with an urgent need to leave, we piled into the station wagon, and it failed to start. We noticed at that point a rag doll on the hood of the car. (A car I had been leaning against, talking to a companion, and smoking a cigarette, while they were inside.) We opened the hood, and found the distributor cap completely off the distributor, laying upside down on the engine. We reattached it, started the car and left down the long driveway. Standing next to the end of the driveway as we turned on to the road, was a man dressed all in white, with a white brimmed hat, like a southern gentleman. This was not normal. No one like that lived around there and it was not an area where strange pedestrians would be. And he did not give me the impression that he was normal, he gave me only the impression that he did not welcome our presence.

In the following days, as we were trying to make sense of things and ascertain the identity of the man, an much earlier incident in a farmhouse a half a mile from our farm in the other direction came to light. A visitor, sleeping on the couch in the livingroom, woke in the early morning to see a man, dressed all in white, with a brimmed hat, walk down the stairs, silent, not responding to the visitor's "hello", through the kitchen, and out the back door, and across the field. (toward our farm.) When the visitor asked the owners about the man, they said "what man", the only bedroom upstairs, was theirs, and there had certainly been no man in there with them.

Further inquiries were made, the owners of the house that my cousin was taking care of returned, and history was investigated and shared. Turned out a man, who dressed often, all in white, had once actually lived in the second farmhouse, and had latter moved to the house my cousin took care of, and had hung himself from the lamp post at the end of his driveway.

Regards, TAR

Thread,

Another aspect to human perception that we might want to inspect, is the importance of convention. What I mean, in reference to telepathy, is that there might be certain "abilities" that we have, that have been downplayed, purposefully, throughout our individual lives, and society's history, to enhance our social success, and our "sanity".

When we walk, inadvertantly, in on someone dressing, we avert our eyes, turn around, close the door, and apologize.

Perhaps, if there IS some real way that minds have, to communicate with each other, we have learned to avert our whatever, when appropriate. And it may be appropriate, to engage in such aversion, most of the time. After all, we know when not to listen to certain conversations, and we know when not to speak. If there is a real mechanism, that allows for communication between humans that is not audible or visible, it could well operate within some similar parameters as talking and signaling, in that mutual consent and common language have to be present.

In communicating with speech, the one's mouth has to be opened and the other's ears.

The sound waves have to be modulated in the right manner to form a language, words, that have an agreed upon, common meaning. Same with signals, the signs have to be made by the one, and properly interpreted by the other.

When I was very young, I'm told I would talk jibberish to my older sister, which was perfectly understandable to her, and merely jibberish to everybody else. For instance, even later, at the age of 4, my word for "shovel" was "yadee" ('cause I had trouble pronouncing "sh".) (maybe a word I carried over from my earlier vocabulary.)

Point being, that talking, though scientifically proven to be an actual form of human thought transferrence, only works when somebody is putting a thought into words, and somebody else is listening who understands the language. "Telepathy" if it exists as a real thing, could be subject to analogous barriers to communication that speech is subject to. The speaker can be silent, fibbing, whispering, shouting, talking jibberish, talking nonsense, misleading, relaying misinformation, joking, not being able to find the right words, talking in an unknown language, using specialized terminology or shorthand, to far away, muffled, or drowned out by other sounds. The listener could be deaf, not paying attention, listening to something else, unaware that they are being addressed, unknowledgable of the language being used, not familiar with the subject matter, not aware of the depth of meaning behind a word or reference, or simply not interested in hearing what the other has to say.

And perhaps we have learned to discount certain perceptions as figments of our imagination, that don't conform with societal norms.

Just a thought.

Regards, TAR

Spyman,

I just thought you knew the calculator wouldn't take us back to the last scattering, and you were giving me an idea of what kind of speeds away, and distances we were talking about at 400,000,000 years. Still learned some stuff, but don't really trust the calculator, cause I don't know if its talking about what I think its talking about.

For instance.

"Closest I can get with the calculator, are with Hubble=970 and z=1.7, that takes us back to the age of 1.0 billion years and the larges distance light was able to reach us from, at that time, was 0.42 billions lightyears."

In a billion years, light can travel 1 billion light years, so why couldn't light from 1 billion lys away reach us? Can never figure out, which people are talking about...how far the object was...how far the image traveled...length measured Then...length measured Now...length measured in a variable fashion, taking into consideration that space was stretching as light was traveling through it...?

In the reading and picture, model looking at, that I have been doing over my lifetime, and more intensely in the last month or two, I am never sure, what has been taken into account, what assumptions are being made, and what is left to figure out.

A few of the big issues I have.

People talk about the universe Now, as this web of interlaced clumps and strings and walls of galaxies stretching out forever in all directions. There is no perspective in the universe, that would see this picture, other than a human's mind's eye model. There is nothing "real" about this model. There is no impact, that a 13.73billion year old galaxy, 45 billion lys away, would have on us, now, and no place in the universe, where our galaxy, and that galaxy could be seen, both, as they are, today. The impact that that galaxy has on us today, is the photons and gravity that are reaching us today, from that region of space. What stage of development that region of space was at, and how long the light and gravity eminating from it, that are affecting our present, have traveled, are the important questions. The causal connection. The photons and the gravity that are striking our world, now, that is what we see, that is what we feel, that is what we observe, that is what is creating and affecting our reality.

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, is talked about, as leftover heat from the big bang. It is understood, but not often mentioned that the regions of space eminating this radiation are the same regions of space that Now, in the minds eye model of the current universe, are housing 13.73billion year old Galaxies or strings of Galaxies, 45 billion light years away. The photons and gravity from those regions of space are only in reality, affecting our reality in one way, from one perspective. Our perspective, now.

Not that models of the entire universe, at different stages of its development, can not be imagined. But that our real universe consists of all the photons and gravity, that are reaching us today. Other perspectives are imaginary in nature, and subject to imaginary errors, introduced when all the facts are not known or properly integrated into the picture. The truest picture is the one we (and our instruments) see and feel. It can not lie, it cannot be wrong, and it is sure to fit exactly with reality.

I am often confused by pictures and models that are presented to me, because I do not know what has been assumed, what imagined perspective has been taken, what things have been enhanced, subtracted or added, or figured out for me in advance.

For instance. Pictures of deep field objects are often colorized, using schemes to bring infrared or ultraviolet info into the visible spectrum. Pictures of deep field objects are often pieced together, over hours or days, one photon at a time. The resulting image is not a "real" image. That is to say, that you can not look at it, and draw useful conclusions from it, concerning the way those regions of space actually are affecting us, now. You have to be able to subtract everything that was added, add everything that was subtracted, slow down everything that was speeded up, and speed up everything that was slowed down, and comprehend and agree with all the assumptions that were made, to put the image together.

And often in models and descriptions, a few dimensions have been manipulated in one manner or another, to make things easier to visualize, or to fit onto a two dimensional media.

I am not complaining. I am not saying that the work already done for me in presenting pictures and models, is not welcomed. I am just mentioning why I am often confused, not knowing what has already been done, and is already known, and what is left to do, notice, fit together, and discover.

Regards, TAR

Spyman,

Thanks. I tried it. Got 3.66Billion lyrs. But am not clear on what that is telling me.

Regards, TAR

Spyman,

"The gravity wave that reached our area earlier, doesn't stick around any more than light does, it continues outward."

Thanks for that. I think that was my problem, I had gravity sort of sticking around, or building up, or something. I am not quite sure, what I was doing, but I am more better now.

Regards, TAR

PS Thanks for helping me along. I still am adding things up and coming up a bit short or long, but nothing that probably won't work out when I see it right.

Merged post follows:

Spyman,

Need your help again.

If the visible universe is figured to contain around 80 billion galaxies and it is a sphere that is 95 billion ly in diameter now, and was 84 million ly in diameter at the time of the last scattering, how do we visualize, from the minds eye, the matter of those 80 billion galaxies, in the 380,000 year old uninverse?

I thought I might figure that early universe about 5,400 galaxies in diameter.

(4/3 times pi times 2700 cubed=82,447,957,600.)

However, dividing the diameter of that early universe (84million lys) by 5,400, I get regions of space containing a galaxy worth of matter, 15,555 ly wide. Meaning in my imagination, that the matter of the milkyway should have been causally connected by photons by year, lets say 396,000 or so with only 2,699 galaxies worth, to go, to the edge of the milkyway centered visible universe.

Can I proceed in this manner?

Regards, TAR

Swansont,

"But what would this be, and how could we not notice? Interactions involve the exchange of energy, and the basis of all of the exchanges are atomic/molecular interactions."

Gravaton frequency shift? Neutrino density variations? Tachyon intensity variation? Faint infrared echos?

Who knows? (yet)

How do women know when men are staring at their figure?

Why do all heads turn when certain people walk into a room?

Why do some people have a "commanding" presence?

How do I know that Mooeypoo will accuse me of shifting the goal posts? (Other than, that I am.)

Fact is, as an earlier post, (forgot whose,) pointed out, the skull is not isolated from the rest of reality.

The brain is connected by nerves and vessels and structures to the rest of the body. The body is normally touching the ground, and can sense the vibration of an unseen passing truck. If its Wenesday at 6:30 there is a good chance its the garbage truck.

Of the mass of photons that strike our body every second, we are accutely aware of those that strike our eyes, are focused by lenses on the back of our eyeballs where the frequencies of the photons cause certain cones to fire pulses and certain rods respond to the intensity or amount of photons. As a baby, seeing our first sights, the world actually appears upside down, backward, and we see two images of it, and its probably quite a blur of color and light. Eventually we learn to focus, to discern near from far, identify shapes and colors, learn, in combination with info from our inner ear, what is up and down. This attention we pay to, and the information we glean about the world from our eyes, does not stop photons from hitting the rest of our body, does not stop our hand from feeling infrared heat, or our back from getting sunburnt.

Often in reading about telepathy, I see the term "tuning in" or read suggestions that emotions are easier to "transmit" than shapes. What, of the plethora of particles, vibrations, frequencies, and waves that reach a human, can a human focus on, to determine which and what is an indication of another human's effect on reality? What effects on reality does a human's emotions have, that is "louder" than the thought of a circle?

Subtle subconcious differences in our environment can give us information we don't even realize we are getting. Pheromones in the air, upside down distorted reflections off the little bumps on the plastic ceiling tile covering the turned off fluoresent bulb fixture, the gurgling of a stomach 3 yards away, the slight sound of a heartbeat or a breath.

Depends on what you are focused on, and how you have learned to interpret the patterns.

I do not think that telepathy, as defined, is logical. As soon as telepathy claims to be capable of transmitting thoughts in some unreal, paranormal way, it goes the way of prayer, in being unreal, illogical, magical, and nothing more than imagination. It has repeatedly failed to prove itself as a real phenomena.

However, there are many real ways, known, and yet to be discovered, that one human can know, or a least make a good guess, at what might be going on in another person's mind. After all, about a hundred percent of humans are actually human, endowed with the same set of bodily features, the same kind of brain, the same set of senses, and in many cases a similar set of stimuli, common history and symbol systems.

Regards, TAR

String Junky,

"It is my opinion that much of this desire for paranormal phenomena to exist and the idea of spiritual selves etc stems from a deep dissatisfaction with what we have, what we know and our impending mortality ie ...there's GOT to be more than this. They appear to be symptoms of over- imaginative desperation."

I hold a similar opinion, but color it slightly with a few assumptions. One, that none of us humans are immune and some form of speculative imagination is bound to seep into the thinking of even the most "objective" among us. And two, that there is only one reality, that we all share, that fits together exactly right, with no exceptions. And three, each of us has a fantastically integrated ability to internalize the external reality we are part of, remember it, and imagine it, at all different scales, and from all different perspectives(even scales and perspectives that defy our actual ability to acheive such a perch in reality.)

Regards, TAR