Owner: Reflections, Ideas, and Dreams URL:http://blog.gravityatwork.com Join Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:48:53 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Reflections in science and its interplay with society: climate, the environment, astrobiology, natural history, evolution, spirituality, mathematics, and philosophical musings. Site statistics:Click here
Dead Philosopher's Society 2007-03-28 17:57:27 Two observations after much discussion:1) It is convenient to assume democratic reality--that is, collective reality is defined by the experiences of the majority.2) Each person should walk the path of maximum experience. This is beneficial for the community at large. Read more:Philosopher
, Society
Illiterate Longevity 2007-03-27 23:20:58 A follow-up to Faith Without WordsBooks are to memes what chromosomes are to genes.One advantage of the written word is that it allows inconsistencies in thought to persist longer, perhaps indefinitely. If a certain line of thinking (a religious tradition, for example) leads to self-contradiction, oral tradition will eventually identify and rectify the conflict--perhaps by shifting to a new paradigm. This is because there is no tangible authoritative truth statement in oral tradition; the exploration of an idea proceeds easier and converges toward a useful, working solution. This does not mean oral tradition is easily changed; it simply has a better response in reaching functional and consistent thought.With a written authority, this exploratory process is more difficult. When a self-contradiction is identified, there is not an easy way to bring about change--because the written authority itself is being challenged. Discussion always begins with the written source, often assuming the w Read more:Illiterate
Unnatural 2007-03-27 01:11:45 A cave carved by a river is natural and abiogenic.A bird's nest is natural and biogenic.A human-built shelter is natural and biogenic (and anthropogenic).A spiritual being that transcends the physical world is supernatural.Outside of the products of imagination, what, then, is unnatural?
Remember the Clue (18) - Storytelling 2007-03-26 05:31:47 Some stories in life have a definite beginning and ending, while others have nebulous boundaries. With the later, we often do not recognize that there even was a story--until we begin to tell it for the first time. Read more:Remember
Disaster Before Change? 2007-03-22 23:01:21 People often refrain from change until the status quo results in definite disaster. For example, a faulty structure may not be repaired until a passing storm destroys it, confirming the suspicions of instability, but too late for action.The concern over global climate change cannot be as relaxed, though. If nothing is changed and scientific predictions end up being accurate, then we're in serious trouble. There's no rebuilding after a storm in the case of catastrophic global climate change. On the other hand, if people do act globally to the point that threats are averted, no one will believe it! If we are successful in combating mesopogenic climate change, many people will believe climate change was a hoax to begin with.The Y2K scare is an excellent example of this. Many people today are still convinced that Y2K was a baseless scare without any significant consequences. In reality, government and industry spent tremendous amounts of time and money to fix critical systems in Read more:Disaster
, Change
Travel Reflections: The Third Temple 2007-03-21 18:05:01 Inspired by a recent comment in a previous entry.Religion is always fascinating, and this of course proved to be true during my visit to Jerusalem (2005). Every evening Hasidic Jews gathered prayed at the Wailing Wall; many of these prayers were for the restoration of the temple that had been destroyed by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago. This dedication extends beyond regular prayer, though: the blueprints and utensils (including an enormous golden menorah) for the Third Temple
are all complete. They are simply waiting for the Dome of the Rock to collapse.Many conservative Christians believe Judaism has been fulfilled with Christianity, but these people support the building of the Third Temple almost as much as the devout Hasidic Jews. By a strict interpretation, the New Testament book of Revelation requires the rebuilding of the Jewish temple before the second coming of Christ. So the conservative Christians are hoping for the same outcome as the Hasidic Jews--but for completely dif Read more:Travel
, Reflections
Community 2007-03-19 15:20:38 We are dependent on the community of life because we are members of this community. We do not transcend the community of life simply by being at the top of the food chain.
Food for Thought 2007-03-16 02:32:15 Why are we the only culture that treats food as a commodity to be bought and sold?
No Time to Look Back 2007-03-09 23:03:16 Sometimes I wish I had been born 50,000 years ago. But there's no time like the present.
2007.03.08 2007-03-09 06:35:21 That was a lot of fun.
Faith Without Words 2007-03-07 21:08:42 Spawned from comments in yesterday's post.I wonder if modern Christianity or Islam really could succeed in an illiterate society. Consider an isolated and illiterate people group. A single external missionary is allowed to evangelize to this group with any resources available (including holy texts for reference), but the missionary is not allowed to teach the people to read. The missionary continues until all the population (or a sufficient percentage) become converts, after which the missionary departs and the people remain in isolation.As time progressed, would oral tradition be sufficient to sustain the religious tradition so that it remains doctrinally consistent with the missionary's teachings? If a religion is genuinely a fundamental truth, then there should be a low risk of contamination to the point of contradiction. But at the same time, without a holy text as reference it would be difficult to measure any doctrinal drift. Read more:Faith
, Words
Salvation Through Literacy 2007-03-06 23:39:56 Many religions of the world use one or more holy texts as the source or confirmation of a divine message. The Bible and Qur'an, according to many traditions, are divinely inspired and contain the necessary information for attaining salvation.If a crucial divine message is contained in a book, then literacy is a prerequisite for salvation. Independent development of a writing system has occurred only three times in human history (Cuneiform, Maya hieroglyphs, and Linear B), and these developments took place late in human history, even after the Agricultural Revolution. Writing is clearly a human invention (and a recent one, at that), yet it would seem that certain divinely inspired messages require the ability to read. Books are certainly a convenient means of sharing information, and there is no reason books should not spread religious ideas as well as secular ones. But the idea of a holy text that forms the basis for a faith or religion is questionable, since it requires a human i Read more:Salvation
Minimalism 2007-03-06 05:25:34 Minimalist music is everywhere, though often by other names. Read more:Minimalism
Remember the Clue (17) - Impressions 2007-03-03 02:30:39 Some experiences make a lasting impression and create a memory. Other experiences are intense and short-lived and leave no memory. If we created memories of these events, they would cease to be significant. Read more:Remember
, Impressions
Language and Beyond 2007-03-01 20:46:24 Language reflects the way we think, but it does not necessarily constrain us from thinking in new ways. There is a problem, though, when trying to express a foreign idea in an unsuitable language. Languages evolve quite rapidly, so they are well-suited to express the most commonly held current worldview; implicit assumptions in a language thus make it difficult to formulate a new worldview into words.This does not mean that new ideas and new worldviews are never formed, of course, for paradigm shift has certainly occurred in the past. Part of the challenge of introducing new ideas is transcending the implicit language barrier of any human culture. Metaphor, simile, and storytelling are excellent vehicles for communicating ideas that are not easily framed in a culturally-dependent language. Conveying ideas via story is more difficult than direct expression, but sometimes direct expression is not possible.
The Extended Past 2007-02-27 23:08:11 Consider a given time interval divided into three equal parts A, B, and C. Suppose that from our current state of knowledge we can determine that one event occurred during A, five events occurred during B, and fifty events occurred during C. Other events happened during these times, but they are not easily identifiable or observable by our methods.Although A, B, and C each span the same amount of time, the differing number of events identified in each period will cause them to differ in perceived significance. Namely, C will appear to be the most important time period while A will seem to be the least important. Usually the reason for this discrepancy is that recent events are easier to recollect (or unearth, or discover in the geologic record, or observe through a telescope). It is useful to focus on the data and information we possess, but often the volume of information gives us a false impression of importance. Read more:Extended
Geologically Yours 2007-02-26 23:11:25 For some reason, I just can't get excited about rocks. I am very interested in what we can learn about Earth's history from the geologic record, but I have so far failed in my attempts at generating interest in actually studying rocks. At first I thought it might be an issue of timescales (since rocks don't "do" anything in an observable timescale), but this couldn't be it--after all, I did my undergraduate work in astrophysics, where the timescales are so large they sometimes become incomprehensible. Perhaps familiarity adds to this; I see rocks almost every day, but I only see a planetary nebula if I look through a telescope or find pictures other astronomers have already taken. Whatever the reason, I want to care about rocks, but I haven't been able to yet.Maybe the Death Valley field trip in two weeks will help change this. Or maybe I just don't have a geologist's heart. Read more:Yours
Monuments on Mars 2007-02-24 00:26:22 One of my favorite jokes, I figured it should be immortalized here.At some point in the future, humanity's exploitation of Earth's resources renders the planet completely devoid of any materials. The moon does not last long either, so the next logical choice is Mars.A Mars exploratory team is driving around the surface, searching for new mineral deposits, promising geologic features, and even signs of past life. As they turn a corner around a hill, the team gasps in amazement at what they see: in front of them is a tremendous, colossal, 50-story statue of a human-like figure sitting down. And even more amazing is that every single test they run on the statue indicates it is alive--yet the figure appears no more than a stone sculpture. All the great minds of the world begin to search for a solution to this paradox, but no successful theory emerges.One day, a young post-doc is pacing back and forth beneath the statue when he breaks down: "How can something like this exist? It j
Wrong Numbers 2007-02-22 19:03:53 Yesterday I came home to the following voice mail message: "Hi Luke, this is Dr. Rutter's office calling. We were wondering if we could switch your 11pm appointment tomorrow for 3pm. I'll assume this switch works for you, but please call us back to let us know." This confused me a bit, since my brother's name is Luke, but he is studying overseas and shouldn't have any appointments in the U.S. Nevertheless, I called him in Scotland and my mom in Minnesota just to make sure, but they were as clueless as I. This morning I called the office, just in case they really meant an appointment for myself; it turns out it was a completely wrong number, and by sheer coincidence the patient's name was Luke.Although this is a retrospective view, it seems unlikely for a wrong number to request the name of one of my immediate family members. How unlikely? I checked the U.S. Census Bureau's name database from the 1990 census (the database is not yet available for 2000) to f Read more:Wrong
, Numbers
The Stained Glass Window 2007-02-21 23:13:06 Once there were four men who stood beneath a stained glass window. Their backs were toward the window, though, so they never saw the glass--they could only see the light that passed through. As the sun rose, the men each saw a different color of light: red, yellow, blue, and green. The men argued with each other over what color the light was, each one believing the color he experienced was the one true color of the light.The men continued to argue as the sun rose higher and higher. As the sun climbed higher into the sky the light through the window also intensified, for the window was also a lens. The men argued over the true nature of the light, oblivious to the increasing heat. Soon the heat became too much, and all four men shriveled and died. Read more:Glass
, Window
Once Around the Sun 2007-02-20 19:45:43 Today marks the one year anniversary of this blog! In honor of this event, today's entry features a selection of my favorite posts.The Best Ash in TownThe End of God?I know why the caged CH4 singsFurry animals good, tubeworms badPeter Gibbons' Epic Journey630 Emoticons, Just for You!Monkey in the MirrorFavorable RelationsBaseball Stats: Cumulative Postseason Stochastic IndicatorConsumable HousesUsing a d20 to Estimate Any Rational ProbabilityOrigins of Science / Universal Free TimeCollecting MannaParables, Part VII"Anthropogenic" / The Natural Watchmaker / Natural Climate Change / MesopogenicThere are an infinite number of things you didn't think about today.
Threads of Free Will 2007-02-19 22:54:01 Most people like to think they have free will, and in light of quantum mechanics this may be true. That is, quantum mechanics is probabilistic instead of deterministic, so it is possible that a person's actions are not entirely determined by the previous physical and chemical state of their brain. Assuming we have free will, what exactly are we free to do? Free will is the non-determined selection of an action when presented with a choice. For example, a pedestrian who sees a car driving down a road can 1) wait to cross the road until the car has passed, or 2) hurriedly cross the road ahead of the car. Person X with free will can choose one of these two options and follow through with action. Person Y without free will reacts to the situation based on brain chemistry and deterministically selects one of the options.Regardless of free will, both X and Y have one thing in common: they had no control over their encounter with the car. Free will may provide the ability to choose a cou Read more:Threads
Perspective 2007-02-15 22:25:32 Let's condense the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth to 1 year.The rise of atmospheric oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic occurred around 6 months ago.The Cambrian Explosion took place about 1.5 months ago.The K-T extinction event (that killed the dinosaurs) was 5 days ago.Humans and human ancestors appeared about 7.5 hours ago.The Agricultural Revolution (and rise of civilization) took place one minute ago.It's interesting to consider how much importance we put on that last minute. Read more:Perspective
Soul with a Capital 'S' 2007-03-29 23:31:23 The notion of the individual soul has persisted since the Greek philosophers and is taken for granted by many (most?) people of our culture. From an individualistic salvationist point of view, this makes sense: each person has a unique spiritual entity that can be saved or damned.If human beings are in fact gifted with a separate spiritual entity, we arrive at a question: at what point in evolutionary history did the soul become part of an organism? Perhaps we could extend the notion of a soul to all living creatures, so as not to be anthropogenic. This brings us further along the line of questioning: what constitutes an individual organism? Plants, animals, and fungi all share a recent ancestor when comparing to the biological tree of life. Are individual bacterial cells considered individual organisms capable of possessing a soul? Can a bacteria collective contain a soul? At which point in the evolutionary tree did it become possible for an organism to have a soul?We may like to thin
Remember the Clue (19) - Right Here, Right Now 2007-03-31 04:11:33 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Matthew 6:25-6 Read more:Remember
, Right
Sample Size of One 2007-03-30 16:15:24 Somewhere in the Universe, creatures on a planet orbiting an M star are debating whether or not life can exist around a G star. Read more:Sample
Beverage Logic 2007-04-01 02:39:37 From a brief discussion on KarpAcrossAmerica.com.The terms pop, soda, Coke, and other names for carbonated beverages are a source of great conflict among people of different regions. Soft drink is arguably the most neutral and politically correct term for these beverages, particularly because it fits into a nice beverage trifecta:1) The Soft Drink2) The Mixed Drink3) The Hard DrinkWith these three drink types, we can define some basic mixing relations (assume addition is commutative):Soft + Soft == SoftSoft + Mixed == MixedSoft + Hard == MixedMixed + Mixed == MixedMixed + Hard == MixedHard + Hard == HardIf a friendly game of Kings involves a community cup containing a Jack & Coke, wine, and water, the beverage can be expressed as: Soft + (Hard + (Hard + Soft)) = Soft + (Hard + Mixed) = Soft + Mixed = Mixed. For some reason, I think my 9th grade algebra teacher should be proud of this. Read more:Beverage
, Logic
Music Listening 2007-04-02 23:52:54 Some people listen to music for the words. Others listen for a particular instrument, such as the guitar.I usually find myself focusing on the rhythms and chord progressions. It is interesting to compare musical observations with others to see the differences in musical perception. Read more:Music
, Listening
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