A Universe of Nothing

yeah, I bet god replaced his enormous goatse screensaver with the "red shift cosmic background screensaver" a few million years before we evolved rudimentary intelligence, joker that he is

poop is brown and smells

Where is the light going from the big bang? Why is it going to fade away? I thought it just keeps trsavelling. Why would some future civilization be alone and not able to see their own native galaxy? All very confusing.

  On 10/29/2009 at 1:41 AM, marf said:

Why would some future civilization be alone and not able to see their own native galaxy?

No, they'd be able to see their own galaxy and any others in their cluster. But eventually they wouldn't be able to see the light from any galaxies outside this. They're moving away at an increasing rate, and eventually they will be travelling away at a speed greater than the speed of light. Relatively speaking.

Oh, I see. Interesting. Is that cause the universe is expanding at an ever increasing speed?

  On 10/28/2009 at 11:17 AM, lumpenprol said:

Yeah, the thought that some day (on a scale of billions of years, which is almost impossible to comprehend anyway), all evidence of the big bang and even other galaxies will vanish from our field of view, is still blowing me away.

The thought that we potentially have already lost evidence that was available billions of years ago is also pretty twisted.

  On 10/29/2009 at 1:58 AM, marf said:

Oh, I see. Interesting. Is that cause the universe is expanding at an ever increasing speed?

Yes, it probably makes sense to think of the gaps between the galaxies and galaxy clusters (gravity will hold these together) expanding at an ever increasing speed, rather than thinking of galaxies hurtling off into some distant abyss.

I think. I have a dilettante's knowledge at best.

  On 10/28/2009 at 3:45 PM, theSun said:

someone bring back rambo's technological singularity thread.

 

it's a tough topic, as we cannot really get a grip on what is "alive" (especially not if we cling to dualism), we won't know when we've created life. have we already? even sensory robots that can track an object and catch/throw/squeeze/jerk it off are more complex and no more conscious¹ than bacteria. when do machines do enough stuff for us to classify them as their own being?

 

¹ - science still can't come up with a good definition for consciousness either, and rightfully so. trying to objectify an inherently subjective world is tricky stuff when all you've got is your senses and a biological computer.

 

so what are the odds of being in that magic window we live in? in how many years will the universe be unobservable?

I don't think there is consciousness on one side, and unconsciousness on the other.

The first evidence for this might be people who tell they've reached another level of consciousness be it with the help of psychedelics or meditation.

In second place i'd like to talk about language because it currently is the only way we have to test if "something" is conscious. Incidentally, the turing test entirely rely on language.

How did scientist define what language is among animal communications. They found some of them but never found a species that had the whole set of characteristics. Hence they concluded that only humans possess language. I found this conclusion quite biased and tautological, as this definition of language itself is from the start anthropocentered.

What if we make a monkey-bot and have it meet some real monkeys. What would the other monkeys do ? I bet they would adopt the bot (and eventually rape it) and wdouldn't not notice a thing. Of course for us, the monkey-bot would remain a simple machine.

(actually scientist are studying bees communication system with this very method).

  On 10/29/2009 at 2:03 AM, Rabid said:

  On 10/28/2009 at 11:17 AM, lumpenprol said:

Yeah, the thought that some day (on a scale of billions of years, which is almost impossible to comprehend anyway), all evidence of the big bang and even other galaxies will vanish from our field of view, is still blowing me away.

The thought that we potentially have already lost evidence that was available billions of years ago is also pretty twisted.

What really freaks me out sometimes is to think that some of those stars in the night-sky may have already expired, but the light hasn't reached us yet. From the best of my knowledge only one supernova has been experienced in recent records, a supernovae in 1885. Before that it was the 1600's and that was only observed with the naked eye*.

I've considered, on sleepless nights, that for all we know the universe may have ended, but we just haven't noticed yet.

* Hopefully with advancements in technology and with more people looking out for these things, we may be witness to such an event in our lifetime. The Kamiokande Facility in Japan for example is a vault that detects exploding stars. Just look at it. Really. WTF

Sorry for the repost, couldn't edit anymore, my post was messed up :

@gary : is this a boat on the right ?

i like teh idea of "infinity", the question asked at teh end of the video, where u can book a room where evry un-even number of a room goes to the next uneven number, so it creates an infinite number of even numbered rooms where u can stay in, but my question is do those ppl move rooms to infinity, cause it never stops?? i find this idea very interesting and mind boggling...

also try to imagine nothingness... ive tried but my mind doesnt seem capable of doing this, like in the video even if there was nothing, there exists something... its weird, i like it...

*rewatches carl sagan's cosmos*

I had lent my book of Carl Sagan's Cosmos to a friend over two years ago now. It's easily one of the best things I've ever read and I'm always begging him to 'just read it already' because it's got some interesting historical facts too, and he likes that sort of stuff.

But the bastard's obviously just fucking ignorant. I'll be getting it back as soon as I can and gleefully re-reading it as I muse on the universe.

It's strange that feeling ill makes me get all transcendental and shit.

  On 10/29/2009 at 3:04 AM, Gary C said:

I had lent my book of Carl Sagan's Cosmos to a friend over two years ago now. It's easily one of the best things I've ever read and I'm always begging him to 'just read it already' because it's got some interesting historical facts too, and he likes that sort of stuff.

But the bastard's obviously just fucking ignorant. I'll be getting it back as soon as I can and gleefully re-reading it as I muse on the universe.

 

It's strange that feeling ill makes me get all transcendental and shit.

when im ill i cry to susan boyle's performance on britain gots teh talent.

  On 10/27/2009 at 3:00 PM, vamos scorcho said:

i'm struggling quite badly with the fight between religion and science. i hate how the science people treat religion like a dog. but i know that they have something to say, the scientists. nothing would be more awesome though, than if richard dawkins came to a realization of something spiritual.

i just simply remember that all religions weere written by people, because there was a time they had no science to explain the world

i just think it's silly that we go around proclaiming things as alive or dead based on criteria that is vague and ambiguous, and doesn't apply 100% of the time.

when we reach the technological singularity, i doubt we'll even know it.

there is something i don't understand about the inflating universe. If it's space that is inflating expanding, does that mean the earth, my cat, or myself are expanding too ? If so why does the distances are increasing ?

  On 10/29/2009 at 3:34 AM, Babar said:

there is something i don't understand about the inflating universe. If it's space that is inflating expanding, does that mean the earth, my cat, or myself are expanding too ? If so why does the distances are increasing ?

Humans are much taller and wider than ever before. Fact.

  On 10/29/2009 at 2:47 AM, Gary C said:

  On 10/29/2009 at 2:03 AM, Rabid said:

  On 10/28/2009 at 11:17 AM, lumpenprol said:

Yeah, the thought that some day (on a scale of billions of years, which is almost impossible to comprehend anyway), all evidence of the big bang and even other galaxies will vanish from our field of view, is still blowing me away.

The thought that we potentially have already lost evidence that was available billions of years ago is also pretty twisted.

 

What really freaks me out sometimes is to think that some of those stars in the night-sky may have already expired, but the light hasn't reached us yet. From the best of my knowledge only one supernova has been experienced in recent records, a supernovae in 1885. Before that it was the 1600's and that was only observed with the naked eye*.

 

I've considered, on sleepless nights, that for all we know the universe may have ended, but we just haven't noticed yet.

 

* Hopefully with advancements in technology and with more people looking out for these things, we may be witness to such an event in our lifetime. The Kamiokande Facility in Japan for example is a vault that detects exploding stars. Just look at it. Really. WTF

 

Oh shit. What I said here about supernovae detection being pretty rare...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8329865.stm

  Quote

In the journal Nature, two teams of astronomers report their observations of a gamma-ray burst from a star that died 13.1 billion light-years away.

The massive star died about 630 million years after the Big Bang.

UK astronomer Nial Tanvir described the observation as "a step back in cosmic time".

Professor Tanvir led an international team studying the afterglow of the explosion, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii.

He told BBC News that his team was able to observe the afterglow for 10 days, while the gamma ray burst itself lasted around 12 seconds.

The event, dubbed GRB 090423, is an example of one of the most violent explosions in the Universe.

  On 10/27/2009 at 1:05 PM, karmakramer said:

 

An hour long presentation, but for those who take the time to watch this it probably will change a lot of how you think. Its presented by Richard Dawkins for those who care.

what a self invented, intellectual circlejerk.

sorry to be so bold but...i think humans think to much when they should feel more with

their hearts instead. i don't think i'm alone on this one

Did you watch it?

  On 10/29/2009 at 2:59 AM, Barricade said:

i like teh idea of "infinity", the question asked at teh end of the video, where u can book a room where evry un-even number of a room goes to the next uneven number, so it creates an infinite number of even numbered rooms where u can stay in, but my question is do those ppl move rooms to infinity, cause it never stops?? i find this idea very interesting and mind boggling...

 

also try to imagine nothingness... ive tried but my mind doesnt seem capable of doing this, like in the video even if there was nothing, there exists something... its weird, i like it...

 

 

*rewatches carl sagan's cosmos*

"the everything that is nothing forever" ....as it is said, this is one of the closest

ways humans could come to describing God.

Truth +7

  On 10/29/2009 at 4:30 AM, Gary C said:

Did you watch it?

yes

Okay

finite and infinite are impossibilities.

Macro/Micro.

I have a feeling that even smashing protons in the LHC will only give us a whole shit-load more crazier stuff to fathom on an even more unimaginably small scale. Just as gazing into space will only have it seem bigger and bigger.

Perhaps our universe is as infinitely finicky as it is large. Will we bother filing down every little micro-atomic structure and gazing up into every black-hole in search of some mathematical rule forever? Or will we ever call it quits and be happy knowing that we looked hard enough?

I doubt the latter, but I can't imagine we'll stop looking until either: a) we die or b) we meet a life-form of significantly greater intelligence.