Balking Hawking Part 3: In The Beginning

Ever since the idea of the Big Bang was conceived cosmologists who hated God looked for a way around creation. The universe couldn't have a beginning; it would ruin the perfect harmony of an eternal universe. No beginning, no need for an explanation, right? To celebrate Hawking's 70th birthday here is a third installment in the series on him, his cosmology, and his theology.



See Also Balking Hawking Part 1, Part 2, and Georg Cantor's Infinities Part 2.



From NewScientist:



"Many physicists have been fighting a rearguard action against [the Big Bang] for decades, largely because of its theological overtones. If you have an instant of creation, don't you need a creator?



Cosmologists thought they had a workaround. Over the years, they have tried on several different models of the universe that dodge the need for a beginning while still requiring a big bang. But recent research has shot them full of holes (see "Why physicists can't avoid a creation event"). It now seems certain that the universe did have a beginning."



Lawrence Krauss in his new book A Universe From Nothing tries to deal a knock-out blow to the deity by replacing one metaphysical system with another. God is given up for the multiverse, a cacophony of quantum randomness belching out universes like Our Idiot Brother.



It is in vogue now to redefine "nothing" to mean "the quantum vacuum that has always existed," but in an interview on Coast to Coast AM, Krauss does his fellow metaphysicists one better. He admitted that you don't even need a quantum vacuum or quantum laws, as NewScientist explains:



"However, the laws of physics can't be conjured from nothing. In the end, the best answer is that they arise from our existence within a multiverse, where all the universes have their own laws - ours being just so for no particular reason.



Krauss contends that the multiverse makes the question of what determined our laws of nature "less significant". Truthfully, it just puts the question beyond science - for now, at least. That (together with the frustratingly opaque origins of a multiverse) means Krauss can't quite knock out those who think there must ultimately be a prime mover. Not that this matters too much: the juvenile asides that litter the first third of the book (for example, "I am tempted to retort here that theologians are expert at nothing") mean that, by the time we get to the fascinating core of his argument, Krauss will be preaching only to the converted."


[emphasis mine]



The multiverse: the great unknown and unknowable. A meta-space that is beyond our space-time and thus forever beyond our ability to test it. Being untestable the multiverse must surrender its claim to the title "science" and accept that it is now, and forever, metaphysics. To do away with the idea of a creation, an absolute beginning of the universe, Krauss throws science away and invents an untestable story. Even the Bible contains historical details that can be tested, the multiverse is just "bullshit metaphysics".



Metaphysicists have tried to propose systems where the universe (or multiverse) is eternal into the past, but Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University has shot holes in all of them (even though he still believes in the multiverse, it had to have a beginning in the finite past).



Eternal inflation, the idea that the inflation that sped up the expansion of the early universe didnt' stop, it still continues in other regions of space beyond our cosmic horizon, spawning new bubble universes forever, was the first to go. Some thought inflation was eternal into the past too, but in 2003 Vilenkin and Alan Guth ran the calculations on Hubble's Constant and found that it doesn't work. Inflation may continue forever into the future, but it had to have a beginning in the past.



Next came the big bounce, the idea that after a long time, a trillion years or so, expansion slows and stops, eventually reversing until everything flys back into a single point called the Big Crunch. Then the shock of impact of everything on everything starts a new Big Bang, and the cycle continues forever. Unfortunately, disorder increases with time, so each new universe must be more disordered than the one that birthed it. If the cycle had been going on forever disorder would be infinite and the universe would be completely featureless. Since there's stuff in the universe the cycles couldn't have gone on forever. Some people then suggested that the universe just gets bigger with each bounce, so the disorder spreads out more so no one notices it (like in the M-Brane ekpyrotic model and possibly whatever the hell Penrose's new idea is - no one seems to understand his Aeons of time model, within the physics community or anywhere). But if the whole thing is getting bigger it had to start somewhere really really small, maximally small, and that means a finite beginning.



There's also an idea from the 1930s called the cosmic egg or primeval atom, where yes, there was a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, but the thing that banged was an uber-dense subatomic thing that existed forever until it got tired of existing as a tiny little particle and exploded. However, Vilenkin and a graduate student Audrey Mithani showed that quantum instability would have led to the egg's collapse after a finite time. The crack (the Big Bang) had to happen before the egg collapsed into oblivion so it couldn't have existed forever, even if it existed for a really, really long time before the Big Bang.



Vilenkin concludes[:] "All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning."



V.J. Torley of UD comments on the implications of a universe requiring a beginning. He reasons (muses, really), in line with William Lane Craig, that the cause of the universe, which cannot be within the universe itself, must be personal. Scientific and mathematic laws are just descriptions of observations. They are not Platonic furniture of reality, and they are causally inert. Only a person, an agent, can bring about the creation of the universe, acting for some reason. The evidence from fine tuning (not only of the universe, but if you read Georg Cantor's Infinities Part 2 and other links provided in the UD article, you'll see that the multiverse too must be fine tuned) is suggestive of a highly mathematical and aesthetic mind behind the constants of the universe.



There you have it, a birthday present, albeit a very bad one, from Alexander Vilenkin to Stephen Hawking: a universe with a definite beginning in the finite past.

This Is A Story About A Whale

Darwinists say that the whale is the best example of evolution in action. The whale started out as a bear, or cat, or hyena, or hippo, depending on who you ask. Over time fossils were found and the people who run the museums drew flippers and flukes where none were discovered, and added arrows that were never found to demonstrate how whales evolved from creatures that are now acknowledged to not be whale ancestors. This makes you think, if the whale is the BEST example of evolution how did the idea ever get off the drawing board and into the outdated highschool text books?



Video runs 9 min.

Whale Evolution vs. The Actual Fossil Evidence from Philip Cunningham on Vimeo.

A Short Quiz on Intelligent Design

VJ Torley at UD posts a ten question quiz for proponents and opponents of ID. Here are the questions and my answers.



1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process.)



Update: When I say “certain features”, I mean, “certain generic features of the universe-as-a-whole (e.g. constants of Nature) and of living things in general (e.g. the specified complexity of DNA”. When I say “an undirected process” I mean a process lacking long-range foresight.



10



2. What do you regard as the best argument for Intelligent Design?



I really like cosmological fine-tuning, because I like very large numbers. I also like that there is no mathematical model for “natural selection” (it is such a nebulous concept, existing in whatever form is most convenient at the time, that I doubt it can have a mathematical model or that it even meets the criteria of science). Mutations not producing new genetic information (where did information come from in the first place then?) and life not being able to self-assemble (abiogenesis) are also good ones.



3. What do you regard as the best argument against Intelligent Design?



Suboptimality (the designer either does not no how to, cannot, or will not design an optimal world for what reason(s)?). Actually, this is not an argument against ID, just certain assumptions about the nature of the designer. That said I can’t think of any counter arguments I think are good.



4. I’d like you to think about the arguments for Intelligent Design. Obviously they’re not perfect. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?



Perform A LOT MORE experiments, which necessarily entails mainstream science opening up to the possibility of ID. I would also like to see more atheist/agnostic ID proponents, or even just more non-Christian ID proponents (or at least Christians who don’t quote the Bible as scientific evidence).



5. Now I’d like you to think about the arguments against Intelligent Design. Obviously they could be improved. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?



Stop with the snarky cheap shots like talking about ID versus “real” science or claming that it is religion or the “overwhelming evidence” for RM+NS that is genuine evidence but nowhere near “overwhelming”, nor is it “fact” or demonstrated as well as gravity. Either rebut ID on purely scientific grounds or admit you don’t like it for religious reasons and that’s why you attack ID proponents.


Demonstrating that life can self-assemble, or at least that all the proteins needed for life can self-assemble. Demonstrating that random processes can produce completely new information, not just delete or rearrange pre-existing information in a genome.



6. (a) If you’re an ID advocate or supporter, what do you think is the least bad of the various alternatives that have been proposed to Intelligent Design, as explanations for the specified complexity found in living things and in the laws of the cosmos? (e.g. The multiverse [restricted or unrestricted?]; Platonism; the laws of the cosmos hold necessarily, and they necessarily favor life; pure chance; time is an illusion, so CSI doesn’t increase over time.)



(b) If you’re an ID opponent or skeptic, can you name some explanations for life and the cosmos that you would regard as even more irrational than Intelligent Design? (e.g. Everything popped into existence out of absolutely nothing; the future created the past; every logically possible world exists out there somewhere; I am the only being in the cosmos and the external world is an illusion requiring no explanation; only minds are real, so the physical universe is an illusion requiring no explanation.)



(a) I don’t think there are any acceptable alternatives that are purely materialistic. I suppose if I had to choose I would say that the alternative I see as best is that the future act as a teleological attractor to the past, guiding the evolution of forms in the past to a predetermined future (I’ve read this somewhere).

Why Democrats HATE Space Travel

Reflecting on the last shuttle launch I sit in dissapointment at the whole shuttle program. This is it? This is the best we can do? I came across the following article today from UD. Physicist Rob Sheldon explains that Republicans have been very good to NASA and the space program but Democrats HATE it because they can't get past partisan politics. They would rather turn America communist than explore space, advance science, increase national pride, and bolster international cooperation. He says:



Republicans have generally put US Space Policy or Foreign policy above politics, and have funded unpopular endeavors even when begun by previous Democratic presidents, recognizing that it takes 10 years to see a NASA program from start-to-finish, which is longer than the usual presidential double-term.



Democrats, however, believe that there is nothing more important than politics. Everything is short term. The future can be mortgaged. So for example George HW Bush started the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) to follow on the very successful Fermilab “Tevatron”.



Unfortunately, he built it in Texas, which gave it a partisan air. The very first thing Clinton did, was to cancel the SSC, thereby handing the next 20 years of high-energy physics to the European lab CERN in Geneva.



He continues with a point on the space station. The idea for the space station was started by Reagan as a means to develop technology needed to go to Mars. When Clinton got into office he did his best to axe the program.



But under Clinton, the Space Station was scaled back as far as possible without defaulting on commitments made to the Europeans. This meant that the Russians were brought in to supply the Space Station rather than use US Space Shuttles. So when the commitments to Europe had all been fulfilled, both the Station and the Shuttle were obsolete.



As a boy I wondered why it seemed the greatest days of space exploration were behind us. Why did we have grand visions of going to the Moon by the end of the 60s (which we did) and go on to Mars before 2000 and eventually on to the stars, but now we kept launching those damn shuttles into orbit where the astronauts ate their tubes of mush and powered ice cream and nothing ever got done? And why were our first astronauts the toughest people on the planet like John Glenn and Buzz Aldrin, people you could really look up to (Buzz Aldrin still is my hero and I still want to be like him), and the new astronauts include people you've never heard of and the "astro-nut" who tried to kill someone and didn't want to be bothered with having to use the toilet so she wore a diaper while she did it. The answer is clear: Democrats. Democrats took all the fun out of space. They turned space travel into a vacation for adults who like to wear diapers and eat floating candy at tax payers' expense instead of the most challenging exploration of the universe imaginable.



Capital Bush even wanted to go back to the Moon. He tried for Mars but the socialists wouldn't let him so he settled for the Moon. He started late in his tenure and didn't get enough finished and then Zero took office and killed the Moon mission. Instead of exploring space and promoting world peace, Zero is "humanitarianly" bombing the crap out of Libya (it's not a war, it's "kinetic military action" and that means it's totally not unconstitutional like BOTH Republicans and Democrats in Congress are now saying) and spending the country into oblivion.



Fuck you, Democrats. Fuck you Zero. Fuck you very much.

Richard Dawkins is Right

About one issue in particular. I still disagree with him on practically everything else in the entire universe.



Apparently some broad got propositioned in an elevator at some conference, like that doesn't happen every day everywhere in the world and throughout all of human history and forever into the future (except the elevator part, which wasn't invented until the 19th century, although there were elevator-like transport sysems in place for thousands of years prior). The two most liked comments on that video sum up public, and my own, sentiment pretty well that this is a total load of horseshit and nothing wrong happened at all. As an outspoken atheist she should be flattered that he was (supposedly) just following what Darwin said, because it demonstrates that the cock and balls fairy story of Darwinism is right, or at least can be seen in that light if you choose to believe in that stuff (I don't, but as an outspoken media atheist fundamaterialist spep-dick she has to believe it, so of course she should be happy to see Darwinian principles in action!). After this complete and total non-event Dick-to-the-Dawk-to-the-PhD said this:



The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that....Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behavior, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.



And with that I finally found something to agree with Dawkins on! Never did I think that would ever happen.



Unfortunately, modern society is run by the New World Order and they are making people kowtow to pussies who are professional victims and it's not politically correct to say "shut up and deal with it," when either someone gets injured through their own stupidity or the laws of nature are percieved to be unfair.



Thank you, Mr. Dawkins, for being the voice of reason in this insane world (about this one issue, although I still think your other claims are asinine).

No Mass Extinction

More old news, this time from UD. We learn that the "sixth great extinction," said to be caused by you and your carbon and certainly not Algore, who uses 24 times the carbon you do but he's better than you and so it's okay for him to do so, and you should feel bad, has been grossly miscalculated. According to Debora MacKenzie writing for New Scientist:

It is impossible to accurately measure extinction rates. Dozens of new species are identified each year, and counting those that disappear is hard because many are small and live in poorly studied, mainly tropical environments.

Instead, extinction rates are often predicted from a mathematical model based on habitat loss, which is more easily measured. (Bold Added)



Just like absolutely everything else a mathematical model is used instead of actually looking at the facts. They're not even measuring habitat loss, they're using a model of habitat loss to make predictions and then blaming you when two species of plant and one species of fish no one knew or cared about go missing. As a matter of fact, a full third of all mammal species declaired extinct in the past few centuries have turned out to be just hiding, including a cute little brown and white thing called an okapi and a few rat-like creatures. 67 out of 187 missing mammal species since 1500 have turned up alive and well. The sooner the little fellas went "extinct" the more likely they were to just be hiding somewhere. If a creature went missing in the 20th century it was three times more likely to still be alive than if it went missing in the 19th century. I guess a hundred years ago people knew what extinction really means. There is also the distinct possibility that the thylacine (Tazmanian tiger/wolf) did not go extinct in 1936, as evident by alleged sitings in the 1970s and even today, although no one really knows (I happen to think there is a very good chance they are still alive, maybe 80+ percent).



A new method for calculating the extinction rates of animals produces numbers 83-165 percent lower than using the old habitat loss models. That's a huge discrepancy with broad policy implications, such as plunging California's Central Valley into economy crushing drought to protect a tiny fish that may or may not have any significance to the area's ecosystem and probably won't go extinct anyway if water is diverted back to agricultural usage.



Extinction, habitat loss, and environmental degredation are serious problems, but it shouldn't be necessary to scare people into draconian 1984 iron-fisted government control to fix a problem that may not even exist. A little self-control goes a long way, and taking time to look through all the data is usually the best choice of action. There probably isn't a sixth great extinction, and if there is it probably isn't our fault (the first five weren't, after all; it's pretty arrogant to think this one is), but responsible stuardship of the planet is still important and is best conducted in a thorough, prudent manner.

Balking Someone

Up on The Procrustean we see a piece on Roger Penrose's new aeons of time cosmology, which I alluded to in Georg Cantor's Infinities Part Two. Basically here's what aeons of time is:



"after all the matter in the universe is swallowed up by black holes, and after they evapourate leaving behind nothing but photons, everything gets bigger and somehow the universe starts over again, forever."



Using data from sophisticated equipment, Penrose has claimed to have found irregularities in the CMB (cosmic microwave background) that could only be produced if his aeons of time cosmology were correct. However, the supporters of the various inflationary models also claim the data corresponds to precisely what would be expected if inflation occurred. Since the aeons of time and cosmic inflation are incompatable one or both of them has to be wrong (about the data found in the CMB and in general).



After reporting this, Rob at The Procrustean then makes a conclusion about Penrose, inflation, and intelligent design. He says (this whole issue is a bit of a head scratcher for me so I'll just point you in the right direction and let you figure this out for yourself):



"Neither Sir Roger nor the conventional inflationary models have made solid predictions. At best, they can be tweaked to some, but not all aspects of the data. They possess far too many adjustable parameters drawn from some sort of metaphysical repository of models that is itself questionable. Sir Roger attempts to address the metaphysical problem with Creation, and inflationary models address the metaphysical problem of contingency. Neither is particularly convincing. (And a closer look at CCC theory raise more questions about the infinite pressure of dark energy, the rescaling time, the supposed decay of protons and electrons, etc.)



"Which may mean that it is time to assess the situation. Some of the best minds of two generations have addressed cosmology since the discovery of the 3-degree blackbody CMB radiation and not found solutions to the twin problems of a necessary Creator and a necessary Design. Given their failure, and I do mean abject failure to find anything beyond a metaphysical black box with lots of dials, I would suggest that we claim support for the contrary. All of them have put the cart before the horse, trying to create a no-beginning-no-design theory by massaging the data, post-dicting their data to support their theory, and still have not succeeded, thereby proving the very thing they did not want to prove."



I'm not so sure I would jump from Penrose and inflation being wrong to the alternative being correct, but it does give one something to think about.



-Dee

Georg Cantor's Infinities (Part Two)

Continuing the last post on Cantor and how he overturned the entire world, this story comes from UD and is called "Infinitely Wrong."



Cantor demonstrated that some infinities are bigger than others (infinitely so). Robert Sheldon, in the post linked above, attempts to demonstrate that cardinality can be used to show how the multiverse can't save Darwinism.



As Roger Penrose pointed out, in order to avoid conflicting with the second law of thermodynamics, the Big Bang had to be insanely precise. According to Penrose (who now believes that after all the matter in the universe is swallowed up by black holes, and after they evapourate leaving behind nothing but photons, everything gets bigger and somehow the universe starts over again, forever, but that's a different story), the force causing the expansion of the universe has to match the force of gravity to at least one part in 10^(10^123) or the universe would have either exploded into nothing or collapsed back right after it banged. I'm not sure just how many zeroes are in that number, but think of it like this: if the universe had one more or one less proton (or probably less mass than that) at the Big Bang it wouldn't be here right now for us to talk about (or me to bore you about). Hawking, who was balked in September, places the ratio at a more reasonable one part in 10^60.



The Hawking solution to this seemingly fine-tuned feature? Infinite time + infinite space. Hawking et al. propose universes popping into existence all the time in their bubble multiverse. With infinite universes being created in a process that has infinite duration anything that can happen will happen, no matter how improbable, including gravity matching the expansion of the universe to that whole stack of tens. However, at least one part in 10^(10^123) does not mean that the fine-tuning is exactly that precise, just that that is the minimum precision of the fine-tuning. It could be more. It could even be infinite.



To deal with this, according to Sheldon, the anti-design folks ask Hugh Everett for help with creating infinitely more universes. Doing some fancy mathematics, if I'm reading it right, the anti-design folks can get an Aleph-naught infinite number of universes out of their quantum fudgery to solve a design problem with an Aleph-one cardinality, something that is impossible because the fine-tuning is now infinitely larger than the attempts at explaining it away by chance.



So, if all that made sense to you, it should have clearly been demonstrated that an infinite multiverse cannot solve the problem caused by the fine-tuning of the physical constants.



-Dee

Why The Multiverse Is A Disaster For Atheists

Vjtorley, UD contributor, has written an enormous thing about an article that explains how it is consistant to be a young earth creationist and still have millions of years old stars. In it he says that invoking a multiverse, a scenario in which there are an infinite number of "universes" in which everything that can happen does happen, does not disprove the existence of God. The number of universes where everything was created in 6,000 years is infinitely greater than the number of 13.7 billion year old universes. When you're dealing with infinities, the number of nonparsimonious universes is infinitely larger than the number of parsimonious universes, so the likely hood that we inhabit a nonparsimonious universe, like say one that's 6,000 years old yet has seemingly billion year old stars, is infinitely greater than the likelihood we inhabit a parsimonious universe. When you deal with infinities you have to throw parsimony out the window. Also, having a multiverse that's been around for 6,000 years yet still has infinitely many universes that were all created 6,000 years ago still has that pesky infinity problem to get around.



The whole UD piece is monstrously long and involves many more points than I could possibly add to this summary, so I'll just skip to the end: "I conclude that a skeptic who wishes to deny the reality of God by positing a multiverse containing an infinite number of universes is engaging in scientific and intellectual suicide. Such a skeptic no longer has a reason to believe in a 13.7 billion-year-old universe which unfolded in an orderly fashion, without any changes in either the laws of Nature or the constants of Nature. Indeed, the multiverse destroys the skeptic’s arguments against a 6,000-year-old universe. And finally, the multiverse fails to rule out God anyway – for you could always say that God created it." (bold and italics in original)



-Dee

Georg Cantor's Infinities (Part One)

From Uncommon Descent comes a wonderful video linked to by a poster bornagain77 (the one known for posting many thousands of words in the comments section). In the video very British people explain the history of infinity, Georg Cantor, and how he overturned the world.

Georg Cantor - The Mathematics Of Infinity - Funny video clips are a click away

Theistic Science Fiction

I posted the following on UD, which despite its hostility toward certain issues and sometimes masquerading Christianity for ID does occasionally have some good science. It's in response to the question "why are so many atheists into science fiction?"

I’m a theistic science fiction witer, or to be more accurate I’m a theist who writes science fiction, among other things. There seems to be nothing intrinsically atheistic or theistic about science fiction that would lead me to see why one group would be more attracted to it over the other, if, indeed, that is the case, I don’t know. I suppose if I were to have to make a choice I would say that the allure of “science” or the air of “science,” what Ken Wilber calls “narrow science,” is appealing to atheists because it serves as an alternative to God and gives them a sense of authority. “Science” (hardcore materialism) has become the sort of gatekeeper of all that is real in the modern world, for various complicated reasons too many to go in to here. Without a belief in God (used as broadly or narrowly as you choose) one still has to believe in something, and that something might as well be “science” as the new world authority.

Moving on to the fiction part, well, humans are remarkable storytellers. Everything is a story, built up around facts. Facts in themselves are just pieces floating around waiting to be attached to a story that explains how they all fit together. For an atheist instead of writing about God why not write about the new authority, “science?”

Of course all this is speculation; the ramblings of a man with too much to say and too small an audience.

-Dee

Last Day of the Creep

As promised earlier, the video:

-Dee

I Might Not Be a Creep for Long!

The posts at UD seem to have culminated with this message from herb:

UrbanMysticDee,

“Debunking” is not and has never been part of science. Science doesn’t debunk, magicians and media skeptics debunk. 7% of the UFO sitings in Project Blue Book special report remain unidentified. If instead it were 7% of drugs tested had the potential to cure every form of cancer researchers would be doing everything they could to investigate those 7% farther, not saying “most drugs can’t cure cancer so we shouldn’t even try.”

Nice post. What I find most interesting about UFO’s is that just about everyone seems to have a story. Both my parents have had paranormal/UFO encounters, and I myself had a sighting which I can’t explain about 25 years ago. Whatever the cause, I think it’s clear something is going on, whether it’s aliens or some sort of government coverup.

This seems to be a good end to the discussion.

-Dee

I'm Still a Creep II

More from UD.

From lamarck:

Urbanmystic,
I agree with you that aliens exist, I think they must have seeded us on this planet, looking at DNA alone. One interesting alien vid is the cell phone alien from mexico. Scientists visited the sight later and found high radiation levels at that spot alone. Another one is the dogon tribe’s astronomy predictions. One more is the race of small and odd looking people in eastern or southeastern asia, can’t remember their name. I’d like to see someone study their DNA, they look like aliens to me. Their caves were found which they formerly lived in and tablets were decoded, actually disc-like objects, which say they crashed on this planet in an emergency and they’ve been stuck here. I also know about the recent crop circles which are much different. If you know more interesting alien evidence please site some.

From JTaylor:

UrbanMysticDee: “The 1% estimate is a gut feeling that I never said was scientific. I am able to criticize bad science without having to provide an alternate theory. And I never said my feeling was scientific. I extrapolated from what I’ve read and heard from first and second hand sources that there seems to be a number of different extraterrestrial species that have been witnessed and that they are obviously gregarious otherwise encounters wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

But you do realize that your 1% means that 1 in 100 stars (just in our galaxy) would have to show signs of intelligent life? This is an enormous number. No offence, but I think you need to recheck your gut! Personally I think I would trust Drake’s equation than yours (or mine) gut, because it is based on sound suppositions rather than what I feel. Of course feel free to show how you extrapolated and calculated that number if you think otherwise. But right now your 1% is little more than an assertion and not all that helpful.

And, to date, about 350 exoplanets have been discovered (and I think this is “good” science) - and so far none of them look likely for life. According to your gut, we should have already found ~3-4 intelligent lifeforms. Of course maybe scientists have been unlikely, but according to your gut the galaxy should be absolutely teeming with life, and certainly there is no evidence yet that this is the case.

You assume incorrectly that I accept that extraterrestials exist. I do not find the evidence conclusive and much of it is too anecodtal (or based on hearsay) to be of any value (I would say it is about on a par with the evidence for ghosts). A large number of UFO settings have been debunked so I think it there is good reason to be very skeptical here. As to ‘extraterrestrial species that have been witnessed and are obviously gregarious’ you need to provide more solid evidence for such a statement before it can be considered seriously.

My Response:

lamarck (22)

For UFO evidence please see point four below, esp. the links.
JTaylor (21)
1. Again, I never said my 1% estimate was scientific! I never said it was helpful to anyone in any way! Besides, the Drake equation has seven variables of which we can make reasonable speculations of two; everything beyond that is a complete guess based on nothing. The only difference between my gut and the Drake equation is that my gut doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not - namely science.

2. I agree that our skill in finding other planets is increasing but it’s not like we can zoom in with three meter resolution on the planets surfaces and see anything. There might well be intelligent life existing in some form on those planets or their moons that current technology cannot detect or there might not. Right now looking at the gravitational effects on stars isn’t good enough to make any statements about the orbiting planets other than their potential distance and/or mass.

3. I never assumed you accepted that extraterrestrials exist, I said you didn’t up to the point of my posting deny their existence, that is, you did not openly argue that they do not exist. One is a positive statement and the other is a negative one.

4. “Debunking” is not and has never been part of science. Science doesn’t debunk, magicians and media skeptics debunk. 7% of the UFO sitings in Project Blue Book special report remain unidentified. If instead it were 7% of drugs tested had the potential to cure every form of cancer researchers would be doing everything they could to investigate those 7% farther, not saying “most drugs can’t cure cancer so we shouldn’t even try.”

More solid evidence other than the biggest government coverup in history (if no UFOs are extraterrestrial and they’re not national security concerns why doesn’t any government in the world besides Mexico come out and tell what they are? Why has the USAF come out with four different “official” reports of the Roswell crash, each one stating that the previous “official” reports were false misinformation campaigns?). More solid evidence than thousands of trained witnesses - pilots, retired military personel, police - who have come out with their reports to great personal risk of job loss, public ridicule, etc., who have nothing to gain by their testimony. If you want more evidence than that look into the trace cases. Potential landing sites with unusual chemical or radioactive properties, plants won’t grow in these areas even after decades when the surrounding areas are perfectly fine. Some people have gotten radiation burns from handling debris, sometimes leading to cancer and death. A supposed piece of the Roswell crash debris that has changed hands several times, each of the owners meeting with highly unlikely deaths (extremely rare diseases, improbable “accidents”). The website that was going to air a world-wide press conference revealing test results of chemical analysis was shut down, the server the site was on was stolen the night before, threatening phone calls convinced others not to cancel the conference.

Roswell Debris Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjQgqZ6eMP4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q18VaAQneaU

More answers to UFO questions:

http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sf-ufo-why1.html

-Dee

I'm Still a Creep

Sorry bout the video, it'll have to wait as the conversations on UD are heating up! Here is a reply from JTaylor, who is fully in on the Drake camp:

Yes, I agree that Drake’s equation is not “pure science” but it is an interesting exercise, and is based on some well thought out variables (and only two have been suggested as additions in nearly 50 years). And of course the data for at least some of the variables now is much better than it was in 1961. Reality of course is that since it is not yet testable and quite likely never will be, nevertheless it could provide some guidance into potential SETI research.


But UrbanMysticDee thinks it’s conceivable that 1% of the stars in our galaxy could host intelligent life (”which I do not doubt is the case”). That would mean
that there are some 1 billion stars in our galaxy with intelligent life. And if UrbanMysticDee is skeptical of Drake’s equation what is the basis for this 1%? Drake’s equation is not perfect, but is probably the best we have (other than pure guessing).


Yes, it’s true we may be “special”, but that is not the same as being unique or especially chosen. The honest answer is “we don’t know”.


“As far as I am concerned there is only consciousness - it arose from nothing but instead is forever preexistant.”


Where is any evidence for this? UrbanMysticDee complains that Drake’s equation is not scientific but makes an assertion such as this based on what? Agreed that consciousness may still be mysterious - but isn’t it a bit of a leap to say it is pre-existent? Where’s the evidence for that?

And my reply:

JTaylor

1. The 1% estimate is a gut feeling that I never said was scientific. I am able to criticize bad science without having to provide an alternate theory. And I never said my feeling was scientific. I extrapolated from what I’ve read and heard from first and second hand sources that there seems to be a number of different extraterrestrial species that have been witnessed and that they are obviously gregarious otherwise encounters wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Besides, you don’t seem to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life so any argument between us on estimates as to their quantity would be purely academic.

2.

A. As to your second question, I draw my assertion of the pre-existence of consciousness based on 40,000 years of experimentation from mystical traditions around the world and my own personal experimentation. When consistent data have been coming in for that long by that many people it seems more than reasonable to assume the data are good.

B. Consciousness cannot be reduced to anything physical yet can have effects on the physical world that are independent of time and space. Giants in the field of physics (David Bohm, Evan Harris Walker, John von Neumann, John Wheeler, Brian Josephson, Eugene Wigner, etc.) have proposed the primacy of consciousness and have produced very interesting experiments backing up their theories (observation theories, retrocausality, etc.)

C. Every single experience that can be had while awake can also be had while dreaming. All the senses can be present in dreams equally or to a greater degree than while awake. Waking appears to be of the same category of phenomena as dreaming.

D. Something has to be pre-existente, whether it be quantum laws or the multiverse or inflation fields or what have you, because the universe appears to have come from absolutely nothing - it is not eternal and it cannot be self-created. Reasons A-C have weighed the deck for me toward a non-physical, intelligent, concious entity of immense power.

-Dee

But I'm a Creep (I Wish I Was Special)

I've been on Uncommon Descent talking about the issue of being special (like Radiohead did, only not as badass). The question, just about, is "Is the Earth special and is humanity special?" The Drake equation (A * B * C *......* Z = ET Will Talk To Us On Our Telescopes) and the SETI (Silly Excuse to Investigate) people say no. Commentator Denyse O'Leary, noted Canadian journalist and UFO critic, gave the same old UFOs are fake tripe to prove we're special. Here's what I said:

Even if one percent of the stars in our galaxy had life of comparable intelligence as humans (which I do not doubt is the case) I would still say we are special for the simple reason that we are here contemplating specialness. Any species that can move beyond mere existence into the realm of abstract thought would be special in my view. We are able to imagine what the world was like before we were here (highly speculative) and what the world will be like should we be go extinct for whatever reason (much less speculative). We can also plan ahead and develop technologies to spread to other planets, should the initiative be taken. If that is not grounds for special status then some people are in denial of their own specialness, which in itself is another special quality.

Boy howdy if you even consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life on UD you get hammered like I did when I brought up how the face on mars was the only one of thousands of photos NASA took that they ran through five seperate filters to reduce the image to a smear to cover up the truth. Here is the first unfair characterization of me by a commenter:

UrbanMysticDee: If the ability for abstract thought can arise through random chance mechanisms/events alone throughout our galaxy and the universe, I wouldn’t see it as special in the context of this discussion. Indeed, if it were that common, it would be, well, common - not special. Given that I don’t think sufficient evidence exists to support your confidence in the arise of consciousness, abstract thought, etc. through materialistic forces (not to mention the lack of any evidence to support the arise of the simplest of DNA-based life forms through random chance), I have no idea where your confidence comes from. Sounds like you, too, suffer from a philosophical approach to this issue rather than a scientific one.

Here is my reply:

mtreat

1. I never said or even implicated any connection to materialism or random chance in regards to myself or my views of life in the universe. I’m not sure I can give URLs here but if I can I suggest you peruse my little corner of the internet: http://theurbanmystic.blogspot.com/


* I don’t think consciousness arose through materialistic forces. I don’t even think there are materialistic forces. I’m an idealist. As far as I am concerned there is only consciousness - it arose from nothing but instead is forever preexistant.


* The same goes for life forms, simple or otherwise.


2. After studying the whole UFO/extraterrestrial visitation issue pretty much my entire life I am convinced the evidence is overwhelming that the Earth has been visited by intelligent beings from beyond our solar system and that the cover up of the best evidence constitutes the greatest misinformation campaign in history.

* I myself have seen such crafts.


* The SETI people are in denial about the above. They spent all this time and money on fancy machines and now have to justify the existence of the program by haranguing UFOlogy and repeat their mantra every night that ET will only contact them with their expensive equipment to keep their sanity.

* The Drake equation is based on pure conjecture and isn’t science no matter what the SETI people may say. Neither for that matter is many worlds, string/m-brane theories, and dark energy science as none of them can, by definition, be tested.

3. If one percent of the population of Earth had the ability to fly and see through walls I would still say that they are special just as if one percent of stars in the galaxy had intelligent life I would say such life is special. I think it is a sufficently small number to justify the special categorization.

I'll keep you updated as things go down (expect a video on specialness as the next post).

-Dee

Science is a Process, NOT a Position - Evolution

The debate regarding Darwinism has taken a turn for the good! Texas high schools now require teaching scientific criticism of Darwinian evolution, thereby bringing the subject into the realm of REAL science, not scientism (the religion of reductionist materialism masquerading as science)! From Uncommon Descent (from Evolution News):

Big Win in Texas as State Now Leads Nation in Requiring Critical Analysis of Evolution in High School Science Classes
Robert Crowther

In a huge victory for those who favor teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution, Texas today moved to the head of the class by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence” and specifically requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.

“Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.”

The new requirements were contained in revised science standards approved today by the Texas State Board of Education. The science standards include language requiring students to “analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations…including examining all sides of scientific evidence… so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.” Equally important, the high school biology standards now require students to “analyze and evaluate” the scientific evidence for key parts of evolutionary theory, including common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.

Discovery Institute has long endorsed the idea that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, including its unresolved issues.

---------

Also, we here at The Urban Mystic have received our first ever comment on the post regarding Sri Adi Da. To Anonymous, thank you for your comment. We look forward to your patronage.

-Dee