Meanwhile, 100 million light yrs from home

[Mitch Cronin]

"Similar in size and grand design to our own Milky Way, spiral galaxy NGC 3370 lies about 100 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo."

A Hubble photo - from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030911.html

If that was a view of the milky way, we'd be about two thirds out from the centre, near an insignificant star not even visible in that photo...

...and some of us think we're all alone out here!

[Canus Chinookus]

pfft. Isn't it obvious the universe was created for us and us only?

[conehead]

What's the bright spot in the center?

[Guest rattler]

What's the bright spot in the center?

Bounce back from the flash in the studio.

[GDR]

If that was a view of the milky way, we'd be about two thirds out from the centre, near an insignificant star not even visible in that photo...

...and some of us think we're all alone out here! 

Remember that old philosophical question about a tree falling in the forest - does it make a sound if there is no one there to hear it?

How about we ask the question - Does that galaxy exist if there is no one here to perceive it?

Here is a chunk of an interview with Roger Penrose who is generally considered to be the leading mathematical physicist around.

Roger Penrose : Yes I think physicists would agree that the feeling of time passing is simply an illusion, something that is not real. It has something to do with our perceptions.

Narrator : Illusion or not, our perceptions emerge somewhere between the cosmic scale of Relativity where the flow of time is frozen and the quantum scale, where flow descends to uncertainty. Our world is on a scale governed by a mixture of chance and necessity.

Roger Penrose : My view is that there is some large scale quantum activity going on in the brain. Physics does not say that Quantum Mechanics takes place in small areas, but also take place over larger areas. I think this has to do with the consciousness. I think we need a new way to look at time, not either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity.

Narrator : If Quantum Mechanics is taking place in the brain then the same randomness of outcome and unpredictability might explain our ability to make sometime random choices. Opening up the future to the possibility of change would provide the first step of restoring to physics the flow of time it currently denies.

Physicist : I don't think time flows, I feel that time flows, but I feel we can only understand this if we have a better understanding of how consciousness works. I think human consciousness probably has the secrets as to how and why we think of time as going by.

Roger Penrose : I don't think we have the tools, I don't think we have the physical picture to accommodate these things yet. We're not very close to it.

There is a another physicist from the U of A who has worked closely with Hawking in the past that has stated that he believes that in the end we will not only find that time as we perceive it is an illusion but that so is space.

You spoke about a galaxy being a certain number of light years away. If time is an illusion then what meaning does the term "light-year" have? A year is just one measure of the way that we perceive change.

As I said earlier, it seems that nothing is as it seems.

I know - I'll make an appointment with a shrink in the morning.

Greg

[Guest rattler]

I wish I had said this:

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.

Isaac Asimov

[Canus Chinookus]

Great post GDR, and great quote rattler.

[conehead]

I was asking a real question. Mitch? Anyone?

[Canus Chinookus]

What's the bright spot in the center?

It's a massive cluster of stars. Some think that a black hole is at the very center, or possibly the source of matter for the galaxy.

[Guest rattler]

I was asking a real question.  Mitch?  Anyone?

My best guess is that it is the supernova. Mind you it could also be the increased light due to the number of stars closer together in the center.

What was the bright exploding star?

In November 1994, the light of a supernova in nearby NGC 3370 reached Earth. This stellar outburst briefly outshone all of the tens of billions of other stars in its galaxy. Although supernovae are common, with one exploding every few seconds somewhere in the universe, this one was special. Designated SN 1994ae, this supernova was one of the nearest and best observed supernovae since the advent of modern digital detectors. The supernova was also a member of a special subclass of supernovae, the type Ia, the best tool astronomers have to chart the growth rate of the expanding universe.

[conehead]

Thanks. By the way, who said that time was a myth?

Extra second to make 2008 even longer

Last Updated: Tuesday, December 9, 2008 | 9:46 AM ET Comments29Recommend24The Associated Press

With a brutal economic slowdown, 2008 may feel as if it will never end. Now, the world's timekeepers are making it even longer by adding a leap second to the last day of the year.

Along with the economy, the Earth itself is slowing down, requiring timekeepers to add an extra second to their atomic clocks to keep in sync with Earth's slightly slowing rotation. So, an extra second will be tacked on to Dec. 31 after 6:59:59 p.m. and before 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

That extra second will make 2008 — already long with an extra day on Feb. 29 — the longest year since 1992.

The decision to add an extra second was made by an international consortium of timekeepers, whose American arm announced it Monday.

World commerce and digital technology depend on accurate to-the-second timekeeping, said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, responsible for one-third of the world's atomic clocks.

Most cellular phone providers and computer operating systems check with the world's atomic clocks and update their time to add the leap second automatically, he said.

The world started adding leap seconds in 1972, sometimes twice a year. This is the first leap second since Dec. 31, 2005. This is the fourth year to have a leap day and a leap second.

At the Naval Observatory they have a party at 6:59:60 p.m.

"We watch the clock and make sure nothing breaks," Chester said. "It's an early New Year's celebration — a brief one."

© The Canadian Press, 2008

[Canus Chinookus]

A supernova is an explosion. This bright spot is in the center of every galaxy of this type, and it's just a high concentration of stars in a relatively small area. Not a supernova.

[DEFCON]

Allegedly, a Black Hole should be at the center of this galaxy. If that’s so, we are not able to actually “see” the black hole because its gravitational forces are greater than the energy of light (photons) to escape. As we get closer to the “edge” of the hole the density of stellar material increases tremendously, which is what I think we see in the “photo” as a ball of light.

[Mitch Cronin]

Greg, I think you could skip the shrink... There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with your head to me... mind you, my shrink might think my opinion is a little skewed?

I often think of this quote from Richard Bach:

"If our friendship depends on

things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time,

we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have

left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the

middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once

or twice?"

Spoken by a seagull.

I saw the second last in that series of lectures I told you about yesterday... In it I learned of "The Drake Equation" - an attempt to quantify the number of planets that may contain intelligent life that we could contact... (from 1961 or so I think)...

The formula Drake came up with goes like this: N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy

(Current estimate = 100 billion.)

fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them

(Current estimates range from 20% to 50%)

ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life

(Current estimates range from 1 to 5)

fl is the fraction of those planets where life actually evolves

(Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%)

fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves

(Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%)

fc is the fraction of those intelligent life forms that we could communicate with

(10% to 20% ? ...if Earth had only Dolphins, they likely wouldn't be looking to communicate with other planets)

fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live

Drake's final answer was 10.... That's ten planets in our galaxy that should contain intelligent life that we could communicate with...

Then... there's what they call Fermi's paradox... which says: so where are they?

(or, as copied from wiki: "The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations."

If you go to this site: http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topic...e_equation.html you can plug in whatever values you like into that equation and it calculates it for you (about half way down the page)

Anyway.... it's an interesting notion... beats naval gazing I reckon.

Cheers,

Mitch

[GDR]

Hi Mitch

Mathematical predictions of other life in the universe are only meaningful if the possibility of other life exists. My uneducated opinion is that we are "it" as far as life in our universe is concerned. (Whether there is other life in other universes or dimensions is another question entirely.)

My point is this universe only exists in the manner that it does because it is the way that we perceive it. I'm inclined to believe that earthly consciousness is required for this universe to exist in the form that it does at all.

Another way to look at it is this. By Einstein's theories time is dependent on motion and gravity, (actually acceleration as I understand it). We all have our own standard of time. A photon of light travels at the speed of light, so theoretically a wrist watch on a photon would never change. A photon then can be anywhere or everywhere at any time. There is no universal time.

When we figure out how far something is from us we use distance = velocity X time. If there is no specific standard for time then there is also no specific standard for distance. Thus what we perceive probably has an alternate reality that we can't begin to imagine.

My understanding of all this does not even approach minimal so take this all with a grain of salt but it is a fascinating subject.

Cheers

Greg

[J.O.]

Geez Mitch, you aren't just another pretty face there, are ya! Most of that went straight over my head.

Yeah, okay, all of it ...

[Canus Chinookus]

GDR, what would it take for you to change your view on whether you feel we're 'it' in the universe. What if they find life in some form on Mars or a moon orbiting Jupiter? Many experts actually think that life in the universe may be the rule, not the exception; that life may be inevitable if the conditions are right.

The more we learn about life right here on earth, and some of the incredibly harsh environmental conditions we keep finding life thriving, more it seems quite feasible that life could exist right on our local planets or their moons. Life has been found around volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean and the deepest parts of the world's oceans, life found in ice, life thousands of feet below the surface of the earth, and thousands of feet above the surface of the earth. Even life thriving on radioactive material, and believe it or not, the average Liberal's conscience. I'm kidding about the libs... there's no chance of that!

I hope you reconsider the possibility. I think it's a matter of time before we find it somewhere else. As for intelligent life, well, why not?

[Don Hudson]

Greg;

Yes, fascinating as always!

Mathematical predictions of other life in the universe are only meaningful if the possibility of other life exists. My uneducated opinion is that we are "it" as far as life in our universe is concerned.

"Gaia" behaves "as if" it were a living organism, but in truth it is a congenial environment which life made for itself as it evolved. Originally, oxygen was highly poisonous to early "life", but eukaryotes exhausted oxygen as a waste product and more complex organisms became "used" to oxygen. Paul Davies and others think that life itself, (self-replicating molecules able to exchange "information" with their environment) would be fairly common throughout the universe given the processes of formation of prokaryotic cells.

However, in "Unintelligent Design" by the Australian scientist Robyn Williams, the following is of interest:

Lovelock and Lynn Margulis have elaborated a vision of Earth behaving as if it were a living thing. The name Gaia was suggested to Lovelock by hl~ Ill'lghhour, the novelist William Golding, and may have queered the issue in some minds, making it seem romantic and oddball. In fact it is a rigorous application of chemical and physical relationships to explain how remarkably stable our atmosphere remains, just as we require. It doesn't mean that the planet is an earth goddess, considerately tuning things to suit us, but that the veneer of plants and animals on land and in the oceans is linked to the air in ways that affect it.

Whether this 'arrangement' will survive global warming and climate change is something Lovelock and many others doubt.

The same point emerges from Martin Rees's book; Just Six Numbers. These six are the crucial settings for our world. Alter anyone of them and it all collapses. They are:

· The three dimensions in which we operate. Yes, it is possible to have two-a flat place in which there are no globes, only discs. Or even up to eleven dimensions, which I cannot even begin to describe,

. N, the ratio of gravity to electromagnetism,. 

· epsilon, the ratio of mass lost to energy when hydrogen fuses to helium in stars,

. omega, the total of dark matter,

. lambda, the cosmological constant, and

. Q, the scale of smoothness (versus lumpiness) in the universe.

Fiddle with any of these values and you rearrange everything; the age of the universe, how tightly atoms bind, how long stars last and therefore what they make. Whether you end up with nothing but custard or, instead, lumpy bits that become suns, planets and galaxies, any other combination, and the world we know could not exist.

So how can we reconcile ourselves to this? Well, according to ID, the answer is a kind of reverse engineering. God calculated the universe He needed for people and applied the necessary numbers.

There's no doubt we are here as we are because of those six numbers and the way the solar system is set up. In other circumstances life, if it appeared, would be different.

In other words, even though "life" was discovered on Mars, (there is the theory that earth was "seeded" by such life), we just don't know if life is possible "elsewhere".

My point is this universe only exists in the manner that it does because it is the way that we perceive it. I'm inclined to believe that earthly consciousness is required for this universe to exist in the form that it does at all. IE.

I think that's an important statement about our universe and about "us-in-the-universe" Greg. Or, we might say, "our universe is immanent in human consciousness".

Our eyes have evolved to respond to a very narrow section of the electromagnetic spectrum. The universe does not "see", and we see only extremely dimly, narrowly, through a glass, darkly. Intelligent conjecture is as powerful as raw sight. Light does not "exist" at the molecular/atomic level. "Seeing is irrelevant to the universe"- "light" is "presencing, in the dance" but is not "seen" as such - the universe is neither dark or light - we might describe it more accurately through temperature.

Another way to look at it is this. By Einstein's theories time is dependent on motion and gravity, (actually acceleration as I understand it). We all have our own standard of time. A photon of light travels at the speed of light, so theoretically a wrist watch on a photon would never change. A photon then can be anywhere or everywhere at any time. There is no universal time.

Yes, in a very strong sense, time does not exist. "Time" is problemmatic because everyday language does not have adequate notions by which "time" may be described, but quantum physics, philosophy and mathematics does; "present, past and future" are "local" notions set to our own pace and tied to everyday life.

The notion I expressed a few days ago known as "the interpretive gesture" is a philosophical notion and not merely a characteristic of people or language.

Your expression in the first quote from your post touches on this though you may not realize it! In a very profound, (meaning, not in the way of ordinary, everyday discourse) way, the "interpretive gesture", a "hermeneutical" (interpretive) act which is not merely a "dictionary" exercise nor merely a personal view although it is always "individual". "Meaning" is always "on the move" as there is no "reality" underneath our words that "if we only could only just clarify, we'd 'get it' ". The term should be familiar to anyone who studies and interprets religious texts. The idea is not to "get at" what is meant if only we just work hard enough...the question always remains open as to meaning because there is no "underlying", "real" or "intended" meaning which is hidden from us and which would be revealed with the "right" investigative tools. There is nothing "under" the text remaining latent to be discovered and revealed - there is only the interpretive gesture and as such is never correct, nor wrong.

As a good friend with whom I been "in this narrative" for a few decades says, Nor does this point underwrite a radical relativism. Rather, it points to an "ontological" being, not "Platonic" in nature at all.

CC.;

I hope you reconsider the possibility.

Why do you need Greg to "reconsider"? - just asking .

[GDR]

I hope you reconsider the possibility. I think it's a matter of time before we find it somewhere else. As for intelligent life, well, why not?

Hi CC

I definitely don't question the idea that it's possible. I'm only offering the opinion that, with the my minimal understanding of things, there is no other life as we know it in our universe.

If they find life on Mars I'd be surprised, but I'd be just as excited as everybody else.

As for the "why not" read my last post.

Greg

[GDR]

"Gaia" behaves "as if" it were a living organism, but in truth it is a congenial environment which life made for itself as it evolved. Originally, oxygen was highly poisonous to early "life", but eukaryotes exhausted oxygen as a waste product and more complex organisms became "used" to oxygen. Paul Davies and others think that life itself, (self-replicating molecules able to exchange "information" with their environment) would be fairly common throughout the universe given the processes of formation of prokaryotic cells.

I don't question that at all. For me the question is does consciousness exist anywhere other than here.

Aside from that, it certainly is true that things here are very finely tuned in order for us to exist. It seems to me that suggests design but not conclusively.

In other words, even though "life" was discovered on Mars, (there is the theory that earth was "seeded" by such life), we just don't know if life is possible "elsewhere".

Life was discovered on Mars? I agree though that we just don't know.

I think that's an important statement about our universe and about "us-in-the-universe" Greg. Or, we might say, "our universe is immanent in human consciousness".

I wouldn't limit it to just human consciousness. In a way, even plants have a degree of consciousness in that they contain information such as how to absorb moisture or how to turn their leaves to the sun. Also, I'm not sure immanent would be the right word. I don't see consciousness as containing the universe as much as I see consciousness being necessary to perceive an external universe.

Our eyes have evolved to respond to a very narrow section of the electromagnetic spectrum. The universe does not "see", and we see only extremely dimly, narrowly, through a glass, darkly. Intelligent conjecture is as powerful as raw sight. Light does not "exist" at the molecular/atomic level. "Seeing is irrelevant to the universe"- "light" is "presencing, in the dance" but is not "seen" as such - the universe is neither dark or light - we might describe it more accurately through temperature.

We are dependent on our 5 senses to perceive the universe in the way that we do. If none of us had the sense of vision we would perceive things differently than we do now. We would not be able to even conceive of the idea of seeing something as we would have no way of knowing that the possibility of seeing something even existed. With different senses than what we have we, (if any actually exist), in all likelihood the universe would be perceived very differently.

Yes, in a very strong sense, time does not exist. "Time" is problemmatic because everyday language does not have adequate notions by which "time" may be described, but quantum physics, philosophy and mathematics does; "present, past and future" are "local" notions set to our own pace and tied to everyday life.

Science does have the language to describe time but there are still many unanswered questions. My understanding of the big one is that mathematically time should be symmetrical, in that it should flow either way, but our experience is that it always flows to the future and never to the past. (Not that it actually flows but you get drift. )

Here is an interesting quote from Stuart Hameroff.

We also don't know if our conscious perceptions accurately portray the external world. At its base, the universe follows the seemingly bizarre and paradoxical laws of quantum mechanics, with particles being in multiple places simultaneously, connected over distance, and with time not existing. But the “classical” world we perceive is definite, with a flow of time. The boundary or edge (quantum state reduction, or ‘collapse of the wave function”) between the quantum and classical worlds somehow involves consciousness.

Here is the wesite that discusses the work that he and Roger Penrose have done and from which this quote is taken.

Hameroff and Penrose

Here is a wiki site on another physicist that I find very interesting.

Julian Barbour

Hope retirement is treating you well. It's been 5 years for me and the time has just flashed by. There is another interesting thing about time. It certainly passes more quickly for me now than it did fifty years ago. It ain't a constant. It must be because I'm moving more slowly than I did then.

Cheers

Greg

[DEFCON]

Greg

"Science does have the language to describe time but there are still many unanswered questions. My understanding of the big one is that mathematically time should be symmetrical, in that it should flow either way, but our experience is that it always flows to the future and never to the past. (Not that it actually flows but you get drift."

God advised Abraham; "I always was, and always will be".

“Always was”?

Science offers mathematical modeling, which resolves the conundrum above. It’s known as the "Spacetime Continuum”.

Although I have my reservations with respect to religion and the Bible etc, I remain absolutely amazed by the similarities shared between the “story” of Genesis and the mathematics of modern science.

God lives, we just haven’t found an appropriate & proper path to understanding, imho.

[Specs]

How can folks be so sure that life exists out there. Doesn't that presuppose a that there are a limited number of combinations of matter and time that can be applied through an infinite space so the odds are that the conditions that allowed for life on earth will be repeated somewhere else.

Wouldn't that theory be blown all to heck if the actual combinations of matter and time were also infinite?

We might just be a unique combination - (and that's no endorsement of a higher being - just a mathematical observation.)

[DEFCON]

Specs

"How can folks be so sure that life exists out there. Doesn't that presuppose a that there are a limited number of combinations of matter and time that can be applied through an infinite space so the odds are that the conditions that allowed for life on earth will be repeated somewhere else."

Why would an assumption supporting the existence of extra-terrestrial life presuppose that there are a limited number of combinations...?

[Specs]

I kind of believe that space is infinite and with that, the possible combinations of matter to form are also infinite. To my way of thinking that would mean that each planet/body/moon is unique.

For a form of matter in terms of a planet or life to not be unique, to be reproduced or be similar to another, elsewhere in an infinite space would then mean that there are multiples of that particular matter combination and therefore only a limited number of combinations for matter to form.

I also kind of wonder that if life as we know it in terms of chemical and biological processes only exists on a planet for an infinitessimally small period of time in a planet's lifecycle, doesn't that even further lessen our chances of ever finding life out there?

[boestar]

I kind of believe that space is infinite and with that, the possible combinations of matter to form are also infinite. To my way of thinking that would mean that each planet/body/moon is unique.

For a form of matter in terms of a planet or life to not be unique, to be reproduced or be similar to another, elsewhere in an infinite space would then mean that there are only a limited number of combinations for matter to form.

I also kind of wonder that if life as we know it in terms of chemical and biological processes only exists on a planet for an infinitessimally small period of time in a planet's lifecycle, doesn't that even further lessen our chances of ever finding life out there?

"Life" can be found in many forms from a single cell to a complex combination of cells like a human being or a platypus (That in itself proves the infinite forms theory)

The possibility of "Life as we know it" existing is arguably small but life itself exisiting elsewhere is entirely possible. if the combinatioons are infinite, wouldnt it be very presumptious and arrogant to believe that we are the only life in an infinite universe. We need not be the only chemical composition to live. On our planet alone there are billions of different types of life each unique. Why not elsewhere.