This is literally amazing, and you could conceivably spend a great deal of time exploring all of the information contained on this site.
Just a little something to blow your mind first thing in the morning.
Friday, August 31, 2012
The amazing universe around us.
This is literally amazing, and you could conceivably spend a great deal of time exploring all of the information contained on this site.
Just a little something to blow your mind first thing in the morning.
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Great website, and very informative..
ReplyDeletethank you!
amazing
ReplyDeleteastonishing
astounding
bewildering
breathtaking
brilliant
sensational
staggering
stunning
wondrous
Thank you!!
Great link Gryphen.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this!
ReplyDeleteAwesome.
Simply fascinating. So are these words from the astronomer who's credited with calculating the age of the universe:
ReplyDelete“The most amazing thing to me is existence itself. How is it that inanimate matter can organize itself to contemplate itself?”
“Can a person be a scientist and a Christian? Yes. As I said before, the world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone.”
“God is the explanation for the miracle of existence.”
- Allan Sandage, cosmologist and Nobel Prize winner
Ah, the wonderful faith of Richard Dawkins- ascribing such a magnificent reality to retinal stimulation inspired neuronal reaction. Assuming Einstein, et alios were sufficiently correct in their theorizing (and I do) what we "see" in such pictures is light transmitted, diffracted, bent and otherwise transformed of phenomena vast distances away and millions (and billions) of years past.
ReplyDeleteScience giveth and science taketh away, not that I don't enjoy the pictures or the imaginings of what might be out there, but what hard science can "prove" concretely about such things is...very little.
If we're going to be skeptical about belief....why restrict that skepticism?
Seeing is believing.....indeed, more than some might imagine.
"Science giveth and science taketh away..."
Delete"...what hard science can "prove" concretely about such things is...very little."
No Dave. Science is a process of logic. It isn't a belief or faith in the supernatural. Science doesn't "taketh away" anything except ignorance and superstition. Step away from your computer, a skeptic like you shouldn't be using the technology science made possible. How are you seeing the universe? You wouldn't be viewing images made possible by man's rational thought processes and tool building abilities would you?
Just_a_Mote, you probably know more about science than I (a retired English teacher), but isn't it possible that there's at least a smidgen of truth in Dave's comment?
DeleteOn a PBS program about string theory, I think the point was made that quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity contradict one another, at least in part. These topics intrigue me, but I freely admit I don't understand either.
The history of science is one of revision, too, as scientists, being human, are prone to error. It took Lister a while to convince other physicians of his time that simply by washing their hands before surgery, they could reduce the risk of post-op infections. Prior to that, doctors thought dirty air was the cause of infection.
It intrigues me that among scientists, physicists are some of the most likely to think God exists. For some, this is a personal God, while for others simply a "super-intellect" who designed the cosmos, to use Sir Fred Hoyle's term. He became convinced of this as he and his colleagues learned how stars are born.
Max Planck, who originated quantum theory, was religious his whole life, practicing a faith which was a sort of off-shoot of the Presbyterian church.
Dr. Amit Goswami, who calls himself a quantum activist, wrote "Quantum Mechanics," a textbook used in universities throughout the world. He believes that quantum theory is God's way of revealing the divine to humanity.
An astrophysicist whose name I forget said the cosmos exists on a metaphoric knife-edge consisting of a long series of extremely improbably coincidences, all of which are necessary for its very existence. He finds it impossible that this exact series of circumstances could have come about in the absence of a sort of divine architect. Heady stuff.
Just_a_Mote,
DeleteThe scientific method, if validly pursued, uses logic to ensure proper conclusions are drawn from assumptions. Whether those assumptions are "true" (or true enough for the purposes of the statement) is(are) a different field(s) of study- epistemology, ontology and semantics come to mind.
The scientific method is built on many beliefs- that our perceptions relate in some consistent way to an assumed reality, and that any observed regular associations we assume as causal will persist through time (read Hume's views thereupon, who just happens to have considered himself an atheist) spring to mind.
More to the point, I didn't make any reference to the "supernatural" nor did I write about any disbelief in the pictures from the Hubble or any telescope (I have a nice Dobsonian my son and I use). I simply pointed out some of the assumptions inherent in the view that those pictures are of the cosmos.
Thank You, Gryphen. I loved exploring that site. The universe and what we know about it so far is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteJude, the scientific method is the empirical method we use to try to discern how things work in the reality we can observe and test and cannot be used to answer metaphysical questions. It is not a faith or belief in the way Dave suggested. It is simply a continual process of observing, hypothesizing, testing, and theorizing. It is fluid. You cannot answer metaphysical questions using the scientific method. They lie in the realm of faith and belief.
ReplyDeleteq.e.d.
Delete"You cannot answer metaphysical questions using the scientific method. They lie in the realm of faith and belief."
Le jeu est fait.
But you were talking about the metaphysical Dave. We could have an endless discussion about the reality behind the reality and the nature of knowledge.
DeleteThat discussion has been ongoing for millennia so you might be correct there, which is not to argue it would be fruitless. Contemplation of metaphysics eventually bring one's attention to necessary choices between competing beliefs- the world, after all, is not math (apologies to Pythagoras), nor is math, if intended to refer to and model reality, certain, as both Bertrand Russell and Einstein, inter alios, discuss at length. One fruit of such contemplation is awareness of the "leaps of faith" usually glossed over in introductory science education- a gloss which may very well be necessary to attract rather than confuse (or bore) young minds.
DeleteTo wit, before putting Cooper's Last of the Mohicans on my son's reading list, we watched the movie and took a trip around the area depicted. The gloss of the movie attracted his attention sufficiently to inspire further curiosity.
As the Buddha said, enlightenment is a journey, not a destination.
Jude, the scientific method is the empirical method we use to try to discern how things work in the reality we can observe and test and cannot be used to answer metaphysical questions. It is not a faith or belief in the way Dave suggested. It is simply a continual process of observing, hypothesizing, testing, and theorizing. It is fluid. You cannot answer metaphysical questions using the scientific method. They lie in the realm of faith and belief.
ReplyDeleteYou refer to what Stephen Jay Gould called non-overlapping magisterium.
DeleteMax Planck, Fred Hoyle, and Amit Goswami think otherwise. Here's one reflection from Planck on the subject:
“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.”
No opposition suggested.
DeleteDid you catch the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in London? It had Stephen Hawking acting as the MC with Sir Ian MacKellen as Prospero with a stunning linkage of science and rights tied into the importance of valuing disablility in as a proper part of the human condition. It was entitled enlightenment. I guess a few heads might have been exploding in your country. If it was broadcast?
ReplyDelete