[quote]1-packlondoner wrote:
All this stuff seems fascinating, if a tiny bit over my head. Is there a ‘quantum physics for dummies’ book out there someone can recommend?
[/quote]
Actually, quantum physics is another story… This is more astrophysics, even though some of the theories might include quantum physics.
With regards to Wormholes and Black Holes, start here:
Then you can graduate to this one, which is a somewhat outdated but still pretty good:
(yes, I’m even providing you with .co.uk links so that you have no excuse to NOT buy them!)
You can also look at the links I provided Professor X:
Actually, you might want to subscribe to Scientific American – at least the online version – which is great for “pop sci” fans while still being very authoritative.
But it’s the parts that overlap that stop the anarvhy. I think.
I’d rather say that ultimately, it’s law that stops anarchy.
So then the “law” is dictating what is right and what is wrong. [/quote]
Law dictates what is legal or illegal and provides punishment for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct. As stated above, I consider this the key with regard to preventing anarchy.
The way I see it, laws are rules made by human beings and there is no intrinsic or essential connection with morality. It is not so much a matter of right or wrong. In the given context, I guess having a rule in the first place is more important than having one rule or the other.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I had always read of those considered to have event horizons and this is often used in sci fi novels.[/quote]
Indeed. Sci Fi novels obviously focus on Traversable Wormholes (the “useful” ones), and refer to the Even Horizon as the point of traversal.
Same thing on TV.
For example, in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, they have been using that terminology very consistently. Their depiction of the Wormhole Event Horizon is actually one of the biggest calling cards of the series…
Of course, they routinely murder the most essential laws of physics and not only haven’t really been consistent about what happens to you when you go through the wormhole, they haven’t really provided any good explanation on how they propose to produce the copious amounts of exotic matter and energy that would be required for something like that to work.
They did introduce the ZPM (Zero Point Module) recently, which is a very interesting concept, even though seemingly absurd: harvesting the energy of a singularity… It wasn?t even an original idea, since Star Trek came up with that for running the Romulan Warp Drive. Of course, they should have stayed with the truly good concept – matter/anti-matter engines, which are definitely the Holy Grail of Space Propulsion ? but hey, they had to come up with something different for the Romulans, right?
Of course that does not prevent me from enjoying SciFi, and, in fact, it makes it even more fun and entertaining to watch. I am actually looking forward for the beginning of the next Stargate season next week…
By the way, a couple of good, even if outdated, books on SciFi and Physics are
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Either way, good discussion.[/quote]
[quote]1-packlondoner wrote:
pookie wrote:
The question is: What’s the basis for your moral code?
Life experience. Growing up and being hurt. Growing up and hurting others. Learning from that. Wanting to treat people the same as I would have them treat me… See, I told you there was some overlap… ;-)[/quote]
But it would be useful to be able to arrive at, through reason, a list of moral rules that most people can agree on; if for nothing else than to prevent everyone from having to learn from life experience.
It would also be better, in my opinion, to be able to explain the logical rationale behind each “rule” when someone ask for the reasons for that rule.
[quote]pookie wrote:
1-packlondoner wrote:
pookie wrote:
The question is: What’s the basis for your moral code?
Life experience. Growing up and being hurt. Growing up and hurting others. Learning from that. Wanting to treat people the same as I would have them treat me… See, I told you there was some overlap…
But it would be useful to be able to arrive at, through reason, a list of moral rules that most people can agree on; if for nothing else than to prevent everyone from having to learn from life experience.
It would also be better, in my opinion, to be able to explain the logical rationale behind each “rule” when someone ask for the reasons for that rule.
[/quote]
It would be better, but I’m afraid it’s probably only possible in that distant sovereign isle of cloud-cuckoo land. If we can’t agree here, what hope is there for the larger population of the planet?
[quote]1-packlondoner
It would be better, but I’m afraid it’s probably only possible in that distant sovereign isle of cloud-cuckoo land. If we can’t agree here, what hope is there for the larger population of the planet?[/quote]
It seems that the disagreement here is more about the source of the morals, rather than the details of the morals themselves.
[quote]pookie wrote:
1-packlondoner
It would be better, but I’m afraid it’s probably only possible in that distant sovereign isle of cloud-cuckoo land. If we can’t agree here, what hope is there for the larger population of the planet?
It seems that the disagreement here is more about the source of the morals, rather than the details of the morals themselves.
[/quote]
To sum up so far for all those
that can’t be bothered to trawl through 5000 pages of ‘prove he does’ ‘prove he doesn’t’ God arguing…
The origin of this particular conversation on this thread came from a christian saying that by definition as a human being I was immoral. I then said that no I wasn’t and that morality was subjective. Then I got called a lefty PC person and told that was a crock of horseshit.
That led to about a 50 page argument then life settled down and then it all went crazy about astrophysics and event horizons.
As things stand currently that appears to have mutated once again into something about what stops anarchy…Morals or law.
I love th’internet. Very organic. Ever changing. Like a lava lamp. Or a fat girl’s wobbly bits.
BTW - I think we kinda mostly agreed that many people’s morals overlap but obviously many devoutly religious people would have morals that I (and others) fundamentally disagree with and vice versa.
So if you believe in God and in Evolution then wouldn?t god be a single celled organism?
God created man in his image…
Yet man evolved from primordial soup eventually to primates then into us, so which stage of that is created in God?s image?
My self I’d say Maybe God exists maybe not, if there is a heaven n hell great, if there isn?t people would probably be more scared of dieing since they’d simply cease to exist.
[quote]JK-Giant-Feather wrote:
God created man in his image…[/quote]
I believe this is to be interpreted as “God created man in his (spiritual) image.” As in “man aspires to perfection” or something similar.
It’s not meant to say that God physically looks like us (or vice versa.) An omnipotent being outside of space and time has no need for a physical body, nor for the bunch of organs that allow us to live and reproduce.
There is no such thing as the perfect being.There is only the perfect species of the time and conditions it was created under.There seems to be a movement in nature towards the perfect species,but the perfect individual will never excist.The individual will have no way of experiencing for itself that it is ‘divine’ or anything like that.
[quote]Wolverin wrote:
There is no such thing as the perfect being.[/quote]
For those who believe in God, that’s what God is: A perfect being. He has to be, or else he’s not “God”.
There’s little if any “perfection” to be found in nature. Evolution works by blindly trying stuff and whatever sucks the less, gets to reproduce the most and the change gets passed on.
Sharks have been around for what? 300 million years or so… they’re probably as “perfect” (ie, perfectly adapted to their environment) as it gets. Some gene groups have been around for at least 3.5 billions years; they live in just about every form of life known. One could say that those genes have been “perfect” in getting their information not only preserved, but widely disseminated with hardly any “noise” (ie, viable mutations) picked up along the way.
Words like “divine”, “spiritual”, “soul”, “life essence”, etc. describe things that don’t exist in a physical sense (ie, they’re not made of matter and/or energy; at least not of a kind we know how to detect and interact with). It’s therefore difficult to predict what an individual would/would not be able to experience if those words actually describe things that have reality.
[quote]ballin wrote:
i don’t understand how people call themselves Christian and then they always go against what the bible says.[/quote]
Being a “Christian” takes a belief in God, not perfection in all acts. Some of the most judgemental and retarded people I know would call themselves Christians. Some of the most closed minded people I know relate this to “Christianity”.
You are following the teachings of this book that gives you no further explanation, than:
do as I say, and do not question me worship me reguarlly then after you die you will be allowed into heaven.
Do you not want to know a litle more?
Do you not want to know what god did before he cretaed our universe, or after?
Do you not want to know who or what he is and why he did it?
[/quote]
Do we NEED to know what happened before? You might find it interesting that Christians don’t believe that bible answers every little question that we have about the universe or about God, but the bible certainly gives us everything we NEED to know about how to be in a relationship with God and how we are saved.
The bible tells us about God’s relationship with mankind, the problems with it, and what God has done about fixing the problems. It’s not a science textbook on the Big Bang theory.
[quote]electric_eales wrote:
God made man in his own image, which means that he must look like us, even if god is a transiant entity I makes me wonder where did he come from and why did he make our universe.
Also if it only took god 6 days to create an infinite and impossibly complex universe, you would think he could spare half an hour to come back and fix a few things.
[/quote]
The “image” thing is more to do with how we relate to God and each other, not physical image. The relationship between God as the Father, Son and Spirit was reflected in how man related to God and each other. For example, in the New Testament the husband-wife relationship is to imitate that of Christ and the church in terms of serving each other.
The “Santa Claus” image of God is more of an attempt to bring God down to our level and make us feel more comfortable about Him. This is only a very recent phenomenon, pre-20th century views would have been a little more respectful.
God did create the perfect universe (read Genesis 1-2 and see how many times God saw that His creation “was very good”), we stuffed it up through sin (Genesis 3).
As I mentioned in a previous post the bible is about how God fixes the imperfect world that we have brought upon ourselves.
You are following the teachings of this book that gives you no further explanation, than:
do as I say, and do not question me worship me reguarlly then after you die you will be allowed into heaven.
Do you not want to know a litle more?
Do you not want to know what god did before he cretaed our universe, or after?
Do you not want to know who or what he is and why he did it?
Do we NEED to know what happened before? You might find it interesting that Christians don’t believe that bible answers every little question that we have about the universe or about God, but the bible certainly gives us everything we NEED to know about how to be in a relationship with God and how we are saved.
The bible tells us about God’s relationship with mankind, the problems with it, and what God has done about fixing the problems. It’s not a science textbook on the Big Bang theory.[/quote]
Well I for one would like to know more, if you want me to give up my sunday mornings and pay to go and listen to a stranger tell me how to live my life, you better have something better than a tatty old story book to back up your claims.
