One must wonder what is the probability that human beings such as us actually existing. We are a particular combination of cells that have come together through evolution, to operate ina particular way.
We exist because the conditions that creaed us on this planet flowed in a particular order, and created the cells that then met, joined and evolved into more complex organisms of which we, through successive evolutionary steps, beginning, supposedly with the Femure ancestor, gradually developed into us, with large thumbs, an ability to talk, and walk, and be creative, and of course kill.
Yet our position on the Earth, or terra, as the sci fi fictions might have us called, is tenuous, trivial, and fragile beyond belief. We do not have armour, except for skin. We can't take large G-forces, we can't survive heat, too much dust, too much heat, too much or deep cold, even though we survived the last few ice ages. Many animals are bigger, stronger, and have sharper teeth than us. If we had no weapons, we would not survive. We have buildings that can be knocked down by big waves, big earthquakes, and of course volcanos. We cannot survive tsunamis morethan ten metres high. We melt if the temperature gets above a 1000 degrees C. We die if the temperature gets about 150 degrees C, for an extended period. We die without water. We die without food. If the oceans rise too much, then land disappears and we fight each other to keep the land that is left.
We also die when there is too much radiation. If not from the sun, from which the amount of emitted radiation would kill us if not for the Earth's magnetic field. We are also dying slowly self effects. After years of Hydrogen and Atomic Bomb testing, the amount of radioactive air, water and earth, must be significantly higher, must be killing us all very slowly. What causes cancer? Cancer the mutation of the human gene. The human body doesn't like mutated genes, in fact they kill us. So radiation mutates genes, so ultimately we are surrounded by radiation that is in fact killing us. It is in our food, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.
So what is our place in the universe. How did we come to be? What purpose do we serve? How do we relate to other beings that are not us?
Well, on this planet, we do a dreadful job, we can't talk to dogs (our best friends), cats, birds, dolphins, whales, cockroaches, butterflies, jellyfish, barramundi, sharks. Sometimes we can't talk with each other, so we shoot each other, or murder each other, or run each other over.
We live in cities, where we all get on with each other???
The Universe is a large place, or so we would like to believe. How much do we see? Well not much really!! Do we understand our universe?? Not really!!
We exist ina world in which the human population is consumed by the will to survive, or as some might call it, capitalism. Capitalism is driven by advertising, and vice versa. Money rules what we can own, and how pleasant our lives are. Yet this is only a motivation in the human ape, or the human being. Do chimpanzees care where they live. They need food yes, and they need to mate, but do they cherish luxury goods over food, do they fit into Maslow's geometry of needs, or is this merely a human being notion.
Richness of live should be a simple thing, yet to the human being, greed and happiness are almost opposites. The financially richest people in the world live in big cities, are surrounded by slaves, or workers, and may be able to have short term hedonistic pleasure, but what do they get in return, they have the constant threat that someone else will get their riches off them.
Bill Gates (Microsoft) once said that the entrepreneur he was most afraid of, was the other human being who would come along with an operating system/software like his, and so he would lose his wealth to someone like him, so he goes about metaphoricaaly killing off the competition, and stealing software that makes his work better, and having to go to court, and eventually have to pay people for their originality. Mr Gates these days holds several billion dollars in charitable funds that he uses to better the world. He does so out of guilt for all those lives he has maimed. All those years of supplying operating systems that never work quite right, and then charging the users of his products for updates that should be free. Mr Gates is the example of capitalism working correctly, yet it does nothing for the human condition.
WHY DO WE EXIST? WHAT PURPOSE DO SERVE? WHAT DOES THE EARTH OWE US? WHAT DO WE OWE THE EARTH?
If this seems somewhat pessimistic, then maybe it is. One might also view it as optimism, as it points out that we can recognise our fallibilities, and we can change them.
For instance, instead of wars, why don't we put some of that money into learning to communicate with the other animals on our planet?
Why don't we help the people in third world countries, give them food, help them grow food. Give them education, learn to talk to them, understand them, love them...?
Last Question.
WHAT WILL IT HAVE TO TAKE FOR HUMAN BEINGS TO SHOW THAT WE ARE WORTH THE PLACE WE HAVE IN THE UNIVERSE?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Our Galaxy "The Milky Way" a new question
The facts that we know, or think we know are that: when we look out into space we are looking backward into time. Why because the distances are so vast and that light takes a long time to travel between stars. The light from the sun is 8 seconds old when it reaches Earth. The light from Jupiter and Saturn and the outer planets is minutes old when it reaches us.
Scientists would like us to believe that light travelling through the Universe bends due to the gravity effects of galactic clusters and dark matter, so here for the scientists is a new thought.
If in looking out into space, though Hubble or some other technology, how would we know whether or not we were looking at our own galaxy sometime in the past.
We would not recognise our own sun, nor would we recognise our own Solar system which was probably different in structure several billion years ago. Our planets would not necessarily have the same number of moons, and their distance from the sun would be influenced by the effects of gravity within the solar system and by the effects of gravity outisde our solar system.
Would our Galaxy still be the same shape 8 billion years ago, or 4 billion years ago, compared to its current shape and existence. The further out we look the farther back in time we look. The question being, would we recognise our own galaxy if we saw it?
Man has had such a short time in the Universe, we are arrogant to assume we would recognise an earlier version of our galaxy in a Universe we don't understand!!!
Scientists would like us to believe that light travelling through the Universe bends due to the gravity effects of galactic clusters and dark matter, so here for the scientists is a new thought.
If in looking out into space, though Hubble or some other technology, how would we know whether or not we were looking at our own galaxy sometime in the past.
We would not recognise our own sun, nor would we recognise our own Solar system which was probably different in structure several billion years ago. Our planets would not necessarily have the same number of moons, and their distance from the sun would be influenced by the effects of gravity within the solar system and by the effects of gravity outisde our solar system.
Would our Galaxy still be the same shape 8 billion years ago, or 4 billion years ago, compared to its current shape and existence. The further out we look the farther back in time we look. The question being, would we recognise our own galaxy if we saw it?
Man has had such a short time in the Universe, we are arrogant to assume we would recognise an earlier version of our galaxy in a Universe we don't understand!!!
The Speed of Light and other spacial anomolies
Einstein the father of E=Mc^2 was revolutionary, he was a post-modernist in taking the view of what would it be like to sit inside a ray of light as a new perspective.
From his thinking comes the notion that as as an object approaches the speed of light it will become heavier as it approaches speeds closer to the speed of light. The implication is that it would become infinitely heavy at the speed of light, and so need an infinite amount of energy to allow it continue, let alone go faster. The further implication is that such an object of infinite mass would in fact become a black hole, with infinite mass from which no light could escape. Other factors that would be seen by an observer, if Einstein is to be believed is that the object would get shorter as light speed was being approached, the implication being that at light speed the object would be infinitly short, perhaps even looking somewhat like a singularity.
Further implications of this is that if an object of any mass travels near or at the speed of light, its mass will increase to infinity the faster it goes.
So what of light itself. Does a photon of light have mass? If light can be bent by the gravity of dark matter, or of large galactic clusters, then must it have mass, or is the light itself being delected by the supposed gravity holes created in Einstein's model.
Light itself is composed of energy, it must have had a certain kinetic energy that is converted to momentum when the light itself is created in a sun or through whatever stellar or otherwise phenomena created it. If it holds some sort of energy, how is it stored? How, for instance can a photon exist for some 13 billion years without deteriorating, although light is known to dim. How can a particle of light exist in order to travel across the universe and be seen by us on planet Earth sometime later?
Returning to the previous notion of light having mass.
If light has some mass at all, then as light which travels at the speed of light, then by implication it must have infinite mass and so become a black hole. Simply then, light should, according to Einstein have infinite mass and take an infinite amount of energy to move. So what of the photon, that holds lights energy? What is the photon? Is the proton a small black hole that perhaps emits light? Or is it something else? Maybe light is not what we believe it to be.
Is there a link between light and what we call gravity. Is light the source of gravity, and our understanding or lack of understanding of gravity based on our perception of the effects we see and experience.
From his thinking comes the notion that as as an object approaches the speed of light it will become heavier as it approaches speeds closer to the speed of light. The implication is that it would become infinitely heavy at the speed of light, and so need an infinite amount of energy to allow it continue, let alone go faster. The further implication is that such an object of infinite mass would in fact become a black hole, with infinite mass from which no light could escape. Other factors that would be seen by an observer, if Einstein is to be believed is that the object would get shorter as light speed was being approached, the implication being that at light speed the object would be infinitly short, perhaps even looking somewhat like a singularity.
Further implications of this is that if an object of any mass travels near or at the speed of light, its mass will increase to infinity the faster it goes.
So what of light itself. Does a photon of light have mass? If light can be bent by the gravity of dark matter, or of large galactic clusters, then must it have mass, or is the light itself being delected by the supposed gravity holes created in Einstein's model.
Light itself is composed of energy, it must have had a certain kinetic energy that is converted to momentum when the light itself is created in a sun or through whatever stellar or otherwise phenomena created it. If it holds some sort of energy, how is it stored? How, for instance can a photon exist for some 13 billion years without deteriorating, although light is known to dim. How can a particle of light exist in order to travel across the universe and be seen by us on planet Earth sometime later?
Returning to the previous notion of light having mass.
If light has some mass at all, then as light which travels at the speed of light, then by implication it must have infinite mass and so become a black hole. Simply then, light should, according to Einstein have infinite mass and take an infinite amount of energy to move. So what of the photon, that holds lights energy? What is the photon? Is the proton a small black hole that perhaps emits light? Or is it something else? Maybe light is not what we believe it to be.
Is there a link between light and what we call gravity. Is light the source of gravity, and our understanding or lack of understanding of gravity based on our perception of the effects we see and experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
