Near Miss

[BaalChatzaf]

An asteroid about 1.5 miles in width (1/6 the size of Mt. Everest) will come whizzing by our fragile planet this Oct 31. It will be telescope visible at 11:41 EST that night. The rock is moving at about 70,000 mph and will pass Earth at a distance of 310,000 miles. That asteroid is will off the plane of the ecliptic so it was not spotted until very recently. If that rock had our name on it, it would be Good Bye this Halloween.

An earth shattering event was predicted by the Crazies for this Oct 31, but they always predict earth shattering events. One was predicted for this last Sept 25 and apparently did not happen. One of these days the Crazies will be right. But even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[9thdoctor]

The Daleks aimed this one for a direct hit on Earth, specifically to wipe out my little vacation cottage in the North. They're still sore about me nearly wiping out their entire race. They want to hit me where it hurts, it has nothing to do with you earthlings. Luckily I got wind of it early enough (thank you Crazies) and was able to use the TARDIS to draw the thing into a gravity well (by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow) to deflect it's course.

[moralist]

More than a lunar distance is shamefully poor marksmanship. Please reload and try again.

Greg

[Selene]

More than a lunar distance is shamefully poor marksmanship. Please reload and try again.

Greg

No biggie...I know how to duck...

[Guyau]

.

Superb film about the Big One, the final one for earth and all humanity:

. Bob began this thread with an epistemological side, and I’d like to mention an epistemological point in this drama, because it goes by so quickly, and it is important to what is going to happen in the end. One of the sisters, the one getting married, is given a power of simply knowing certain things to be the case, and they are things one could not simply know right off, but really would have to be discovered by elaborate means. This special power given her, a bit of insider information as it were, is exhibited in only three points, and it is not distracting or alienating. The second and third facts she knows with this special power are that this nearing, annihilating object is indeed going to hit (contrary the official public pronouncements) and that all this glory that is us, all this life and intelligence and love, happened only once in the universe. It creates a great sense, by that final scene I linked, of how precious this all has been.

[BaalChatzaf]

.

Superb film about the Big One, the final one for earth and all humanity:

. Bob began this thread with an epistemological side, and I’d like to mention an epistemological point in this drama, because it goes by so quickly, and it is important to what is going to happen in the end. One of the sisters, the one getting married, is given a power of simply knowing certain things to be the case, and they are things one could not simply know right off, but really would have to be discovered by elaborate means. This special power given her, a bit of insider information as it were, is exhibited in only three points, and it is not distracting or alienating. The second and third facts she knows with this special power are that this nearing, annihilating object is indeed going to hit (contrary the official public pronouncements) and that all this glory that is us, all this life and intelligence and love, happened only once in the universe. It creates a great sense, by that final scene I linked, of how precious this all has been.

In the very long run it is all for nothing. The extinction of our race is inevitable. Even if a comet or asteroid does not wipe us out the sun will become hotter and hotter until the oceans and seas evaporate. So under the best of circumstances we are toast in 500,000,000 years. Terrestrial changes will probably finish us off soon.

We are not going to the stars. It is unlikely that our race will be able to take up residence on Mars. So we are done for sooner or later. Given that we shall not last as long as the cosmos all our doings are long range futile.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Guyau]

Bob, as you may recall, I agree with your view that the human species will not colonize in outer space and will become extinct. By nuclear war sooner or later.* However, I’d not say “futile,” at least with any reflection back onto our own existence. I think Rand was right in saying that life is an end in itself, and that there is no significance, meaning, or value beyond the realm of life. She was correct (at least in some important sense of her saying) that each individual human life is an end in itself. The death of the individual person does not make his or her life futile, for it was its own sufficient end, a self-sufficient value. Similarly, the life of the human species and the whole phenomenon of life on earth is an end in itself.

From Andrew Marvel’s To My Coy Mistress:

. . .

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

[anthony]

Not seen Melancholia, but "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World" I feel is hard to top in this genre. Unforgettable movie. One has to think: Yes, this is what it would be like.

Amazon.com: Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World: Steve ...

[anthony]

Hey Wolf. A review there looks like it could be yours. (Existentialism, etc. by your nom de plume)

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob, as you may recall, I agree with your view that the human species will not colonize in outer space and will become extinct. By nuclear war sooner or later.* However, I’d not say “futile,” at least with any reflection back onto our own existence. I think Rand was right in saying that life is an end in itself, and that there is no significance, meaning, or value beyond the realm of life. She was correct (at least in some important sense of her saying) that each individual human life is an end in itself. The death of the individual person does not make his or her life futile, for it was its own sufficient end, a self-sufficient value. Similarly, the life of the human species and the whole phenomenon of life on earth is an end in itself.

From Andrew Marvel’s To My Coy Mistress:

. . .

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

I don't think we will have nuclear war. But maybe I am wrong. I don't expect it in what remains of my life time which is of the order of at most 20 years.

[Brant Gaede]

"All our doings are long range futile." That's a colectivist premise.

My life matters to me and to others if not tomorrow then at least today. That's an individualist premise.

If my life doesn't matter then what's missing is love or the hope and expectation of love.

--Brant

why is cosmic energy so seemingly endlessly energetic--is movement actually the natural default, base stasis that can only be modified by temporary states of mass, conglomerations of energy?

(matterless thoughts--i.e., thoughts that don't matter)

[BaalChatzaf]

"All our doings are long range futile." That's a colectivist premise.

No it isn't collectivist. We have long range concerns and less than long range concerns.

My greatest concerns are my own and my spouse's, our children and grandchildren. This is my treasure on earth

Any interests you might have past the third generation down the line are up in you head. Hopes and wishes are all they are.

It is not quite rational to worry about the planet or the cosmos long term. They are doomed. The Cosmos will spread out and run down (Second Law of Thermodynamics).

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

We don't know about the end of the cosmos. We can pretend to, however.

--Brant

or the beginning--We can pre. . .

[Brant Gaede]

"God" is merely a being so far self evolved from us as to be incomprehensible. We are just starting to self evolve.

--Brant

we can't yet--if we ever will--get our heads around observed reality any more than we can get our heads around DNA--that is, W(here)TF did that come from?!

[BaalChatzaf]

We don't know about the end of the cosmos. We can pretend to, however.

--Brant

or the beginning--We can pre. . .

The second law of thermodynamics is the closest thing to a sure bet there is in physical science.

Since 2LOT was formulated (first by Carnot in 1824) there has not been a single observation or experiment made that even hints at falsify 2LOT. All observations near and far (13.5 billion light years out) support it. Even the conservation of energy was held to doubt until neutrinos were discovered. But never the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2LOT).

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

-----

Arthur Stanley Eddington

[classical thermodynamics] is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts.

-----

Albert Einstein

[Peter]

Brant wrote: We don't know about the end of the cosmos. We can pretend to, however.
end quote

In the past, Abraham Lincoln answered: The best way to predict your future is to create it.
end quote

They have discovered a strange star system. From Sky and Telescope: . . . . There is one more hypothesis, not mentioned in the paper, that the team is contemplating: a partially completed "Dyson sphere." For those not up on your science fiction, that's a hypothetical mega-structure constructed by an advanced alien civilization around a star to capture all that radiant energy.
end quote

We will know in a few days.
Peter

[Selene]

In the past, Abraham Lincoln answered: The best way to predict your future is to create it.

end quote

Peter

Did not know that Abe created his own assassination...who knew?

[BaalChatzaf]

Brant wrote: We don't know about the end of the cosmos. We can pretend to, however.

end quote

In the past, Abraham Lincoln answered: The best way to predict your future is to create it.

end quote

They have discovered a strange star system. From Sky and Telescope: . . . . There is one more hypothesis, not mentioned in the paper, that the team is contemplating: a partially completed "Dyson sphere." For those not up on your science fiction, that's a hypothetical mega-structure constructed by an advanced alien civilization around a star to capture all that radiant energy.

end quote

We will know in a few days.

Peter

Non of our transgalactic radio telescopes have the resolution to spot a Dyson Sphere. That is just a pure guess or speculation and shame on the journalist who printed it without clearly marking it as a speculation.

[Guyau]

Fermi’s Paradox

It could be that intelligent beings have arisen elsewhere in the cosmos, but that all of them arose at very nearly the same time as humans and have not yet advanced far enough to leave marks by which we might detect them. But it would seem more likely that if others have arisen at all, some of them arose thousands of earth years before humans. My conjecture as to why we see no trace of any such earlier alien intelligence is that, if there ever were such characters, they always destroyed themselves once they got to nuclear weapons. Always destroyed in under a thousand earth years, say, leaving no cosmic traces. (6.2)

[Brant Gaede]

We don't know about the end of the cosmos. We can pretend to, however.

--Brant

or the beginning--We can pre. . .

The second law of thermodynamics is the closest thing to a sure bet there is in physical science.

Since 2LOT was formulated (first by Carnot in 1824) there has not been a single observation or experiment made that even hints at falsify 2LOT. All observations near and far (13.5 billion light years out) support it. Even the conservation of energy was held to doubt until neutrinos were discovered. But never the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2LOT).

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

-----

Arthur Stanley Eddington

[classical thermodynamics] is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts.

-----

Albert Einstein

I can't speak to physics, but entrophy raises the question of why there are things to be entrophied.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I can't speak to physics, but entrophy raises the question of why there are things to be entrophied.

--Brant

One of the Oldest Questions: Why is there Something rather than Nothing.

Darned if I know.

Ba'al Chatzaf