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Post by reverendalan on Oct 24, 2012 17:22:11 GMT -8
Anyone have any ideas they would be willing to share as to why we each find ourselves existing in this biosphere we call the planet earth?
Why did humanity arise on the surface of this planet?
What am I for?
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Post by jerome on Nov 20, 2012 17:46:32 GMT -8
Hi Alan. It's Jerome.  We have some pretty good explanations of why human beings rose up to our present position on this planet. Conditions were favorable in the environment and we have some advantages like language and opposable thumbs. We have good ideas about how we got to where we are. But no one really can say why we are here with any degree of certainty. And one has to wonder if that is the right question to ask. "Why" implies some purpose for our being here. So does "What are we for?". The question assumes that there is a purpose. That we are "for" something. Maybe we should address that... How can we know that there is a purpose at all? |
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:11:23 GMT -8
Hi Alan. It's Jerome. one has to wonder if that is the right question to ask. "Why" implies some purpose for our being here. So does "What are we for?". The question assumes that there is a purpose. Maybe we should address that... How can we know that there is a purpose at all? The first questions have to be 'Are our surroundings real and Why?' |
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:12:02 GMT -8
Facts about the Moon
It orbits the Earth so that one side always remains hidden.
The diameter is 3,474 kilometres which is about one quarter of the size of the Earth’s diameter and it is extremely large in relation to the planet that it orbits. This makes its relative size to its host, the largest moon in the solar system.
The Moon keeps the Earth in a stable orbit. Without it our climate would be chaotic and severe to the extent where complex life forms such as ourselves wouldn’t have been able to evolve. It really does look as if it has been carefully programmed to monitor, stabilise and incubate life on Earth.
By some incredible coincidence the Moon is appears to us as being 400 times smaller than the Sun, yet it is 1/400th of the distance of the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Consequently the Moon looks like it is the same size as the Sun.
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:12:38 GMT -8
Facts about the Earth (By Larry Bricker, a teacher at Mesa Community College)
Like the bowl of porridge (from the story Goldilocks) that was not too cold (Mars) or too hot (Venus), but “just right”, the Earth seems to be in just the right position in our solar system to maintain the conditions of life. Life and the organic molecules upon which it is built have a narrow temperature tolerance. At higher temperatures most organic compounds break down and become non functional. (Just like your body when you have a temperature that is too high for too long, molecules necessary for life degrade and you die.) At lower temperatures the chemical reactions of life (metabolism) cease or slow down too much to maintain a living system.
The sun warms our planet. This warming (incoming solar radiation) powers the cycling of matter (bio geochemical cycles such as the carbon cycle) and is responsible for our climate and weather systems that distribute heat and fresh water throughout our biosphere. Our atmosphere contains greenhouse gases (water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) that contribute to capturing and holding in the sun’s energy. Without this “thermal blanket” of greenhouse gases, the captured heat would all radiate back out into space (infra red radiation) leaving this planet nothing more than the “3rd Rock from the Sun”.
Sunlight doesn’t strike the earth’s surface evenly and therefore doesn’t heat the surface evenly. At any one time one-half the earth is dark, the other half in direct sunlight. Some of the surface is water, or snow and ice or soil and rock that absorbs or reflects light and heat in varying amounts. Cloud cover reflects sunlight, but also helps hold in heat radiating out from the earth. (Notice how a cloudy day sometimes feels warmer?) The tropics receive more sunlight or solar radiation than the higher latitudes (polar regions). Life on earth would be very difficult indeed if the energy (and water) were not redistributed. The equatorial regions would be hotter, the polar regions colder, and most land masses would be deserts with only the coastal regions receiving enough moisture to sustain life.
This energy imbalance is evened out by the movement of air driven by the sun. When our atmosphere is warmed by solar radiation, it expands and rises, creating currents and pressure differences (winds) that ultimately carry water vapour and energy into upper regions to flow and descend, redistributing water and energy from low to high altitudes, from low latitudes (equator) to high latitudes (the temperate zones and ultimately the polar zones) and from the oceans inland determining our weather patterns, climates and the final distribution of plants, animal, and humans. Solar radiation drives the winds that sustain the water cycle (hydrologic cycle) that determines where life can exist on land.
Oceans also receive solar radiation with some of it reflected, and some of it absorbed heating the water. Because of this oceans play an important role in the redistribution of heat on the planet helping keep the earth’s temperatures more moderate. The colder polar waters are dense and sink and flow towards the equator. Warmer surface water in the tropics tends to stay on top. The movement of the earth rotating on its axis combined with the seasonal tilt differences from winter to summer plus the movement of air currents (produced by the uneven heating) contributes to the mixing of these colder and warmer waters vertically (up welling) and creating currents from the equator to the polar regions and back. (The Gulf Stream that flows from the equator along the east coast of North America carries the warmer water that makes the climate of Great Britain so mild.) Without this interaction of ocean currents and air currents, heat storage and movement throughout the planet would not be moderated and there would be extremes in temperatures much like on the moon.
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:14:44 GMT -8
Quote from Marcus Chown's "The Universe Next Door", beginning on page 144:
"The most striking evidence that there is a multiverse comes from the fundamental laws which control the Universe. A very peculiar thing about these laws is that they appear to be 'fine-tuned' so that human beings, or at least living things, can exist.
This remarkable fact was first noticed by the British Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle. In the 1950's, Hoyle discovered that the step-by-step process by which heavy atoms are built up from light ones deep in the central furnaces of stars depends on a series of odd 'nuclear' coincidences. Only if the cores, or nuclei, of three atoms - beryllium-8, carbon-12 and oxygen-16 - have just the right energy can hydrogen, the lightest atom, be assembled into heavy atoms such as calcium, magnesium and iron which are the essential ingredients of life.
If Hoyle's example of nature's fine-tuning was the only one, it might be possible to sweep it under the carpet. However, it isn't. 'Many instances have been found in which if a certain fundamental force of nature were slightly weaker or stronger, or if a certain fundamental particle were slightly lighter or heavier, there would be no galaxies or stars or planets, and hence no human beings,' says Tegmark.
Take gravity, for instance. If the force of gravity were just a few per cent weaker than it actually is, it would be quite incapable of squeezing and heating the matter in the heart of stars to the many millions of degrees necessary to trigger the nuclear reactions which generate sunlight. Stars like the Sun would consequently not exist. If, on the other hand, gravity were only a few per cent stronger than it is, it would boost the temperature in the cores of stars, causing them to consume their fuel faster and burn out more quickly. Though stars would still exist, they would not exist for the billions of years needed for biological evolution to produce intelligent life.
In addition to gravity there is the strong nuclear force, which is responsible for gluing together atomic nuclei. If the strong force were just a few per cent stronger, the Sun would burn its entire supply of hydrogen fuel in less than 1 second and consequently explode. Instead the Sun uses up its fuel at a leisurely rate over about 10 billion years, a period of time far more suited to the evolution of intelligent life.
If the strong force were a few per cent weaker than it is, on the other hand, it would be too feeble to hold together deuterium, an essential step in the generation of starlight and the first stepping stone in the building of atoms heavier than hydrogen inside stars. The Universe would therefore lack the heavy atoms which are essential for life.
In addition to the strong force, there is a second force which operates in the domain of the atomic nucleus. And - surprise, surprise - it turns out that it too is finely balanced so that we can exist.
The weak force plays a crucial role in the explosion of massive stars such as supernovae. Specifically, it is the means by which subatomic particles known as neutrinos interact with matter." Neutrinos are created in vast numbers deep in the core of a dying star and as they surge outwards into space they are instrumental in blowing away the outer layers.
If the weak nuclear force were only a smidgen stronger than it actually is the neutrinos would interact so much with matter that they would be stopped dead in the star’s core. With no neutrinos left to drive away the outer layers, the explosion would stall well before it could rip apart the star. If the weak nuclear force were slightly weaker than it is, on the other hand, the neutrinos would interact so little with matter that they would escape into space without interacting much at all with the material of the star. Once again, there would be nothing to blow away the star’s outer layers and create a supernova.
What has this got to do with us? Well, the heavy atoms which are essential for life are forged in the furnaces of massive stars. And those heavy atoms remain locked away forever unless such stars go supernova and catapult them into space. Consequently, if the weak force were just a fraction weaker or a fraction stronger than it is, no iron or calcium or iodine or many other atoms essential for life could have been blown into space to be incorporated into new stars and planets and, ultimately, you and me.
‘Wherever physicists look they see examples of fine-tuning,’ says Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge. ‘Most of the physical constants and the initial conditions of the Universe examined so far appear to be fine-tuned to some extent’
By ‘physical constants’ or ‘fundamental constants’, physicists mean the quantities that ultimately govern the Universe. These include things like the numbers which characterise the strength of the four fundamental forces or the masses of the fundamental particles.
What are we to make of the fine-tuning of the physical constants? It could be a coincidence,’ says Rees. ‘I once thought so. But that view now seems too narrow.
Tegmark agrees that nature’s fine-tuning cannot be passed off as a mere coincidence. ‘There are only two possible explanations,’ he says. ‘Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a Creator. Or there exists a large number of Universes, each with different values of the fundamental constants, and not surprisingly we find ourselves in one in which the constants have just the right values to permit galaxies, stars and life.’
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:15:53 GMT -8
The following is based on some ideas thought up by Ed Harrison, formerly of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. (Beginning on page 159 of Chown’s book, “The Universe Next Door).
“Physicists have discovered that even very slight deviations in the laws that we observe would result in a universe completely devoid of stars and life.
......The anthropic principle leads naturally to the idea that our Universe is not alone but is instead part of a large ensemble of universes. In each individual universe of this ‘multiverse’, the strengths of the fundamental forces take on different values, the fundamental particles have different masses and so on. Or, to take the extreme point of view of Max Tegmark, the laws of physics are entirely different.
Harrison has commented that “The multiverse idea requires the existence of countless uninteresting and lifeless universes,....To me; this is waste on a truly cosmic scale.’
The alternative would seem to be that our Universe is the work of a Supreme Being. Harrison counters this with a third theory. “According to Harrison, the multiverse could be as far from a wasteland as it is possible to imagine. In fact, it could be totally dominated by universes with galaxies and stars AND LIFE.
There is only one prerequisite. LIFE BEARING UNIVERSES must have a very special ability: THE ABILITY TO REPRODUCE.”
Malcolm: This theory very likely grew from the physicist Lee Smolin’s speculation that black holes give birth to baby universes, then the universes that are geared up to produce the most black holes will spawn the most offspring universes. If the offspring universes are similar to their parents then, inevitably, universes which make lots of black holes will come to dominate the multiverse. (The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin).
Chown continued...”But there is a snag. The prerequisite that life-bearing universes should come to dominate the multiverse is not that universes with lots of black holes should make more universes with black holes, but that life-bearing universes should spawn more life-bearing universes. Smolin therefore argues that the very same laws of physics which promote the formation of black holes must also promote the emergence of biology.
Harrison on the other hand said, ‘I can see no compelling reason why universes which make lots of black holes should be good for life.’ Instead he proposes that life-bearing universes come to dominate the multiverse because intelligent life actively makes new universes. Forget black holes: life itself takes over the universe-building business. ‘In offspring universes which are fit for life, new life evolves to a high level of intelligence then creates further universes,’ says Harrison. ‘On the other hand, universes which are unfit for life evolve no life and so fail to reproduce.
In Harrison’s scheme, the laws of physics which are most suited for the emergence and evolution of life are naturally selected by life itself. For this reason, he calls his idea the ‘natural selection of universes.’ If he is right, then the origin of our Universe is no longer such a mystery. It was created by super-intelligent beings living in another universe entirely.
But how does this explain the fact that the laws of physics in our Universe are fine-tune for life? According to Harrison, there are two possibilities. The first is that new universes naturally inherit the characteristics of their cosmic parents, much as children inherit the characteristics of their human parents. Small ‘genetic variations’ in the laws of physics between generations would ensure that new universes were not carbon copies of their predecessors. It follows that since the parent of our Universe was fine-tuned for life and similar to our own – if it wasn’t, life would never have arisen in it to make our Universe – our Universe must also be fine-tuned for life.
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Post by malcolm on Nov 21, 2012 11:23:20 GMT -8
The next piece of the puzzle to be studied is "The Holographic Universe" - refer book of this name by Michael Talbot.
Then ask whether the Universe itself as a whole can think and is organising itself. What we always find is that there is both positive and negative energy and it is natural for the two to try and find a balance. Once there is awareness then there has to be a variety of thoughts and these as we know go from bad to good. Again awareness tries to find a balance.
We may be part of that equalising factor.
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Post by jerome on Nov 22, 2012 12:15:51 GMT -8
" The first questions have to be 'Are our surroundings real and Why?'
Yes Malcolm they are real. But we don't see the real.
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