Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

Here's Kurzweil's take from 2011:

Key words:

John Michael Greer
Kevin Carson
ephemeralization
Buckminster Fuller
transoceanic cable vs. satellites

Catabolic Ephemeralization? Carson Versus Greer

this is Greer's take:

The Archdruid Report: The Flight to the Ephemeral

 

[smcder]

a recent entry that discusses Kurzweil, the idea of biophobia is very interesting to me:

The Archdruid Report: Toward a Green Future, Part One: The Culture of Biophobia

 

[smcder]

I just realized - Greer reminds me a bit of GK Chesterton.

 

[smcder]

Hm, I get what he is saying: technology will level the playing field once again; all humans will be equals via technology; there won't be any specialists.

But you're exactly right: the reality is that there already is a techno-priesthood. It's located in Silicon Valley. It's the mechanical and computer engineers. They hold the sacred knowledge that makes the magic screens work. In all seriousness, the entire infrastructure of the West would collapse without them.

I'm assuming he has really ruled out the possibility of using oil more efficiently and/or the possibility of alternative energies.

I'd be curious to see what Ray Kurzweil thinks of this. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate; if the energy supply is not keeping pace, I wonder what it will do to his forecasts? (The genius of Kurzweil is that he makes his predictions based on the technology of the future, not the technology of today, which everyone else does.)

came across this while looking for Greer references to Kurzweil . . .

Kurzweil: the movie

In "Transcendent Man" it is a sadder than usual Ray Kurzweil who appears on the screen. The 2009 documentary film about Kurzweil, an acclaimed inventor and futurist, shows that the laws of entropy are at work on his body. He undergoes open heart surgery during the course of the film even as he continues to espouse the belief that technological developments over the next 30 years will make human immortality a reality.

To bridge the gap between now and then, the 63-year-old Kurzweil downs 200 pills a day consisting of various herbs, vitamins or other supplements to "reprogram" his body's biochemistry and improve his chances of reaching what he calls the"singularity," a time after which technological change will occur at a pace so fast that the only way we will be able to understand it is to merge with our machines. Humans will at that point become human-machine hybrids.

(It would not matter much what Kurzweil thinks were it not for his globetrotting speaking tours and widely read books that have influenced much of the world's elite who also seem similarly bereft of a suitable education in the relevant sciences. Moreover, his meta message seems to be that we should just sit back and let technological geniuses like him fix every problem including climate change and resource depletion.)

 

[smcder]

I didn't know he had an online supplement shop . . .

Welcome to Ray Kurzweil & Terry Grossman’s Health Products

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Ray and Terry's Longevity Products

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• The time-released green tea and vitamin B-12 help you feel alert and prepared for the day within 45 minutes
• Cortisol release reduced with regular use
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96 capsules for $99
2-6 capsules a day recommended
that's $350 for a six month supply at 2 capsules

Ingredients:

Vitamin B 121250 mcg20,8333%
Niacin (as Niacinamide)5 mcg25%
Proprietary Blend (Guarana Extract, Kola Nut Extract, DMAE, Acetyl L-Carnitine, Baccoppa Monnieri Extract, Peppermint Oil, Tulsi (Holy Basil) Extract, Green Tea Extract, Gingko Biloba Extract, Rhodiola Extract, Phosphatidylserine, L-Tyrosine, White Tea Extract, Black Tea Extract, Alpha Glycerylphosphorylcholine, Citicoline, Huperzine Extract & Vinpocetine)

Longevity Multi-pack ius $86.75 for a month's supply
Longevity MultiPack

 

[smcder]

Another estimate I saw on Kurzweil was 150 supplements a day - pricing some of the more popular products on his website, making conservative calculations - one would spend $7,500 a month to emulate him.

 

[smcder]

So you don't believe we will learn to either charge incredible premiums to power up our iPads while maxing out renewables, alternative energy and building more nuclear reactors like they're Lego blocks?

Plus western nations are incredibly wasteful when it comes to energy - I would think that rising costs will forcefully retrain the mudde, middle and lowering classes.

But I always listen to Druids so I'll check that out.

I really don't know what to think . . . Greer does address why he thinks conservation won't do the trick (he said we missed our chance in the 70s and that there is a lot of collective guilt around that) and that alternatives aren't adequate to sustain what we have, much less progress into a super high tech future - but there always could be a game changer. He does say that he is amazed at the number of people who confuse technology with energy.

Paris Illumination Ban: 'City Of Light' Begins Turning Off Its Lights At Night To Save Energy

 

[Soupie]

I don't endorse everything Kurzweil says/does (same for Langan) but some of his ideas are exemplary in my opinion.

Kurzweil also sees man's merging with his tech as a "natural" progression of evolution. It's not necessarily intuitive, but makes a good bit of sense (if one believes in evolution).

To put it mildly, Life is a pretty amazing thing. However it began, once it began there has been no stopping it. It has weaseled it's way into every conceivable corner of the planet: miles under the earth and miles above the earth.

That Life will find a way to "jump" - like a virus - from organic matter to inorganic matter just seems like an inevitability to me. And once Life jumps to inorganic matter, there will be no stopping it. It will spread across the universe as fast as it can.

Speaking of which, I often wonder if this has already happened, and that some of our "paranormal" encounters are with Life that has already transitioned from the organic to the inorganic.

 

[smcder]

I don't endorse everything Kurzweil says/does (same for Langan) but some of his ideas are exemplary in my opinion.

Kurzweil also sees man's merging with his tech as a "natural" progression of evolution. It's not necessarily intuitive, but makes a good bit of sense (if one believes in evolution).

To put it mildly, Life is a pretty amazing thing. However it began, once it began there has been no stopping it. It has weaseled it's way into every conceivable corner of the planet: miles under the earth and miles above the earth.

That Life will find a way to "jump" - like a virus - from organic matter to inorganic matter just seems like an inevitability to me. And once Life jumps to inorganic matter, there will be no stopping it. It will spread across the universe as fast as it can.

Speaking of which, I often wonder if this has already happened, and that some of our "paranormal" encounters are with Life that has already transitioned from the organic to the inorganic.

I don't endorse everything Kurzweil says/does (same for Langan)

I wasn't thinking you did . . . I really don't know much about Kurzweil - read a couple of his books a while back, I'd heard the huge number of supplements he takes, but didn't know he had a store - the prices and claims on that site seem a little extreme to me . . . if he takes a 150 different supplements, how do you run the combinatorics on that to know anything about the interactions? On the face of it - it doesn't even seem like good science . . . but there was Linus Pauling and mega-doses of Vitamin C. . . the health food/positive thinking thing goes back a long way in America.

I've heard him criticized along the life extension line, raises ethical issues - who gets to live (forever)? . . . and usurping the place of the unborn . . .

I like Greer and I like his style, to me he is a fun read - I don't know if he is right, but his is a minority view and I think one of the reasons it's a minority is that he calls us to give up some of our most cherished and least examined assumptions. I think his idea of biophobia developed in this column:

The Archdruid Report: Toward a Green Future, Part One: The Culture of Biophobia

. . . is provocative and see also his take on the film Gravity (below). He almost seems to be faulting Kurzweil for a lack of imagination by situating his ideas squarely in a very well known mythos. This is the stuff that reminds me of Chesterton - if nothing else, I think Greer is an acute social critic, leveraging an outsider's view with intelligence and imagination.

He also identifies as being on the autism spectrum - I find listening to him on podcasts is fascinating.

You don’t hear the gospel of progress preached in quite so unrelenting a form very often these days, but the implications are still there. Consider the gospel of the Singularity currently being preached by Ray Kurzweil and his followers. I’ve commented before that Kurzweil’s prophecy is the fundamentalist Christian myth of the Rapture dolled up unconvincingly in science fiction drag, but there’s one significant difference. According to every version of Christian theology I know of, the god who will be directing the final extravaganza is motivated by compassion and has detailed personal experience of life in the wet and sticky sense discussed above, while the hyperintelligent supercomputers that fill the same role in Kurzweil’s mythology lack these job qualifications.

It’s thus not exactly encouraging that writers on the Singularity seem remarkably comfortable with the thought that these same supercomputers might decide to annihilate humanity instead of giving them the glorified robot bodies of the cyber-blessed in which Kurzweil puts his hope of salvation. It’s equally unencouraging when these same writers, or others of the same stripe, say that they don’t care if our species goes extinct so long as artificial intelligences of our making end up zooming across the cosmos.The same logic lies behind the insistence, quite common these days in certain circles, that our species can’t possibly remain “stuck on this rock”—the rock in question being the living Earth—and that somehow we can only thrive out there in the black and silent void.

I’m pretty sure that this is why the recent film Gravity has fielded such a flurry of nitpicking from science writers. What believers in progress hate about Gravity, I suggest, is not that it takes modest liberties with the details of space science—show me a science fiction film that doesn’t do so—but that it doesn’t romanticize space. It reminds its audiences that space isn’t the Atlantic Ocean, the Wild West, or any of the other models of terrestrial discovery and colonization that proponents of space travel have tried to map onto it. Space, not death, is the antithesis of life:empty, silent, cold, limitless, and as sterile as hard vacuum and hard radiation can make it.Watching Sandra Bullock struggling to get back to the only place in the cosmos where human beings actually belong is a sharp reminder of exactly what lies behind all that handwaving about “New Worlds for Man.”

 

[smcder]

I don't endorse everything Kurzweil says/does (same for Langan) but some of his ideas are exemplary in my opinion.

Kurzweil also sees man's merging with his tech as a "natural" progression of evolution. It's not necessarily intuitive, but makes a good bit of sense (if one believes in evolution).

To put it mildly, Life is a pretty amazing thing. However it began, once it began there has been no stopping it. It has weaseled it's way into every conceivable corner of the planet: miles under the earth and miles above the earth.

That Life will find a way to "jump" - like a virus - from organic matter to inorganic matter just seems like an inevitability to me. And once Life jumps to inorganic matter, there will be no stopping it. It will spread across the universe as fast as it can.

Speaking of which, I often wonder if this has already happened, and that some of our "paranormal" encounters are with Life that has already transitioned from the organic to the inorganic.

Kurzweil also sees man's merging with his tech as a "natural" progression of evolution. It's not necessarily intuitive, but makes a good bit of sense (if one believes in evolution).

I definitely get that - in some ways humans have always been cyborgs.The evolution bit is tricky, Stephen Jay Gould The Spread of Excellence - warns against seeing a direction in evolution, seeing a progression . . . reminding us that most organisms are still "simple" bacteria and that adaptation to the environment, not progression from simple to complex, is the basic rule.

So teleology has been one of science's boundaries since its inception, but that may be changing, philosopher Thomas Nagel questions it (and he is joined by some scientists):

Awaiting a New Darwin by H. Allen Orr | The New York Review of Books

"His leading contender for this something else is teleology, a tendency of the universe to aim for certain goals as it unfolds through time. Nagel believes that (currently unknown) teleological laws of nature might mean that life and consciousness arise with greater probability than would result from the known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.

Scientists shouldn’t be shocked by Nagel’s claim that present science might not be up to cracking the mind-brain problem or that a profoundly different science might lie on the horizon. The history of science is filled with such surprising transformations. Nor should we dismiss Nagel’s claims merely because they originate from outside science, from a philosopher. Much the same thing happened when natural theology—the scientific attempt to discern God’s attributes from His biological handiwork—gave way to Darwinism."
To put it mildly, Life is a pretty amazing thing. However it began, once it began there has been no stopping it. It has weaseled it's way into every conceivable corner of the planet: miles under the earth and miles above the earth.

That Life will find a way to "jump" - like a virus - from organic matter to inorganic matter just seems like an inevitability to me. And once Life jumps to inorganic matter, there will be no stopping it. It will spread across the universe as fast as it can.

Weasels and viruses . . . oh my! ;-)

That Life will find a way to "jump" - like a virus - from organic matter to inorganic matter just seems like an inevitability to me. And once Life jumps to inorganic matter, there will be no stopping it. It will spread across the universe as fast as it can.

I'm not sure I get the virus analogy - the cosmos as host? Why not wildflowers?? ;-)

If we see life as inseparable from the environment (and in many cases as creating or modifying its environment) or as inevitable (and here I point back to your idea of the cosmos - why nothing? - and ask why not always life, too) . . . this seems to be exactly what you feel Langan is describing:
However, the only things that could "actualize", were things that had a structure which would allow them to "create and configure" themselves. And since in the groundstate of raw potential, anything had the potential to exist, inevitably, something did "eventually" exist which could configure itself.

(incidentally, that makes Langan's God a begetter of life) - then life isn't at all surprising, it's basic to the cosmos - it might even be required.

. . .

But something in all this also makes me think of Prometheus and the alien creatures as parasite/virus - they are a Gouldian nightmare of life as simple adaptation.

In the end of the film - an Engineer, representing the god-like race, more human than humans, Adam Kadmon (of gigantic proportions, albino - whiter than white ("the whiteness of the whale") completely hairless) is easily overcome by his opposite - a tentacled nightmare - writhing, ophidian and from an insect-like race, Lovecraftian - inhuman, in a word, simple chaos.

Tiamat and Marduk.



So as far as we might have come, we still have these binaries. Maybe they come directly from raw potential.

Speaking of which, I often wonder if this has already happened, and that some of our "paranormal" encounters are with Life that has already transitioned from the organic to the inorganic.

I shouldn't wonder!

 

[Soupie]

So much good stuff, smcder. It's like psychological nutrients for me.

in some ways humans have always been cyborgs.

There is an anthropologist (I believe) who makes this very assertion. I'll have to do a web search for him/his work. He says that the human species began as a result of utilizing - or perhaps relying on - technology. If I recall, he cited the use of the sling women could use to hold their babies while foraging. Because human babies were being born with increasingly larger brains/skulls, nature had to compromise and eject them from the womb about 3 months too early... thus human babies are (near) completely helpless (known as the fourth trimester). Only with the use of the sling was this "process" able to continue.

The evolution bit is tricky, Stephen Jay Gould The Spread of Excellence - warns against seeing a direction in evolution, seeing a progression . . . reminding us that most organisms are still "simple" bacteria and that adaptation to the environment, not progression from simple to complex, is the basic rule.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

"His leading contender for this something else is teleology, a tendency of the universe to aim for certain goals as it unfolds through time. Nagel believes that (currently unknown) teleological laws of nature might mean that life and consciousness arise with greater probability than would result from the known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. ... (incidentally, that makes Langan's God a begetter of life) - then life isn't at all surprising, it's basic to the cosmos - it might even be required.

At the same time, I think this sentiment makes sense as well. Re: Langan: Absolutely, according to Langan, for something to persist in the absence of constraints, it must be self-sustaining; for something to be self-sustaining, it must have structure. In other words, God isn't the begetter of Life: God is Life.

Physicists are baffled by the observed structure/order of the universe. Indeed, its structure is such that Life can exist, leading to the Anthropic Principles which say if the universe wasn't just so, we wouldn't be to here to observe it.

Perhaps there should be an Uber Anthropic Principle which would state: If the Universe didn't have a self-sustaining structure, it wouldn't exist.

If people didn't have hair, there would be a lot of useless combs lying around, right?

I'm not sure I get the virus analogy - the cosmos as host? Why not wildflowers?? ;-)

What I was trying to capture was the apparent ability of Life to spread, adapt, move, advance, and thrive whenever/wherever it can.

When I speak of Life, I'm not speaking necessarily of human life. I'm referring to Life as if it were a force such as gravity... it just is regardless of the medium its acting on. And as far as asking: must Life have had a beginning; I think that's a great question. Langan's model suggests that the Universe is Life (a self-sustaining, cybernetic structure), so the argument could be made that Life began the moment the universe began. (Moreover, consciousness will have as well.)

Re: biophobia. I'll have to read those articles, but one could also question the opposite: biocentrism or biosupremacism.

 

[smcder]

So much good stuff, smcder. It's like psychological nutrients for me.

There is an anthropologist (I believe) who makes this very assertion. I'll have to do a web search for him/his work. He says that the human species began as a result of utilizing - or perhaps relying on - technology. If I recall, he cited the use of the sling women could use to hold their babies while foraging. Because human babies were being born with increasingly larger brains/skulls, nature had to compromise and eject them from the womb about 3 months too early... thus human babies are (near) completely helpless (known as the fourth trimester). Only with the use of the sling was this "process" able to continue.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

At the same time, I think this sentiment makes sense as well. Re: Langan: Absolutely, according to Langan, for something to persist in the absence of constraints, it must be self-sustaining; for something to be self-sustaining, it must have structure. In other words, God isn't the begetter of Life: God is Life.

Physicists are baffled by the observed structure/order of the universe. Indeed, its structure is such that Life can exist, leading to the Anthropic Principles which say if the universe wasn't just so, we wouldn't be to here to observe it.

Perhaps there should be an Uber Anthropic Principle which would state: If the Universe didn't have a self-sustaining structure, it wouldn't exist.

If people didn't have hair, there would be a lot of useless combs lying around, right?

What I was trying to capture was the apparent ability of Life to spread, adapt, move, advance, and thrive whenever/wherever it can.

When I speak of Life, I'm not speaking necessarily of human life. I'm referring to Life as if it were a force such as gravity... it just is regardless of the medium its acting on. And as far as asking: must Life have had a beginning; I think that's a great question. Langan's model suggests that the Universe is Life (a self-sustaining, cybernetic structure), so the argument could be made that Life began the moment the universe began. (Moreover, consciousness will have as well.)

Re: biophobia. I'll have to read those articles, but one could also question the opposite: biocentrism or biosupremacism.

Re: biophobia. I'll have to read those articles, but one could also question the opposite: biocentrism or biosupremacism.

Absolutely - and Kurzweil and Greer are very different types.

The other idea is political - if the Extropians want to change forms and launch out into the void . . . they should agree to leave the Earth and its inhabitants as they are - at least as good as they found them - so that those who want to stay and be human, can. If not, they will probably have a fight on their hands. I'm sure this has been explored fictively.

 

[smcder]

So much good stuff, smcder. It's like psychological nutrients for me.

There is an anthropologist (I believe) who makes this very assertion. I'll have to do a web search for him/his work. He says that the human species began as a result of utilizing - or perhaps relying on - technology. If I recall, he cited the use of the sling women could use to hold their babies while foraging. Because human babies were being born with increasingly larger brains/skulls, nature had to compromise and eject them from the womb about 3 months too early... thus human babies are (near) completely helpless (known as the fourth trimester). Only with the use of the sling was this "process" able to continue.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

At the same time, I think this sentiment makes sense as well. Re: Langan: Absolutely, according to Langan, for something to persist in the absence of constraints, it must be self-sustaining; for something to be self-sustaining, it must have structure. In other words, God isn't the begetter of Life: God is Life.

Physicists are baffled by the observed structure/order of the universe. Indeed, its structure is such that Life can exist, leading to the Anthropic Principles which say if the universe wasn't just so, we wouldn't be to here to observe it.

Perhaps there should be an Uber Anthropic Principle which would state: If the Universe didn't have a self-sustaining structure, it wouldn't exist.

If people didn't have hair, there would be a lot of useless combs lying around, right?

What I was trying to capture was the apparent ability of Life to spread, adapt, move, advance, and thrive whenever/wherever it can.

When I speak of Life, I'm not speaking necessarily of human life. I'm referring to Life as if it were a force such as gravity... it just is regardless of the medium its acting on. And as far as asking: must Life have had a beginning; I think that's a great question. Langan's model suggests that the Universe is Life (a self-sustaining, cybernetic structure), so the argument could be made that Life began the moment the universe began. (Moreover, consciousness will have as well.)

Re: biophobia. I'll have to read those articles, but one could also question the opposite: biocentrism or biosupremacism.

So much good stuff, smcder. It's like psychological nutrients for me.

And I was going for the heart! ;-) I think we're thinking of the same anthro-apologist. The sling thing - almost teleological.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

I don't think it does either - I think both probably operate - and that's why there may well be Engineers and Trilobites, order and chaos. And perhaps somewhere, little Cthulus are told not to look under their beds because a human might be crawling around under there.

I like the idea and also McKenna's that we may have reached the end and are working our way back, so UFOs are us . . . he also said, though, that we had become so estranged from our souls that we had to look up and see them as metallic saucers. McKenna always played both sides. ;-)

The Uberanthropic principle for the Ubermensch! (looks like we have to supply our own umlauts)

If people didn't have hair, there would be a lot of useless combs lying around, right?

Yes and people wouldn't be telepathic either:

The Truth About Hair and why Native/Indians would keep their hair long | Listen To the Red Shaman And Friends 2014

What I was trying to capture was the apparent ability of Life to spread, adapt, move, advance, and thrive whenever/wherever it can.

Just like wildflowers! Or the underappreciated dandelion. I dug up dandelions last year at my new place and made coffee. People will pay $20 a pound for the stuff . . .

If you read some Greer, please let me know what you think.

 

[smcder]

So much good stuff, smcder. It's like psychological nutrients for me.

There is an anthropologist (I believe) who makes this very assertion. I'll have to do a web search for him/his work. He says that the human species began as a result of utilizing - or perhaps relying on - technology. If I recall, he cited the use of the sling women could use to hold their babies while foraging. Because human babies were being born with increasingly larger brains/skulls, nature had to compromise and eject them from the womb about 3 months too early... thus human babies are (near) completely helpless (known as the fourth trimester). Only with the use of the sling was this "process" able to continue.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

At the same time, I think this sentiment makes sense as well. Re: Langan: Absolutely, according to Langan, for something to persist in the absence of constraints, it must be self-sustaining; for something to be self-sustaining, it must have structure. In other words, God isn't the begetter of Life: God is Life.

Physicists are baffled by the observed structure/order of the universe. Indeed, its structure is such that Life can exist, leading to the Anthropic Principles which say if the universe wasn't just so, we wouldn't be to here to observe it.

Perhaps there should be an Uber Anthropic Principle which would state: If the Universe didn't have a self-sustaining structure, it wouldn't exist.

If people didn't have hair, there would be a lot of useless combs lying around, right?

What I was trying to capture was the apparent ability of Life to spread, adapt, move, advance, and thrive whenever/wherever it can.

When I speak of Life, I'm not speaking necessarily of human life. I'm referring to Life as if it were a force such as gravity... it just is regardless of the medium its acting on. And as far as asking: must Life have had a beginning; I think that's a great question. Langan's model suggests that the Universe is Life (a self-sustaining, cybernetic structure), so the argument could be made that Life began the moment the universe began. (Moreover, consciousness will have as well.)

Re: biophobia. I'll have to read those articles, but one could also question the opposite: biocentrism or biosupremacism.

I don't think the concept of Life transitioning from an organic to inorganic (non-carbon) medium violates this principle. I'm suggesting that Life simply spreads wherever and however it can. Kurzweil identifies a pathway for Life to make such a transition. (My contention has always been, since I first read this idea, "how do we know this hasn't already happened somewhere in the universe billions/millions of years ago?)

A thought I had earlier was how life may have taken a form that finds what we call the cold, empty void friendly . . . and maybe with other perceptions of time, space, dark matter (or whatever) it doesn't appear empty at all.

 

[Soupie]

A thought I had earlier was how life may have taken a form that finds what we call the cold, empty void friendly . . . and maybe with other perceptions of time, space, dark matter (or whatever) it doesn't appear empty at all.

Absolutely. Because of very plausible possibilities like that is why I hold off on appealing for the existence of a super- or para-natural layer of reality, I think the natural layer is incredible enough.

A thought I had re our back and forth about viri and wildflowers was the concept of grey goo: "Gray goo (also spelled grey goo) is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves,[1][2] a scenario that has been called ecophagy ("eating the environment").[3] The original idea assumed machines were designed to have this capability, while popularizations have assumed that machines might somehow gain this capability by accident."

In some respects Life on earth is a green goo; self-replicating the shit out of itself everywhere. Some models even have the little green replicators surviving the impact that created the moon.

Maybe the ETs are monitoring the Earth to make sure we (the green goo) don't manage to make it off and contaminate the rest of the cosmos. Ever wonder why we haven't been back to the moon? Perhaps the PTB got a stern warning to stay in our yard...

 

[Tyger]

Interesting link, courtesy of Jeff Davis - thank you, Jeff!

The first part regarding concentric circles being evidence for a cyclical universe, is very much in keeping with Occult history - both western and eastern. In the Sanskrit there is the well-known reference to pralaya and yugas - on scales far vaster than local events.

LINK: Astronomers Find First Evidence of Other Universes | MIT Technology Review

TEXT: "Astronomers Find First Evidence of Other Universes
"Our cosmos was “bruised” in collisions with other universes. Now astronomers have found the first evidence of these impacts in the cosmic microwave background.

"There’s something exciting afoot in the world of cosmology. Last month, Roger Penrose at the University of Oxford and Vahe Gurzadyan at Yerevan State University in Armenia announced that they had found patterns of concentric circles in the cosmic microwave background, the echo of the Big Bang.

"This, they say, is exactly what you’d expect if the universe were eternally cyclical. By that, they mean that each cycle ends with a big bang that starts the next cycle. In this model, the universe is a kind of cosmic Russian doll, with all previous universes contained within the current one.

"That’s an extraordinary discovery: evidence of something that occurred before the (conventional) Big Bang."



And then - one can posit Parallel Universes - but might this be a semantic problem at some juncture. How about 'spiritual'? I am being naughty!

TEXT: "Today, another group says they’ve found something else in the echo of the Big Bang. These guys start with a different model of the universe called eternal inflation. In this way of thinking, the universe we see is merely a bubble in a much larger cosmos. This cosmos is filled with other bubbles, all of which are other universes where the laws of physics may be dramatically different from ours.

"These bubbles probably had a violent past, jostling together and leaving “cosmic bruises” where they touched. If so, these bruises ought to be visible today in the cosmic microwave background.

"Now Stephen Feeney at University College London and a few pals say they’ve found tentative evidence of this bruising in the form of circular patterns in cosmic microwave background. In fact, they’ve found four bruises, implying that our universe must have smashed into other bubbles at least four times in the past.

"Again, this is an extraordinary result: the first evidence of universes beyond our own."

All subject to caveat and further analysis and information. But it's always fun to speculate.

 

[smcder]

I don't see why people have such a hard time figuring out this question: "What is this thing people call God?"

In a religious sense, the word "God" is simply a noun, specifically a title ( like "King" or "Lord" ) assigned to a divinity within the hierarchy of a religious belief system. In fact it's not uncommon to hear the Judeo Christian God referred to as the "Lord God" or the "King". So the word "God" is merely a title of a position, and what constitutes the occupant of that position varies from religion to religion. In some cases the title holder is a mythological figure with a specific name ( e.g. Yahweh ).

Historical cases also include physical objects like the Sun, or even living people. In the cases of physical objects, the existence of the believer's God can be independently established as surely as anything else. The alleged powers and mythology associated with that God are however, another matter. Nevertheless the reality of such a God can be established with a certainty that leaves no reasonable doubt.

But in the end, whether the object is an inanimate object ( like the Sun or a statue ), or some mystical being, without a believer to assign it the position of God within the believer's belief system ( deification ), it is has no special status. So even if there were such a thing as a universe creator, without it being deified by humans or other creatures with such a capacity, it would have no status as a "God".

I don't see why people have such a hard time figuring out this question: "What is this thing people call God?"

I'm not so sure people in general do - most of the ones I know who talk about it frequently, seem to have a clear idea of what they mean. If you're referring to the conversation on this thread, see if its helpful to think of it in terms of this line taken from many an actual conversation between a man and a woman:

What do you mean you love me?

Clearly, the denotation of the word "love" is not at issue and responding with a discourse on its denotation, I predict, will not bring such a conversation to a happy resolution . . . ;-)

So even if there were such a thing as a universe creator, without it being deified by humans or other creatures with such a capacity, it would have no status as a "God".

Based on the discussion on this thread - I'm not sure that if humans knew for a fact that there was such a thing as a universe creator they would call it "God".

 

[smcder]

Perhaps, but then again, maybe the universe is far more complex than it's creator is capable of managing, and life is an emergent property that was not anticipated. That would certainly explain the seemingly limited and dispassionate behavior of the alleged God with respect to the plight of the suffering.

Now you're just arguing to hear yourself think! ;-)

 

[smcder]

Perhaps, but then again, maybe the universe is far more complex than it's creator is capable of managing, and life is an emergent property that was not anticipated. That would certainly explain the seemingly limited and dispassionate behavior of the alleged God with respect to the plight of the suffering.

Ok good - my post did go through - I didn't see it, so I posted a shorter version.

 

[smcder]

Pretty much. I've got a case of pneumonia that just got topped with a head cold that has my nose running like a faucet, so I'm just trying to kill time until the medication kicks in and I can go to sleep .

Pneumonia is not good . . . :-(