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Problem with calling something infinite is multi fold.

Problem 1: If there’s some being we can call infinite in the universe than there would be no more room for anything else to exist so infinity in itself is contradictory term (aside from some abstract mathematical possibility). For example: If we placed a ball with infinite 3 dimensional properties (infinite height, width and length) in the middle of our universe, that ball would occupy infinite space (all of it to be exact), therefore there would be no chance for anything else to exist but that ball, because if you’re capable of placing something else, lets say a secondary ball along that infinite ball, then infinite ball suddenly becomes finite, because space that our secondary ball occupies would displace some of the space that our infinite ball previously occupied.

Problem 2: Now, you can say that infinite being is outside of our time/space (or even higher dimensions). But if that’s the case then being like that cannot, will not and never was interfered with our affairs since was never present in our time/space and therefore its existence is meaningless to us.
Problem 3: You can also say that Infinite Being is everywhere. If it’s everywhere, then why can’t we see it?

Just some random thoughts I put out there even if it does not make sense.

I read an interesting article in space.com today and I thought I just put some of my thoughts down on the subject before they drift away into oblivion..

Here’s excerpt from the article:

“A new calculation predicts that Earth will be swallowed up by the sun in 7.6 billion years, capping off a longstanding debate over whether the sun’s gravitational pull will have weakened enough for Earth to escape final destruction or not.
After a billion years or so you’ve got an Earth with no atmosphere, no water and a surface temperature of hundreds of degrees, way above the boiling point of water,” Smith told SPACE.com. “The Earth will become dry basically. It will become completely impossible for life of any kind to exist. It’s a pretty gloomy forecast.”

Read full article here.

Some of you might say “start packing”, or start purchasing that “doomsday insurance policy”, but we have a long way to go, and I thought up a perfect solution on how to escape this really horrifying demise anyway, so put your suitcases away and listen up.

Easy three step solution to avoid earth’s destruction:

Current trend on how to avoid disaster of this magnitude is to simply pack our bags and colonize other planets or send city-sized spaceships filled with people into the space and have them drift away until they reach habitable planets. That’s all nice and dandy but why spend time, resources and probably lives colonizing other planets and building huge spaceships when we already have one. You’ve guessed it. Earth. The only thing we have to do is to move the Earth away from the Sun before sun gets big. That’s it. Or better, transform the actual earth into a spaceship itself. Let’s call it The Earth-Ship. Imagine the possibilities. If you thought that this would have some challenges you were right. Not only we have to escape expansion and horrid heat of our sun, but we would have to find a new one, since as soon as our Sun expands as far as its own gravitational core allows it, it will implode and probably become useless white dwarf, so I made following instruction in three easy steps just to prevent that from happening. So Astro-Physicists and Cosmologists pay attention.

1. Building custom atmosphere. We need to build our own atmosphere here on earth and be able to turn it on and off at will. And I’m not talking about just any natural atmosphere induced by algae growth (yawn…) or some other “slow” process that scientist are planning to implement on Mars. We need a complete protection, functionality and transparency from the outside space. Something like artificial sphere or a cocoon with its own weather system controlled completely by humans (or AI if advanced enough to be trusted). Not only this atmosphere will have to protect us from alien outside factors, but also from asteroid or comet impacts so it will have to be also very sturdy or very dense. We would have to be able to control everything from rain, sunshine, oxygen and magnetic fields to photosynthesis. If you all watched movie “The Truman Show” you will get the picture. If you haven’t, spoiler alert now! In the movie the whole city with some of the surrounding area is encapsulated into artificial bubble and everything from weather to sunlight is artificially produced and controlled by mad producer/director/creator Cristof (played by Ed Harris). We will have to build something like that but on a global or should I say “celestial” scale. It will also have to be very transparent so we would be able to get on with our lives uninterrupted. Considering that science progress is non-linear some scientist think we’re actually only 100-300 years away from developing technology like this. Let’s say we’re 1000 years away just to be safe.

2. Harnessing Sun’s energy. Next thing we need to figure out is how we’re going to live on our Earth-Ship without our Sun. Most of the life on earth depends on sun so let’s just all agree that we really need it. We could probably harness enough energy from our current Sun before we fly away into space. That would give us enough manipulative energy until we reach our first closest star. Now, our closest star Proxima Centauri is four light years away (4.2 actually), which would mean it would take us four years to reach it if we traveled at the speed of light, and with anti-matter rocket propulsion and solar sail some scientist really believe we can reach at least 10% of light speed. If you’re worried on how will human body endure 10% speed of light travel, don’t. It’s done by gradual acceleration and deceleration so humans won’t even feel the impact of speed. Moving on… So we need to conserve at least 40 years of Suns energy; probably double or triple that just to be sure. (Ironically one could say we already are doing this by uhmm “greenhouse effect”). Once we approach Proxima Centauri we would have to calculate exactly prefect distance from Earth-Ship to the star so we can stop the Earth-Ship at that point and start harnessing its energy. We don’t want to get to close, but just to be safe bring your sunscreen. When we get bored, we would then move to other stars or simply stay in certain orbit if it comfort allows. We would also need to become masters of not only converting mass into energy (burning a lump of coal for example) but also turning energy into mass (closest example for this is photosynthesis). Some scientists are saying that we’re tens of thousand of years away from achieving something like this. To be safe let’s just say we’re 100,000 years away. Just to put it into perspective: that’s ten times longer then our current recorded human history.

3. Navigate the seas of the stars. Final thing we need to figure out is how to propel the Earth and navigate it the way we wanted it, and thus escape sun’s gravitation pull and basically hurl ourselves away on our own galactic plane into the vastness of space. Closest analogy to something like this I can think of would be “Death Star” from Star Wars movie. There are many things we could do this with. One possibility is to use “solar sail” which is exactly what it says it is. Build a huge sail and have our Sun’s radiation propels us into the space. Scientists are already planning to propel space ships with this kind of technology. But why stop at the space ships? Why not “sail away” with the whole earth. Remember: once in motion, object (our earth) stays in motion until we or something else stops it. That would give us enough power to drift away into space until the need to change direction arises. To avoid asteroid hits would be one of those needs for example. In that case we would have to have some other means of manipulating Earth-Ship trajectory. One way would be to use anti-matter rocket propulsion system where we would just fire up our rockets as needed and basically repel-away from the objects. This way we would also be able to navigate the earth through the space as we wish. Some interesting fact: Right now, antimatter is the most expensive substance on Earth, about $62.5 trillion a gram ($1.75 quadrillion an ounce). To put that in perspective: To produce one gram  of Anti-matter would bankrupted whole world economy. Combining solar sail with anti-matter rocket system (depending on the size of course) should probably give us enough power and energy to escape Suns gravitational pull. There’s another non-conventional way to propel Earth-Ship would by bending (or folding) the space/time continuum to get us from A to B quicker. For example take a flat piece of paper and draw a dot on one end and call it point A. Next, draw a dot on opposite edge of paper and lets call it point B. If you have an ant that wants to go from point A to point B, you could simply have it run along the paper and eventually will get there. But, if you take the paper and fold it in half, two points will reach each other lot quicker. Another good analogy is piano on a carpet. If you want to get to the piano from one end of the carpet, why not just pull the rug towards you and piano will move towards you also. Just substitute carpet and paper with time/space. This is essentially folding of space/time. We’re probably few hundred thousand years away from technology that will allow us to do this. Just to be safe let’s say we’re 5 million years away from this kind of technology.

There you have it. In about 5,101,000 years we will be ready to move away from our Sun and look ahead where our race will drift eternally on a great cosmic journey. All that with 994,899,000 years to spare!

“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage”

Suppose (I’m following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.

“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.

“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.

“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”

Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”

You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

“Good idea, but she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.” And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.

Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You’d wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I’ve seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don’t outright reject the notion that there’s a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you’re prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it’s unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative — merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of “not proved.”

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons — to say nothing about invisible ones — you must now acknowledge that there’s something here, and that in a preliminary way it’s consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it’s not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you’re pretty sure don’t know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages — but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we’re disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I’d rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren’t myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they’re never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon’s fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such “evidence” — no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it — is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Just a little something to remind us how humble we must be. One of the most moving words ever spoken by a human being.
Carl Sagan we miss you.

Let’s state the law first:

“The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.
The total quantity of matter and energy available in the closed system is a fixed amount and never any more or less.”

Some people (usually creationists) will argue that this contradicts what is happening on earth or in our solar system. For example: plants could not live without external energy source, our sun.
They will say something like following: “how come that earth is getting this extra energy when law clearly states that total quantity of energy is always fixed amount.” It is very easy to spot a mistake there (or deception). They forgot to include phrase “in the closed system”.

Well, explanation for that is that earth is not in the closed system. The whole universe is, and total amount of energy in the whole universe will never change. Energy might take another shape, or matter may become energy, but the results will always be equal to total amount of energy.

Think of the universe as a closed system. As far as we know there is nothing outside of it, so universe has to use whatever energy it has within it in order to survive and function, while our earth can “borrow” energy from external sources like our sun.

So explanation is: Earth is not in the closed system. Universe is. It is as simple as that.

Galaxies, stars, planets and solar systems can borrow energy from another as much as they like, but the total amount of energy in the whole universe will always stay the same.

It is a zero sum game.

You can also use poker analogy. Let’s say we have 4 players and each has $100 to play with. Total money (or you can say energy) amount will be $400. Sometimes person 1 can have $200 and person 2 only $50, person 3 $150, but sometimes person 1 can have only $50. Amount of money (energy) between players changes all the time, but total amount will always be $400.

Now, we get to the really tough question. If total amount of energy is always the same, then big bang might be beginning of time/space but not the energy itself, since that would violate the Law.
Well, then easy answer is that universe probably always existed in some form or another, it is our perception that nothing is “default state” that is wrong. We always assume that “nothing” has to come first, that “nothing” is the beginning, or that default state is “nothing”, and then comes “something”. Why?
I don’t think there is a contradiction in the law at all. Universe always existed in some form or the other.

Another explanation might be that our universe is not closed system but it is part of the even larger system (like our sun is part of the galaxy and our galaxy is part of the universe and so on) and that the big bang is just another of million other explosions.
There are lots of theories to consider before you start invoking supernatural which does not answer anything nor does it help critical thinking. To me, invoking supernatural is the easy and cowardly way out.

I was reading through livescience.com website and I came across their Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena so i thought i post it here since it is pretty interesting. Here we go:

Number 10: The Body/Mind Connection
Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo effect, for example, demonstrates that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective—whether they actually are or not. Using processes only poorly understood, the body’s ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create.

Number 9: Psychic powers and ESP
Psychic powers and extra-sensory perception (ESP) rank among the top ten unexplained phenomena if for no other reason than that belief in them is so widespread. Many people believe that intuition (see #3) is a form of psychic power, a way of accessing arcane or special knowledge about the world or the future. Researchers have tested people who claim to have psychic powers, though the results under controlled scientific conditions have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is true, science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers.  Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the link to the site that has lot of Dawkins videos organized chronologically. Really nicely done.
http://www.unpronounceable.com/dawkins/

If you new to Dawkins then check this site out and then pick up his book The God Delusion and then read resto of his earlier books too. You will not look at the world with same eyes ever again, or to quote Penn and Teller about Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion: “If this book doesn’t change the world – we’re all screwed”.

Enjoy