The known unknown and the unknown known
Posted By Prophecy in Brainstorming/sharing, UncategorizedI just wanted to see if we can come together to agree on the knowns and the unknowns.
I’ll start.
The Knowns:
We know that we don’t know much about the existence of God or intelligent design at least outside of what the religions teach and one’s faith.
We know that most of us actually would like to know the origin, the philosophy, the reasoning…..of it all, other than what the astrophysicists and the organized religions tell us.
We know that the religions have outlived their purpose and are currently causing more damage than good, including actual abuse, and act to separate us instead of bringing us together…
We know that some of us really need guidance from a religious organization or leader.
We know that some of us totally rely on our intuitions, judgments, conscious and our ability to decipher for ourselves the right from wrong regardless of our beliefs in God or intelligent design.
The unknowns:
Given the size of the universe, we really cannot disregard the probability of there being a creator, unless we believe ourselves to be the most inteligant beings. I should have listed that under the knowns since I am yet to meet anyone who is willing to label themselves as intelligent.
We really don’t have physical evidence that the prophets were actually here and actually said and did what we believe them to have said and done. This can also be listed under the knowns, I suppose.
We really don’t know whether there is going to be an afterlife, or reincarnations to complete the cycles, etc.
We really don’t know about the so called “Judgment Day”. Furthermore, this notion is contradictory to the concepts of a forgiving God, the idea that we were created in “his” image, that we are purposely flawed so as to self-correct or learn from our mistakes and reincarnation.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Please run for office. Preferably as the Minister for Science (in Canada), as the current incumbent has none of your wit and less than half your intelligence. Well said.
August 1st, 2010 at 9:52 am
Prophecy,
Well thought out points. I would agree with all of them except for your first point in unknowns. Taken from your post: “Given the size of the universe, we really cannot disregard the probability of there being a creator, unless we believe ourselves to be the most intelligent beings.” I do not see the relationship between a probability of a creator and the size of the universe or whether or not we are the most intelligent beings in it. We obviously did not create the universe so our intelligence is not an issue. There are some pretty good theories about how it all began and if we are merely the result of a previous universe’s black hole exploding. Hopefully some of these theories will gain some foothold with the new particle accelerators.
I agree with Big Ugly Bootneck, when you have a Minister of Science who is religious it is kind of like a new-born (again?) being expected to have the experience to direct the careers of its parents. Why does not everyone of serious religious commitment realize that science must ultimately be a contradiction to their beliefs?
August 2nd, 2010 at 6:57 am
Immortal,
The doesn’t have to be “God” as we have come to label.
Extraterrestrials are just one example of other more inteligant lifeforms.
We could very well be experiments in one p- dish(that has gone awry?)
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:20 am
Prophecy,
There certainly is that possibility. Those Extra-terrestrials I believe would have also had to evolve perhaps over a similar amount of time as we have. If they are of a carbon based life form as we are, they too would have to be part of the at least second generation life cycle of stars where carbon was a bi-product of the supernovas of an earlier generation of stars. I think it is over 4 billion years for a cycle. I believe this means that carbon based life is only possible in the last 8 billion years of which our 4.5 billion year old planet has had at least the most basic life on it for the last 3.5 plus billion years. When you consider how quickly life took hold after our earth was formed it would seem highly probable that life took hold elsewhere in the Universe. The question is given the distances even at the speed of light it takes to get to the nearest star with a known planetary system it is difficult to fathom how we could have received such visitors. Obviously they would be much more advanced in science than we are so if there was a way to travel at speeds approaching or exceeding the speed of light they might have discovered that. However, based on our limited (in only about the last 100 years) time we have understood these limitations of speed it would seem there will be many limitations erased in the next 100 years. It certainly would seem highly more probable that we are an Extra-terrestrial experiment than a creation of a mystical God. But then why didn’t intelligent life develop quicker, wouldn’t those ETs get a little bored? There doesn’t seem to be any significant spurts in our evolution that would indicate direction towards intelligence was the intent. I am comfortable with the likelihood we are just a naturally evolved development with all our quirks and religions as a stage of that development.
P.S. Don’t approach my points as absolute facts since they are things I recall reading over the last decade and maybe not up to date with the latest information.
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:07 am
Thanks for sharing Immortal and don’t worry I will not approach your points as absolute not because they are not valid but because our tiny brains are still not able to comprehend much of what is going on around us here nevermind the mysteries.
Incidentally, as you know even the most inteligant amongst us only use a fraction of their tiny brains, at the moment.
Speed of light certainly is pretty fast but aren’t there faster known speeds? Not including teleporting(tiny brains).
Why are the ETs so slow in developing, us etc.?
We all have bad days/years/decades(what’s time?)other more pressing disasters, battles, discoveries,shortages,experiments ……………….?
August 4th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I think when we are moving at the speed of light time is slower, which allows planetary development of sentient beings develop faster and the people moving at the speed of light are developing slower which gives them enough time to see what they developed but to move across distances without time slowing down, you would have to have a wormhole or subspace like in the movies lol.
But how physical life is created is probably due to another way of transferring energy, processing energy, absorbing energy and just another way of the universes instability but that physical process also gives rise for a vehicle our souls can grow in by feeding off that energy.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Teacher4U, I like your theory.
I wonder what Immortal’s response to you is going to be.
Again, I personally like it.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Its hard to comment on the realistic merits of sci-fi. I do enjoy the entertainment of a great movie like Star Trek, or Star Wars or Avatar but I certainly would agree there is more to rationally discuss about sci-fi than most of the discussions that go on about religion. But until there is something on a scale larger than Quarks transporting through space at unknown speeds I will just imagine the possibilities as you do.
August 5th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Bravo Immortal, that’s all I’m asking for.
Imagination is a wonderful thing.
August 5th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
ya those movies aren’t that unbelievable from the present day.
As shown in the past that technology mocks sciencefiction and science fiction mocks our imagination.
August 5th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
So lets see, to connect the dots into a full circle, our imagination mocks the unbelievable, the unbelievable mocks faith and faith mocks science fiction. I love it when everything fits into the big picture.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
ha faith doesn’t mock science fiction, as i have said before if you beleive in God then you shouldn’t have faith in God lol. But what does imagination mock is the power of our brains or limitations of our brains. And maybe that same thing goes to the athiests where their power or limitations of their brain doesn’t allow them to see the forest from the trees??
August 7th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
You have a wild and imaginative theory. If you had some sound proof to back it, you could then say there was some truth to it.
August 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
What level of evidence are you looking for?? Physical evidence? Theoretical evidence which is connecting the dots like where ALL theories come from?
If people would have taken your approach on evidence nothing would have been discovered.
And like I said in the last post, I’m sorry some people do not have the imagination to be able to think these things through without having evidence yet but thank most people especially the early scientist who have done that to start their theory off.
August 9th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
that was me above:
but also, scientist now days do not have evidence of their theories of the universe. For instance how singularities work or brain theory, what’s inside of electrons and quarks? Scientist do not know anything about those i listed, so therefor according to you Immortal these theories are made up with no evidence??
August 10th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Teacher4U, you are correct to some degree. A theory is a theory until there is evidence verified by other scientists in the same or connected fields. However the theories of god(s) are only theories that started off when cavemen gave religious importance to things like fire, rain, the sun etc. and from their lack of understanding determined those things that they could not understand were the work of gods. Most of the things attributed to Christian, Muslim, Hindu and all the other gods as god’s work have been shown by science to be natural occurrences in nature without the need for any divine directive to occur. Those god theories are fading away in the undeniable proof of evidence and the understanding of that evidence and how it occurs naturally in our universe. If you think about it the “dots you connect” are bits of evidence that you or mankind as a whole have yet to properly piece into the overall puzzle of our universe. At the rate of our learning curve it will be only a few generations until the things we do not understand today fit into the puzzle and do not require beliefs in divine directive. Certainly there will be new more complex things we do not understand long into the future maybe, but the need to explain them with a mystical divine intervention will apply to those who do not properly understand how to apply the evidence into the big picture. Remember the only way you can believe in a god is to have faith – the belief in something you cannot prove.
August 10th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Again immortal, stop thinking of old religions or theories of after life because you are right when you talked about Christan and hindu gods were made from people who didn’t know anything about the physical world.
When you said” At the rate of our learning curve it will be only a few generations until the things we do not understand today fit into the puzzle and do not require beliefs in divine directive.” There is no divine directive, there is no divine influence, God can not come down and shift us this way or that way, that’s up to us. So stop with your theistic beliefs, BC those are the old theories of life that you can beat in debate, but not mine.
Also you are dismissing a theory of life due to not enough evidence at this time?? Why dismiss it when the universe is still not known??answer please.
Also, that you still haven’t answer my other post and I suspect that you will never answer these questions. But from the last post I said something like Why would there be some physical evidence of something that is not physical?? answer please
Also, as ill say again, everything in this world has a physical and mental a purpose, what’s the mental purpose of life?? please answer.
August 11th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Teacher4U,
Your “theory” reminds me of a Monty Python skit where Anne Elk has a theory of dinosaurs, it goes something like this: My theory of dinosaurs by Anne Elk aaahmm, dinosaurs were thin at one end much, much thicker in the middle and thinner at the other end, that is my theory by Anne Elk.
Just because you have an idea may make it a theory but to make it an accepted theory it
needs to have overwhelming evidence. If you count every theory ever thought up yes the majority are not based on evidence correctly or have been proven to be baseless. I am not dismissing your theory, you are entitled to your theories but if you want it to become an accepted theory you need proof as in overwhelming evidence. Theories are the first step to finding the truth but sound evidence becomes the proof needed for those theories to become accepted.
If you say your theory cannot be debated because how can you look for physical evidence for something that is not physical or your other words: that the theory is so great that there will never be evidence I think is the best reason why it could never become an accepted theory.
Your last question: what’s the mental purpose of life? I don’t think anyone can answer that except to satisfy themselves on their own beliefs. There is at least one physical answer and that is that we have evolved as complicated gene replicators where almost all of our actions are based on some form of survival to be in a position to replicate our genes.
On the scale of religions yours has been very recently thought up, I’m sure over time it will either have evidence to back it up or it will go in the direction of other religions. I respect that it is your theory but do not expect me to accept it just because you believe it. For me to accept it you will need to show sound evidence as proof.
August 11th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
very true and will do.