Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

[Mirannan]

Incidentally, even Dyson himself never suggested that a Dyson sphere would be a solid object; that's been added on by various SF writers who don't mind postulating unobtainium to make it out of. But a dense swarm of smaller objects (kilometres, maybe?) could accomplish the same. Admittedly, the problem of controlling quadrillions of orbiting habitats, power stations and factories to stop them colliding would be horrific and probably require strong AI to accomplish it.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

even Dyson himself never suggested that a Dyson sphere wouldn't be a solid object

Yes, I know. I suspect more a "thought" experiment than a serious suggestion?

AI isn't needed for "positioning", that's quite simple "rocket science". You need "engines" and "reaction mass".

Niven also realised the "ring" was more complicated than he had thought(and people wrote), so on book II he added some complexity.

The fact is there is no compelling reason to capture all of the energy from a star with such a feat of engineering.

Just as the most unlikely thing to fight an Interstellar war over is resource. The motivation of the immotile in Pandora's star for fighting an interstellar war is an interesting idea. Hopefully such a creature is pure fantasy.

 

[Mirannan]

Ray - The problem isn't with positioning any individual object or small set of objects - it's with predicting the orbits of what would probably be something like a trillion to a quadrillion objects far enough in advance to be useful - bearing in mind that they would be big enough to have significant gravity of their own, and economising on reaction mass would also be necessary.

As for not needing all the energy of a star - well, one thing about space colonisation is that (to some extent, anyway) it removes the resource and space limits on population growth - but people need food and somewhere to live and both need energy.

Assume for a moment that population growth is stabilised at 1% per year. We are at 7 billion (or is it 8 by now?) already. 1% growth for 500 years with a starting population of 7E9 gives a population in 2516 of just over 1 trillion; I just did the maths. And if the growth rate is 2% (not unreasonable with lots of room to expand) the figure is 140 trillion.

Needless to say, we have a lot more than 500 years. I hope.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

space colonisation is that (to some extent, anyway) it removes the resource and space limits on population growth

It just changes them, and in this case adds a fantasy level of engineering, if you can make these objects, then positioning is the least of the problems.

The problem as people get better off is actually having positive population growth! Attitudes, not solar engineering is the issue.

 

[BAYLOR]

How event one could have happened at all given that time didn't exist at the time of the Big Bang.

 

[Vertigo]

How event one could have happened at all given that time didn't exist at the time of the Big Bang.

I've always thought that's where religious folk should be pointing the finger for evidence of a divine being rather than at stuff like intelligent design. It has to be the biggest single unexplained fact in our knowledge of the universe and is, frankly, unlikely to ever be explained. I'm not saying it makes me religious but it sure as heck turns my mind inside out and leaves me scratching my head.

 

[BAYLOR]

I've always thought that's where religious folk should be pointing the finger for evidence of a divine being rather than at stuff like intelligent design. It has to be the biggest single unexplained fact in our knowledge of the universe and is, frankly, unlikely to ever be explained. I'm not saying it makes me religious but it sure as heck turns my mind inside out and leaves me scratching my head.

Our assumptions about when time began could be wrong.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

that's where religious folk should be pointing the finger for evidence of a divine being rather than at stuff like intelligent design.

Well, there are many views on ID, and it's a minority of religions and people in the religions. The Media paints a very American and narrow view of what religious people believe. The whole issue of "Creation" or "Origins" isn't even a central issue for many.

 

[Mirannan]

My view, for what it's worth: The entire universe could be said to have started with a random quantum fluctuation of the sort that happen (it's thought) at the Planck scale all the time. After all, considering the mass/energy of the contents of the universe and the (negative) gravitational potential energy of the universe, the two may balance leaving the total energy of the Universe as zero.

That neatly disposes of the "where did it all come from" argument. But there remain two, more fundamental (IMHO, natch) questions; where did the self-consistent mathematical formulation that constitutes the laws of the Universe come from - and how did that abstract object translate from the Platonic realm to actual existence? ("Who breathed fire into the equations?" - Hawking)

In any case, all reasonably modern concepts of God assume that She is outside time and space, or at any rate omnipresent both in time and space. If God perceives time, His/Her time may be orthogonal to ours.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

I've always thought that's where religious folk should be pointing the finger for evidence of a divine being rather than at stuff like intelligent design. It has to be the biggest single unexplained fact in our knowledge of the universe and is, frankly, unlikely to ever be explained. I'm not saying it makes me religious but it sure as heck turns my mind inside out and leaves me scratching my head.

That doesn't get as much traction as it could because Christian creationists (who, IMO, make up the bulk of ID proponents) want a literal interpretation of Genesis. Accepting the Big Bang and a 13+ billion-year-old universe is Just Not Acceptable (tm).

In any case, it isn't an improvement. The ID proponents are always arguing that life (and intelligence) are spectacularly unlikely spontaneous developments (when they're not arguing that they're impossible), but an argument for a god or gods to kick-start the universe is essentially positing that having an intelligence around to do the deed is more likely than having a natural occurrence do the deed. Which flies in the face of their other, more important (to them) argument.

 

[Cathbad]

Accepting the Big Bang and a 13+ billion-year-old universe is Just Not Acceptable (tm).

This is sad, because truth is, there is nothing incompatible between what the Bible says, and the Theory of Evolution.

The Bible does nor purport to explain in detail how God created the universe, nor the time it took him. Yes, it days say "on the first day", etc., but in the same book, it says "a day unto God is as 10,000 years". (Not meaning exactly 10k, but a "long time".) Also. logic dictates that, before the earth is created, the length of "day" could not be determined. All the things created, however, are created in the same order as Evolution teaches.

In fact, if Darwin was not such a hard-nosed Christian-Hater, Evolutionary theory would probably have been accepted as a "possible theory" of the creation by the learned monks of the time.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Skirting close to religion, folks - would be good to veer back into science.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The Bible does nor purport to explain in detail how God created the universe, nor the time it took him

Exactly, it's not a history book or a science textbook. Before Abraham comes out of Ur, there is nothing that can be dated and much that is obviously not literal, that and many later events can be approximately dated by external evidence. The "young Earth idea" is purely a theory based on the shaky idea that Genealogies can be used to estimate passage of time.
Very much in the bible (and other religious texts) isn't literal. The non-literal aspects are not always allegorical. There was a fashion for a long time to regard almost everything as allegorical.

Science and Religion are examining different things, and when they look for answers, it's different kinds of answers:
Like what happens when you mix this and this, vs which actions are moral or immoral, or even what is morality. There is an overlap of philosophy and religion or Theism, but not between Theism and Science.

 

[Cathbad]

Skirting close to religion, folks - would be good to veer back into science.

~whew~ Thanks, Brian, almost crashed there!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Engaging Warp ...

 

[J Riff]

All heading for a real encounter with ancient ETS who will ideally dispose of a lot of the rubbish thinking. Like creatures with an IQ around a hundred who are able to postulate, nay insist, that they are aware of what an entity like 'God' might be up to.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Like creatures with an IQ around a hundred

IQ isn't intelligence.
It's a culturally and time biased measurement of numerical and textual analytical skills.
The concept of God is at a meta level beyond the thread of talking about things Science can't explain (today).

 

[J Riff]

No, but IQ ( not MY term) is used to separate and use people, by people who know what to do with them. Reality doesn't run on speculation, unfortunately, and there are lots of 'your term for low IQ here' people who have been used to do a lot of the dirty work, so maybe time for a realistic definition of 'intelligence' ?
Belief in an imaginary entity, using same as an excuse, is uh... 'not bright' "dim' 'stupid' ... etc. Or are we all equal? Duh, okaayyyyyyy what's on the mindcontrol box..? Oh boy, a special on 'God' and how he made us alla same even though we are all unique and different. Denial of dimness leads to a dim place. Go, intelligence!

 

[Parson]

No, but IQ ( not MY term) is used to separate and use people, by people who know what to do with them. Reality doesn't run on speculation, unfortunately, and there are lots of 'your term for low IQ here' people who have been used to do a lot of the dirty work, so maybe time for a realistic definition of 'intelligence' ?
Belief in an imaginary entity, using same as an excuse, is uh... 'not bright' "dim' 'stupid' ... etc. Or are we all equal? Duh, okaayyyyyyy what's on the mindcontrol box..? Oh boy, a special on 'God' and how he made us alla same even though we are all unique and different. Denial of dimness leads to a dim place. Go, intelligence!

This post leaves me uneasy. No one who's thought about it all would postulate that we all have the same abilities; mental or otherwise. On the other hand a different sort of ability doesn't make that person somehow inferior to another. The truth is that we all need each other. I would make the comparison with my wife. I clearly rate higher on the ability to do book work in an approved manner, but about the things that really count she is much more often right than I, and together we are fairly formidable. I think that's how its planned to be.

 

[Cathbad]

The truth is that we all need each other.

Hmm... very Druidic.