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In this video, Krauss, having the desire to be the first to know how the universe ends, describes what the universe will look like to a Milky Way civilization many billions of years in the future. He says that since the universe will be expanding at an accelerated rate, eventually everything outside the Milkyway will be out of sight. I disagree on general princple. It will just look a whole lot redder. Like the radio waves we view as the cosmic background radiation. And although this might mean they are not "visible", being of such long wavelength as to be out of a humans visible light spectrum, the waves will certainly not be invisible to science, as he projects. Regards, TAR2 Plus he ignores the records that all the previous civilizations might have left, for those "hundreds of billion of years in the future" scientists. For instance, what if his video was passed down from parent to child, for a zillion generations? P.S. I grabbed Inows post off the Philosophy thread, "How did everything really begin?".

Have not read the rest of this thread but have now watched this lecture twice, and find I have some of the same objections to Krauss's logic as before, so I'd like to talk about it down in speculations. "Is Krauss looking at this right?" Regards, TAR2

Phi, Just to back you up. It does appear that there is life after death...that is, everybody else's life. I am in a particularly bad situation right now, but the loss I am suffering is analogous to terminal illness, in that the company, that I have worked for, for 24 years, is moving my job responsibilities to a city 1000 miles away, and I don't think I am going. Some of my teammates are moving their lives there, to follow our team leader, others like myself COULD apply to relocate as well, but have families and spousal jobs, and support groups, that they do no wish to leave. Others are not needed, as their skillsets are already covered by a series of mergers that has created a great deal of duplication and triplication of quality people. So, for the next 7 weeks, I am terminally ill, in regards to my team and in regards to the network of internal and external customers that I support, who will no longer, be my responsibility. In this regard, I am terminally ill, and will die in 7 weeks. I will not give up the fight. I will continue to support and fulfil my responsibilities, because thats my job. And I will suffer through the stages of loss and death, of denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and finally, hopefully, calm acceptance. Maybe I will be rescued by another department or arm of my company, but EXTRA spots, in this economy and the restructuring my company is doing are rare, and everybody cannot be absorbed. For all intents and purposes my situation is a good analogy for death, so I use it here on this thread, as such. And since my team and customers and company WILL survive without me, after they lose me, the analogy is complete and there is "life after death". For the here-ist. What I added to the company is not subtracted, just my ability to add any more. Exactly like life. Life continues, after you die. Regards, TAR2 P.S. As my mom was dying of cancer, she took the eight hundred dollars she had to her name, and with my sister's help, signed and sealed a series of birthday cards. For many years, after her death, each of my daughters recieved a birthday card, signed in the dying scrawl of their loving grandma, with money enclosed. A little creepy, but my point is, the gifts were from my mom. And my suggestion would be, for anyone, of any philosophy, to leave as many gifts as they can muster.

Architekt, Since you have left, you won't mind me agreeing with everybody else, that you were making no sense at all. You do know that you can make magic squares with 0 in them, from any odd or even number of boxes, except 2x2. Right? you can do 3x3, 4x4,5x5, 6x6 or what ever you want. You can start with 0 or any integer, and still make magic squares out of any of them. Can you apply your exact reasoning to each? And come up with the same conclusions? 16 23 0 7 14 22 4 6 13 15 3 5 12 19 21 9 11 18 20 2 10 17 24 1 8 all rows and columns and diagonals add to 60 and wow what a coincidence, that is how old I am going to be when I am 60. Geez it shows how old I am going to be, when I am 60, 12 different ways, and 60/12=5, which is exactly the number of years (since I am now 58) that will make me 63 years old. 63 x 3.14=197.82 And 82 is exactly 22 more than 60, and 12+10 is 22. 60/10=6 and WOW if you put nothing to the right of 6, you get 60 AGAIN!!! Nothing must therefore mean something. After all. Proving that one can derive with mathematical genuis and an astute grasp of reality, the melting point of iron, from ANY magic square. Right? Regards, TAR2 Oh, how rude. Laughing at a guy, that is not even here to protect himself. Oh well. He's gone. Won't bother him. 1535.0 °C (1808.15 K, 2795.0 °F) Oh s**t he's right the number five is IN the melting temperature of iron, whether you use celcius kelvin or fahrenheit!!!! Darn, he IS a genius.

Immortal, Well thankyou for the context of your linkage. You and I have attended and posted on enough threads for me to "guess" at your intent. And as you already know, I alternately back you up and oppose you, depending on whether you are going toward what I am trying to express/discover about our consciousness/existence or whether you are veering from what I judge to be reasonable and supportable. Operating on the deep agreements we have, I can understand your support of WHR's call to "not be constrained" by scientific method. For the simple logical reason that no matter how much one downplays subjective experience, and promotes objective reality, two facts remain. The subjective experience has to occur in and of objective reality. And objective reality has to be subjectively judged to be the case, inorder to be aware of it. Therefore to allow ONLY objective reality to be the case, you ignore the one most important component in the judgement equation. The judge. But this is already obvious and true, to both atheist and theist. What differs is the determinations of where this judgement originates and where is it going. How much of it is yours, and how much of it is yours alone. How much of it is information and how much of it is form itself. I would back you up, suggesting that we MUST contain some of the form itself, and therefore can realistically claim personal knowledge of it and inspect reality, as a partial owner, and unremovable participant...but I would fall away from your take, once you tell me what jewels god wears. Because these are images ONLY subjectively produced, and do not actually exist. Likewise, with WHR. He cannot manipulate information and images in his imagination, in his subjective model of the universe, see that something fits together, there, in his model, and assume that this means it MUST work for real. It MIGHT be true, but has to be put to test. If it cannot be put to the test, it MIGHT be wrong. And smart money would say it most probably IS wrong. So please do continue to support the logical, forced reality of the wisdom and truth contained in the teachings of the masters, but be advised of the possibility, that they were and are just as prone to mistake their model of reality, for reality itself as the rest of us are. And scientific method is a darn good way to determine where one should judge the line, between fact and fiction, to be. Regards, TAR2

Immortal, Fort seems to be expressing a similar distain of the scientific method, as WHR. Did you post his links for a purpose? Do you agree or disagree with him? Would be nice, as Phi for All suggests to at least let us know if you were presenting the links as examples of idiocy or brilliance. Regards, TAR2 By the way, Wiki warned the readers of one of the links, about the possible slant factor inherent in the article. As they would an article on John Doe, written by his mother.

WHR, I will challenge you, on general principle, concerning your assertion that you are on no one's team, but your own. If there is ANYTHING you strive to maintain, and someone else is enabling your efforts, you are by default teamates of sorts, whether wittingly or not. Take for instance if you write a check, and pay a bill with it. Already you have subscribed to the banking system, and the post office, and trusted uncountable many persons to follow commonly held rules, and perform agreed up actions, honestly and without fail. The whole of them are on your team, in transferring what is yours to what is the biller's. You would not expect anyone handling your check to eat it, because they were hungry, and had no responsibilities to anyone, but themselves. Would you? No. Because you are on the same team, in regards to honoring the value the check represents, and handling it appropriately. The forger is not on this team. And on your general theme, that the universe began when your Mom's egg was fertilized, I will also challenge your assertion. Your Mom's egg contained half the instructions that would form you, your dad's sperm the other half. Your dad's sperm came into being earlier that day, or week, your Mom was born with "your" egg in one of her ovaries. So half of you is as old as your Mom. A quarter of you as old as your Grandma, an eigth as old as Greatgrandma.... So the pattern, that is your body/brain/heart group, hardly began at the moment you suggest. So what do you mean, by suggesting the universe began at the moment of fertilization? My only guess is that you are speaking about the model of the universe, that exists in your body/brain/heart, AS the universe. This is apparently where we can settle the matter of your OP. You are asserting that if something works in your model, you have discovered something about the universe. This is a false assertion, and is exactly what the scientific method is good at avoiding. If you discover something through introspection and logic and inspection of your model of the universe, you have had an insight, or developed a hypothesis, or made a guess, based on everything you have ever been informed of, but until you test it against reality, you do not know if it is something that is really the case, that will work for real, or if it is something that will only work in your model. That is, the universe you have internalized, the one that began at your conception (no pun intended) is just a model, that is analogous to, but not actually, the actual universe that is being modeled. Your OP thesis is defeated by your own admission. You have it backward. You don't discover the universe by manipulating the model. You discover the universe by testing your model against it. As scientific method describes. Regards, TAR2

Just found out today that my company, that I have worked for for 24 years, is closing my facility in two months. "A tough business decision". Where is the loyality, the dedication, the intrinsic value? How does one transition from a team member, who has taken a thousand punches for his company, taken responsibility for a thousand problems, solved a thousand problems, sweated and worried and fretted over meeting deadlines, doing a good job and doing the right thing for his workmates, bosses, department, customers and company, for 24 years, to being a duplicate "skillset"? Me thinks they know not what they do. I will not mention the company. It's still my company. Its just currently possessed by some evil spirit. And sorry to say, it won't be the same without me. There are thousands of technicians and salespeople around the country that know my voice, and will not have me to turn to anymore. Its a damn shame. Anybody have any ideas, in a tough economy, what I should be when I grow up? and singing in a soft low voice "How do you mend a broken heart"

WHR, Perhaps I should have said "that dog don't hunt". I used the word worthless, meaning devoid of value. It was a comment on the proposal, not about you. You may well be an excellent chemist, father and patriot, and be worth a million dollars. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, I am not arguing against your point that morality does not require a supernatural designer. But I am of the opinion that somebody is responsible for designing morality. And by all evidence, that designer is most likely human. Here I would agree with some of beanieb's points, that religion has something to do with it. There is not a great deal of evidence that would suggest that humans are automatically on the side of all other humans, just by virtue of their primate status. Outside of ones family or clan, or club, or pack, there are not a lot of survival reasons to look out for all primates. There has to be something in it, for you and your pack. Associations and agreements that would not be made, unless someone, some human came up with the idea. I don't think you can put these reasons together, without some idea of a "greater" good. And this, I would argue, would have to have been, somebody's idea. Regards, TAR2

WHR, This is a sentence from the proposal you expanded upon to form your example of laymen ideas, devoid of entrapment in the Scientific Method, that could constitute an example of the wonderful new thinking required, for us to take the next step in human understanding of the universe. If a flaw in the orignal idea that you expounded upon, can be so readily spotted and pointed out, by a laymen like me, then I would guess that someone with some experience in the field would find your proposal rather a non-starter. That is, they probably already know why the idea is doomed to "not work". Regards, TAR2 And not so much of an off topic point as you think. It is crucial to your argument that your idea is of value to all of us, and we can only reap that value by looking deeply into uninformed laymen type intuitions, without having to conform to the simple, tried and true framework of the Scientific Method. I say, your OP thesis is incorrect. AND your "new" idea is worthless. Regards, TAR2

Congratulations Curiostiy team. Excellent plan, job well done. As I heard on the radio this morning. We "now' have a 1 ton peice of American ingenuity, safely on Mars, allowing us to investigate that crater for signs of life on Mars, and carry on scientific experiments for the next two years. Excellent job. To those involved, "You make us all proud, and we share the joy of your victory." Regards, TAR2

WHR, In fact I did write Steven Hawkins once, with a common sense idea of mine. He had the courtesy to write me back, and explain where I had gone wrong. If there are elements in your common sense idea, that do not fit with what is already known, why would someone that knows this, be interested in pursuing it? For instance, in reading your example of a wonderful new common sense idea, that merits the attention of masters I saw the same flaw in the early going, that Hawkins pointed out to me. (although it was many years ago, and these are not his words, here is the jist) The Big Bang did not occur "somewhere else", in the center of the universe, as if we can point to the spot it occured, as "in that direction". It happened everywhere in the universe, and we (meaning Earth, or Solar System or Galaxy) were, and still are at that location. I am sure I am mangling the description, but the "idea" I am trying to express, in opposition to your thesis, is that the scientific community is not closed to new ideas, but does, very validly, instruct "newcomers" as to the actual, real, stuff that is already known to be the case. If the new idea does not fit with what is already known, if what is known needs to be discarded, with no solid workable framework to take its place, if it does not make someone think, "well yes, that would explain everything already explained, AND open new avenues, then it probably, the idea that is, has already known flaws, and does not merit or require anybodies serious effort. If it had merit, it WOULD be persued, or has already been pursued. Not that new ways of looking at things do not occur all the time. But that usually the goods ideas will spread automatically and be improved upon by the million minds you describe, and the bad ideas will be discarded, or corrected because of their initial flaws, that is, because they don't work. They don't match what actually is the case. Whatever portions of them might be workable and valuable will be pursued, because they are valuable and workable. I feel I can "talk down" to you, in this fashion, because I am often thinkng I have an idea that other people just are not understanding or paying any attention to, and if they only would, they could make some progress in understanding things. We both perhaps are suffering from a lack of confidence in the judgement of others. That they are somehow incapable of judging the merits of an idea, based on their own common sense, their own knowledge, their own logic, and their own understanding, without our guidance. Evidence would suggest that I not instruct you on anything concerning chemistry. You can teach me in that field, and Hawkins can instruct me in cosmology and physics. I am not likely to come up with anything brilliant that would cause either of you to hit your forehead with the heel of your hand and say "THATS IT!, I've been so stupid". Yes, I know, I am pretty full of myself. I apologize. But I am also rather certain that there are many others around, that can and should put me in my place, and usually do. I view this as a good and proper thing, and rather count on others being more capable than I in most every way. And since it is important to your thesis that other minds, that many minds, are better than a few, you must submit to the possibility, that your ideas will be or have been, already properly judged. Therefore Scientific Method already includes the freshness and free thinking and common sense your thesis proposes as the next required step. That is, your thesis is incorrect. We are not bounded by Scientific Method, and require common sense to take the next step. The opposite is true. We have used common sense already, and its built into the scientific method, and it remains the best way we have of determining whether our ideas, as sensible as they may seem, work or not in describing what actually is the case. Regards, TAR2 Hey, I am even stupider than I thought. I apologize again, I forgot that Hawkins doesn't do forehead slappling. Forget that image. one more apology, I was responding to #20, missed a whole page.

seriously disabled, And now that you understand it, do you subscribe to it? That is, are you convinced? Is that worldview forced by evidence and logic, or can one reasonably find in each of the realizations, basis for purposefulness? For instance, though science opens up a rather infinite looking domain, that dwarfs a human in size and scale and duration and power, there is also the other direction to consider, that which puts a human and his/her domain on a scale that dwarfs the amoeba and even more so, the quark. Of the "smaller" domains, locally, we are the indifferent masters, unconcered with the morality of the ant, as we brush him off our sandwich. Yet we belong to both those domains indifferent to us, and those we are indifferent to, with the same substance, the same reality, and therefore, that we find purpose is a real event. Inconsequential to anything on the other side of the Milky Way for 300,000 years, but of immediate and immense consequences to local organisations of matter and form. And there is life itself, which can be viewed as a victory over an indifferent universe, tending toward entropy. And there is indifference itself, which requires an awareness of something making a difference. Saw a nice saying once that pertains. "To the world, you are just some person, to some person, you may be the whole world." Lovecraft, from your abstract, does not make any logical errors, or set up anything that could not be, or is not the case, but, in my estimation does not give himself credit enough for being a real part, of a real universe, in all the ways he describes, and STILL have the ability, to make such judgements and distictiions, and be "indifferent" to the whole ball of wax, that he is so clearly capable of containing, and interacting with. Regards, TAR2

EternalPessimist, Sorry, I did not address you properly in the above. It was meant for you. Are you a part of the wealthy class or are you their enemy? That is, if you had to choose sides, would you make a team that included some people and not others? Where would you draw the line between those on your team and those on the other team? We have teams, no doubt. And we have some solo operators. While it is important to inspect one's objectives, and wheigh the results of one's actions, it is unrealistic to conclude that you alone can make it very far, without relying on the rest of your team. Discovering the Higg's is not unlike discovering fire or the wheel, or the spearhead. They are likely to improve your team's chances against the world. And likely to create some issues among those not on your team. It has, in the history of the world, been rather obvious that choosing sides with the team that is winning is a rather good strategy for survival. There also has been enough revolutions to suggest that sole operators, interested in only their own dominance are not likely to maintain such power, for ever...well we will have to see what happens in Syria. But, since there are teams, many with conflicting objectives, it is not clear that you can ascribe unassailable virtue to yourself, and your team...in any case. That is why we have morals and ethics, for personnal behavior, and rules for behaviour in the local club/workplace, and laws with which to live in governmental pervues. And treaties and agreements to allow large teams to operate in a peaceful and productive manner. But WE make and maintain and adjust those laws. Us human beings, that you would distrust as to their virtue. My argument would be that "we" are doing a fantastic job, of being virtuous, and it has very little to do with ignoring knowledge and the power that comes with it. It has more to do with sharing knowledge and power with everybody on your team. And looking for the ways to do it, in such a way that does not harm the teams you are a part of, that you would like to see, win. "Human nature" is not just our constant weakness, it is also our only strength. Finding the Higgs is not the end of the world. Its another step, in whatever walk we are on. And we have incorporated such discoveries into our existence before. And we are likely to do it again. Regards, TAR2 "This time." sorry EternalPessimist, we cross posted. You may feel you should only consider yourself and your family...against the world. But I fear you will need some allies. And am rather sure you already have them, you just are not acknowledging them. Regards, TAR2

a rather "destructive" post I did not enjoy it. and there is an "us" Whose side are you on?

EternalPessimist, My argument would be that some human discovered how to hunt faster and stronger animals, and shared his knowledge or at least was observed and copied. Same with farming, husbandry, material science, all the sciences, all the arts, all the trading and laws and civilization we all enjoy. We have worked together to dominate this planet and use it to our advantage, and to take care of it, when we use it too much. For every conflict humans have engaged in, there has been a human resolution. Why should "this time" be any different. Regards, TAR2

JMJones0424, Wonderful. Thank you. And here I was trying to get things into small fractions of a second of a degree and back again. Thank goodness for smart people, that can cut to the chase. Thank you. Just what I wanted to know. Regards, TAR2 P.S. I am sort of working on a notion that we form an analog image of the world around us, based on the information about it that comes in. And your jumping right to the ratios was excellent. Our model of the world, since it exists in the neurons and nerves of a human brain/body size collection of nodes and signals, yet is judged as being MUCH larger, must indeed use analogies, and transforms and ratios, to do the job. One grain size, standing for another, as we "think" about the world we are in and of. Almost as if we use the world itself as an extension of our thoughts as we internalize the information the universe presents to us.

Planck not Plank, sorry. Inow, Relative to me, and my here and now, of course. What other actual now could I possibly be aware of? (not what other heres and nows could I imagine putting myself in the shoes of) Regards, TAR2

Inow, Thanks for the video. Nice summary of the plan. I am not struggling with the fact that my now is different from even the closest possible "other" observer. I am rather counting on it. That is already built into my understanding. My figuring says that it is the speed of light that connects us to the rest of the universe. Which means that every other event, every other instant in the universe must have already happened, for me to be informed of it now. That is the only thing we can be informed of, is the universe's past. The universe itself, any observer in it, is in the exact same boat. The observer can only experience his/her own now, and can only be informed of what has already happened, everywhere else. Things a planck length away arriving now, occurred a Plank time ago. Things arriving now from Alpha Centuri, happened 1.3 years ago, and the moment we see the Curiostiy enter the atmosphere of Mars, as soon as we are informed of the event, it will have been sitting on the surface, for seven minutes. Regards, TAR2 Just to get the scale of what's happening, with the Mars landing, to tie it back to human judgement and understanding, is anybody here feel like figuring what the angular size of the rover would be, sitting on Mars that day, from the vantage point of an Earth bound observer...and compare that to the size of a particle of the same angular size, sitting on my thumb, at arms length? What size particle would we be talking?

Come on Immortal, Really? How many fingers am I holding up... ...or was holding up, in between the dots? How many countries will there be on Earth in 2837? What are the total number of lifeforms that exist in the Milky Way Galaxy at the moment? How many of each? What are they all doing right now? If Samyama would give one the ability to percieve everything everywhere, there would be no empirical question that could possibly stump the master. He/she could easily write down for the rest of us, where and when every dangerous and destructive event that will happen on Earth for the rest of year will be and we can make preparations, or plan not to be standing in the wrong spot, when any of them happen. Or tell us now the cure for every disease that will ever be cured. And tell us now, the major technological advances and discoveries that will ever be made, so we can take advantage of them now. Why keep everything a secret? Cause he/she doesn't really know. Right? Regards, TAR2 Saw a show once about a guy who felt he understood Grizzlies. that he was one with the grizzlies and they would not harm him. One day the grizzlies ate him. He was not correct.

Immortal, I tend to look at with some skepticism, claims that a way of thinking is false. You say that scientific realism is false, and certain realities are brought about by consciousness. And that this reality is known and has been known by the ancient masters. Can you not agree though, that reality would exist, in its entirety, with or without me and you looking at it, this way or that? I like to bring up the thought, again, that when the monk on the mountaintop reaches nirvana, the event, while immensely significant to the monk, does not much effect the rest of the universe, nor what TAR2 is going to have for dinner tonight. This logically demands that there is a significant reality, that exists, other than the monk's consciouness of it. Therefore it is not the monk that causes reality. He or she is a piece and part of it, and their consciousness of it, is an after effect, more than a cause of it. That is my take anyway. And it seems reasonable to me. Which part of this sensible take is impossible for the Eastern masters to accept? Regards, TAR2

Just an aside: The atomic clocks that were used in the experiment where certain of the clocks were flown East and certain West and compared upon return. Where are those clocks now? Are they still operational? Has their history been tracked between then and now, in terms of their positions and relative velocities? I was just wondering if the descrepacies in their counts of cycles have become greater (indicating some physical differences in the clocks), remained the same (fortifying the notion that the descrepencies were solely caused by their relative motion and positions in our gravational field), or whether the descrepencies have reduced (indicating that there might be some "normalizing" factors that cause slow clocks to catch up, and fast clocks, to fall back into the pack). I raise this question, considering the thought that the universe is considered to be the same age, everywhere. If this is to be the case, certain portions of the universe, should not be able to get much older than others (have their clocks move faster) and others age much less than others (have their clocks tick slower), indefinitly, with no forces and principles acting to pull the errant clocks, back into sync with the rest of the universe.