robheus

This is some weird position, because you abstract science from human knowledge and human practice. If you assume human species is not capable of acquiring more knowledge then we actually can, then how do you explain the fact that scientific knowledge nevertheless has accumulated over the course of human history.

Hawking also made the prediction that physics would come to en end within 10 years. That statement he made 24 years ago. I think that the only thing which is going to be dead in 10 years from now is Hawking himself.

Sadly though these more important (making desert like places habitable) and doable things don't get any media coverage, there is generally speaking little interest in doing that. However, desertec IS a real initiative and seems to be able to get funds in doing just that: developing clean energy based on solar or wind from inhospitable places in the MENA (middle-east, north-africa). How could one do that? It requires huge amounts of activities on Mars not to be foreseen in nearby future. Despite having a magnetic force field, the rate of decay of a hypothetical atmosphere on Mars seems to be quite small, and such an atmosphere could exist for some millions of years, but would ultimately decay.

This makes no sense, since we could ask that question also when we would be living in a past time, and so it can not be answered. But if you would assume that being born in a specific period of time would be some probabilstic event, it could be made clear that within an exponential growing population, the changes of being born now are far greater then being born in the past. Maybe that is what you want to ask?

The problem here is this: for "non-existence" to be definable and to be a propriate description of some status of the world, it is already understood we know what existence is, how it can be defined, and how we can distinguish between "existence" and "non-existence" The problem thus is that OUTSIDE of that context, the context in which the words "existence" and "non-existence" have any meaning, we can no longer speak about "non-existence", since the distinction between "existence" and "non-existence" is not even there. In the Science of Logic, by Hegel, where he first explains how he arrives at his first primary concepts (as an answer to the question he himself raisis as to "with what should philosophy begin?", he says about Being and Nothing that they are not to be understood as only seperate from each other (and each others opposites), but that they can only be properly understood within this union of opposites (which we can call a "dialectical unity of opposites"). Further Hegel explains that with pure Being and Nothing, nothing is intuited or determined by it. They are only empty, abstract notions, they do not refer to some specific (determinate) instances of Being or Nothing. In that sense they are indeterminate and are still nothing, and so Being and Nothing are on the inset (while at the same time something to be distinguished) the same. That is the same indeterminated-ness. They have no seperate truth inside itself, but only a combined truth which is Becoming, because in the notion of Becoming (or Ceasing-to-be) it is already understood that Being and Nothing spontaneously pass over into each other. In that notion, in the notion of Becoming, it is already understood that Being and Nothing are in fact not seperate but in which their unseperatedness is assumed. Further. For a more proper understanding of the abstract concepts of Being and Nothing, we can better take a practicle example of some practical situation. For instance take a chair or table, made of wood, standing in your living room or so. That is some determinate something/being. But with it, we can imagine it's material history, it's process of becoming a chair, and also have no problem imagining it's future inexistence (as a chair that is). For example, we could have been presented a picture of the tree or forest, in which the trees grew from which the chair was made. That is in fact a situation of some previous state of the world in which that particular chair did not exist (it was a "nothing"), and we can also imagine how the chair came to be, how the not-being-a-chair in the form of the uncut tree and manufactured by a carpenter into the chair, take place. Also we would have no problem in imagining the chair either as becoming broken down to it's biological components or else as burnt up in a fire or some other way the chair may end. So the non-being of such determinate objects, those determinate "nothings", namely the chair before it became a chair, or the chair after it ceased to be a chair, which thereby are the non-beings of that chair, can be imagined quite vividly without problem. But neither the abstract form of Being or Nothing, as indeterminate forms and taken as seperate notions, can be imagined, since they don't have any truth or meaning of themselves, they only exist in their unity which is becoming (or ceasing to be).

For God to die, he/she/it must be alive first. Where is the proof of that?

Who is this question being adressed to? Better off for who, what? How are you so sure that the being in concern here should be addressed as a "He" and not "She" or if that gender qualification makes any sense?

What comes to my mind in adressing this issue is that what needs to be done is: * Fighting poverty is most important, because birth rates are very much related to poverty. * We should work harder to create a more sustainable economy (away from usage of fossil fuels and nuclear) * Living space can be created in places which are currently quite empty, like deserts. They have great potential for solar energy at prices already comparable to fossil energy, and CSP solar installations can convert salt water into drinking water from the excess heat.

The question should not be "what is the best programming language to learn", since the programming language is just a tool, it depends on the problem you need to solve to see what tool fits that best.

Make that ANY planet; it is true for our planet too, as we are already seeing the end of the fossil fuels.

Thanks for the response. I am as sceptic about this as you are. I think it can't be done in this way, in this time frame and within this budget. It assumes technology either not available or net yet tested. It's a step in the dark, literally. But my point is that even IF all those technical difficulties could be met (let us just suppose for a momen), I think still this mission is doomed, since you can not reach a situation of self-sustainance on Mars within a fixed (no matter how large) budget. Of course, theoretically you could produce a lot of things yourself: the water, oxygen and food stuff. But then this all requires complicated technology, and every part of that and every part it is dependend on, ultimately you would need to produce yourself from bare rocks and soil deposits on Mars. A technological advanced society that could do that, would have to be magnitudes larger then foreseen. And just to depict some subtle aspects of this enterprise in economic terms. The project will cost at least 5 billion euros, and will have at most around 24 people on Mars. Suppose each of them lives 60 years (from 20 to 80 or something), that will mean: 24 x 60 years of human life on Mars (we ignore births/deaths) which is: 1440 human years. Per human year this will cost us: 5 billion euro / 1440 human years = 3.472.222 euro per human per year (4,387,847.22 US$) Now please equate that with figures about average GDP: World: 7759 US$ per person in the world US: 44839.02 per person in the usa Europe: 33849,89 US$ per person in the eu So to put humans on Mars with an initial budget of 5 billion EU for a group of around 24 people, even if they could stay there till they die, costs tremendous amount of money. 100 times more as what it would cost for an average us citizin. I think the post could be made there, but some aspects of such a mission (how to create a sustainable economy) would apply both to (future) citizins of Mars as to Earth. If such a mission were at all possible, the Mars citizins would face tremendous difficulties in sustaining themselves for even the most basic needs (oxygen, water, food). Suppose it COULD be done (but then I think it can't be done based on current technology), it would certainly make some developments available to us on earth, with which we could sustain ourselves here too (cheap solar panels with enough electric output, etc.). The foolish thing is that it is somehow assumed that colonizing Mars is just the extention of previous colonizing experiences on Earth. But they are totally apart things and can't be compared. Suppose for a moment that (for example at altitued of 35 km above earth) we had on earth in some parts of the world living conditions comparable to Mars, would anyone go there and live their lives? Why are dessers, ocean floors and most of the polar regions and likewise harsh environments practically uninhabited? So I think the assumptions are wrong. You could better take some uninhabited dessert on earth, and turn that into a living space for people (for example build a CSP solar power plant, sell the electricity and desalinate water to make agriculture possible) you could in theory do that and build a sustainable environment on earth without using existing depleting resources.

Not sure where to post this, there is no subforum about space travel, but since I want to make some points that are relevant for earth sciences too, I post it here. Quite recently an announcment was made about a project called Mars One that is targeting to put people on Mars from 2023 and ongoing, and uses a quite remarkable strategy: there will be no return trip. Technically we do not yet master a launch from Mars, and it would be quite expensive, and by dropping that part of the flight, Mars One conjectures that their plan to bring people to Mars can succeed and costs much less then other plans. Finances for the project costs (around 5 billion euro or some) are conjectured to come from media exposure (a kind of "big brother" like media event. From 2023 on, there will be 4 people on Mars, and every 2 year a new crew would come of 2 people. They will have rovers, habitats and lots of living equipments and goods to sustain themselves for a long period. Water is caught from below the surface, where it is conjectured that water exists in frozen form, and oxygen is extracted from the water, and for both methods an array of solar panels are used. Now, suppose that a return trip would not be possible in the long run, and that the total amount of money that can be spent on cargo expeditions to Mars to meet the living demands on the people living on Mars, is limited, is there a possible way they can stay there forever, and produce all their basic needs? Official website: www.mars-one.com

A simple approach is this: each couple can have at most 1 girl (so, 0 or 1), but there can be any number of boys, because they keep on trying untill they have their first girl and then stop. Which means that boys outnumber girls.

Here is some idea I came accross recently. All fundamental properties of physical systems are described in terms of: - A background of empty 3d space which is filled in every part and every direction with fluctuating strands. Strands are featureless, but do not interpenetrate, and continue to the horizon of physical space. - All properties of matter and observables we can detect are based on strand crossings. The strands themselves are unobservable. From this miniscule description of physics he is able to show that all physical properties can be deduced, including general relativity, quantum field theory, the standard model, etc. He makes some bold predictions, for instance that at CERN no new forms of matter (fundamental particles) or the Higgs boson will be detected, neither extra dimensions. Untill now, his predictions still stand. The theory can be classified as a kind of TOE (theory of everything). Strand Model

"There is always something existing in the universe even before time and space came about" ??? This makes absoluty no sense to me. What is it supposed to mean that there was time *before* there was time? Where do you get onto the idea there needs to be God in the first place? (NB. and to attack the idea of God, there is no reason to suppose that God would need to exist, in order to answer the question of "why is there anything at all existing (a universe, etc.)", since when you claim that God (or any other existing entity) is the answer to that question, the question simply get rereaised and is re-formulated as "why does God (or any other entity you see fit for that purpose) exist"?)

Suppose the universe would not contain light, never had, never will and never can. Would then everything be dark (darkness being the absence of light)? No, of course. Since when there is no light at all, neither there is darkness. Darkness only exists in the presence of light, and just means that there are places where light can't travel to, and where there is absence of light. The revserse is also thrue. If there would be light, but no darkness anywhere, you couldn't detect there being light. So light and darkness only exist in their combination as a unity. Similarly this is also true for "being" and "nothing".