The extinction of the human race

[Ihealyou]

Originally Posted by guineapig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not as much as livestock does.

Yeah, thats a good point. I was thinking more along the lines of growing organic fruit and vegetables vs. non-organic. Non-organic crops have a higher yield than organic ones.

While we're on this point, you could say that sugar tarrifs lead to increased global hunger too. Farmers grow corn in the US to make corn syrup since its expensive to import sugar, and there is little domestic sugar production. Instead of growing corn to eat or other edible crops, farmers are just making us fat. On a more global scale, places that grow sugar cane, such as South America, are worse off due to the US not importing their sugar.

the universe will either die of entropy or collapse, depending on who you ask. In either outcome, time and existence as we understand it will cease. One or the other (or both) are going to happen with 100% probability, and either outcome will mean the eradication of anything even vaguely resembling life in the universe, so for our purposes the difference is not significant.

Also, play around with this neat little flash animation and then come back and try to tell me anything the human race does will ever matter:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347

First, that flash thing was cool [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wasn't trying to say that humans matter in the grand scheme of things, or that existence ends with the end of life. If the universe consisted of only a single rock, there would still be existence as the rock needs a framework to exist in.

There are some pretty strong philosophical and physics based arguments for the eternity of existence. Philosophically, it can be argued that existence must have always existed. If there was a time before existence, how was it created? If it was God, what framework did God exist in? There must have been some existence for God, or whoever/whatever created existence, to exist in.

As for the end of existence, mass and energy must be conserved. There would be no way to destroy the energy and mass from the objects already in the universe. Therefore existence must continue, since mass and energy cannot be destroyed and the fact that they need a framework to exist in.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Ihealyou [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

First, that flash thing was cool [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wasn't trying to say that humans matter in the grand scheme of things, or that existence ends with the end of life. If the universe consisted of only a single rock, there would still be existence as the rock needs a framework to exist in.

There are some pretty strong philosophical and physics based arguments for the eternity of existence. Philosophically, it can be argued that existence must have always existed. If there was a time before existence, how was it created? If it was God, what framework did God exist in? There must have been some existence for God, or whoever/whatever created existence, to exist in.

As for the end of existence, mass and energy must be conserved. There would be no way to destroy the energy and mass from the objects already in the universe. Therefore existence must continue, since mass and energy cannot be destroyed and the fact that they need a framework to exist in.

In the case of death by entropy, all of the energy and matter of the universe will be distributed evenly across a plane that is infinite in size. The only way that we can describe this state is timeless nonexistence. The example of your rock is meaningless. If all of the matter in your rock could be said to exist evenly across a plane of infinite size, the rock would not be observable and it could be said to not exist. In addition, time is relative - it is a tool to measure change. if nothing ever changes anywhere (as it would in a system that has reached an absolute state of entropy) time can be said to be stopped. Both time and existence require some sort of uneven distribution of energy and matter to mean anything; as soon as all matter and energy are completely dispersed they are both meaningless concepts.

In the case of death by collapse, on the other hand, we will pass into the singularity and all methods of explaining time and existence are useless.

[mixxit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtqSPahiMxw

[guineapig]

Originally Posted by Ihealyou [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

While we're on this point, you could say that sugar tarrifs lead to increased global hunger too. Farmers grow corn in the US to make corn syrup since its expensive to import sugar, and there is little domestic sugar production. Instead of growing corn to eat or other edible crops, farmers are just making us fat. On a more global scale, places that grow sugar cane, such as South America, are worse off due to the US not importing their sugar.

I'm glad you bring up corn. I totally agree with you about corn syrup thing.

On the flip side recently they have started making plastics out of corn which is very exciting! 100% biodegradable packaging... I'm even told that if you at the container, your body would digest it! (I'm not going to test that out however.)

Sorry, I got sidetracked...

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Taxi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I also think we should be working on exploring space, but we still have probably a couple of centuries left before that happens, and right now the chances of surviving those few centuries look slimer with each day that passes by. All our eggs are in a basket called earth, and im not sure what kind of catastrophic event its gonna take for humanity to get its shit together.

Religion sure doesnt help by pushing this toxic idea that its all in god's plan, and that what matters is this hypothetic afterlife, not what we have here right now. Some apocalyptic christians for example not only think that rapture is coming, they are actively working toward making it happen.

Heres a great hour and a half documentary on apocalyptic nuts if anyone is interested:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...5521791525424#

Yes, im ranting.

Sadly, you're correct. Religious zealots see most big disasters, even human-caused, as a confirmation that the arrogance of mankind is bottomless. It only deepens their faith and resentment towards the original sin committed by adam and eve. In the past, disasters were seen as a sign of gods wrath. Now, increasingly, they're seen as a sign that the end times are near. I think the idea that humans might one day leave earth soon, or that the earth could be destroyed by humans alone, is reason enough for most religious extremists to suspect that something is up, something big, at least in their crazy swiss cheese mind.

Imho, the bible is a 2000 year old rule book. It might have worked 2000 years ago, but it doesn't work in the 21st century. The 3 major monotheistic religions, which also tend to be the most intolerant, are: judaism, christianity, islam. They're all based on the bible in one form or another - there's just 3 different versions, but it's thrown together like patchwork. Each one considers itself correct, without any room for error. Each one has extremists that go on radio shows or tv shows and talk about the end times and how there's going to be a big war in the middle east. Believe it or not, they ALL say that. Is that what they actually want?

Of all religions, I prefer those that're pagan. That's because they recognize multitudes of gods and, predictably, are usually more tolerant of other people. In the globalized world we live in, you must be tolerant of others beliefs and values. It's increasingly important. Intolerance creates division, and division denies government the ability to govern effectively. Sooner or later, one side or the other will strike back.

North vs South. Black vs White. Holy vs Unholy.

For a taste of christian zealotry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig

I've seen the same sh** in judaism and islam. I've seen islamist extremists dancing with joy, screaming death to america, death to israel. Iran's leader is a psycho that believes he spoke with god and that he might bring about the coming of Hadhrat Isa. I've seen israeli settlers, that establish communities in what're essentially illegal settlements, riot for the total annihilation of arabs and invasion of their lands. They all wear a different color, wield a different flag, but they see the same thing: armageddon. These religions, the big three, interpret the bible differently, with predictable results. Essentially, the results favor them, their beliefs and values.

[Ihealyou]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The example of your rock is meaningless. If all of the matter in your rock could be said to exist evenly across a plane of infinite size, the rock would not be observable and it could be said to not exist.

This plane of infinite size would have to reside in some existence, and as you said, the rock exists inside of the plane. Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it no longer exists. I can't see the back of my head, but I'm pretty sure it exists. Although the matter of the rock is infinitely dispersed, it hasn't been destroyed. In the case of the singularity, even if everything in the universe was consumed by it, the singularity would still have to exist in some framework. There cannot be something in nothing.

I'm even told that if you at the container, your body would digest it! (I'm not going to test that out however.)

I ate some corn packaging peanuts once [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] It kinda tastes like bad popcorn with no flavor.

[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by Ihealyou [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I ate some corn packaging peanuts once [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] It kinda tastes like bad popcorn with no flavor.

At a trade show last summer I saw a children's "building block" toy made from these that were died with food colouring.

They do indeed taste like bad popcorn / flavourless Corn Pops.

[guineapig]

Delicious!!!

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Ihealyou [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This plane of infinite size would have to reside in some existence, and as you said, the rock exists inside of the plane. Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it no longer exists. I can't see the back of my head, but I'm pretty sure it exists. Although the matter of the rock is infinitely dispersed, it hasn't been destroyed. In the case of the singularity, even if everything in the universe was consumed by it, the singularity would still have to exist in some framework. There cannot be something in nothing.

You're not getting it. If a finite mass resides in an infinite space, it is infinitely insubstantial. It no longer exists in the sense we think of. Our physical definitions of existence are not adequate for the extremes in the universe, only for states of matter that we can observe that are very close to our own.

Likewise for the singularity. No physicist can step through the singularity and theorize what things look like on the other side because the conventional laws of physics (and thus, the laws of all matter and energy) break down at that point. "I don't know" is the best explanation and anyone who says otherwise is a self-important assclown.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You're not getting it. If a finite mass resides in an infinite space, it is infinitely insubstantial. It no longer exists in the sense we think of. Our physical definitions of existence are not adequate for the extremes in the universe, only for states of matter that we can observe that are very close to our own.

Likewise for the singularity. No physicist can step through the singularity and theorize what things look like on the other side because the conventional laws of physics (and thus, the laws of all matter and energy) break down at that point. "I don't know" is the best explanation and anyone who says otherwise is a self-important assclown.

I think it's cool that the calculated pull between galaxies is too small to account for the observed gravity. They justify this discrepancy by referring to dark matter and/or dark energy as the culprit.

That to me is basically admitting we don't know.

Another example is the orbit time of stars with respect to their distance from the galactic center. When they made the observations it did not correlate with their calculations. Keep in mind that "calculations" means current, cumulative science. If science is unable to predict what's later observed, that puts into question whether the science is even valid. They then proceed to add to the theory or revise it, but the whole affair makes me doubtful that we're 100% correct. Any theory only has to be correct for what's currently known. None of the theories work perfectly in all matters. Whether we're talking about quantum or classical physics, or future observations that don't jibe with our expectations, either way, nothing has 100% explained everything.

Other issues i've seen are the seeming lack of great portions of anti-matter. Where is it? There're supposed to be anti-matter galaxies, but i don't think we've seen them, yet. We have a lot to learn.

If a theory is 99.999999999999% percent correct or it accounts for 99.999999999% of observed phenomena, that's actually very poor. Why? Because even if it accounts for 99.99999999999999% of what's observed, that leaves out millions of years of future advancement and future observation in space/time. We have only seen a small portion of our universe yet we pretend to know almost 100% of it. Great minds in the past made the same mistake. They were right probably 99.99999999% of the time about the observed universe. They assumed that meant that they were close to 100%. We're doing the same thing anytime we say we're close to 100% since our theories account for 99.99999999999999999999999% of observations over time and space.

I'm not saying we should stop researching it. Science, i believe, is the greatest expression of being. It's the language of the universe. It's incredibly important to our survival and growth. I'm only saying that certainty about theories seems to be so commonplace. I don't feel equally certain, but I do think theories are worthwhile. Our theories help us to function well within the known universe, and for that they're necessary.