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No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
- Thread starter Weird
- Start date
- Status
the notion of a universe that has no beginning is actually an old one in physics
called a steady state universe, and time is infinite in it, maybe
things changed when astronomers began to check out the neighborhood, saw galaxies flying apart
and the big bang theory was started, time had a beginning, which is the currently accepted theory
either way, the thinking is a bitch
i'll second that
this is a religion i can embrace, all hail the green god
kind of a political wedgie to the dork that initiated the process
I'm guessing meth.
Let's stick with the goal that is realistically obtainable besides Princesses rarely live up to the hype.
As for Orange County. Well there is no rule that says you can only live more environmentally friendly in Orange County. Go where land is more in your price range. Grow some crops, work a 2nd even 3rd job to save up the required money. Forget about being lazy, there is no lazy in living eco friendly. I think though you have this image in mind of someone living off the land, off grid as some seeming wild man living in the Mountains. You can do it anywhere. You could even use a traditional house in a traditional yard in a traditional neighborhood. Cheap homes can be had in places like Detroit. Sure the house was built using things that polluted the world in their making but that's already done and in the books. If places like the ghost neighborhoods in Detroit don't get bought up and used then eventually they get destroyed and then new homes have to be built with then will need to use products that had and additional negative impact on the environment in the making. So one could make the argument that actually not taking advantage of those deals to live like a hermit in a cave in the mountains is more harmful for the planet.
Well the best things in life usually are the ones that require the most effort.
there's some method to the madness. surely a conversation about the vastness of existence should center on vulgar, quotidian, banally hominid matters.
did you expect a conversation to occur at some other scope?
phil spector and jimmy saville simultaneously turn to the audience and announce (indeed almost as if in collusion), "hey kiddies, it sounds like *someone* didn't learn to play with their genitals!" and the audience erupts into unstoppable applause, we had to shut the cameras down.
"popsicles, icicles..."
did you expect a conversation to occur at some other scope?
phil spector and jimmy saville simultaneously turn to the audience and announce (indeed almost as if in collusion), "hey kiddies, it sounds like *someone* didn't learn to play with their genitals!" and the audience erupts into unstoppable applause, we had to shut the cameras down.
"popsicles, icicles..."
genedigger
Member
there is no meth where i live.that scourge hasnt reached everywhere.
Quantum physics: 'Spooky action' demonstrated again proving Einstein wrong
Quantum physics: 'Spooky action' demonstrated again proving Einstein wrong
In yet another demonstration of "spooky action at a distance", scientists have proved Einstein wrong again.
The team at Griffith University and the University of Tokyo in Japan showed that measuring a particle does affect its location.
In the quantum world, a particle can be in any or many locations at a time, with the wave function merely giving a probability of it being at any place at a time.
The act of measurement interferes with this state of probability and the wave function collapses before the particle takes a definite position.
But the state of the particle is changed from what it was prior to the measurement. In a related phenomenon, two closely associated particles when separated seem to retain a memory of the other, with any change made to one affecting the other instantaneously.
When first suggested in the 1920s and 1930s, Einstein dismissed the idea calling it "spooky action at a distance".
It seemed to violate the theory of relativity, which posits that the speed of light is an absolute limit on how fast any information can travel.
Einstein proposed that the particle is not in a superposition state or two places at once; but rather it always has a "true" location, and people just could not see it.
The phenomenon has been demonstrated with a thought experiment in which a light beam is split, with one half going to Alice and the other to Bob.
Alice then indicates if she detected a photon and if so what state it is in.
But Alice's measurement collapses the superposition, meaning the photons are in one place or another, but not both anymore.
Earlier experiments have shown entanglement between two particles and instantaneous transmission of information between the two. The present study sought to entangle a photon with itself to demonstrate spooky action.
The experiment is described in Nature Communications.
Photon entangled with itself
A beam of photons was fired at a splitter, so half of the light was transmitted and half was reflected. The transmitted light went to one lab and the reflected light went to the other.
The light was transmitted as a single photon at a time, so the photon was split in two.
One lab (Alice) used a laser as a reference, to measure the phase (angle of slant of the wave) of the photon. When Alice changed the angle of her reference laser, she got varying phase measurements of the photon as well as situations where it was totally absent.
The state of Bob's photon depended exactly on what Alice measured showing that the two are closely interlinked across time and space.
Howard Wiseman, director of Griffith University's Centre for Quantum Dynamics, who led the experiment, told Live Science: "If Alice sees a photon, that means the quantum state of the light particle in Bob's lab collapses to a so-called zero-photon state, meaning no photon. But if she doesn't see a photon, Bob's particle collapses to a one-photon state."
This means in essence Alice's measurement dictates Bob's.
With entanglement, when measuring one half of the entangled pair, the other half instantly assumes the exact opposite state so that together the probability of either state remains the same.
Scientists had recently demonstrated using entangled beams of photons that it is possible to obtain an image of an object with light that never fell on the object.
Researchers at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft managed to teleport quantum information stored in one section of a diamond to another, in what could be applied to quantum networks that transport information instantaneously.
Entangled photons have been created which hold much promise in ultrafast computing and communications besides foolproof cyber security.
Quantum physics: 'Spooky action' demonstrated again proving Einstein wrong
In yet another demonstration of "spooky action at a distance", scientists have proved Einstein wrong again.
The team at Griffith University and the University of Tokyo in Japan showed that measuring a particle does affect its location.
In the quantum world, a particle can be in any or many locations at a time, with the wave function merely giving a probability of it being at any place at a time.
The act of measurement interferes with this state of probability and the wave function collapses before the particle takes a definite position.
But the state of the particle is changed from what it was prior to the measurement. In a related phenomenon, two closely associated particles when separated seem to retain a memory of the other, with any change made to one affecting the other instantaneously.
When first suggested in the 1920s and 1930s, Einstein dismissed the idea calling it "spooky action at a distance".
It seemed to violate the theory of relativity, which posits that the speed of light is an absolute limit on how fast any information can travel.
Einstein proposed that the particle is not in a superposition state or two places at once; but rather it always has a "true" location, and people just could not see it.
The phenomenon has been demonstrated with a thought experiment in which a light beam is split, with one half going to Alice and the other to Bob.
Alice then indicates if she detected a photon and if so what state it is in.
But Alice's measurement collapses the superposition, meaning the photons are in one place or another, but not both anymore.
Earlier experiments have shown entanglement between two particles and instantaneous transmission of information between the two. The present study sought to entangle a photon with itself to demonstrate spooky action.
The experiment is described in Nature Communications.
Photon entangled with itself
A beam of photons was fired at a splitter, so half of the light was transmitted and half was reflected. The transmitted light went to one lab and the reflected light went to the other.
The light was transmitted as a single photon at a time, so the photon was split in two.
One lab (Alice) used a laser as a reference, to measure the phase (angle of slant of the wave) of the photon. When Alice changed the angle of her reference laser, she got varying phase measurements of the photon as well as situations where it was totally absent.
The state of Bob's photon depended exactly on what Alice measured showing that the two are closely interlinked across time and space.
Howard Wiseman, director of Griffith University's Centre for Quantum Dynamics, who led the experiment, told Live Science: "If Alice sees a photon, that means the quantum state of the light particle in Bob's lab collapses to a so-called zero-photon state, meaning no photon. But if she doesn't see a photon, Bob's particle collapses to a one-photon state."
This means in essence Alice's measurement dictates Bob's.
With entanglement, when measuring one half of the entangled pair, the other half instantly assumes the exact opposite state so that together the probability of either state remains the same.
Scientists had recently demonstrated using entangled beams of photons that it is possible to obtain an image of an object with light that never fell on the object.
Researchers at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft managed to teleport quantum information stored in one section of a diamond to another, in what could be applied to quantum networks that transport information instantaneously.
Entangled photons have been created which hold much promise in ultrafast computing and communications besides foolproof cyber security.
Unconscious manipulation of free choice by novel primes
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810015000562
Abstract
The extent to which non-conscious perception can influence behaviour has been a topic of considerable controversy in psychology for decades. Although a challenging task, convincing empirical demonstrations have emerged suggesting that non-consciously perceived ‘prime’ stimuli can influence motor responses to subsequent targets. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that the influence of masked primes is not restricted to target-elicited responses, but can also bias free-choices between alternative behaviours. The present experiment extends these findings by showing that free-choices could also be biased by novel primes that never appeared as targets and therefore could not trigger acquired stimulus–response (S–R) mappings. This new evidence suggests that free-choice behaviour can be influenced by non-consciously triggered semantic representations. Furthermore, the results reported here support accounts of masked priming that posit an automatic semantic categorisation of non-consciously perceived visual stimuli.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810015000562
Abstract
The extent to which non-conscious perception can influence behaviour has been a topic of considerable controversy in psychology for decades. Although a challenging task, convincing empirical demonstrations have emerged suggesting that non-consciously perceived ‘prime’ stimuli can influence motor responses to subsequent targets. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that the influence of masked primes is not restricted to target-elicited responses, but can also bias free-choices between alternative behaviours. The present experiment extends these findings by showing that free-choices could also be biased by novel primes that never appeared as targets and therefore could not trigger acquired stimulus–response (S–R) mappings. This new evidence suggests that free-choice behaviour can be influenced by non-consciously triggered semantic representations. Furthermore, the results reported here support accounts of masked priming that posit an automatic semantic categorisation of non-consciously perceived visual stimuli.
Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke
By Nury Vittachi | July 6th 2014 08:03 PM
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_...s_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982
Metaphysical thought processes are more deeply wired than hitherto suspected
WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.
Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.
While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.
This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.
INTERNAL MONOLOGUES
Scientists have discovered that “invisible friends” are not something reserved for children. We all have them, and encounter them often in the form of interior monologues. As we experience events, we mentally tell a non-present listener about it.
The imagined listener may be a spouse, it may be Jesus or Buddha or it may be no one in particular. It’s just how the way the human mind processes facts. The identity, tangibility or existence of the listener is irrelevant.
“From childhood, people form enduring, stable and important relationships with fictional characters, imaginary friends, deceased relatives, unseen heroes and fantasized mates,” says Boyer of Washington University, himself an atheist. This feeling of having an awareness of another consciousness might simply be the way our natural operating system works.
PUZZLING RESPONSES
These findings may go a long way to explaining a series of puzzles in recent social science studies. In the United States, 38% of people who identified themselves as atheist or agnostic went on to claim to believe in a God or a Higher Power (Pew Forum, “Religion and the Unaffiliated”, 2012).
While the UK is often defined as an irreligious place, a recent survey by Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present.
When researchers asked people whether they had taken part in esoteric spiritual practices such as having a Reiki session or having their aura read, the results were almost identical (between 38 and 40%) for people who defined themselves as religious, non-religious or atheist.
The implication is that we all believe in a not dissimilar range of tangible and intangible realities. Whether a particular brand of higher consciousness is included in that list (“I believe in God”, “I believe in some sort of higher force”, “I believe in no higher consciousness”) is little more than a detail.
EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSES
If a tendency to believe in the reality of an intangible network is so deeply wired into humanity, the implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose. Social scientists have long believed that the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind means that mindful, self-aware people necessarily suffer from deep existential dread. Spiritual beliefs evolved over thousands of years as nature’s way to help us balance this out and go on functioning.
If a loved one dies, even many anti-religious people usually feel a need for a farewell ritual, complete with readings from old books and intoned declarations that are not unlike prayers. In war situations, commanders frequently comment that atheist soldiers pray far more than they think they do.
Statistics show that the majority of people who stop being part of organized religious groups don’t become committed atheists, but retain a mental model in which “The Universe” somehow has a purpose for humanity.
In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists. The majority are “nothing in particular” according to figures published in New Scientist.
FEELING OF CONNECTEDNESS
There are other, more socially-oriented evolutionary purposes, too. Religious communities grow faster, since people behave better (referring to the general majority over the millennia, as opposed to minority extremists highlighted by the media on any given day).
Why is this so? Religious folk attend weekly lectures on morality, read portions of respected books about the subject on a daily basis and regularly discuss the subject in groups, so it would be inevitable that some of this guidance sinks in.
There is also the notion that the presence of an invisible moralistic presence makes misdemeanors harder to commit. “People who think they are being watched tend to behave themselves and cooperate more,” says the New Scientist’s Lawton. “Societies that chanced on the idea of supernatural surveillance were likely to have been more successful than those that didn't, further spreading religious ideas.”
This is not simply a matter of religious folk having a metaphorical angel on their shoulder, dispensing advice. It is far deeper than that—a sense of interconnectivity between all things. If I commit a sin, it is not an isolated event but will have appropriate repercussions. This idea is common to all large scale faith groups, whether it is called karma or simply God ensuring that you “reap what you sow”.
NARRATIVE PRESENCE
These theories find confirmation from a very different academic discipline—the literature department. The present writer, based at the Creativity Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design, has been looking at the manifestation of cosmic justice in fictional narratives—books, movies and games. It is clear that in almost all fictional worlds, God exists, whether the stories are written by people of a religious, atheist or indeterminate beliefs.
It’s not that a deity appears directly in tales. It is that the fundamental basis of stories appears to be the link between the moral decisions made by the protagonists and the same characters’ ultimate destiny. The payback is always appropriate to the choices made. An unnamed, unidentified mechanism ensures that this is so, and is a fundamental element of stories—perhaps the fundamental element of narratives.
In children’s stories, this can be very simple: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. In narratives for older readers, the ending is more complex, with some lose ends left dangling, and others ambiguous. Yet the ultimate appropriateness of the ending is rarely in doubt. If a tale ended with Harry Potter being tortured to death and the Dursley family dancing on his grave, the audience would be horrified, of course, but also puzzled: that’s not what happens in stories. Similarly, in a tragedy, we would be surprised if King Lear’s cruelty to Cordelia did not lead to his demise.
Indeed, it appears that stories exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person. Without this overarching moral mechanism, narratives become records of unrelated arbitrary events, and lose much of their entertainment value. In contrast, the stories which become universally popular appear to be carefully composed records of cosmic justice at work.
WELL-DEFINED PROCESS
In manuals for writers (see “Screenplay” by Syd Field, for example) this process is often defined in some detail. Would-be screenwriters are taught that during the build-up of the story, the villain can sin (take unfair advantages) to his or her heart’s content without punishment, but the heroic protagonist must be karmically punished for even the slightest deviation from the path of moral rectitude. The hero does eventually win the fight, not by being bigger or stronger, but because of the choices he makes.
This process is so well-established in narrative creation that the literati have even created a specific category for the minority of tales which fail to follow this pattern. They are known as “bleak” narratives. An example is A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, in which the likable central characters suffer terrible fates while the horrible faceless villains triumph entirely unmolested.
While some bleak stories are well-received by critics, they rarely win mass popularity among readers or moviegoers. Stories without the appropriate outcome mechanism feel incomplete. The purveyor of cosmic justice is not just a cast member, but appears to be the hidden heart of the show.
ROOTS OF ATHEISM
But if a belief in cosmic justice is natural and deeply rooted, the question arises: where does atheism fit in? Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing, missing the fact that evolution would discard unhelpful beliefs and foster the growth of helpful ones. He declared himself “not a ‘Freethinker’ in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition” (“Einstein on Peace”, page 510).
Similarly, Charles Darwin, in a meeting with a campaigner for atheism in September 1881, distanced himself from the views of his guest, finding them too “aggressive”. In the latter years of his life, he offered his premises for the use of the local church minister and changed his family schedule to enable his children to attend services.
SMALL DIFFERENCES
Of course these findings do not prove that it is impossible to stop believing in God. What they do indicate, quite powerfully, is that we may be fooling ourselves if we think that we are making the key decisions about what we believe, and if we think we know how deeply our views pervade our consciousnesses. It further suggests that the difference between the atheist and the non-atheist viewpoint is much smaller than probably either side perceives. Both groups have consciousnesses which create for themselves realities which include very similar tangible and intangible elements. It may simply be that their awareness levels and interpretations of certain surface details differ.
THE FUTURE
But as higher levels of education spread, will starry-eyed spirituality die out and cooler, drier atheism sweep the field, as some atheism campaigners suggest? Some specialists feel this is unlikely. “If godlessness flourishes where there is stability and prosperity, then climate change and environmental degradation could seriously slow the spread of atheism,” says Lawton in New Scientist.
On a more personal level, we all have loved ones who will die, and we all have a tendency to puzzle about what consciousness is, whether it is separate from the brain, and whether it can survive. We will always have existential dread with us—at a personal or societal level. So the need for periods of contemplative calm in churches or temples or other places devoted to the ineffable and inexplicable will remain. They appear to be part of who we are as humans.
Furthermore, every time we read a book or watch a movie, we are reinforcing our default belief in the eventual triumph of karma. While there is certainly growth in the number of bleak narratives being produced, it is difficult to imagine them becoming the majority form of cultural entertainment. Most of us will skip Cormac McCarthy’s crushingly depressing “The Road” in favor of the newest Pixar movie.
POPULATION IMPLICATIONS
When looking at trends, there’s also population growth to consider. Western countries are moving away from the standard family model, and tend to obsess over topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these issues, in practice they are associated with shrinking populations. Europeans (and the Japanese) are not having enough children to replace the adult generation, and are seeing their communities shrink on a daily basis.
Africans and South Asians, on the other hand, are generally religious and retain the traditional model of multi-child families—which may be old-fashioned from a Western point of view, but it’s a model powerfully sanctioned by the evolutionary urge to extend the gene pool.
“It’s clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations and a decrease in scepticism,” says Steve Jones, a professor in genetics at University College London, speaking at the Hay Festival in the UK recently.
This may appear as bad news for pro-atheism campaigners. But for the evolutionary life-force which may actually make the decisions, this may augur well for the continued existence of humanity. (An image of Richard Dawkins and his selfish gene having a testy argument over dinner springs to mind.)
In the meantime, it might be wise for religious folks to refrain from teasing atheist friends who accidentally say something about their souls. And it might be equally smart for the more militant of today’s atheists to stop teasing religious people at all.
We might all be a little more spiritual than we think.
By Nury Vittachi | July 6th 2014 08:03 PM
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_...s_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982
Metaphysical thought processes are more deeply wired than hitherto suspected
WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.
Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.
While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.
This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.
INTERNAL MONOLOGUES
Scientists have discovered that “invisible friends” are not something reserved for children. We all have them, and encounter them often in the form of interior monologues. As we experience events, we mentally tell a non-present listener about it.
The imagined listener may be a spouse, it may be Jesus or Buddha or it may be no one in particular. It’s just how the way the human mind processes facts. The identity, tangibility or existence of the listener is irrelevant.
“From childhood, people form enduring, stable and important relationships with fictional characters, imaginary friends, deceased relatives, unseen heroes and fantasized mates,” says Boyer of Washington University, himself an atheist. This feeling of having an awareness of another consciousness might simply be the way our natural operating system works.
PUZZLING RESPONSES
These findings may go a long way to explaining a series of puzzles in recent social science studies. In the United States, 38% of people who identified themselves as atheist or agnostic went on to claim to believe in a God or a Higher Power (Pew Forum, “Religion and the Unaffiliated”, 2012).
While the UK is often defined as an irreligious place, a recent survey by Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present.
When researchers asked people whether they had taken part in esoteric spiritual practices such as having a Reiki session or having their aura read, the results were almost identical (between 38 and 40%) for people who defined themselves as religious, non-religious or atheist.
The implication is that we all believe in a not dissimilar range of tangible and intangible realities. Whether a particular brand of higher consciousness is included in that list (“I believe in God”, “I believe in some sort of higher force”, “I believe in no higher consciousness”) is little more than a detail.
EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSES
If a tendency to believe in the reality of an intangible network is so deeply wired into humanity, the implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose. Social scientists have long believed that the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind means that mindful, self-aware people necessarily suffer from deep existential dread. Spiritual beliefs evolved over thousands of years as nature’s way to help us balance this out and go on functioning.
If a loved one dies, even many anti-religious people usually feel a need for a farewell ritual, complete with readings from old books and intoned declarations that are not unlike prayers. In war situations, commanders frequently comment that atheist soldiers pray far more than they think they do.
Statistics show that the majority of people who stop being part of organized religious groups don’t become committed atheists, but retain a mental model in which “The Universe” somehow has a purpose for humanity.
In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists. The majority are “nothing in particular” according to figures published in New Scientist.
FEELING OF CONNECTEDNESS
There are other, more socially-oriented evolutionary purposes, too. Religious communities grow faster, since people behave better (referring to the general majority over the millennia, as opposed to minority extremists highlighted by the media on any given day).
Why is this so? Religious folk attend weekly lectures on morality, read portions of respected books about the subject on a daily basis and regularly discuss the subject in groups, so it would be inevitable that some of this guidance sinks in.
There is also the notion that the presence of an invisible moralistic presence makes misdemeanors harder to commit. “People who think they are being watched tend to behave themselves and cooperate more,” says the New Scientist’s Lawton. “Societies that chanced on the idea of supernatural surveillance were likely to have been more successful than those that didn't, further spreading religious ideas.”
This is not simply a matter of religious folk having a metaphorical angel on their shoulder, dispensing advice. It is far deeper than that—a sense of interconnectivity between all things. If I commit a sin, it is not an isolated event but will have appropriate repercussions. This idea is common to all large scale faith groups, whether it is called karma or simply God ensuring that you “reap what you sow”.
NARRATIVE PRESENCE
These theories find confirmation from a very different academic discipline—the literature department. The present writer, based at the Creativity Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design, has been looking at the manifestation of cosmic justice in fictional narratives—books, movies and games. It is clear that in almost all fictional worlds, God exists, whether the stories are written by people of a religious, atheist or indeterminate beliefs.
It’s not that a deity appears directly in tales. It is that the fundamental basis of stories appears to be the link between the moral decisions made by the protagonists and the same characters’ ultimate destiny. The payback is always appropriate to the choices made. An unnamed, unidentified mechanism ensures that this is so, and is a fundamental element of stories—perhaps the fundamental element of narratives.
In children’s stories, this can be very simple: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. In narratives for older readers, the ending is more complex, with some lose ends left dangling, and others ambiguous. Yet the ultimate appropriateness of the ending is rarely in doubt. If a tale ended with Harry Potter being tortured to death and the Dursley family dancing on his grave, the audience would be horrified, of course, but also puzzled: that’s not what happens in stories. Similarly, in a tragedy, we would be surprised if King Lear’s cruelty to Cordelia did not lead to his demise.
Indeed, it appears that stories exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person. Without this overarching moral mechanism, narratives become records of unrelated arbitrary events, and lose much of their entertainment value. In contrast, the stories which become universally popular appear to be carefully composed records of cosmic justice at work.
WELL-DEFINED PROCESS
In manuals for writers (see “Screenplay” by Syd Field, for example) this process is often defined in some detail. Would-be screenwriters are taught that during the build-up of the story, the villain can sin (take unfair advantages) to his or her heart’s content without punishment, but the heroic protagonist must be karmically punished for even the slightest deviation from the path of moral rectitude. The hero does eventually win the fight, not by being bigger or stronger, but because of the choices he makes.
This process is so well-established in narrative creation that the literati have even created a specific category for the minority of tales which fail to follow this pattern. They are known as “bleak” narratives. An example is A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, in which the likable central characters suffer terrible fates while the horrible faceless villains triumph entirely unmolested.
While some bleak stories are well-received by critics, they rarely win mass popularity among readers or moviegoers. Stories without the appropriate outcome mechanism feel incomplete. The purveyor of cosmic justice is not just a cast member, but appears to be the hidden heart of the show.
ROOTS OF ATHEISM
But if a belief in cosmic justice is natural and deeply rooted, the question arises: where does atheism fit in? Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing, missing the fact that evolution would discard unhelpful beliefs and foster the growth of helpful ones. He declared himself “not a ‘Freethinker’ in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition” (“Einstein on Peace”, page 510).
Similarly, Charles Darwin, in a meeting with a campaigner for atheism in September 1881, distanced himself from the views of his guest, finding them too “aggressive”. In the latter years of his life, he offered his premises for the use of the local church minister and changed his family schedule to enable his children to attend services.
SMALL DIFFERENCES
Of course these findings do not prove that it is impossible to stop believing in God. What they do indicate, quite powerfully, is that we may be fooling ourselves if we think that we are making the key decisions about what we believe, and if we think we know how deeply our views pervade our consciousnesses. It further suggests that the difference between the atheist and the non-atheist viewpoint is much smaller than probably either side perceives. Both groups have consciousnesses which create for themselves realities which include very similar tangible and intangible elements. It may simply be that their awareness levels and interpretations of certain surface details differ.
THE FUTURE
But as higher levels of education spread, will starry-eyed spirituality die out and cooler, drier atheism sweep the field, as some atheism campaigners suggest? Some specialists feel this is unlikely. “If godlessness flourishes where there is stability and prosperity, then climate change and environmental degradation could seriously slow the spread of atheism,” says Lawton in New Scientist.
On a more personal level, we all have loved ones who will die, and we all have a tendency to puzzle about what consciousness is, whether it is separate from the brain, and whether it can survive. We will always have existential dread with us—at a personal or societal level. So the need for periods of contemplative calm in churches or temples or other places devoted to the ineffable and inexplicable will remain. They appear to be part of who we are as humans.
Furthermore, every time we read a book or watch a movie, we are reinforcing our default belief in the eventual triumph of karma. While there is certainly growth in the number of bleak narratives being produced, it is difficult to imagine them becoming the majority form of cultural entertainment. Most of us will skip Cormac McCarthy’s crushingly depressing “The Road” in favor of the newest Pixar movie.
POPULATION IMPLICATIONS
When looking at trends, there’s also population growth to consider. Western countries are moving away from the standard family model, and tend to obsess over topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these issues, in practice they are associated with shrinking populations. Europeans (and the Japanese) are not having enough children to replace the adult generation, and are seeing their communities shrink on a daily basis.
Africans and South Asians, on the other hand, are generally religious and retain the traditional model of multi-child families—which may be old-fashioned from a Western point of view, but it’s a model powerfully sanctioned by the evolutionary urge to extend the gene pool.
“It’s clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations and a decrease in scepticism,” says Steve Jones, a professor in genetics at University College London, speaking at the Hay Festival in the UK recently.
This may appear as bad news for pro-atheism campaigners. But for the evolutionary life-force which may actually make the decisions, this may augur well for the continued existence of humanity. (An image of Richard Dawkins and his selfish gene having a testy argument over dinner springs to mind.)
In the meantime, it might be wise for religious folks to refrain from teasing atheist friends who accidentally say something about their souls. And it might be equally smart for the more militant of today’s atheists to stop teasing religious people at all.
We might all be a little more spiritual than we think.
That's funny. Especially in a world where so called religious people are slaughtering one another daily.
Religious wars a fact of history.
Endless slaughter in the middle east. Arab "spring". Extermination of Christians. Iranian leader today emphasized that total destruction of Israel is not negotiable. Nuclear war in middle east a strong possibility. Religious lunacy/fanaticism. Same as it's always been.
Do you even read/watch the news?
Doesn't sound like it.
You would rather parrot this drivel, while ignoring reality.
Why don't you tell us about the warring factions of atheists?
Oh, that's right!
There aren't any!
Killing in the name of imaginary gods.
That's O.K. Bow to your imaginary gods.
Be careful though. If you bow to the wrong one, you might be smitten.
And don't let the radical muslims see you. They will lop your swelled head off.
Don't worry about the atheists, though. They won't kill you for disagreeing with them.
New theory could prove how life began and disprove God
New theory could prove how life began and disprove God
A writer on the website of Richard Dawkins’ foundation says that the theory has put God “on the ropes” and has “terrified” Christians. It proposes that life did not emerge by accident or luck from a primordial soup and a bolt of lightning. Instead, life itself came about by necessity – it follows from the laws of nature and is as inevitable as rocks rolling downhill. The problem for scientists attempting to understand how life began is understanding how living beings – which tend to be far better at taking energy from the environment and dissipating it as heat – could come about from non-living ones. But a new theory, proposed by a researcher at MIT and first reported in Quanta Magazine, proposes that when a group of atoms is exposed for a long time to a source of energy, it will restructure itself to dissipate more energy. The emergence of life might not be the luck of atoms arranging themselves in the right way, it says, but an inevitable event if the conditions are correct.
New theory could prove how life began and disprove God
A writer on the website of Richard Dawkins’ foundation says that the theory has put God “on the ropes” and has “terrified” Christians. It proposes that life did not emerge by accident or luck from a primordial soup and a bolt of lightning. Instead, life itself came about by necessity – it follows from the laws of nature and is as inevitable as rocks rolling downhill. The problem for scientists attempting to understand how life began is understanding how living beings – which tend to be far better at taking energy from the environment and dissipating it as heat – could come about from non-living ones. But a new theory, proposed by a researcher at MIT and first reported in Quanta Magazine, proposes that when a group of atoms is exposed for a long time to a source of energy, it will restructure itself to dissipate more energy. The emergence of life might not be the luck of atoms arranging themselves in the right way, it says, but an inevitable event if the conditions are correct.
genedigger
Member
and what are the variables for'if the conditions are correct'?
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