In his article, "Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing" (PDF here), Oxford University's Nick Bostrom has raised some very troubling questions.
According to Bostrom, one must wonder what to make of the apparent absence of intelligent civilizations in the universe: the statistical probabilities suggest the universe ought to be teeming with great varieties of Intelligent ETs. In light of the universe's great age and scope, it seems mathematically probable that, if the development of intelligent life happened on Earth, it's likely to have happened somewhere else in the universe at some finite time in the past. And knowing what we know about how life evolves and spreads, ET ought to have strung the firmament with neon panoply ages ago.
But, still no sign of ET.
So Bostrom wonders — just how freakish can this be, given that the universe is flush with galaxies and habitable planets galore? Bostrom thinks there must be gating factors — "Great Filters" that reap civilizations before they become spectacularly successful. I have seen this idea before: Bill Joy referenced it his article, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us." He was quoting Carl Sagan from his book, Pale Blue Dot:
It might be a familiar progression, transpiring on many worlds – a planet, newly formed, placidly revolves around its star; life slowly forms; a kaleidoscopic procession of creatures evolves; intelligence emerges which, at least up to a point, confers enormous survival value; and then technology is invented. It dawns on them that there are such things as laws of Nature, that these laws can be revealed by experiment, and that knowledge of these laws can be made both to save and to take lives, both on unprecedented scales. Science, they recognize, grants immense powers. In a flash, they create world-altering contrivances. Some planetary civilizations see their way through, place limits on what may and what must not be done, and safely pass through the time of perils. Others, not so lucky or so prudent, perish.
Bill Joy, Carl Sagan and Nick Bostrom all seem to issue a collective shudder of discomfort over the prospect of humanity's impending encounter with our own advancing technology. Somehow this dilemma reminds me of the Vorlons from the television show Babylon 5: an aging, advanced civilization finally realizes that they have outgrown their own galaxy — like fish who have outgrown the sea. Their exodus "beyond the rim" could be analogous to a fish crawling onto the land — or to angels ascending into heaven.
From the point of view of some highly advanced civilization of ETs, the cold comforts of our material, time-bound universe might seem about as inviting as a mud flat or a thermal vent. Maybe the hidden answer to Bostrom's question is that Intelligent Civilizations invariably discover Heaven, and once they do, they move there.
Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing (PDF here),
Reference:
- Bill Joy: Why the future doesn't need us
- nickbostrom.com
- http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf
- View at Technology Review (requires registration)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlon
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(Babylon_5)
Or maybe God created us here on Earth and no where else.
Mountain Man:
Let me clarify where I'm coming from, just for the record:
I am not a biblical literalist. But I do believe Jesus literally when he said, "I will open my mouth in parables and speak of things hidden since the start of creation" (Its in Matthew somewhere. I'll find the reference if you like. The same theme is repeated in each book of the Gospels.)
I consider Abrahamic religion to be the premier folk description of our existence.
Unlike the snarky lemmings of the numbskull Left, I do not think that either atheism or pan-theistic Eastern religions super-perform the singular power of the Abrahamic tradition in answering the greatest Existential questions of humanity.
I have chosen Christianity not just because I was baptized a Catholic when I was 6 weeks old, but because I explicitly chose to identify myself with the Church of Peter and Paul. (God knows why?)
I believe in Divine Providence. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Covenant. I believe that Jesus Christ did indeed walk after a Transformative Death, when the Son of Man became the Son of God.
I believe in the Parable that I can "walk on water", or move mountains into the sea.
I also believe that Jesus is both the Son of Man and the Son of God, and I think I can prove it.
That ought to do it.
I wasn't being critical of you, Mr. LaSalle, just pointing out another possibility not covered in your essay.
Now that you bring it up, what exactly is your criteria for taking some parts of the Bible literally, and others not?
I would say that the Bible was a divinely inspired text written in popular parables.
But the end product is a Book written by Men for Men. You cannot substitute any book written in any human language for the LITERAL WORD OF GOD.
We poor humans could not understand God's Literal Word if it came up and….
Well, anyway. From both Isaiah and Mark, this quote is notable:
"These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men."
Man and God are separated by an infinite gulf. Nothing we say or do or write or think could possibly inform our puny minds of His Majesty. Therefore, whatever we THINK we know about Him is probably pretty limited.
In any event, I think the Bible is a psychological study in the profiles of men's souls. It is ALSO — surprisingly — a two thousand year old introduction to Game Theory.
Have a good look at Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' message is that, in a brutal, uncertain, and lawless world, when an individual acts to suppress their own violent behavior, this tends to defuse a society's propensity toward violence over time. Rather like the butterfly effect.
Check out this video lecture by Steven Pinker: "Everything you think you know about violence is wrong"
The evidence shows that violence has decreased over time — gradually, since the rise of Christianity across the West.
Jesus was a Game Theorist. I dare say Moses, too. And Isaiah.
Who are these guys?
Gee, did you answer my question?
Yes, I believe I answered your question.
The bible is a book inspired by God, but written by and for men.
I think any conscious person would have to agree that this is — what?– true prima facia.
What I have said is literally true. No one denies that the books of the bible were written by men. Most of them are named after the men who wrote them.
These books were written in the literature of their times. That is, in a time and place of great brutality and inhumanity. I think Divine Providence is evident in the fact that Jesus was able to assemble and actualize a new Zeitgeist directly from the threads of Moses' ancient parables and legal codes.
You said, "I am not a biblical literalist. But I do believe Jesus literally when he said…"
Now, this is the third time I ask you how you decide what you take literally in the Bible. By what criteria do you decide? What things attributed to Jesus do you not take literally? How about Paul, or Peter? Do you have a process by which you determine one thing to take literally, and another not to take literally?
All I can say in response is that the bible is a book of LETTERS written by men for men.
I worked with a very good fellow a few years ago. He was getting close to retirement age. He was also a part time minister. This was in the public works department of a city in the Bay Area. Most of the people I worked with were either geologists, materials engineers or civil engineers. Whenever, in office chatter, it might come up that, say, a particular local geological formation was an 11 million year old lava flow, my friend would scoff — usually by muttering under his breath.
Whatever. I liked him, he's a good guy. So it really doesn't matter if he thinks the Earth is 6000 years old.
But that doesn't mean he's not just dead plumb wrong.
Hey — check this out. I love this guy John Clayton.
http://www.nmatv.com/video/1360/The-Age-of-Things
I give up.
Jesus knows that people are SIMPLETONS. They will only understand as children understand. So, tell them stories.
That's what Jesus is saying in Mark 3:4 He's talking to the disciples — the new ministers of Jesus' spoken gospel. Jesus is telling his Apostles to write the gospels so that children and simple folk can understand.
Peter tried it, too? What made Peter sink? Oh, yee, of little faith.
Jesus told his Apostles they could move a mountain into the sea if the had faith in themselves.
What's literal? What's a metaphor? It's pretty obvious, really. Sometimes Jesus tells you himself. Remember the story of how he fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread? Do you think that's literally true?
Look, many very brilliant people (eg., William Jennings Bryan) who were told the stories as children NEVER GAVE THEM UP as adults. Probably because they did not have to.
If you watch the video from John Clayton above, he talks about how a particular English bishop named Usher came up with the "6000 year old earth" idea about 4 centuries ago.
Well, somebody had to come up with that fluff, because it ain't in the bible.
Tell you what, though, conservatives really do need a religious revival to unite and excite the voter base. I think ID could help, but we need to release the death grip on creationism.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2009/05/accommodationism_and_all_that.php
Jeez, I said I give up. Since it is clear that you are unwilling or unable to answer my question, there is no point in you continuing to rattle on.
My last statement was in fact rhetorical, and since you already "gave up" in #9, I assumed you would have no further comment.
But now that you have renewed the thread, let me ask you something point blank: are you in fact a Young Earth Creationist?
Of course you don't have to answer if you don't want to. I understand. But I think this morbid commitment to Young Earth Creationism on the part of so many voting conservatives is very destructive to the legitimate cause of conservatism. And I know it makes the urban Liberals laugh till they choke because its scuppers the Republicans ability to stitch up a viable coalition to take power back from the dimocrits.
Don't worry, though. I'm their worst nightmare: a Believer who doesn't believe in them.
I've been waiting for you to answer my question, and you want me to answer yours?
OK, I'll actually answer your question so you know how to do it yourself. I am not a young earth creationist. No one I know is. In fact, I have never heard anyone advance the theory except those who wish to impugn people who believe in God.
There, now you try.
Fair enough.
Okay — I'll try it again. This time let's go for surgical brevity:
Here's another ID debate worth noting if only to catalog the *reactions* of Darwin's fervent missionaries….
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/war_of_the_words_will_new_missoula_school_policy_make_stuff_worse/C37/L37/#comments
Now we are getting somewhere.
Let me remind you of your original statement: "I am not a biblical literalist. But I do believe Jesus literally when he said…"
So if your literal reading of the text depends on the context, and you are not a biblical literalist, then can I safely assume that you rarely take the Bible literally?
Therefore, it would seem easier to give examples of what you take literally, since there are fewer instances of literalism?
Correct.
That's a good question.
Humm… yes, it's much easier to find meaning in the parables than it is to find a statement that may or may not be literally true.
I submit that the bible can be used as a historical reference that adds context to other written texts and archeological evidence to support at least some literal truths. (Eg., that there was in literal fact such a city as Jerusalem in the middle east, etc.)
Thus, in some cases the bible describes incontrovertible background facts, but for the most part the particular events and narratives are a mix of reality and symbolism. (Eg., to "turn the other cheek" is not necessarily meant to be taken literally.)
So, the Bible has little value to you, and only a passing philosophical merit, since it falsely represents itself as God's word?
Now you are being combative.
1. "falsely represents itself as God's word?" Incorrect. I made so such statement. I reject the attribution.
2. "the Bible has little value to you only a passing philosophical merit" Also incorrect. I hold the bible to be of the highest value and merit — not just philosophically but with respect to law and really all aspects of social order.
I think a fairer characterization than Mountain Man's would be to say that you believe the Bible is a man-made, human-derived interpretation of God's word, but that it does not represent events that actually happened at any point in actual human history and is, in essense, a large book of cautionary fables for grown-ups from which can be derived a philosophy of morality and ethics. Of course, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that point of view, but it would put you almost 180 degrees in opposition to the tradtional Catholic belief on the matter. You sound a lot more like an agnostic theist or deist than a Catholic in terms of your view of the Bible.
What does any of this have to do with the original article though?
I'll parse #19 if you really want. But what started this thread was the first comment, into which I read more than was apparently there.
That's farther than I need to go. It's entirely possible the events happened entirely as reported. My faith does not require it, but only that it could have happened in just this way.
I could also argue that the stories of Jesus were modified and correlated among Apostles and their sects in the 30 years between Christ's death and when the gospels were actually written.
My faith does not depend on Jesus literally walking on the water, but it does not preclude the possibility. Any science fiction writer could come up with a 100 different ways that biblical miracles like rising from the dead and ascending to heaven could have happened. That's the point of my article.
From your follow-up, it doesn't sound like I've really mischaracterized your belief. You still sound like an agnostic theist or deist. I think the only reason MM is frustrated by your answers is because you identify as a Catholic and mainline Catholic teaching takes a far more literalist approach to the Bible as a whole, and the miracles of Jesus up to and including the resurrection in particular. That Jesus was the supernatural son of God, that he literally died and was raised from literal death as a permanent/eternal sacrifice for sinners, and that this alone provides sinners with salvation is the most basic teaching of Catholicism, at least as I understand it (admittedly I am not a Catholic, but am familiar with basic doctrinal theology among Christian denominations).
These issues don't really seem related to the question of why there does not exist vast extraterrestrial intelligent life in the universe though. That seemed to me to be the original question of the article, and the first response in the comments section seemed to follow naturally, but then you all started down a theological debate about Biblical literalism that so far doesn't seem to tie back in to the original question, nor the original response.
Patrick,
Your criticism of us being off topic is noted. I apologize. Since Mr. LaSalle brought it up I had to pursue.
Mr. LaSalle, it must be real convenient to claim a particular faith, but reserve for one's self the right to interpret the holy book of that faith as one sees fit.
It certainly removes pesky obstacles like having to conform to the central teachings of the faith or recognizing the authority and inspiration of same. All the benefits of church, but none of the hassles.
For the record, the thread was initiated by Mountain Man — not by me. I simply wrote the post.
My response was to Mountain Man's use of the word "God" in his very first comment.
I had made no mention of God in my article, so it was indeed Mountain Man who initiated the topic on religion.
My response was to articulate my position on the matter in the event of any follow-up questions or comments regarding the article.
Th rest is history.
As for the criticisms that I'm "not really a Catholic…." Well, that's a whole other story with a lot of details and background. Suffice to say that since I was baptized and I have not been excommunicated, I think I am within my rights to call myself a member of the Catholic faith.
I can't know for sure of course, but I reckon people like Georges Lemaître and Teilhard de Chardin might have had a personal belief system that would appear to you unorthodox and inconsistent with your conception of Catholicism (whatever that may be).
But that doesn't mean they're not Catholic.
Not that I'm running around with the flag of Catholicism in my hands. But as Shane MacGowan put it so succinctly, "the Church of the Holy Spook is good enough for me." http://bit.ly/onELz
Let's take the wiki definition of deist just as a baseline:
No, I don't agree with this. I do believe in Divine Providence, so it's not all based on observation and reason.
Well – what's supernatural? God does not need to exercise "supernatural" powers to prove anything. He has already built each Divine Event into the fabric of time and space. He owns the casino.
I agree, which is why I am a Christian, not a Deist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
I'm of the belief that intelligent evolution follows something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it certainly seems the case with our own species.
If this is the case, it's difficult for a lesser advanced species to guess at the motivations of a significantly more advanced species.
For example; The notion of constant expansion is consistent with the first two levels (physiological and security needs) but begins to diminish at the third level (psycho-emotional needs). Furthermore it seems that the need for expansion probably reverses at the fourth and fifth levels (achievement, self-actualization).
Our biological evolution appears to show a progressive preference something like this hierarchy. First the more versatile physical form then an expanding brain with the growth of the neo-cortex being the most recent addition.
Just a hypothesis, but I suspect that super advance aliens are not competing for physical territory.
highlama – that's a beautiful idea. But I'm trying to find examples of this principle in nature. What type of lifeform follows out this pattern? Can you give me an example?
Mike,
At the very least, you have a lot more in common with a Deist than you do a Catholic practicing Catholicism in accordance with the fundamental doctrines of the faith described in the catechism of the Catholic church. Believing that divine providence is a function built into nature, that the Bible is entirely allegorical except for passing references to actual times and places to "set the story", that God's will is inherently unknowable and therefore merely alluded to by scripture, all runs more on the agnostic or deist side than the Catholic. I personally don't care what you call yourself or for what reason you wish to affiliate yourself with any particular church, but as a theological matter your viewpoints don't much coincide with Catholic doctrine.
But, back on topic, let's revisit Mountain Man's original question. Perhaps there isn't more intelligent life in the universe because human beings were uniquely created by God (or some other higher being). What is your take on that? Perhaps abiogenesis is not a process that simply takes place naturally when the proper conditions are met? Perhaps simple compounds don't spontaneously become organic life forms without the intervention of something supernatural? Perhaps no other highly evolved species can be found because they had nothing to evolve from. On the other hand, maybe Earth was an early bloomer. Maybe WE represent the most highly evolved life forms, and the reason we have not encountered any others is because they are too distant and too unsophisticated to be detected yet.
I won't bother arguing the point, but if that's your standard, than I submit the world-wide number of 1 billion Catholics is way less than advertised.
When I mentioned that the bible can be used to triangulate historical facts, I did not mean to diminish any of its other properties. I just don't think it's necessary to invoke the "supernatural" card to be a good Catholic. (Thus the Catholic church has said repeatedly in recent years that religion and science are sympathetic institutions.)
I think Panspermia is a viable theory… but it also merely passes the buck.
So you are asking… is it possible that God would intentionally create civilization A, B and C in various corners of the universe.
Certainly another civilization that had a sufficient level of technology might pull off something like the creation of a new species. In that case, it's an engineering problem.
But I think you are asking if God might do this intentionally by way of a Miracle.
If by Miracle you mean "an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment", then the answer is yes, it's possible. But that would be covered under God's Matrix, wherein the Miracle is preprogrammed to occur.
But if you mean a "Miracle" in the sense that God would intentionally cause something to occur that is physically impossible — not just improbable — then, no, I don't agree. God made the game and wrote the rules. It defies logic to then say He would break His own rules on a… whim.
Again, what do you mean by "supernatural".
In my opinion God expresses His Intentions through Divine Providence — that is, through the realization of a series of highly improbable events, from the Big Bang down to this conversation. God does not *do* supernatural. It would be like saying that the Casino owner cheated at his own game. He didn't cheat. He built the Casino and set the rules. Why do you think the House always wins?
From what I gather, the universe has been around plenty long enough for all kinds of intelligent life to have emerged. That was part of Bostrom's argument: the odds suggest ET should be out there — possibly nearby.
But something is taking ET off the airwaves before we can see them. Possibly we're the only ones. More likely they are hiding. Or maybe it's Divine Providence all over again.
But something's up.
I won't bother arguing the point, but if that's your standard, than I submit the world-wide number of 1 billion Catholics is way less than advertised.
You won't get any argument from me. I think the American Catholic church is disparate enough from the mother church that it should properly be called a separate denomination from a doctrinal and theological perspective.
I think Panspermia is a viable theory… but it also merely passes the buck.
So you are asking… is it possible that God would intentionally create civilization A, B and C in various corners of the universe.
That wasn't really what I was asking. Panspermia would mean that God did intentionally create life all over the universe. I was re-iterating Mountain Man's question of whether you thought intelligent life was unique to Earth – that we aren't finding intelligent life anywhere else because it simply isn't there.
if you mean a "Miracle" in the sense that God would intentionally cause something to occur that is physically impossible — not just improbable — then, no, I don't agree. God made the game and wrote the rules. It defies logic to then say He would break His own rules on a… whim.
That's almost an answer to the question I was re-iterating from Mountain Man. You do not believe that God created life on Earth uniquely, but that he merely created a universe in which certain conditions might produce intelligent life wherever those conditions might happen to be pre-ordained arbitrarily by God's divine plan to take place. It would have been simple enough to state that in the first place without qualifying it ambiguously in terms of religious philosophy. Not to drudge up the theological debate again, but that position is one of the definitional tenets of Deism (from the Wiki article you cited earlier: Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe)
what do you mean by "supernatural"
Break the word down into its parts. Consulting http://www.dictionary.com, "super-" = a prefix occurring originally in loanwords from Latin, with the basic meaning “above, beyond.”. "Natural" = 1. existing in or formed by nature (opposed to artificial ); 2. based on the state of things in nature; constituted by nature; 4. of, pertaining to, or occupied with the study of natural science: conducting natural experiments.. So "supernatural" would be anything "above or beyond what occurs in nature". In fact, the dictionary definition of the word "supernatural" from the same website is 1. of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal; 2. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.. In nature, something never comes from nothing, which is why humankind still finds a necessity for deities to explain that which defies nature (regardless of whether one is a creationist, Darwinist, or Pastafarian, we still end up arriving at some point where either something arose from nothing – such as matter and energy before the Big Bang that created the universe – or those very things take on the property of a deity by having no beginning).
In the context of the question I asked, I meant: perhaps abiogenesis is not a natural phenomena, but was "activated", if you will, by God (or whatever deity you ascribe supernatural abilities to) in one unique instance on planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy and nowhere else. I can ascertain from your previous answers that you reject this notion because you do not ascribe to God the power to interfere in nature, but only the power to create it. So God either created a nature where abiogenesis could take place, in which case it should universally take place under certain conditions, or God created a nature where abiogenesis could not take place (this is demonstrably false since we are here having this conversation). Framed in that context, perhaps God's divine plan only called for the unique conditions under which abiogenesis naturally takes place to occur on planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy and nowhere else. The result is the same: maybe God left us all alone in this vast universe. That is the essence of what Mountain Man was asking in his original post, I think (with the added implication that God left us all alone in this vast universe because we are special or otherwise glorified creations).
From what I gather, the universe has been around plenty long enough for all kinds of intelligent life to have emerged. That was part of Bostrom's argument: the odds suggest ET should be out there — possibly nearby.
If indeed abiogenesis is a natural phenomena that takes place universally wherever hospitable conditions exist, then it certainly seems intelligent life should exist just in the parts of the universe that we actually know about. That's the underlying conundrum of Mountain Man's question: maybe it doesn't exist because some supreme being doesn't want it to.
As Bostrom notes, it's entirely possible for the "Great Filter" to be after abiogenesis but before tool-using intelligence. (Even in the one case of a life-bearing planet we know of, intelligence only arose once.) Seems to me that that multicellularity is an even stronger candidate than abiogenesis. It took less than a billion years for life to show up on Earth… but it then took around three billion years for macroscopic, multicellular life to arise.
Mr. LaSalle,
Let's not get cute here. I indeed mentioned the absence of God in your article, which is a perfectly justifiable comment on its contents. That is what the comments section is for.
However, God and religion are not synonymous. It is you who launched into an unsolicited theological treatise of "The Gospel according to Mike LaSalle." It is you who went deeply into your version of the nature of Scripture, a subject I did not bring up. It is you who refused to give a coherent answer to my question. It is you who is shucking and jiving Patrick Mulligan, who is simply characterizing what you wrote.
And now I see you are beginning to parse words like "deist" and "catholic," which is the typical obfuscation we see when someone has painted themselves into a rhetorical corner.
Why don't you just be honest and admit that you don't really believe Scripture except where it suits you, and we can move on?
Okay — fine — but in my defense, I think everyone does exactly this — including you. No human being that has ever lived could pass this standard just on phenomenological grounds alone, so I rest my case.
I will provide a bit more self-disclosure since I have already thoroughly violated the unspoken rule about not discussing such personal topics as one's faith in God.
Admittedly I have returned to my religious roots by degrees, over a life time, and with much skepticism and personal negotiation.
I am rather like Thomas in this regard. (That is, Thomas the Apostle who needed to see it to believe it.)
Honestly, up to this point — I'm not quite 50 — I have never truly opened up the bible before this year. I had looked at Revelations a few years ago, but it was the King James version and I didn't really understand much of what I was reading.
But it happens that we also have a Life Application Study Bible (give to us by someone now passed away), and it is written in plain English.
I've read 20%. So I'm no expert. But from what I have read, it is pretty chock full of meaningful information.
However, I am mindful of the fact that this book — this particular assemblage of sacred texts — has gone through several processes of human editing. (As a matter of plain fact, the whole thing is written and edited by human beings.)
So I think that it's entirely likely that while the bible is invested with the clear stamp of Divine Providence, its measure of divinity will naturally degrade the longer it is in contact with human beings.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
The bible is a book of ideas. Each individual who reads the bible converts the words he reads into images in his brain. These images are naturally contextual and entirely dependent on the individual doing the reading.
Thus reading the bible is a personal experience between the reader and God.
There is no ritual sanctification involved in one person reading the bible. No certificates are handed out. No assumptions have been made. The act of reading the bible represents a conveyance of information from the bible author to you, the reader. This information from the past passes through a filter of language, culture and time. It does not pass through any human institution, religious or otherwise.
The bible author has done all he can to convey his Revelation. You are doing all you can to understand what he's saying. That's it.
But I guarantee that in this passage of information, something somewhere is lost or changed in the translation. That's the way God made this world. And God most emphatically does not play dice.
He just makes them, loads them, and gives them to us.
He suggested there might be multiple catch-points along the road for Intelligent Life.
highlama (#25) suggested that "advanced species" might go through an evolutionary arc mirroring Maslow's hierarchy of ascending needs (HOAN).
I like this idea, and wonder if the pattern could be identified elsewhere in nature.
As I understand it, the HOAN was originally designed as a model for understanding personality. But I can recapitulate the HOAN model scaled to the theory of Meta psychology– eg., by superimposing Maslow's hierarchy over Jung's model for The Collective Unconscious/Archetype.
So it is The Archetype which becomes the scaffolding upon which the HOAN is scaled like a skin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory
From here I would look for evidence of a direct physical connection between the Collective Unconscious and physical reality.
The closest I can come is the Observation Selection Effect.
But I do think the OSE is key to the problem of consciousness.
My current working hypothesis is this: The Collective Unconscious is a Collective Meme whose physical existence can be surmised through the evidently increasing measure of order that takes place as multi-cellular LIFE develops over time.
This Meta-meme, unfortunately, sometimes looks suspiciously like the Beast of Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet http://is.gd/k8d
Allegorically, of course.
I think so. Something happened in the Cambrian that had never happened before.
Maybe a secondary "seeding" from Vonn Neuman probes.
Let's say the first wave of seeding occurs after the time that secondary Nebulae could hatch carbon based life….
Wait a tick…. could Silicon based life have occurred before the carbon age? I would like to know the answer to that.
I think it's yes. (Here's a link to the nuclear history of Silicon… while it is a heavy element like Carbon, it appears there was quite a lot of silicon during the first generations of stars prior to the nebular formation of carbon. In fact, as it turns out, there was a whole nuclear process involving silicon-burning at the end of the life cycle of a first generation star. So that demonstrates the massive presence of silicon prior to the carbon era.)
There's your candidate: silicon life arose first. By the time the secondary supernovas were going on, Silicon ETs were already pretty advanced. Then, when Nebulae began to create the opportunity for Carbon based life, the Silicon ET's spread the news with von neumann probes.
(Can Silicon Based Life Exist? by Nicholas Linn is a good start. Silicon-based life is a well worn theoretical argument. Also, it turns out the Silicon is relatively unstable as compared to Carbon, so if you wanted to engineer a new more durable type of life, then you might choose Carbon to do it.)
The first wave of seeding made the planet habitable by reducing the amount of free Iron and sulfur, and making the atmosphere safe for oxygen and photosynthesis. (Apparently the homochirality of amino acids [left-handed] and nucleic acid sugars [right-handed] for earth's living systems is consistent with the handedness configuration as would be found in a zero-gravity environment. "homochirality may have started in space, as the studies of the amino acids on the Murchison meteorite showed L-alanine to be more than twice as frequent as its D form, and L-glutamic acid was more than 3 times prevalent than its D counterpart.")
Then around 600,000 years ago a secondary seeding of multicellular life was introduced.
Dinos were a candidate for intelligence, but they got wiped out by an asteroid.
Next the mammals rose, and finally us as we stand on looking back from the edge of creation.
Now…. if this is true, then where are all the other civilizations out there?
Uh-oh.
Harvest.
Mr. LaSalle,
That feels like the most honest response I have seen to this point. Thank you.
We are all on a journey of understanding the true nature of life and our purpose here. We ignore it (or deny it, as atheists do) to our peril. I am encouraged that you have taken steps in discovering a deeper understanding of faith.
Now may I be so bold as to correct you in some of what you have just written? First, our merit in God's eyes is not related to the completeness of our understanding of Him, or of a particular view of Scripture, for that matter. Our prescription is faith, not learning ("and without faith it is impossible to please God…" Hebr 11:6). We come to God on His terms, not ours.
Second, if Scripture is of human authorship descended to us as a product of editing and compilation, it has little value as a guide to what pleases God. It is no more than an ancient curiosity of a long dead culture. However, Scripture itself claims that it is a product of divine inspiration ("All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness… 2 Tim 3:16).
If it claims this falsely, we should discard it. But, if it is true, God has preserved it intact through the ages. And we have evidence of this if we were to take the time to review the many ancient manuscripts. We would see that what we have today is hardly varied at all from those documents. There has been little or no editing or revisions of the Bible through the centuries.
Third, you write: "…entirely contextual and entirely dependent on the individual…" Nope. In 1 Cor. 2:4-5 Paul writes, "…My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." In other word, Paul's claim is exactly the opposite of what you say, Mr. LaSalle.
Please note that I have looked to what the Bible claims for itself. If these claims are wrong, then your faith (and mine) are foolish. So, we cannot claim the faith and deny the revelation of that faith. The two exclude each other.
Thank you. I appreciate you keeping me honest. Turns out I depend on it.
I just had a brainstorm: what if intelligence is not an evolutionarily advantageous adaptation in the long-run? That may be why we observe a dwindling amount of it in modern human beings. Maybe intelligence has a point of diminishing returns, and eventually intelligent lifeforms are driven to extinction.
Dear PM: Kurt Vonnegut novel (Galapogos?) begins with the birds ruling the earth, the humans having been long extinct as a consequence of their oversized brains which caused them to delve into fruitless and destructive behaviors like
psychosis, art, war maybe even fixating ad nauseum on marginal concerns like "diversity training" and morphing colleges into "creative" centers of learning with "Understanding HIV" courses,modern dialects (Eubonic Plague) and other new-speak fields of endeavor requiring grants, publicity, high retention rates and all the consequences of academia under seige from consultants who know more that the scholars. It's quite a setup.
I see, over the last 80 to 100 years, a steady decline, offset by few advances, in the quality of Art and music, in the style and value of clothing worn in public, in the aesthic value of architecture, in the discreet and effective use of language in conversation, in decorum and chivalry, perhaps even basic honesty.
There have been a few advances, such as the increased opportunites for black Americans, though it stalls here and there. And the decreased numbers of smokers and alcohol realated deaths.
Bu overall it appears often that high intelligence leads to non-cooperation, polarization and such things..
I wasn't being entirely facetious.
I was embellishing a vague recollection of the book with my own theories about where excessive "intelligence" may lead. Here's a quotation from Wikipedia: 'Trout maintains that all the sorrows of humankind were caused by "the only true villain in my story: the oversized human brain". Fortunately, natural selection eliminates this problem, since the humans best fitted to Santa Rosalía were those who could swim best, which required a streamlined head, which in turn required a smaller brain size.'
There's "serious" science fiction, then there's Vonnegut. Don't know if he has a category.
Stephen Baxter went for this scenario in his book Evolution. According to Baxter, our next bloodline will pass through the children of today's human sewer rats: the lost boys and girls of today's urban streets are uniquely adapted to survive underground. From there, we become homo moles, in which case waiting around underground for long periods is not conducive to wasting energy on brain power.
But I'm still looking for a real-world corollary. What animals find a niche and then become less complex than the tree from which they sprang?
And even if you could find a single instance of such a creature, I would then ask whether the instance could be generalized to cover the whole of life. In my observation life since the Cambrian has consistently become more complex over time — never less.
This tendency for living things to convert inert matter like carbon and silicon into intelligent purpose is continuing to grow exponentially. Life is viral and it wants to spread.
Gee. That's what life does.
So it follows that this increasing complexity will eventually grow to a proportion that will substantially alter the balance of power with Entropy. There you'll have some serious cosmological consequences.
I'm unable to parse this. Not to be uncharitable, but I suspect it's like Wolfgang Pauli said: "That's not right. It's not even wrong."
Yes on one, but on two… no real evidence of that. All life on Earth uses the same DNA coding, and is otherwise just too related to not be a result of common ancestry. The jump to macroscopic multicellularity may have been very unlikely, but we don't need to hypothesize intelligent intervention quite yet.
Mr. Mulligan –
Others have speculated on that, as has been noted. Here's a novel I read based on that idea. The argument there was that a species that uses tools to survive can spread to more environments, but if/when the tools fail, they're less adapted than other species that don't need intelligence to survive.
I'm not convinced, of course. If intelligence can spread out to enough environments, then the chance of any one disaster wiping that species out drops precipitously. (Which, of course, is the whole point of the 'Fermi Paradox'.)
Mr. Lasalle –
Parasites are an obvious example. Also, blind cave-fish and other animals that have lost parts or whole organ systems when the need for them no longer obtained.
Our own dependence on various vitamins is related. Many of our relatives can synthesize chemicals we can't, because we made an environment so plentiful in those items that we didn't need to waste metabolic energy synthesizing them.
Re #43. Tyrannosaurus Rex whose atrophied arms grew smaller and smaller? As opposed to smaller Allasourus who retained the longer limbs.
Okay, fine. But this is where trail has lead me.
Let me ask you something: is it not the case that a building must be conceived before it is constructed?
RE: Parasites, cave fish and atrophied arms.
My approach is to take the entire enterprise of multi-cellular life — the biosphere as a whole — and ask if there is any structural example in which the biosphere AS A WHOLE becomes less complex over time?
I expect you might argue that,
1. "the relative amount of complexity in the biosphere is both accidental and contingent" and,
2. "complex life is trapped on earth anyway, so no matter how complex it gets, life is bound for extinction."
I would argue that life as whole shows a marked tendency to become more complex over time, and to fill every available environmental niche in the process.
I would also assert that development of intelligent life on Earth demonstrates a principle that, if applied to the universe at large, shows that intelligent life will arise elsewhere (the Fermi Paradox).
In some case, somewhere in the universe, life WILL escape the closed container of a given biosphere and develop the ability to spread throughout the entire universe through viral propagation.
To me it's a numbers game. The house odds are overwhelmingly in favor of life developing and eventually enveloping the entire universe as both niche and medium.
Sure, that's the case. Let me ask you something: is it not the case that buildings are incapable of reproduction with variation?
(I think you'd find "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", by Daniel Dennett, to be very interesting. I highly recommend it.)
That's, er, rather a different question than one about "animals". Mass extinction events would seem to qualify, though.
Not exactly. Life shows a tendency toward increasing diversity – which can both increase and decrease complexity (e.g. the parasites and other examples in comments 43 and 44). But, there's a minimum level of complexity, so overall complexity increases. (Release a drop of dye at the bottom of a water glass. The color will spread out and 'climb up' to reach the top of the water after a while. It's not that the dye 'wants' to rise, but it 'wants' to spread – and can't go any lower than the bottom of the glass.)
Again, no. I actually argued the opposite in comment 42.
I read it differently. He thinks – like Fermi who posed the paradox in the first place – that if intelligent life were likely to arise elsewhere, and could spread, we'd already know about it. But he also thinks that we could spread out and colonize other planets. Therefore, not finding evidence of intelligent alien life implies hopeful prospects for our own.
Seems reasonable so far as it goes, but I'm also aware of how few datapoints we have to be extrapolating from.
Thank you. In fact I will post this link to Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel Dennett so as to remind myself to buy it later.
"Let me ask you something: is it not the case that buildings are incapable of reproduction with variation?"
Buildings do not build themselves, so, yes, buildings are incapable of reproduction with variation.
I confess that I am not "up" on the latest in Intelligent Design theory. Ie., I have not read the classic ID texts from Michael Behe, etc.
But I do understand the basic arguments. And I have a God-fearing respect for mathematics.
And statistical arguments make the development of things like the bacteria flagellum practically impossible.
Not to mention the mechanical improbability that non living compounds could rather suddenly come to assemble themselves into self-replicating, error-correcting forms in the first place. (Back to unavoidable abiogenesis.)
The simplest explanation for the dilemma is the Observation Selection Effect. Occam's Razor has spoken.
Noted. I did say animals. Thank you for the examples.
Here's what I said exactly,
I'm not necessarily speaking of the part of an animal that atrophies — or even necessarily about the animal's range of behaviors.
I am saying that the genes that grow the animal are not necessarily dumbing-down their genetic or molecular complexity.
My observation is that life goes about filling niches in a systematic way. Once a creature — a parasite or cave fish — finds a stable niche with long term prospects, unneeded parts of the creature may atrophy. But that's not the same as saying the creature has become less complex genetically.
But even if it did, the other branches of life would continue to diversify and compete, and to discover and inhabit new environments over time — From ocean vents to polar ice caps, underground, in the air, and even into space.
In the article I wrote that intelligent aliens might discover heaven and thus depart the four corners of our reality. It seems to me an ocean fish would have no more conceptualization of dry land than I might have of heaven. For all I know there really is an Undiscovered Country sandwiched somewhere in the fabric of space and time. Bostrom's Great Filter may simply be the signature of this inevitable discovery.
Or maybe we're just a cash crop grown for eventual harvest by our new Silicon Overlords.
I think life is more dynamic and invasive than that. If life were the dye, it would crawl out of the glass and onto the floor, up the walls and out the chimney into the atmosphere. And by then it's too late.
Right. He's leaving open the possibility that everything is just fine. We're all fine here. How are you? No problem. We're alone. God made us. Everything is cool.
Thus Jesus scolded Peter when he tried to walk on the water, but then sank, shouting “Lord, save me!” Matt 14:22
Today I read the following in Acts:
So what is "faith" in this context? Did Peter raise Tabitha from the dead because he finally learned to have faith?
I agree with this, with the knowledge that Jesus explicitly advises his Apostles to learn the power of "parables" to influence the way people think about their behavior.
In this way, Jesus is following up on the earlier books of the bible.
Then Jesus said to them [his Apostles], “Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” Mark 4:13
"The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables." Mark 3:4
Matthew 16:8-10 "…How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread?"
I found this link arguing that the 66 chapters of the bible were chosen via Divine Inspiration. It's an intriguing argument. For all I know it's absolutely true, and the bible really is a full blown example of Divine Providence (or perhaps a home-made demonstration of the Observation Selection Effect… or both.). I intend to be 100% skeptical until I can demonstrate it to myself with certainty either way.
If — as I maintain — the bible was written for the purpose of conveying information through PARABLES (as Jesus PLAINLY says), then I have no trouble at all believing that God's word has been delivered to me INTACT.
While I have only read roughly 20% of the entire Holy Bible, I have not yet come across anything that would cause me to doubt or disbelieve its spiritual veracity. In legal terms, the "chain of evidence" between myself and God remains unbroken to my satisfaction. Thus my faith remains intact.
On the contrary: the only doubts I have in my mind are born of my inherent and growing suspicion of "men's wisdom".. But my faith in God — which I might liken to the Vertical Axis of the Christian cross — is not tainted by the shenanigans of my fellow human beings, who occupy the Lateral Axis.
This is the Literal Word of God: The Logos. Four corners. Mathematics. Logic. The irrefutable and non-negotiable Rules of the House.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
(btw – I would assert that the concept of God-as-Holy-Casino-Owner seems endorsed by this line in Proverbs, wherein the "lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD" –Proverbs 16:33)
Mr. LaSalle –
Only, well, not so much. (Technical background .)
That's one of the problems with Behe. Whether he's talking about the immune system or the clotting systems, he's making a categorical claim – "so-and-so could not have evolved." All that's needed is an example of how such a system could have evolved, and the claim falls. Not only have examples been found for the systems he cites, there's usually good evidence that's been ignored for how they did evolve.
Actually, it doesn't seem to be that way. On a big enough scale, it can look like that, the same way the dye in the waterglass spreads apparently evenly. But on a small enough scale, it's a noisy, effectively random process.
Maybe. Look up "Accelerando" by Charles Stross (free version available here). Resolves the Fermi Paradox by speculating that hyperintelligent post-human entities don't leave their solar systems because the bandwidth is better closer to the star. :)
Mr. Ingles, in reference to my quote "And statistical arguments make the development of things like the bacteria flagellum practically impossible", you said:
Thank you for the link. The article posted to talkdesign.org was written by N. J. Matzke, an employee of the National Center for Science Education, whose motto is: "Defending the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools"
Turns out the the NCSE was founded during the first term of the Reagan administration as a direct result of grassroots political organizing. http://ncseweb.org/about/history Turns out school boards and municipalities at that time were becoming battlegrounds between factions of parents and educators — some "creationists", and some strict materialists.
The above is a quote from the NCSE website. On first blush it seems like a reasonable statement. But considering the current media fashion of conflating Young Earth Creationism with Intelligent Design, I am immediately on guard for proof that the most essential arguments are not being caricatured in the first paragraph.
In which case, the NCSE's website would become the Science Educator's equivalent of a comic book.
Perhaps it would be helpful to reference this image of the Bacterial Flagellum so we have something to work with: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Physical_model_of_a_bacterial_flagellum.jpg
The NCSE received a sizable endowment from the Carnegie Foundation in Reagan's second term. Thereafter, the NCSE has gone on to establish itself as the Voice of Reason and Common Sense for garden variety Science Educators.
Again, this the source to which you have directed me.
Thank you for that. I will need a day or two to read through and cross reference the data there and at pandsthumbs.org. (I need to look at the bio mechanics arguments a little more closely.)
I am not a science educator. I'm just a layman with a lifetime of interest in the general topic. Nor I am I deluded or stupefied or believe the Earth is 6000 years old.
I'm thinking I have about as much reasoning power as your garden variety Science Educator. In fact, just because I'm a bit grey and have academic training in the social sciences, I'm guessing I can bring even a little bit more to the table than your average 32-year old "Science Educator."
I said, My observation is that life goes about filling niches in a systematic way.
Mr. Ingles said,
Okay. So where is the line between "the big scale" and the micro-system? For example, we know that the Observation Selection Effect impacts the first few seconds of the formation of the universe. (The OSE informs us that, if it had not gone just so during the first fractional moments after the Big Bang, then life as we know it could not exist in this universe.)
So my question to you is: where exactly is the limit of the Observation Selection Effect? That is, when (and where) do these statistical anomalies STOP effecting the observed sample?