Who is responsible for the ignition? What would the threshold be? 50.1% of all people so the New Human Evolution takes place? I hope for a critical mass of around 30%. We need a heartily quantum jump in the next few years or we will have destroyed our spaceship before our intelligence could spread into the universe. Yes, the intelligence is still in its very development, but hey! I wanna be reborn in 2.5 billion years and see the Andromeda galaxy in the night sky… :dance:
So again: Who is responsible for the ignition? I’m burning already but I may need a little help from my friends too…
Wikipedia says: «In 2012, researchers came to conclusion that it is a definite hit after using the Hubble Space Telescope between 2002 and 2010 to painstakingly track the motion of Andromeda. Such collisions are relatively common. Andromeda, for example, is believed to have collided with at least one other galaxy in the past, and several dwarf galaxies such as SagDEG are currently colliding with the Milky Way and being merged into it.»
This is the reason I want mankind to survive: In 3.75 billion years I want to be reborn to meditate under the nightsky, as it is shown in the third picture below. If you don’t let me do that, I will hate you. And I will appear in your every nights nightmare and badge you like you can’t imagine! Seriously! You don’t want to risk that! Let me have a nice body in the far future – so take care of our environment and your genes. :rant:
Nightskies – Andromeda collides with the milkyway. Click for brief description.
For the nightsky in the fifth pic we will need to emigrate on another planet, cause sweet home Alabama is gonna be burned by the sun in 5 billion years. Just imagine where mankind will have evolved: That is more than the time live is old on earth now! I don’t mind short legs and green skin as long I still gonna be having eyes and a back to lie on the grass.
Today’s post is inspired by a picture of the voyager I: The earth viewed from 6 billion kilometers. The first video by Michael Marantz on Vimeo shows some breathtaking fast motion pictures with (kind of) poems by Carl Sagan.
The second you can find on YouTube by FFreeThinker. It’s actually about the named picture, again with some (kind of) poems by Carl Sagan.
Here’s the picture of our home (brief description):
The pale blue dot (NASA)
If you cannot find your hometown above, here’s some enlargement (brief description):
Earthrise by Apollo 8 (NASA)
Hope you feel better now, as I do! This is true power of nature, which is the cosmos. No life with no pale blue dot… :nono:
When I look at religious systems with an evolutionary point of view, I ask myself, where does this door lead us? Allthough we’re supposed to be in information age, we still fight on a basis where one has to be wrong so the other can be right. This goes until death of several people or a whole system.
In the medium therm there may be, assumedly, a winner. But I’m certain, in long therms such „hard“ systems, which totally negate any foreign information, are not survivable, because they will break in cases of „collisions“, sooner or later.
Evolution is a sequence of collisions. On the big scale, galactic superclusters hit each other, same to galaxies, star systems, planets, etc. On the small scale, electrons hit each other, atoms, genes and mutated genes, monads, etc.
Collisions between hard systems will free up highest amounts of energy in shortest time, leaving behind destruction – speaking in context of life, this means most likely death. Collisions between soft systems are more like dancing: Some do tango, others do Rock’n’Roll, some dances may even look like fighting – but the energy is moderatly freed during a longer time, leaving behind rather new formations or informations than destruction.
Brahma symbolizes the aspect of the Supreme Reality, is traditionally accepted as the Creator of the entire universe and is the first member of the Hindu Trinity that also includes Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva. He carries a rosary in one hand, a sacrificial tool (sruva) in the other hand , the Vedas (knowledge) and a water pot (kamandal) in other hands respectively. The four faces represent the sacred knowledge of the four Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva). Couldn't Brahma be compared to God in christian trinity? (http://www.dollsofindia.com)
Clashing galaxies may cost some star systems as collateral damage, but altogether they doesn’t destroy themselves. The same goes for genes and other soft systems. Clashing planets, on the other side, like atoms, get a real hard life, including the surroundings, weather hard or soft.
If we break this down to religious systems, what can we learn? First, religions are mostly not hard or soft systems per se – obviously this depends heavily on interpretation in most cases. The more fanatic, the harder the system is. But overall I think that Hinduism is a softer system than classic monotheistic religions. With a look at history we may see that Hiduism is the oldest believe system with the fewest changes in its evolution (leaving out indigenous beliefs).
That doesn’t mean any monotheistic religion is „hard“. Personally I’m a mystic – there is one which (not who!) is all together at the same time, so different names and different systems can mean the same belief with different words. It’s nothing more or less than a question of definitions and informations – a question of fanatic, hard or liberal, soft interpretation.
Narrowing the point of view on the last two, three millennia, its Hinduism that fits best in a survivable evolutionary system. I don’t preach we all need to become Hindus, but the basic concept of Hinduism is very soft and history prooves it’s a lasting one.
With all the praised Saints in Catholicism I'm not sure about the fact that it is truly monotheistic. Don't they play a role somehow similar to the halfgods in Hinduism? (Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven, National Gallery, London; Fra Angelico, 15th Century)
If humanity stay alive long enough I assume that, in a long therm, we will see a kind of global polytheism, where everyone accept that he sees the white light through a coloured window of his choice. Furthermore I assume that modern physics will proove that there are „Wonders“ – well, better named phenoena, then. As in one of my most beloved quotes: „Miracles are not contrary to nature – only in contrast to what we know about nature“ by St. Augustin, Apostle of England, and first Archbishop of Canterbury, ? -604/605. It seems he was the very first quantal physicist.
By that time in far future it may be official fact that there is god and there is no god; that everything and everyone is god, but it’s only one; that there are no answers – only options. You don’t have to be wrong so I can be right.
Today was a beautiful day and I was out by the river the first time this year with my Lapsteel playing. Looking at the water, this old movie «Power of ten» (YouTube video, 9 min.) from 1977 came to my mind. Read the details on wikipedia.
Well, this is now 30 years old, so I did some googling and found some more interesting, newer things. First, there’s a newer version of something similar: the Cosmic Voyage (YouTube, 4 min.) from 1996. This is unfortunately only the part of the journey similar to the former Power of Ten, I couldn’t find the whole movie, which is also described on Wikipedia.
Here’s also a slideshow-version from this idea to show the cosmos. I found even a version from the famous Simpsons animation series 🙂 .
There’s also a very interesting dissertation from astrophysicist Mike Norman on Google video (56 min). He takes you on an unprecedented journey across space and time to witness the formation of galaxies and cosmic structure as well as the formation of one of the first stars to shine in the universe.
His dissertation features also this by far the best animated virtual journey (YouTube, ca. 4 min.), calculated with accurate data from the actual cosmic science. So it’s up to date with data and computer rendering technique. Here are some screenshots (click for bigger versions, threy’re the best resolution I could get):
The journey will start at our solar system and the first impressing step is the Orion Nebula (right), 1000 light-years away, with the Horsehead Nebula (middle) in the background.
We then turn around to see a fictive picture of our own home galaxy, the Milkyway. Fictive because we still cannot shoot a picture of our galaxy… 😉 .
Then we will pass through the galaxy M-33 (right) towards the giant Andromeda galaxy with the blue outskirts (top left). In the middle another star forming Nebula in M-33, like the Orion Nebula, but much larger. We’re about 1 million light-years away from home.
What looks like a couple of stars is actually the Virgo Cluster, about 28 mio light-years away, our local cluster of galaxies. Each white dot is a whole galaxy and the destination of this animated journey.
So, finally, if you look at the sky next time, try to imagine the 28 million light-years distance to our nearest galaxy cluster, which is only one of all them out there…
Today was a beautiful day and I was out by the river the first time this year with my Lapsteel playing. Looking at the water, this old movie 
