Wez
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Robbo – I don’t know this guy’s work but his objections are probably ideological i.e. irrational. Scratch a liberal and you usually find a reactionary underneath.
MS -That’s a bit harsh. It’s not easy running internet forums. However I am surprised that a troll like TS has been allowed to get away with his insults and perverse views for so long. We must guard against alienating those who wish to legitimately engage in debate with us.
james19 – good call ‘What’s Going On’ is one of the greatest albums of all time. Do you know the work of Gil Scott Heron?. Checkout his album ‘Bridges’.
‘Russia is grinding NATO’s proxy Nazi army to dust.’
Your celebration of the working class murdering each other in the name of their respective oligarchs just illustrates how disturbed you really are TS.
‘I believe you see everything not pertinent to your own species as “other”, as you do the universe. As if you are separate from it.’
‘Sagan was a real materialist who knew that air (spiritus) is matter too. Space is not nothingness. Nothing does not exist. Only matter exists, and you are of it. You are not something else’.
It would seem TM that you can’t understand anything that I write. As I said at the beginning of this debate that I believe we are an example of the universe becoming conscious of itself – how on earth could you possibly misinterpret this as meaning that I think that I am separate from it?
So the genius Sagan knew that ‘air’ is matter!? Made of various gasses how could it be other than matter? The void of space is quite different from our atmosphere as I’m sure you know. It’s vacuum is pretty damn close to ‘nothing’. Besides on a philosophical level for ‘something’ to exist we must have a concept of ‘nothing’.‘and also ask how someone you consider a “mere” Romantic was able to work on so many scientific projects.’
TM – Many scientists have had very dodgy politics.‘I know you have no respect for anything that isn’t specifically human.’
TM – ‘Respect’ is a very human emotion. As I’ve said I fear the unrelenting nothingness that is 99.9% of the universe. I remember seeing the first close-up images of Jupiter and being suitably awestruck but it’s only a dead spectacle of gas and dust. I think your awe would be more appropriate when contemplating the improbable evolution of the human mind that allows you to project all of your profound emotions onto an indifferent universe.TM – The contemplation of the sublime (your awe at the beauty of the cosmos) is one of the cornerstones of romantic ideology. History shows us some of the political consequences of this worship of nature and they are all bad! Also any aesthetic response to the cosmos is an essentially human characteristic which contradicts your contempt for our species.
‘You really are just Marx and nothing else, aren’t you? Aesthetically void.
What a bore!’
TM – First of all what has aesthetics got to do with spirituality? Secondly I’ve never found Marx devoid of aesthetics as I delight in his dialectical philosophical style.I wonder what Carl Sagan’s politics were? Having read the above article I’d guess that he was a romantic leftist liberal of some kind – which would seem to justify our suspicion of those who speak of ‘spirituality’.
‘And yet, Wez, we will cease to be humans in less than a split-second of cosmic time, and the species will have ceased to be, forever.’
TM – Again, like size, I don’t see why brevity should diminish significance. Time is one of the most mysterious of phenomena. Having existed as a species might mean that we will always exist. I think the physicist you mention above has produced a video entitled ‘Does the past still exist?’ I haven’t watched it yet but perhaps she can add something to the time paradox?‘As far as love is concerned, suffice to say that to experience it is more than sufficient.’
Lizzie would seem to be unaware that cultural conditioning has a profound effect on how we ‘experience’ and interpret the world (as explored in some depth above). The cultural evolution of ‘romantic love’ is well understood from its medieval aristocratic origins (chivalry etc.) through to the remnants of Romanticism within cheesy movies and novels of today. We can only ‘experience’ what our culture has created for us.TM – But as life and the consciousness it can enable seems to be so rare we are damned ‘significant’.
‘I not only pick up plenty of books, Andrew, I read them too, both in ‘Austro-Bavarian’ and English. But as a scientist (with a specific interest in Astrophysics) I tend to steer clear of fictitious prose.’
Blimey, ‘Austro-Bavarian’ eh, no wonder you can’t articulate what love is. How sad.
‘Of course nobody can explain what awe is or what it feels like to experience it anymore than one can explain what it feels like to be in love which presumably you haven’t experienced either. How sad.’
But that’s all artists, poets and romantic novelists attempt to do ad nauseam. Perhaps you should pick up a book occasionally Lizzie.
I think ALB is correct – like so many romantics TM has simply substituted the cosmos for God. John Carpenter’s ‘Dark Star’ gives us a comedic perspective on space where the crew of a spaceship are driven mad by the tedious nothingness that is space. For ‘something’ to exist we need the concept of ‘nothing’ to render it comprehensible. When I close my hand within the earth’s atmosphere of course I’m aware (intellectually) of the existence of particles and atoms – not to mention gravity and air pressure but when I close my hand in outer space there is literally nothing there except the occasional passing photon or neutrino. I’m rather surprised by just how disingenuous that remark is.
