The Deep - should I buy it?
Tue, 2008-04-08 15:29
#1
The Deep - should I buy it?
Tue, 2008-04-08 15:29
#2
Space exploration is extremely costly and will not likely find life for some time. On the other hand the Deep is teaming with life that has yet to be catalogued. I am going to buy this book for my birthday present I hope. Is it politically correct to do so? [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Check it out here:
[url=http://www.thedeepbook.org/]The Deep Gallery[/url]
Tue, 2008-04-08 15:40
#3
M. Spector
Got a library card?
Why don't you [url=http://catalogue.torontopubliclibrary.ca/uhtbin/cgisirsi/K2Ts0v4U4l/TPL/... it[/url] and see if you'd like to own it?
ETA: if that link doesn't work, go [url=http://catalogue.torontopubliclibrary.ca/]HERE[/url] and do a search.
[ 08 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
Tue, 2008-04-08 15:51
#4
Yes you are right...but it isn't in the library as it is a relatively new book...
Tue, 2008-04-08 16:56
#5
M. Spector
If you go to the last link I posted and do an author search for "Nouvian, Claire" (without the quotation marks) you will find she has two books in the Toronto system, and The Deep is one of them. There are two copies listed as "missing", but two others based at the central Reference Library and the Agincourt District branch. You can put a hold on it with your card number, and have it sent to your nearest branch when it becomes available.
Or you could go tomorrow to the Reference Library and look at their non-circulating copy.
Thu, 2008-04-10 18:44
#6
- thanks for the tip.
But this is a point. Wouldn't it be better to spend a few billion studying the ocean's deep ecosystem than going to Mars? Hawking doesn't thinks so perhaps...
[url=http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/242]hawking on space...[/url]
Thu, 2008-04-10 21:13
#7
M. Spector
Hawking's view is what I call the "disposable planet" paradigm: We have fucked up this planet, so we must discard it and find another one to fuck up.
It's the ultimate "technological fix" to the problems of water and fossil fuel depletion, climate change, and pollution.
Fri, 2008-04-11 00:57
#8
I am not sure if this is his position exactly. I think that he is saying that if there is no life within three hundred light years of earth then life in the galaxy and in particular intelligent life is rare.
It may also be subject to disasters such as the one we are experiencing here on earth. Our success as a species is consuming the planet and we have not yet figured out how to abate the drive toward extinction.
He is also saying that there are external factors as well (like asteroid impacts and solar flares).
I think he is saying that we need to diversify in order to reduce humanity's exposure to these catastrophes...
But I say that better knowledge of the earth's biodiversity and planetary ecosystem would be a huge benefit in reducing the risk that we incur by our ignorance and the payoff would be immediate and relatively short term at a fraction of the cost.
Fri, 2008-04-11 07:43
#9
M. Spector
quote:
Originally posted by DonnyBGood:
[b]I think that he is saying that if there is no life within three hundred light years of earth then life in the galaxy and in particular intelligent life is rare.[/b]
Certainly evidence found here on Earth would support that hypothesis!
You have to wonder why, though, life is so rare in this part of the galaxy. Maybe the Earth is the life-supporting needle in the life-hostile haystack, and we've gone and made it all rusty and brittle. Wandering in space for new green pastures to consume and pollute may well be a futile waste of what few resources we have left.
quote:
[b]Our success as a species is consuming the planet and we have not yet figured out how to abate the drive toward extinction.[/b]
You call this "success"? [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Hawking hasn't yet figured out how to change the destructive course we are on. It hasn't occurred to him that our present system of unrestrained growth and exploitation of the Earth for private profit and consumption (which I like to call "capitalism") could actually be replaced with something different, where humans would live in harmony with nature, rather than trying to conquer, consume, and defile it.
quote:
[b]He is also saying that there are external factors as well (like asteroid impacts and solar flares).I think he is saying that we need to diversify in order to reduce humanity's exposure to these catastrophes...[/b]
Yes, it's pretty tough to defend against asteroid impacts, and there's no guarantee humans will survive long enough to be roasted when the Sun expands and turns our planet into a cinder in 5 billion years.
But this is just a collective fear of death - the same fear each of us has as individuals, knowing that one day we won't exist. Do we cope with this fear by trying to find ways to prolong our individual lives indefinitely (as the "transhumanists" do) or do we make the most of the time we have, recognizing that it matters not to the cosmos whether we live or die?
Besides, if we colonize and "terraform" Mars, won't we be [b]doubling[/b] our chances of a catastrophic asteroid attack?
Fri, 2008-04-11 14:06
#10
[url=http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/weird_planets_010109_wg.... stars within 300 light years...[/url]
Assumption 1:
OK of these stars how many of the are older than our sun? The milky way galaxy was created as a single cosmic structure so I will assume that it was created essentially uniformly at the same time. Hence the stars are of the same age.
Assumption 2:
The process and time frame for developing advanced life forms is also roughly uniform perhaps a constant even.
Facts:
We have had radio for about 80 years. Similarly other planets in the galaxy might be in the same time stream of development. We might no get signals for 2000 years.
The fact is that so far there is one life planet in every 1000 stars (Earth) in another 300 years it will be one in 2000 stars and so on...
Probability thus leads us to conclude that there is still a likelihood that there is life out there among the 70 billion stars in the Milky way galaxy. The milky way is 40 billion light years in diameter. That is 1.75 stars per light year of diameter. In our neighbourhood there are 3.3 stars per light year of space.
What this means is that in 5 billion years when the sun explodes into a nova we still will have only sampled 1/8th of our galaxy (8 billion stars).
So it is macro cosmically (pardon the pun) impossible to statistically know if life is anomaly or a rule of thumb in galactic terms. If it is a common occurrence then the process will be simultaneous and therefore other civilizations will be at similar stages. Thus it is far too early to evaluate projects like SETI.
What is more likely to give assurances is to delve into life in the microcosm. There we may find answers to life in the Universe. [img]cool.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 11 April 2008: Message edited by: DonnyBGood ]
Fri, 2008-04-11 15:20
#11
Who knows if we'll like what we find? If their technology is more advanced than ours, which it would pretty much have to be, whose to say they won't see us as savages to be killed off so they can "settle" the planet? When the europeans invaded North America, they used germ warfare and superior weaponry to more or less wipe out the rightful inhabitants of this continent in a five hundred year long pogram. Personally, I don't give a shit. For what they did to the First Nation's people, I wouldn't mind seeing the european invaders and their spawn toiling away in the mines for whatever race of beings arrives to supplant and enslave them.
[img]http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img]
![http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img]](http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img]){kind=link}
Fri, 2008-04-11 15:43
#12
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]Hawking's view is what I call the "disposable planet" paradigm: We have fucked up this planet, so we must discard it and find another one to fuck up.It's the ultimate "technological fix" to the problems of water and fossil fuel depletion, climate change, and pollution.[/b]
That's an extremely cynical way of interpreting things.
The way I interpreted, is that there's a non-zero possibility of fucking it up in the future, or of being hit by a major comet, or suffering from a major volcano or cosmic nightmare such as a Gamma Ray Burst. As such, we should hedge our bets as a species by spreading ourselves outward.
And there's nothing immoral about that. I think it's extremely unlikely Hawking desires Terran failure.
Fri, 2008-04-11 15:44
#13
quote:
Originally posted by The Wizard of Socialism:
[b]Who knows if we'll like what we find? If their technology is more advanced than ours, which it would pretty much have to be, whose to say they won't see us as savages to be killed off so they can "settle" the planet? When the europeans invaded North America, they used germ warfare and superior weaponry to more or less wipe out the rightful inhabitants of this continent in a five hundred year long pogram. Personally, I don't give a shit. For what they did to the First Nation's people, I wouldn't mind seeing the european invaders and their spawn toiling away in the mines for whatever race of beings arrives to supplant and enslave them.[img]http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img]...
![http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img]...](http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/pscholtes/Vthefinalbattle11.jpg[/img][/b]){kind=link}
Guilt doesn't get transmitted from one generation to the next... most likely we all have killers among our ancestors. Are well guilty? no.