To my shock and amazement people actually read this blog so its time I post more material I think.
A lot has changed. First I got this wonderful telescope. Unfortunately the view of Polaris from my house is blocked by an enormous tree so I have not been able to fully utilize the equatorial mount. Nevertheless having nobs to make adjustments vastly improves star tracking. I was able to get some beautiful views of the moon and Jupiter.
This is not my first blog but one of several that I started and gradually became interested in other topics. Rather than let that happen I think I will change the tone of my blog to match more general interest of mine. This blog will be a little more personal than I originally envisioned. Also rather than discussing everything relating to astronomy I will make this blog more about cosmology which is just the philosophy of the universe and our place in it.
I have been going back to school. This adventure is not without its speed bumps. I am finding out I am not nearly as smart as I thought. I am currently taking a writing class, linear algebra, computer science 250 (ordered structures) and social anthropology.
I wrote a
paper for writing class about technology and society (it has been largely informed by my anthropology class). My hard drive failed causing me to rewrite the entire thing, but I think this resulted in a much more cohesive paper.
A note about Marxism; I don't think that communism is necessarily the model our society should follow but - as someone who has worked in factories - I can't help but agree there is an alienation between the workers and those who own the means of production. I postulate that even while market economies engulf the world other systems of exchange emerge as a natural progression of an electronic society.
I will be writing two more papers in the near future. I am currently reading Ray Kurzweil's
The Singularity is Near in preparation. Two questions are looming in my mind (perhaps each is a paper topic).
First, I ask, how exactly is science different than religion? To anthropologist religion is just a way of attributing meaning to random events, science is about predicting events that otherwise seem random. Kurzweil has been called the "Singularity Prophet." He himself calls anyone who seeks to bring a bout the singularity as a "sigularitan."
My second question relates to something called the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is that if intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe why haven't we already made contact or at least seem some evidence of extasolar intelligence. Kurzweil insist that human machine self awareness on a cosmic scale is our destiny. If this were the case wouldn't such enormous thinking machines from alien cultures have already revealed themselves?
Computer scientist and science fiction author Vernor Vinge is well know for his work on the singularity. Some of his science fiction also reflects a belief that technological singularity is inevitable.
In one book
A Fire Upon the Deep he invents a property of space that prevents strong AI from forming except at the very edge of the galaxy. This allows for a more or less conventional space opera. Most space opera downplays or ignores the possibility of singularity altogether.
In another story
Marooned in Realtime his characters use a time freezing technology to sidestep the singularity altogether. They emerge to a world devoid of human life. One of his characters even explores much of space in search of other intelligent life but finds only remnants of near singularity civilizations. Whether this is the result of some cosmic censor or post singularity beings have transcended time and space and matter to become something ethereal the reader is left to speculate. Although this treatment might have more question than answers it does rather effectively solve the Fermi Paradox.
The idea of a cosmic censor has been used in black hole physics and related cases. Certain precise solutions to general relativity do allow for faster than light travel and backward time travel (actually they are one and the same). Cosmic censorship not only prevents superluminal aliens from visiting earth but future humans from traveling to the past (our present). And most importantly (to scientist realists) preserves our notions of causality. Causality just means that the past effects the present and the present effects the future and it doesn't go the other way. Many think that without this solid principle of cause and effect the entire foundations of science would crumble.
Of course the Fermi paradox doesn't just apply to post singularity technology or FTL travel but also to slower than light travel. Did you know that given moderate advances in todays technology and a sufficient (read astronomical) budget it is possible to travel to another galaxy within your own lifetime? Thanks to the effect of time dilation even though centuries will pass in the outside universe aboard your spaceship you will experience only a few decades as you race along close to the speed of light. By getting closer and closer to the speed of light this effect will only get more extreme allowing one to visit anywhere they fancy in the universe so long as she brings sufficient fuel and an engine that can also accelerate matter very close to the speed of light. I imagine this could be some kind of coilgun much like the particle accelerators we use today.
Given this and even a pessimistic solution to the Drake Equation makes one wonder where all the aliens are and why they haven't visited us yet or perhaps if in fact they already have.
I had an amazing day today. I woke up to rain clouds. I told people about the transit of Venus but was skeptical if I would see it myself. Then when I got out of class it was sunny. I was more excited than a kid on christmas. I was running and singing Sting lyrics. Latter it snowed.
I headed outside to a public location and got to do some amazing sidewalk astronomy. I got to see first and second contact, totality and most of the rest of this long transit. An opportunity that will not come again till 2117.
