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Permalink Reply by VimanaPro on May 15, 2012 at 12:20am

I am very happy at fact that our Sol (Sun) is very hot for discreation (perhaps very cold) magic wand

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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on May 15, 2012 at 9:35pm

Not saying I buy all this, cuz I don't; but I thought I'd throw this up here anyway because I always loved watching Carl Sagan and his show: Cosmos.  It's a fairly typical representation of the standard Theory of Evolution.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Stephenson on May 20, 2012 at 8:49am

First of all, you got that article from a creationist website.  That is the first clue that it isn't going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  They merely twist our mysteries into a misguided belief that one book is the absolute word of God and must be read literally.  When the bible is read literally it advocates genocide, slavery, dominance of women, and many other distasteful things that we have risen above, or at least are striving to.  Saying that we don't completely understand the Universe is easily agreeable, but to say it then proves the Universe is 6,000 Earth years old, and God created the Heavens and the Earth in literally Six days, is insanity.  Delusion at its finest. 

That being said evolution has a little bit of explaining to do as well.  I could go on and on with the things science doesn't know yet, but I will point out one major chink in the Evolutionary armor.  Man evolved way too quickly from ape.  Our brain size exploded, and I mean by unprecedented amounts, amounts that evolution can't account for.  I can't remember the exact figure, it's in the vicinity of 500%. In a span of 2 million years we went from being yet another animal, to having a mind capable of putting men on the moon, and splitting the atom.  The mind that came up with the theory of evolution to begin with.  That is the thing.  Evolution doesn't appear to be a slow and gradual process.  It takes a long time, however life doesn't randomly mutate and by dumb luck evolve a new strategy to survive a challenge.  Life recognizes adversity.  It perceives danger and actively solves problems quite consciously.  All of our fossil records show cycles of life staying stagnant, sudden disappearances and sudden appearances of new complexity.  Complexity explodes and fills niches of survivability.  These changes don't happen gradually they happen suddenly, and fill a niche.  I can't explain that any other way than all life being conscious of its own existence and its own mortality.  Genes pass on information on what to expect, and how to best deal with the problems that that particular life faced.  Genes are not by luck.  They pass on information.  Life is constantly developing better ways to sense the outside world, and better ways survive said world.  I absolutely believe we emerged from a single cell that eventually yielded all life.  That's how this whole world and Universe works.  Complexity arising out of simplicity, however we must realize one thing.  All life is conscious, and it all is striving to do two things.  Survive, and pass on its genes.  That process led to us. 

The question is now, what are we to do with ourselves now that our mind has led to us surviving almost too well?  Now we have problems that an animal mind does not have to deal with.  We now have a choice to make, and we can either live like animals or transcend our instinctual animal nature.  (many people still live in an animal state of mind)  I for one take the stand point that we are all part of something vastly superior to our selves, yet we are an expression of the Universe itself.  We are separate from each other on the surface but in a very literal way, we are all are connected, all the way back to the first seed of life, all the way back to the singularity, we always have been and always will be one with everything.  Another extension of life, energy, and creativity.  At our most basic being we are merely harmonizing vibrations of energy passing through a void.  Energy finding its way through emptiness, realizing itself, and returning to the void.  As bill hicks says, "it's all just a ride."  We get to choose what to create with it.  I'm not liking that many of our choices...Can't believe this thing turned into such a long post.  Oh well.  Good night.

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Permalink Reply by Cole Riggall on May 23, 2012 at 6:55am

Good post! Very thought provoking. I was never aware of the sudden bursts of complexity shown in the fossil record, but that totally agrees with everything I've heard before. This just sparked a new interest in evolution for me; thank you :). (Oh, and we apparently view existence pretty dang similarly going off your last paragraph)

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Permalink Reply by Nick Stephenson on May 23, 2012 at 7:12pm

Thank you, and this view point is not my own.  I wish I could claim such a brilliant insights, but it comes from the minds of greater men than I.  Joseph Campbell, Terrence McKenna, Alan Watts, Arthur Young, and many other teachers have aided in my ability to break free from the lies and deceit that mankind is pressing upon each other.  I am grateful that I have access to such wonderful information, and wish more people would have the desire to access the abundance of information available to them.   It seems that in the age of information, more and more people are uninformed and ignorant, mesmerized by the shininess of culture and materialism so they never stop to ask very basic questions about what they are doing here.  I am convinced that ancient cultures had access to information that science is revealing today, but they represented this information in very abstract ways.  Deep down, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism are all trying to tell the same story, but we all get caught up in literal interpretations of ancient texts that are vastly more complex and meaningful.  If you have a new found interest in evolution, listen to Terrence McKenna's thoughts on the matter.  He is pretty far out there, some may say crazy, but the way he presents information is delightful.  Joseph Campbell is one of the best teachers in the twentieth century in my opinion and his insights into ancient myths are delightful as well.  If ancient Myths and their similarities interest you, I would look up "Mythos."  Good chatting with you.  

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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on May 24, 2012 at 9:31am

There is a huge gap of nearly 10 million years down the evolutionary path of man's evolution from ape to the simplest form of man. We didn't evolve from apes or chimps, they are just are closest ancestor down the chain, the last time we were from the same genetic family was over 8 million years ago I think :) Also, evolution doesn't imply getting more complex or how much the change is, it just means a change to adapt to the environment. Sometimes this can even mean "devolution" which is a misnomer because although the species might become less complex, they might be better suited to survival in their envrionment, which is beneficial evolution of the species a la survival of the fittest not meaning most complex ;)

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Permalink Reply by Nick Stephenson on May 24, 2012 at 4:28pm

Almost all of this is debatable so I'm not going to get into it too much, but our closest ancestor Australopithecus sediba is carbon dated to be about 2 million years old.  Which isn't an ape, so you're right, we didn't directly evolve from apes.  It is the closest link that we have found so far, and it is this brain that exploded by over 500% in that amount of time.  Yes, evolution can allow for devolving but that doesn't mean that it is a slow, unconscious and random process.  All of the observable evidence shows a sudden emergence of life, with a wide variety of new complexity.  Look up the Cambrian Explosion for the biggest example.  Not to mention man no longer follows survival of the fittest so that causes a problem for evolution as well. 

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Permalink Reply by Lewis Smith on July 1, 2012 at 3:46pm

Certainly the creationist have their own survival mode which results in perpetuation of an ideology that seems absurd today. It has occurred to me that the leap in conscious evolution could have been assisted by simple diet. For example if an ancient ancestor accidentally digested a hallucinogenic plant (which may have existed at this point in time) would have experienced an unimaginable thrust towards self-awareness.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Stephenson on July 1, 2012 at 9:08pm

Yes Lewis you are correct in that assumption, and is the exact thoughts of Terrence McKenna.  It is his famous "stoned ape theory" and makes a whole lot of sense.  Especially if you have eaten mushrooms yourself, and felt the effects.  Diet, and change of climate are the two main driving forces behind our change from ape to man, and if Psilocybin really is a catalyst for and advancement in consciousness, it should be extensively researched scientifically, instead of being taboo like it is today.

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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on May 20, 2012 at 1:44pm

You sure do browse some crap Shiz ;P

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Permalink Reply by Tim Young on May 23, 2012 at 11:17pm

Seems to me a fundamental problem that exists is that whether or not you are speaking of evolutionism or creationism - you are always speaking of "theories".

In other words - no one really knows.

Of course there are plenty who think they know. But the reality is - they don't. And unless someone invents a time machine they never will.

I am neither a creationist nor an evolutionist. And as time goes on I find in fact that I have less and less desire to find the answers or prove one way or another to myself. And I suspect this is because as time goes on I become more and more aware of just how impossible it is to ever find the answers.  And so I tend to just spend my time thinking about other stuff which can actually help me achieve realistic goals I might have for myself in this life, here and now.

But of course it is always interesting to hear some of these theories and to hear about newly uncovered "evidence".

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Permalink Reply by Nick Stephenson on May 24, 2012 at 5:27am

Tim, me thinks you have a good heart and really do have a high concern for humanity, but are torn as to whether you should give a shit about humanity, or shut down.  That is after all what many people are doing on this planet.  They are shutting down, and following the self defense mode of not letting any other information in because it is just too frustrating and confusing.  Your own goals for here and now I cannot say, but isn't the goal of understanding this magnificent Universe in its entirety the ultimate goal, and the only one worth achieving?  Not having the desire to know about our past, and look at what observations tell us, is to stunt our growth as a whole.  If people gave into this idea that we will never know anything for sure is to kill the dreaming mind.  You are not required to learn about these things, and is your own choice if you want to view understanding the Universe in its entirety as impossible but if everyone did this, science and knowledge would cease to establish new ground.  It is apparent that you have no use for myths and religion but I would challenge you to look into Joseph Campbell's work on the matter.  The Hero's Journey, or Mythos are both on Netflix and youtube.  He is not the end all, be all on the subject but greatly enriched my understanding of ancient cultures and what their belief systems are. If not, oh well, I tried.

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