Will Betelgeuse Go Supernova in 2012?
Posted by oz at 21:03, 19 Jun 2009In this essay I discuss the recent news of the possibility that the star Betelgeuse (Orion's right shoulder) will soon go supernova in the context of the 2012 Mayan calendar.
1.12 MB PDF file, Adobe Acrobat Reader needed.
NB: the Maya call the star by a specific name that is very significant.
http://www.theorionzone.com/betelgeuse_s...
Gary David
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2 May 2004
5 hours 11 min
Definitely food for thought, thanks Gary. The Maya were exceptional astronomers, so it's silly to discount the possibility of an astronomical event for 2012, solar or extrasolar. The Bad Astronomer and other skeptics will scoff, but they always will regardless.
Regarding the red dragonfly, I always feel the compunction to walk past a Japanese restaurant on my way home from work, even though it's in the opposite direction and I have to walk an extra couple of blocks -- Aka Tombo means red dragonfly. Great food and service too, just wish I had a longer lunch break so I could eat there more often! It's one of those odd little synchronicities that made Jung sit up and take notice. I am.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
In this particular case, I would say that it is so unlikely that the Maya astronemers understood predicting a supernova event, it does indeed border on silliness.
They would have to have understood how stars work, which they did not.
The PDF seems to be mostly random raving by someone fascinated with numbers and dates.
If indeed the star goes supernova in 2012, we have nothing to worry about for another 600 years or so. Nothing synchronous about it.
I also like this part:
As I understand it, cyber-phallacy is big business. In fact it has ruined print magazines like Playboy and Hustler.
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
2 May 2004
5 hours 11 min
"Silly Mayans"? Subscribing to the "ancient people were primitive and modern man is intellectually superior" mindset is extremely ignorant, earthling.
They would have to have understood how stars work, which they did not.
No, you do not need to understand the physics and chemistry of stars to observe, record and predict stellar cycles, motions, and events. You're a smart person, earthling -- turn off your computer, go outside every night for a year and observe the stars. That's what ancient people -- the Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Mayans -- did for generations, centuries, and millennia; without the aid of computers, telescopes, or satellites. We have proof in stone and mythology. Modern scientists, from Galileo to Brahe, increased our stellar knowledge without knowing the chemistry and physics of stars.
A little disclaimer: in no way do I subscribe to New Age predictions of 2012, or that the Maya attributed stellar events with 2012. I just refuse to throw the baby (ancient astronomical knowledge) out with the bath water in such a pithy, superior manner like most skeptics.
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
I'm with Earthling on this one.
On one side we have people pointing out that we dont know everything today and that there is much science doesnt understand, then at the same time the argument is not back translated.
If those in the future will know more than we do then the same applies and we should admit that we know more than those in the ancient past - though it is fair to say certain knowledge has been lost of course.
No, you do not need to understand the physics and chemistry of stars to observe, record and predict stellar cycles
There is a rather obvious clause to this. The frequency of the pattern must render it observable in the first place. Otherwise knowledge of the nuclear physics is indeed needed. A simple way to check this is to see what people can achieve without the use of telecopes (either light or other freq's) and without nuclear theories. Predicting star and planet motion is pretty easy, they follow cycles after all, it is made as easy as it can be by nature. Understanding why is something i have never seen any evidence that ancient people had.
I know there are alot of people who would throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare modern science, in spite of its successes, to be incompatible with their beliefs and hence incorrect, but they are throwing out the wrong bits of it. In particular here i think people get a bit obsessed about the paranormal/religious and it's interaction with science. This leads to speculation about boundary science and and its interaction with the unknown, but this doesnt reflect on all of science.
The ancients had close to nill chance of predicting a modern supernova to a precise date. To use the metaphor, i think the bath has been filled with baked beans, throw it out and fill it with something cleaner.
If i am wrong then fine, but i'd like to be shown why - and using more than philosophy. Perhaps the Mayans had developed nuclear physics, or had approached an approximation in metaphor, with the required quantum aspects and understandings of gravity and nuclear fuel conversion rates and affects on pressure within stars along with the delicate balance between conversion and gravity. Perhaps they even knew about stars invisible to the naked eye, which they could have seen if they had mapped the sky in enough detail, then developed the relativistic maths. Without computers they would have had to train large portions of their population in the mathematic skills and run large projects for considerable amounts of time though, as would have been necessary to predict the dates of supernovas based on star sequences and star masses, fuel quantities, light spectra etc
Maybe they did all of this.
Some things you dont need to be too skeptical of, some are just crazy.
Just one point though, if revelation is possible, or seeing the future, or aliens come and give advice then they could have known it, but this is not the same as saying they worked it out for themselves or that they were sophisticated enough to work it out. They would have cheated. Revelation only allows access to the relevation, so they would not have been able to know anything else.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
daydreamer,
If those in the future will know more than we do then the same applies and we should admit that we know more than those in the ancient past - though it is fair to say certain knowledge has been lost of course.
You seem to be assuming the linear paradigm of a slow march upward from barbarism to civilization. As the old Jefferson Airplane song goes: "You are the crown of creation, and you got no place to go." Can we really say we are the paramount of human development? I'd say that's temporal chauvinism.
The Maya had different means of epistemology, using a more intuitive-visionary approach. We may be superior in our rational-technical approach, but the Maya surely had a alternative way to gain knowledge. Shamanism is a science thousands of years old, and the Maya most certainly employed that with the help of spirit beings from alternate realities. These "archaic techniques of ecstasy," as Mircea Eliade put it, gave the Maya a wholly different way of perceiving the world.
I don't want to get into a drug/anti-drug thing here, but John Major Jenkins points out the ritual use of psilicybin (mushrooms) to access these parallel dimensions. I think our mistake is in trying to understand this culture from our own cultural perspective-- a classic anthropological faux pas.
Gary David
www.theorionzone.com
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Hi Oz,
That can definitely be read that way, but its drawing alot out of a simple sentence. I'm not really one for terms like barbarism and civilisation, cultures are different and morals are relativistic.
I stated in the sentence you copied that those in the future would have greater knowledge than us so i am in no way placing us as the crown or paramount in anyway, and that is just on a simple line assessing material technological advancement, never mind cultural comparisons or spiritual assessments.
Shamanism is an approach thousands of years old, along with many other ways of viewing the world, none better than others if we want to remain culturally equal, wouldn't raising shamanism and drug-use also be temporally chauvinistic? especially as these are cultural.
Using material technological understanding is a simple, uninvasive way of assessing an aspect of advancement, without making judgements on beliefs - also it is easy to understand, either they had it, or they didnt; there is either evidence or there isnt. Can you say the same for Mayan Shamanism. Any attempt to understand the historical mindset of an ancient person will place your own conceptions on it, or will result in you choosing whichever expert you prefer. History is a culturally relative subject; whether an ancient civilisation used fire or computers is not.
Understanding cultures is difficult even within them, never mind from the outside and from other perspectives. I wasn't trying to make a cultural comment, more a comment on what the application of non-specific cultures had created in various abilities to increase depth of material understanding, this is only one facet of human experience and not a ranking of entire cultures and depending on your take not even a particularly important aspect of knowledge, either intellectual or cultural.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
Hi daydreamer,
cultures are different and morals are relativistic.
Yes, indeed, you are right there.
a simple line assessing material technological advancement, never mind cultural comparisons or spiritual assessments..
In the future we might have much less technical capability. If, god forbid, a nuclear war brings us back to the stone age, we would have to start all over again. What I am saying is that the notion of a slow progression toward ever greater complexity in culture and technology is not necessarily a given.
wouldn't raising shamanism and drug-use also be temporally chauvinistic?
No, because shamanism and ritual use of psychotropics (NOT "drugs") are current among many tribes of the world and are not just practices of past ages. This tradition goes back thousands of years, however.
Using material technological understanding is a simple, uninvasive way of assessing an aspect of advancement, without making judgements on beliefs - also it is easy to understand, either they had it, or they didnt; there is either evidence or there isnt.
To judge a culture as superior solely because of its level of technology is, IMHO, simply wrong-headed. If the Maya, say, were far ahead of us, so to speak, in their ability to access multiple dimensions on a pyschic level while at the same time being inferior to our nuts and bolts technology, does that somehow make them inferior to us?
It sounds like you just don't like, or trust, history and are more comfortable using verifiable artifacts of technology as a gauge of cultural competence.
As you said, material culture is just one facet of a culture's existence. However, our rational-empirical mindset tends to impose its particular bias when judging other cultures. Archaeologists are wont to look at tools and artifacts and the whole issue of archaeo-psychology, if I can coin a term, is simply outside their purview. If, for instance, the Maya had the ability to time travel without the use of a "time machine" (that second word is requisite for us), while at the same time using stone tools, would that still make them less developed?
Using material technological understanding is a simple, uninvasive way of assessing an aspect of advancement, without making judgements on beliefs - also it is easy to understand, either they had it, or they didnt;
By using a standard of material technology you are essentially making a judgement. Tools, etc. are just one way to understand a culture, and certainly not the most important one.
www.theorionzone.com
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Hi Oz,
I think we are nit-picking here slightly as we agree on quite a bit, and perhaps are not getting are points across very well.
As you say, judging cultures based on the morality of the day, or the technology is a perilous exercise. Rather than say we are superior in any way i would just say we are capable of things they were not, they were capable of things we are not, and the same will go for those in the future; they will be able to do some things, and others will be lost.
Some would say there is no progression in knowledge, that we are creating our own reality, then judging ourselves and clapping our own backs based on our self reinforcing interpretations. We should be wary of this. The reverse is true though and perhaps we idolise our own conceptions of what past civilisations may have been using our preconceptions of who we would like to be.
History is a troublesome subject for me. Often the evidence is very weak, and usually interpretation is necessary. It is very often impossible to test hypothesis. Multiple sources can be accepted, but can also compound false interpretations. Stereotyping of a people is quite common, such as 'they were spiritual' or 'they were x/y/z' without adding the complexity we see today around the world.
To judge a culture as superior solely because of its level of technology is, IMHO, simply wrong-headed. If the Maya, say, were far ahead of us, so to speak, in their ability to access multiple dimensions on a pyschic level while at the same time being inferior to our nuts and bolts technology, does that somehow make them inferior to us?
I wouldnt judge a culture as superior because of superior technology, though i would judge the technical capabilities of a civilisation by its technology. For example Hitlers Germany had far greater technical capability that some peaceful African tribes, but i would say they had a nicer culture.
In the original post we were talking about the Mayan technical ability to predict supernova, an assessment of their technical capabilities related to this was not improper and draws no conclusions out of the scope of the data, such as on their morality, psychic abilities, astral planing, ability to express their thoughts in clay, stone masonry, human rights, economics, politics etc.
There is no guage to say whether a culture is better than another, though you can say you like one more than another. Empiric data can be studied, what were male rights like, or female rights, what diseases did people suffer from, what was the literacy rate, what type of governmental system did they use etc, but non of these result in a conclusion that one was better than another. You can say whether you would have preferred to live that way though. (We are studying history though so conclusions based on some historical data are not necessarily real).
It sounds like you just don't like, or trust, history and are more comfortable using verifiable artifacts of technology as a gauge of cultural competence.
I am a geologist and so am used to studying history, albeit Earth history. Subjects like archeology provide solid data at least, though you still rely on expert interpretation based often on little data - such as a few artifacts. History based on ancient texts is alot harder. It can contradict, it gets interpreted in a contextualised manner favouring the interpreter and the audience, use of narrative devices blurs factual content, language interpretation especially from lost languages can be suspect, damage to texts results in best fit attempt or made up data, texts are added, forgeries are made, etc. It is a difficult field.
If, for instance, the Maya had the ability to time travel without the use of a "time machine" (that second word is requisite for us), while at the same time using stone tools, would that still make them less developed?
This goes along with them accessing different dimensions of thought, would it be fair to say they were less advanced?
If we are even going to allow that question in any context, hmmm- need to think. This is tricky. As you have said comparing entire culture to say one is more advanced than another is not really possible and probably just reflects personal biases. Are we able to say though that we can build more advanced nuclear submarines or silicon based supercomputers and say we are better at that, while also saying that if they were traveling to mental dimensions then they were better at that than us?
This is tricky though as what do we mean by 'the Maya' or by 'them'? Do we have evidence that they were all doing this, or just some of them? Were they diverse, with believers and non-believers, or did they all do it? In one instance today a member of the family was talking about a wedding they attended and that the wedding party had got up and sung a song to everyone and it was very funny. Before she said the title of the song it popped into my head. Just one of the psychic experiences in my life. When we say the Maya were seeing the future, or reading minds, what is to say we are not? Perhaps the historical evidence we have overstates the use of psychic abilities in the Maya through a bias in the preservation of that evidence. What would it mean if we are still being the same today, perhaps just not heightened by psychotropics (which are now not drugs), but can also perform key hole surgery, or perform lung transplants? Perhaps we are just people and it doesnt matter what goes on.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, daydreamer.
I think we are nit-picking here slightly as we agree on quite a bit, and perhaps are not getting are points across very well.
I agree, yet after all, it was a lazy summer Sunday solstice Father's Day, so maybe the precision here was not my best.
I agree with much of what you say. It's interesting that you are a geologist, comfortable with Earth history, but human history? Not so much.
On the other hand, I am a poet and writer and very much used to dealing with very abstruse postmodern literature as well as multiple texts with conflicting intrepretations. In fact, I feel at home with the uncertainty. Not Credence but credences.
What frustrates me though when I read archaeologists' accounts is the materialist aspect they overlay on everything. They claim to "know" a culture from a few potsherds, some basketry fragments, or ruined buildings. I think they have uncovered one dimension of the ancient people, yes, but as far as dealing with their very soul... I find it terribly lacking.
Are we able to say though that we can build more advanced nuclear submarines or silicon based supercomputers and say we are better at that, while also saying that if they were traveling to mental dimensions then they were better at that than us?
Oh absolutely.
The fact that the Maya may have perfected various psychic abilities does not preclude us also doing the same to a certain degree. I believe the Mayan culture was made up of both regular folks who didn't involve themselves in these practices and the shamanic elite who almost entirely lived in this psi world.
One thing we can agree on: it is both difficult and tricky to try and extrapolate from the data who the Maya really were. Same with the ancient Egyptians. Chris Dunn, who is an engineer, claims the great pyramid was a gigantic power plant. On the other hand, I would say it might have been an initiatory complex into the Duat, or afterlife. Your intrepretations depend on where you're coming from and what your goals are.
Ultimately, I think the Mayan concept of what it meant to be human was far different from our concept of what a human is. To be able to incorporate human sacrifice into sacred ritual (which the post Classic Maya did) is a case in point.
www.theorionzone.com
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
I agree completely.
When it looks like ancient peoples concepts of reality and humanity is so far removed from our own it is very mind opening. We dont need to step into the ancient past to find this though. Stepping into the mindset of new Earth creationism is an example of a modern day difference.
Evaluating human experiences is not something that science does very well, if at all. There is no baseline. We are a very plastic species and there are few rights and wrongs in the experience itself.
It's interesting that you are a geologist, comfortable with Earth history, but human history? Not so much.
Yeah, it can seem oxymoronic i guess. To understand the difference you would need to immerse yourself in geology - let it transform your consciousness so to speak. Whereas meditation, psychotropics, literature, love, imagination are all means of internalising the human experience (though their application may seem external i would argue they travel inwards), geology drags the mind outwards to look at the natural world and it isnt the same as anything i have seen on sites like this. Most debates here focus on fringe science, quantum mechanics, historical speculation etc. Geological history doesnt lie, it is akin to a magnetic hard disk that simply records whatever the magnetic state was, except there are trillions of of different dimensions to the data, all cross linking into a larger picture. For most histories there is little evidence, but the Earth has stored vast amounts (though much is also lost of course).
It is as you say - to "know" a culture from a few potsherds, some basketry fragments, or ruined buildings. These are silly claims. With geology though we have billions of potsherds, it is as if everywhere you looked you found books filled with many many aspects of Mayan culture and experience with no contradictions. History should be so lucky.
Rocks store so much data it is hard for non geologists to understand quite how good the picture of Earth history is. Especially with so many lies spread about it by those whose beliefs it contradicts. Forget quantum physics, if you want to check to see if a philosophy is a valid description then this is one place to begin, and only a fool would ignore it completely. Obviously it is a subject that has changed alot over the decades, so it is still subject to the - maybe it will change in the future clause, but whereas we may be used to using that at the forefronts of physics where we have seen little of the universe and it is hard and expensive to study, geology is much easier and it is right under our feet. The planet is now mapped at a large scale and on a small scale through good chunks of it. All countries have had geologists scour their nations because of mineral and oil potential. It is a science i love, and it has alot to say.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
Hi daydreamer,
I'm surprised that a hard science person (rocks are hard, right? ;-) like you are hanging out on a fringe website like this. There is sometimes a lot of superstition and bizzare notions going on here, but there is just enough of the rigorous research and ideas to keep me amused. I also hang out at the Graham Hancock Message board. You might check it out. http://www.grahamhancock.com
Creationism, in my view, is non-science nonsense.
"Don't much about geology..." (so the song goes) but what's your take on catastrophism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism
Gary
www.theorionzone.com
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Hi Gary,
Sorry for the delay.
Hard science indeed ;)
I came here to try and understand the difference between my more conventional viewpoint and that of others and how people build their beliefs (myself included).
There's alot of interesting thoughts and takes on different things, and quite abit i find interesting. What i wanted to see really was whether there was anything substantial within this 'community' that could legitimately stand against the scientific view (not the hardline stereotype, but the framework of evidence based descriptions that exists).
Being a geologist is a good perspective to view this debate through, but also a difficult one.
If you imagine being raised in Islam or Christianity, without any outside influences then you will obviously have a certain mindset that conflicts with other mindsets. Many comments here ask for a kind of knowledge relativism, like with the religions, but where evidence based systems are equal to their opposites.
This is different to asking for fair assessment of paranormal evidence and is tricky when you've been raised within a scientific tradition.
I studied philosophy as well though so know that philosophical relativism can be just as revealing as scientific relativism or scientific certainty.
One reason i am here is to see if i can make any of this world fit with my own. Quite a bit of fringe stuff focuses on fringe science, often obsessing when it changes. Multiple realities or other interpretations of quantum mechanics, quantum consciousness, general paranormal activity. This is all good, but it recognises the difference between mainstream science and frontier science even if at the same time it tries to blur the line between them. This is not surprising as the frontier is where we need to place the unknown, but is of interest to me as once geology was the frontier and the highly controversial subject, whereas now i (generally) haven't seen a single debate featuring it outside of creationism.
Geology differs a little from other sciences in that you can go out and look at it in ways you cannot with more ethereal systems such as molecular replicators, multiple dimensions, quantum interpretations, information theory etc. I think because of this it has a much stronger historical record of being capable of dismissing false ideas and philosophies. Historically religions, for example, have suffered far worse when they have rubbed shoulders with geology than when they have with philosophers or physicists.
To your other comments
Creationism, in my view, is non-science nonsense.
This is a point where philosophy can rub up against science. When someone tries to decimate creationism and put it in its rightful place within religious fiction they can hit the philosophical wall of which you have erected several bricks - it really needn't be in your view.
In my view a potato is a vegetable that goes well with cheese if you bake it, it is not secretly the relative of an orangutan, with an empire stretching from my doorstep to Tibet in which soup can only be eaten with a stick.
Obviously that examples works better the more extreme it becomes, but why should it do this? Why should it become more acceptable if the language we use is less controversial. It is either right, or it is wrong. Once the language becomes compatible with the truth it becomes very difficult to tell the two apart. This is just a trick of intelligence though and just requires education to see. I cannot disprove creationism from many points of view, that is for people trained in those fields. I can from a geological standpoint, though that was done a very long time ago.
but what's your take on catastrophism?
This is a strange one to me. The division of geology into parts containing uniformitariansim and what appears to be its opposite - catastrophism seems to be more of a trick by enemies of geology than anything else.
The only place i have seen this spun is in religious literature.
They often describe uniformitarianism as meaning that everything happens slowly, then go on to say this is what geologists mistakenly believe. Once they have stated this they then seed the opposite notion, that massive and geologically rapid changes have occurred in the past, as evidence of an incredible blindness on the part of geologists and so go on to say that geology is wrong and geologists blind to geological evidence.
What geologists are taught and what the evidence shows, and hence the better description of uniformitarianism is that the same laws that work today also worked in the past. Rate of change of geological systems has very little to do with it. Some events occur, and are recorded geologically, in less than a tenth of a second, some take millions of years. Earth history is littered with massive geological events that occur quickly. Asteroid impacts, glaciations, volcanism, sea level changes, changes in various feedback cycles, chemical changes in oceans, subduction rollback affects, earthquakes etc etc etc. Changes in the biosphere can also occur quickly and leave their mark on the geological landscape, never mind the paleontological one. Then some events occur quickly in geological time, such as isostatic uplift, rifting etc.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
dd,
Now it's my turn to apologise the the long delay in response.
This is a point where philosophy can rub up against science. When someone tries to decimate creationism and put it in its rightful place within religious fiction they can hit the philosophical wall of which you have erected several bricks - it really needn't be in your view.
It's fine to put creationsim in the fundamentalist Christian bag, but when they try to give it equal time in biology classes with evolution, that's where I get irrate. Some in the fringe community are not fundy Xtians but still do not give evolution any credence. One of the more interesting ones is Michael Cremo, who advocates a sort of devolution. and you might be interested in this, he finds human artifacts in geological layers millions and millions of years old. http://www.mcremo.com/ Maybe you could refute his work. I am still undecided on this.
Perhaps the theory of catastrophism effects paleontology and archaeology more than geology but the basic idea of short periods of devastion might be as valid as forces taking place over vast amounts of time. I don't see it as anti-geology though. It's just the paradigm that's being challenged. It's the same with cultural diffusionism challenging cultural isolationism, the reigning academic paradigm currently being the latter.
I wish ,though you could take one of those trips that the creationists do at Grand Canyon, where they say it was created by the Flood. Maybe you could stand up and set them straight. ;-)
Bottom line of this discussion: science has different goals than most of the alternative methods of inquiry that one finds on sites such as these. Quite simply, science is trying to find evidence for the way the material universe works. Alternative history/science tries to find how the spiritual universe works. The latter might be engaged in the former, but never vice versa.
www.theorionzone.com
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
just a little thought here.....I was under the impression that Beatlejuice was some 300,000 light years away.....???
Anyway....Geology is one of the very few precise sciences. What I mean is that hard evidence doe's not lie...true...?
As far as fringe science goe's, what do we really mean. Has it not been all done before but with maybe a lesser understanding of physics? Maybe. Science now reminds me of someone going to the shop with ten bucks....and a bag....now they can only buy what fits in the bag and their budget....hmmmm. Limited selections no? Spiritualism on the other hand is an open credit card with home delivery. But we forget one major thing here....science has yet to observe and confirm 90% of it's theory's. Our text books are full of glossy pictures showing atoms and electrons and so forth but we have yet to see these things. We have seen their paths and their reactions but not them. So the same could be said about "god' or any other spiritualist beliefs.
Lets say in the distant past we followed another road and our importance was with that road not our road now. The advancment made on that road would be as advanced as our road is now with technology. We are not the one to say who is more advanced really; are we.
A full spiritual understanding of the universe could be far more important than that of a technological understanding.
All beliefs and understandings should be met with equal opportunity and tolerance, they all have a place to mould our future. Each being as important as the other.
Had a great time reading your posts....thankyou...
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Apparently it's 640 light years or so.
There is a practical problem with
We have been working on a spiritual understanding of the universe for 100,000 years, and made basically no progress.
We have been working on a scientific understanding using technology for maybe 500 years, and made obvious progress.
Perhaps the spiritual method will bring a better understanding eventually, but it sure doesn't look promising.
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
1 May 2004
1 year 15 weeks
Spiritual understanding is based on a spiritual world that is not so 'moral' in its foundation. It is based on the interpenetration of intelligent energies that do not have for mandate the divulgation of reality but rather the implanting of 'truths'.
Because of this, I better trust a good willed scientist than I would a believing spiritualist.
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
got some light years mixed up there somewhere. I think it may be 30,000 times bigger then our sun or some bizzar figue like that, Anyways....I understand Richard's point but also think that spiritualism didn't fail in the past, it was hijacked and used to control.
But thanks eathling for you input.....I really can't disagree or agree with you.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
I'm trying to say that our understanding of how the world works, based on spiritualism, is no better today than 10,000 years ago, when we start to have some kind of record.
Certainly over the past 5,000 years ago, where we have written records - spiritual understanding is no better. There are different numbers of gods, with different names. But if something goes wrong, it is because we didn't please the God or the gods.
If there is pestilence, the old spiritual method was to sacrifice some virgins. Later spiritual methods recommended praying more. Neither one does anything to slow down the pestilence, not even slightly.
Science, based on technology (microscopes) recommends that we don't shit in the drinking water. This does help to some extent.
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
We have been working on a spiritual understanding of the universe for 100,000 years, and made basically no progress.
The very idea of "progress" is in itself a Western, technological concept that has no equivalent in ancient shamanic cultures or Eastern philosophies. Just read, say, The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda and tell me that there is nothing profound going on here.
www.theorionzone.com
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
By progress here I mean progress towards a better understanding of life, the universe, and everything.
Science has made some progress towards that in the last 500 years. Aside from a better standard of living and luxuries, we DO have a somewhat better understanding of life and the universe through science. Not complete, but better than 500 years ago.
And we DON"T have a better understanding through spirituality. In fact, we don't have any understanding through spiritualism, just speculation.
One problem with the critics of science is that they don't like some of the results. So they prefer a method that doesn't give them the ugly results, instead they propose methods that have not given ANY results for many thousands of years.
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
And we DON"T have a better understanding through spirituality. In fact, we don't have any understanding through spiritualism, just speculation.
Maybe YOU don't have a better understanding through spirituality.
I'm not criticizing science, but it has its limits as to what it can comprehend. Those who say that spritualism hasn't yielded anything in thousands of years probably have never given any of its many facets a serious study.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
What better understanding has spirituality given us then?
What things do we know more about than we did a few thousand years ago?
Give some example.
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
I gave an example previously.
The materialist, reductionist framwwork behind your question does not jibe with the methodologies of spiritualism. You are seeking objective evidence when you should be looking within.
We know much less spiritully than we did thousands of years ago. Shamanism with its collective experience of millennia has been decimated in these modern times.
Technology makes progess; spirituality makes ingress.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Care to say which of your several posts the example was in? I can't find it. Perhaps you remember what the example was.
Does this mean that there is no objective evidence?
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
most people are spiritual and don't even know it. If your not an android then you have emotions. Every action we take from every thought we make are emotionaly based. It is not the actions of a cold,calous machine or even a biological machine. Our actions are based on emotion. So therefore one must ask where these emotions come from. They come from our spirit. Some people understand this and through this understand the universe. Most do not understand and remain ignorant and stumble through life reacting to situations they feel are out of their control. People who understand the spiritual aspect of existance and the universe create their situations and have full control of their lives. This understanding stems from thousands of years of spirituality.
It also has been surpressed for a long time to keep people ignorant and therefore controlled.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Of course everyone has emotions. Even the most hard-core mathematician, while working on mathematics, has emotions, and these emotions have an effect on mathematical thinking.
You are quite right about that. There are people who believe mathematicians act as emotionless calculators when they are working - that's just plain wrong.
We know where a lot of our emotions come from - body and brain chemistry play a big role, we can detect that.
Think adrenaline, testosterone, natural opiates that the body produces, probably estrogen. Think blood sugar level - people have different emotions when they are hungry. All these chemicals, hormones mostly but not exclusively, affect how people feel. They also affect how a person thinks. What we call rational thought changes depending changes in such chemicals.
Spiritis not a very precise term. It sometimes means something immaterial, separate from the physical body. Often that immaterial thing has connections, or is part of, supernatural beings.
But certainly a lot of the chemical I mentioned simply are generated by the body (including the brain). Surely we don't need another plane of existence to tell us we are hungry, or that we are in pain.
So at least some emotions come from this world, from inside out physical (chemical mostly) body. Some emotions come from memories of past emotional situations. Some emotions come from imagined, but impossible, emotional situations - people get emotional watching movies.
Of course a person does not have to know how emotions are generated in order to recognize their own emotions. In order to control an emotion, or to intelligently use one's own emotion, does not require knowing how the emotion is produced. Be it brain chemistry or an evil spirit, the effects of being angry on our behaviour are the same.
I disagree that being in perfect harmony with these sorts of things, however we do that, means that we are in control of our lives. For example, fully understanding the spiritual aspect of existence will not prevent a tree from falling on you. It will not prevent bad weather, or being infected by disease.
Simply accepting everything that the physical world throws at us (nevermind people with bad intentions) is not being in control of one's life.
My lengthy point (sorry) here is that science can help with a lot of the things that our spirit helps us with. If done right of course.
But even people who don't like science because it can be abused to do harm have to admit - the human spirit is equally abused.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
but being hungry is not an emotion, it may lead to emotional feelings if not dealt with. As far as chemicals in the body creating emotions it can be said that this is the effect of the emotional spirit driving the release of the chemicals. If we are all made of the same stuff,eg:bone, blood, chemicals and so on, then what makes us different from each other? this could be spirit or soul. We have yet to fully understand this. But to just rely on science and physical matter to answer this, we may never find an answer. To open the door to possibilities of a spirit or soul could help us to understand it better.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
You know this one:
yes it can be said, but for some of the more common chemicals (testosterone, estrogen, adrenalin), saying that is really far fetched.
Someone say "BUH" and the adrenalin is released by the spirit? Let's be a little more real.
I think our understanding of where the limit is between what comes from the physical, biological body, versus what comes from the spirit, that limit is very fuzzy. We just don't know.
There are those who say everything comes from the physical body. There are those who say everything comes from the spirit world.
We physically are made of the same stuff. Just in different configurations, and with different interactions.
You say
That is very true. But then again, we may get closer if we keep trying. If we don't try, we won't get any closer.
I still say that with spiritualism (a very vague term, I admit), we have not gotten closer in a long time. As Oz says, we may have forgotten many things.
Richard said something, he thought he mis-spoke, but together we came up with something like this as one small insight (I forget the exact wording):
If you know something is impossible, then it will be impossible for you.
Science is not all-powerful, for sure. But it can do more than we know at this time.
On the other side - even those who don't believe in the spirit world in the slightest are well advised to study what the believers say about it.
Even if it is all wrong - we can learn from others' mistakes.
Some wild extrapolation:
Suppose we really could make an android that has emotions, and insight, and creativity like humans. At this time of course we don't know how to do that. But suppose someone does it, and we know exactly how it works.
I bet you 1 million to 1 that most people will still believe that the android gets the insight from a spiritual plane.
Oh well, we will just have to see what will develop.
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No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
this is one of your best posts ever. I do know that a lot of what we have just talked about is non tangable. We can't see it or touch it but some can feel it and the effects.
Anyway, with a melding of science and spiritual we may find the answer one day. A long way off I feel.
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
"Spirituality" is way too general to be meaningful. For the most part, these types of experiences are subjective. A few researchers like Rick Strassman at U. of New Mexico have tried to quantify the DMT experience, for instance, and I am sure there are others doing psi research. I am thinking of the random number generators spread around the planet to gauge periods of non-randomness, like a few hours prior to 9/11. http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
A full spiritual understanding of the universe could be far more important than that of a technological understanding.
All beliefs and understandings should be met with equal opportunity and tolerance, they all have a place to mould our future. Each being as important as the other.
I fully agree. Our culture is too science-centric.
www.theorionzone.com
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Hi Floppy,
I dont have much time to comment at the mo. I like your points though. I would just like to ask a quick question. I'd be interested to know which 10% you consider to be observed and confirmed? I'm not being pedantic, but would honestly be interested to see what people accept to be the confirmed ones.
Daydreamer
1 May 2004
2 days 5 hours
you put me on the spot here. I was thinking along the lines of.......friction causes heat. Gravity is constant(although we know not what it is). In all fairness, science has been good to us but it really needs to break out of it's dogma.
Soon I hope. I was only generalising and I know you know what I meant. cheers;-{P
"Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told."
LRF.
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Thanks Floppy,
I got your generalisation ;) I'm quite interested in what different people will accept and what they wont, its all pretty interesting. Of course we have to say that nothing is proven so there is plenty of leeway to have fun.
I remember reading the first time about what causes friction and why it creates heat, it was such a simple thing to me as a kid that i hadnt even questioned it. It came back to me when i read the Hitchhikers Guide with the frictionless ship. What would it be like to touch something frictionless?!
I'm keeping my eyes on the large hadron accelerator. If it finds this mysterious Higgs particle then it will answer alot of questions about mass, from mass we can get to gravity and from gravity we have a window on time. From time we have a window on a part of the universes construction. So the LHC is going to be pretty important, if your into that sort of thing. Hopefully it will also shine some light on whether gravity is leaking into other dimensions. If all that can be verified we will at least have some more concepts about gravity to discuss.
5 July 2009
2 years 31 weeks
Mayan Kings were Kings of the Galaxy. Mayan Kings hold a representation of the "bar" of our Galaxy in their stella. It is always held at the same angle as well.
The Long Count .. ending in 2012 was made at Izapa, this is a good piece of work to track down and read (I do not have the name of the book, sorry.). This new calendar was then made "the norm" for all of South America.
If .. IF .. our astronomers knew what was so very significant of the date which is the start date of the Long Count .. maybe we would understand this better.
This same number comes up in Sumeria, from the Library of Ashurbanipal ... and it is a very, very large number called the ??? constant. A related item? .. I think so.
We are a race with our DNA turned off in certain critical areas, and our minds erased .. where can we find the footing to say that others before us were uninformed?
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"The adze of folklore is a vampiric being described in tales of the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo. It has the form of a firefly, though will transform into human shape if captured. It feeds on coconut water, palm oil and blood. It hunts children."
10 August 2004
6 hours 8 min
I think the book you are referring to may be "Maya Cosmogenesis 2012" by John Major Jenkins.
The enormous Sumerian figure you mentioned is called the "Nineveh constant" - I don't know if there is any connection between that and the Mayan long count.
Regards, Kathrinn
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Rick MG, I never said that, and I don't have that attitude.
And you know that.
I have written many posts that show my respect of ancient cultures.
I still say that the Mayan astronomers had no way of predicting a supernova. You can't do that by observing cycles and apparent motion, the information is not in there. A star exploding as a supernova stays in the same place, so it has the same apparent motion as before. There are no cycles to exploding stars, it is a one time event.
As for the Mayan astronomers, their patience and accuracy could not get them over the speed of light problem. That is the key here - they had less information than we have, and not because we have computers.
Unless of course we were to assume that they saw Betelgeuse as it was when they looked at it, which they did not. Today we see the star as it was 640 years ago. 640 years ago, we (including the Maya) saw it as it was 1280 years ago.
Unless we assume that the speed of light for the Maya was different from anyone else's, which is very unlikely.
Or unless a von Däniken style proposal is right, that the Maya knew someone who had a way around the speed of light.
Which leads me to a theory that I don't believe: some cosmic event (supernova or something like that) will do us in come 2012, the Mayans knew this. But not because the Mayans observed this. Instead because they were visited by eyewitnesses who just barely escaped.
But this explanation indeed does disrespect the Maya - it presumes that they didn't come up with their accurate astronomy by themselves. It presumes that some advanced people told them. And I find that very unlikely.
PS:
I wrote this before reading the other reply to Rick MG.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
5 July 2009
2 years 31 weeks
IMVHO "light speed delimitation" is a concept thrown out at novice minds by upper level minds to see if they are at a certain level of knowledge or not! .. Like the central dogma that reverse transcription is impossible. Guess that is now false.
I refer you to a most amazing book "The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls" by Tom Morton and ceri Louise Thomas ..
The part about Max is good, but what is more enlightening is the Sacred Oral Traditions of Native Americans (not out of Africa DNA) which were revealed to the authors. You can read it in a day and a half, do yourself a favor. It was a paradigm changer for me!
The Maya are from the Sirius System, they will tell you themselves they have relatives there -- whom they pray for!
Mitch Battros has the Earl of Don Carlos the Elder and the leader of the lighting of the Fires for the New Age .. perhaps there is more confirmation to be found from there?
http://www.earthchangesmedia.com/
Their Quantum Sheet Altering drug, the Vine of Souls brings you to the realm of the giant snakes! ...
Are these the same serpents which are on the hats of the bull in the Raimondi Steele? Neters of the Chakras for the embryo of Orion (My Facebook Photos Here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=18...)
Raimondi Stela here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raimondi_Stela_(Chavin_de_Huantar).png
"The adze of folklore is a vampiric being described in tales of the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo. It has the form of a firefly, though will transform into human shape if captured. It feeds on coconut water, palm oil and blood. It hunts children."
1 May 2004
1 year 15 weeks
You don't need to know if you are given the information.
On the other hand, I feel that lots of problems related to concepts such as the Mayan calandar arise from human habit of making projections and suppositions based on what they interpret of whatever data they get.
And that problem grows exponentially within the realm of mysticism.
The Mayan calendar encompassed what has been called human devolution. Nothing more. It addresses nothing passed that line. For the Mayans, what happened after that point was pointless, a bit like the initial reaction of many scientists when they concluded that it whatever happened before a so called 'Big-bang' was irrelevant to us and did not require any discussion. For the Mayan, what lied beyond the event horizon of the end of their calender was like scientists probing behind the event horizon of creation.
All this to say that the Mayan calendar concerned the human race, not the universe, and now we have all sorts of neo-mystical movements grasping at this and trying to recuperate the calendar to their own needs and projections.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Of course that is a valid take on the Mayan thought process: they may have seen negative changes happen, correlated those with astronomical observations. That can result in astrology of sorts. And if they believed there must be a negative trend, they could have interpreted into the data, then came up with 2012 as the final year. Safely in the future, so that in their day it not be contradicted.
That sort of thing has been common before, and still is common today - preach the inevitablity of doom, so that the population keeps following orders.
Yes what you describe makes sense, it is at least plausible.
I was just originally commenting on the supernova interpretation - that is surely not plausible, unless someone has gotten past the speed of light problem, or developed time travel. Both of those seem very unlikely, and in fact both of those make the Maya look like mere students, at best.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
12 April 2007
4 min 23 sec
It is one thing to predict with incredible accuracy the cycles of the planets and local celestial events like eclipses. To predict a nova is several orders of magnitude different.
Unless that, like it's been discussed, the Mayas had other means to acquire that knowledge. For example, how did the African Dogon know about Sirius B?
So maybe someone came and gave them that tip. Or maybe the Mayas (or at least some among them) had a very different way to use their brain, through the use of power plants and the like.
Because, if they knew how to calculate Novas through meer observation alone, then that would mean —at least to me— that they did the observing not for thousands of years, but for tenths of thousands of years, and that lead us to other dead-end alleys, doesn't it?
I'm no expert on the so-called Mayan Prophecy, but I do remember that one of the conceps is that a potent burst of energy from the galactic core would reach the sun, which would then release its own burst of energy toward us. Kind of like cosmic dominoes, don't you think?
But, given the limitations of light speed and all that, the galactic burst should have been received by our sun already. Now, I'm not in the mood to search for it —it's Saturday, you guys!— but I'm pretty certain that our astronomers have already detected an unexplained surge in cosmic rays several years ago; maybe browsing through astronomy-related websites would yield an answer.
Because, if Betelgeuse goes Nova in 2012, like Earthling points out, then we will be fine for at least a couple of centuries more. Of course, if I remember my Einsein correctly, then the star has already exploded, only that its light hasn't yet reached us. Could it be that there are some form of enery aside from the normal visible side of the electromagnetic spectrum that could travel faster and reach us in time?
Or maybe the Nova will simple be a sign in the sky. Just like a comet was seen as a herald of catastrophies, yet they were not really tied to the evens they apparently warned about. A comet seen by Moctezuma II didn't brought the Spanish conquerors to the Mexican beaches; they came here by boat. But that doesn't change the fact that Moctezuma saw a comet.
Since I'm aware that nothing I wrote makes any sense, I will finish my post with the only recommendation I can give re. 2012: We'll see :-/
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
Unless that, like it's been discussed, the Mayas had other means to acquire that knowledge. For example, how did the African Dogon know about Sirius B?
So maybe someone came and gave them that tip. Or maybe the Mayas (or at least some among them) had a very different way to use their brain, through the use of power plants and the like.
red pill junkie,
That's exactly what I am thinking re. this Betelgeuse problem. I'm not implying, like Robert Temple does, the ET connection (though he seems recently to be backpedaling on this). I think the Maya were/are the masters of time (time travel?) whereas the Hopi are the masters of space (ceremonial purity to keep the Earth in balance).
Of course, this whole matter is speculative, and some debunkers feel superior if they can discount an issue on that merit alone. The best course is, as you said, wait and see...
Gary
www.theorionzone.com
12 April 2007
4 min 23 sec
I think that one major problem we have, when trying to study or comprehend ancient cultures, is that we tend to assume that their thought processes were the same as ours. That their idea of individuality was the same.
What if it was not? What if they had a way to interpret the world that was different than ours?
I admit that I don't see a way around this problem for the moment.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
earthing,
Touché on my mispelling of fallacy. You're right that cyberporn is BIG business.
I guess you didn't read my article very closely.
You wrote: "If indeed the star goes supernova in 2012, we have nothing to worry about for another 600 years or so."
I am saying that Betelgeuse may have gone supernova in either 1582 or 1372, depending on what the actual light-year distance from us is. It will just arrive in 2012, and that's possibly why the calendar ends then.
Are you still living in the Newtonian universe, earthling?
Gary David
www.theorionzone.com
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
What does Newton have to do with this?
Relativistic physics is not enough to predict a supernova by observation of the cycles and irregularities of the earth and solar system orbits, which is all that astrology does.
I am saying that the Maya predicting this particular one is extremely unlikely, unless you assume that they had methods considerably superior to ours. Such as being visited and officially contacted by someone travelling faster than light, or getting information faster than light, or time travel. Or magic of some sort. Or much better astrophysics and better instruments than we have.
I spent a few minutes looking up Betelgeuse. Apparently a gamma ray burst would not hit us, assuming the current theory of these events is correct. The reason for this is that these bursts are narrow beams coming out of the rotational poles of the nova, and the rotational axis is not pointing at us. I'm not sure how proven the whole gamma ray burst theory is.
The particles ejected from the explosion would take longer to get here (if it does at all), and would be seriously dissipated when it does arrive.
Oh, a thought about Newtonian physics: it does not assume that nothing can go faster than light.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
I am saying that the Maya predicting this particular one is extremely unlikely, unless you assume that they had methods considerably superior to ours. Such as being visited and officially contacted by someone travelling faster than light, or getting information faster than light, or time travel.
Just because we haven't yet cracked the time travel nut, doesn't mean that other cultures in the past didn't. You don't necessarily need a "time machine" to time travel.
Gary David
www.theorionzone.com
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Just because we haven't yet cracked the time travel nut, doesn't mean that other cultures in the past didn't. You don't necessarily need a "time machine" to time travel.
True. But there is not no evidence that the Maya could achieve this, only that they kept track of time, and could predict the apparent motion of sun, moon, planets and stars.
One thing we can be pretty sure of is that they didn't use methods considered theoretically possible in modern physics, because you need too much energy. Or you need space travel to find wormholes and such. No, they certainly didn't do it that way.
Did they do it using their minds with the help of drugs? The problem with mind altering stuff is that most visions and predictions made this way are complete nonsense. So whatever correct predictions arrive at this way are highly subject - how can you tell the correct ones from the nonsense? And are the correct ones correct because a part of the future was found/seen/heard/felt, or by accident?
----
It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
Rick,
I find it particuarly compelling that the Maya associated the red dragonfly (literally Betelgeuse) with Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl) and his return at the end of the cycle. There are of course many other red stars in the sky (e.g. Aldebaran, Antares, etc.) but they wanted to focus on this particular star in Orion.
Have a little Japanese food for me, next time you're at Aka Tombo. :-)
www.theorionzone.com
12 April 2007
4 min 23 sec
Whaddayaknow? Our friends in Estimate of the Situation have just written a post about the very same subject our homie Oz is warning us about.
So maybe Betelgeuse goes nova on 2012 (from Earth's perspective a least). And 640 years later the earth turns into a giant popcorn because of the massive burst of gamma rays mitted by the star in its last fart. Some of our descendants who make it out in time might then be able to say that 2012 was the beginning of the end of the Earth. Was that what the Mayas were trying to say?
Damn those Spanish priests who burned up all their books!
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
30 April 2004
17 weeks 4 days
RPJ,
So maybe Betelgeuse goes nova on 2012 (from Earth's perspective a least). And 640 years later the earth turns into a giant popcorn because of the massive burst of gamma rays mitted by the star in its last fart. Some of our descendants who make it out in time might then be able to say that 2012 was the beginning of the end of the Earth. Was that what the Mayas were trying to say?
Damn those Spanish priests who burned up all their books!
My hypothesis is: the event already happened, either in 1582, when Pope Gregory instituted the Gregorian calendar, or 1372, the beginning of the brutal Aztec regime.
Science, in all our gizmo-wisdom, hasn't quite figured out the exact light-year distance to the "red dragonfly."
I do hope Bishop Landa et al. are roasting in their own karmic hell for those book burnings.
Gary
www.theorionzone.com