Tag: science

  • Why Time Travel is Probably Not Possible

    The concept of time travel, in my opinion, is more a desire founded in the weakness of us because of our collective regret over missed opportunities rather than a practical and needed solution to any of mankind’s ills. We struggle to live in  the present, to be conscious, and to be grounded because of the constant distraction of what we have yet to do or achieve, which makes it quite ironical that one of those distractions is our pursuit of the ability to travel back in time so that we can right the wrongs we spawned when wondering about some other time or place.

    The more I contemplate the concept of time travel from a purely logical perspective, the less likely the possibility of achieving it appears to be. There are a number of theories that abound by respected scientists that suggest that it is physically possible, but they remain theories, and hence what prompted me to develop my own theories to disprove this misconception that serves as nothing more than a fairy tale.

    I find it difficult to believe that we’ll ever be able to travel faster than instantaneous. What I mean is, we may be able to break barrier of the speed of light, but in doing so, we will only ever get as close as is humanly possible to moving from one place to another in an instant, or moment, or split second, however you wish to measure it; but we’ll never get there before we’ve left our point of departure.

    The entire concept of the speed of light being the holy grail for time travel is mistaken. We assume that simply because the light reflected off an object has not reached us yet, it means that it exists in a different dimension. It doesn’t. The fact that the light is still en route does not change the fact that the object is still physically in the same location. Stated differently, if I were to accelerate faster than the speed of light, chances are that I will find myself in a place of darkness because the light that I left behind is still catching up with me. Imagine the disappointment on the face of the man that eventually breaks the speed of light only to find himself bumping into objects that he can’t see because the light reflected off them has not reached him yet?

    In fact, even in that scenario there are flaws. That would assume that the objects whose reflected light can no longer be seen are all located in close proximity to the origin of his travels. Think about it this way. If I were to travel faster than the speed of light in a horizontal direction, only light emanating from sources in a similar trajectory (so to speak) would be left behind. However, and light traveling vertically would still reach me because I would be crossing their paths and not traveling away from them. So in order for me to reach that point of darkness, I would need to be traveling away from every light source in every direction simultaneously, or else I’ll always be crashing into other light sources.

    That all sounds really complicated so perhaps here is an easier way to explain my point of view. Traveling faster than the speed of light will only make me outrun the light itself, and will not make me travel through time, since time itself is not even measured by the presence or quantity of light. Time is simply a constructed unit of measure that is independent of our definition of it. We could call it 50 other names and define 100 different units of measure to measure it as opposed to the standard seconds, minutes, hours, days, and so on, but it would not change the very essence of time itself.

    Whether or not the light of an object is visible does not stop the entropy experienced by the object. In other words, I won’t remain forever young if I simply lived in a dark room all my life. So the fact that the light that should otherwise be reflected from my body is not visible, does not make me absent. It simply makes me out of sight but still present. So this entire focus on the speed of light to make time travel possible is simply absurd. We measure changes by the elapsed time of the event. We improve our productivity by more meaningfully using the time we have available. And then we delude ourselves into believing that we’re getting better at time management, when in fact we’re getting better at managing our lethargy and procrastination.

    Time is not what we need to conquer, but rather ourselves, our arrogance, and our pride that suggests that we’re so powerful and infinitely resourceful that we have the wit, the intelligence, and the capability to conquer any physical construct we find in our path. Time is not physical. It is not a liquid, a gas, a solid, or any other variation of matter in between. In fact, it’s not even matter, and doesn’t matter either. It’s the actions we do in the moments that pass that determine how well those moments were spent. When we lose sight of that, we end up trying to find ways to escape the reality of death by believing that we are capable of cheating it, starting yet another cycle of lethargy and procrastination to do that which matters, while falsely assuming that we’re engaged in endeavours that will improve the quality of life of mankind.

  • The Failure of Modern Medicine

    My biggest contention with modern medicine is that it provides, at best, a good intervention strategy but rarely encourages a wholesome approach to good health. I believe that the key deficiency in their approach is the fact that they start out with the assumption that there is no soul. This isn’t as ludicrous an observation as it may appear to be.

    For those of us that believe we have a soul which is interdependent with our physical form, we believe that the soul is the seat of intelligence, while the body is the seat of desire, or physical needs, so to speak. So what we think causes us to influence our physical form in ways that we’re still unravelling. The problem with modern medicine therefore is that they only study the effect of that thought independent of the thought itself, which leaves them believing that the symptom is in fact the root cause.

    Allow me to explain. When we consider chemical balances or imbalances, we automatically assume that the current state of the chemicals is what gives rise to certain behavioural tendencies. For example, when we have a high level of serotonin, we assume that the person is predisposed to being happy, while those with a low level of serotonin are assumed to be predisposed towards depression or stress. This is a very simplistic example that could probably be argued from various technical perspectives, but the point I’m trying to make is that we look at the current physical state and assume that to be a marker of the mental state, when in fact the reverse is true. The physical state is the symptom of the mental state, and not the other way around.

    I often feel anxious and frustrated when I think about how much more effective modern approaches to health would be if they just stopped being pigheaded about their insistence that nothing is true unless scientifically proven, instantly rendering the wisdom of the ages of holistic health remedies irrelevant simply because the remedies were not derived using present-day research methods.

    I have this recurring scenario that plays out in my mind each time I think of this where someone from a land that has never been contaminated with technology hears a human voice being projected out of a device that has no physical connection to anything or anyone and therefore assumes that some sort of magic is being used to do so, not realising that it’s simply a battery powered radio. Such is the nature of the most brilliant minds in the scientific research communities that because they have yet to find a way to harness, measure, or accurately observe what is commonly referred to as the paranormal, they view it with cynicism despite not having the answers.

    I guess the point I’m trying to make is that when we find someone in a state of emotional stress, or even physical duress, unless there is a physical defect present, it is most probable that the cause of it is an imbalance between what they desire and what they believe they are allowed to have. I’ve often seen that people with severe stress at the office usually end up in such a state because their jobs demand that they behave or produce work that conflicts with their value system. The same is true in life. When we try to control those things that fall outside our sphere of influence rather than accepting it for what it is, we end up feeling persecuted in ways that rarely occur to us in our conscious mind.

    The worst fallacy in modern medicine has to be its insistence that we are a victim of the chemical make-up of our physical forms, rather than appreciating that there is a seat of intelligence that exists alongside the physical form that they so painstakingly study. It’s like the ridiculous assumption that the Greeks made when they believed that our eyes emitted beams of light that allowed us to see, failing to understand that what our eyes observed was merely what existed external to ourselves. Similarly, the body is a vessel that harbours the soul, and therefore is used to express the desires and needs of that soul. When we fool ourselves into believing that that physical form is what dictates the health of our emotional state, that is when we become victims to our circumstances and effectively give up our ability to choose and think intelligently.

  • That Thing Called Free Will

    It occurred to me tonight that it is entirely in the interests of atheists to discount, or at least attempt to disprove the reality of free will. In the absence of free will, it’s easy to argue that our actions and decisions are nothing more than elaborate sequences of instinctive behaviour hard wired into our brains. The more we experience, the greater our ability to present individuality because of the increased variables that influence our behaviour.

    However, such a theory falls far short of explaining the reason why we are able to actively and consciously choose between multiple outcomes of equal benefit. It also fails to address the reason behind us being able to consciously act against our instinctive responses. In fact, in the absence of free will, can we even claim to be conscious beings? Being conscious, being aware, being lucid all imply that there is an intelligence that allows us to acquire, grasp, and process information, and then do something meaningful, or at the least, something deliberate with that information. Even choosing not to act when action is prompted is further proof of this free will that we have.

    In considering all this, I find it somewhat amusing that many, especially atheists who pride themselves in being scientifically grounded, find it necessary to first prove that we have free will through scientific means despite the evidence that we live out on a daily basis that confirms our ability to choose independent of instinct.

    It reminds me of the ridiculous approach that we take towards life and health these days. For centuries we’ve known that chicken soup is healthy and aids in our recovery from cold or flu symptoms. Yet it was denounced by the ‘scientifically adept’ community of health professionals because no scientist took the time to understand and therefore prove the benefit that it provides. Don’t believe me? Read this. Yet if I were to take every atheist and scientist seriously, I’d have to discard the wisdom of the ages that was not grounded in scientific research, and wait patiently for them to come up with remedies that actually deal with the root causes of illnesses rather than their creative ways of dealing with the symptoms instead.

    Atheists, in all my discussions with them to date, have proven to be extremely myopic in their view of the world. They insist that their independence of religious dogma (which can also be argued to be a false notion of theirs) raises them above the ‘sheep’ that subscribe to theistic scriptures and principles. If I were to take the example of the chicken soup a step further, such a simple matter that took scientists possibly millennia to figure out benefited millions of people in the meantime. How? Through simple observation and common sense. So to apply this to the concept of creation, and therefore a creator, why should I abandon my belief system in there being a god until such time as some scientist in a distant time and place is able to confirm what I knew all along through simple observation and common sense?

    It simply doesn’t make sense, does it? The atheistic mind set that is. Abandon all knowledge unless scientifically proven and acquired, and collaborate with your peers to determine what is best for society because morality has no divine basis. The argument is so flawed that it’s almost entirely ludicrous.

    Oh, in my ramblings I forgot to make the point I started out trying to make. Why is it convenient for atheists to discount free will? Simple. If we have free will, it implies intelligent design. Intelligent design implies intelligent creation. And, you guessed it, intelligent creation implies an intelligent creator. It all flies in the face of the parts of the theories of evolution that suggests that we simply evolved into intelligent beings after originating from a single celled amoeba, or some crock like that. Even that single celled amoeba has a specific function and purpose, and I challenge any atheist to explain what cause an amoeba to be an amoeba. And when they explain that, I’d like to hear them explain what causes the cause of the amoeba to be an amoeba to be the cause of the cause of the amoeba. See how ridiculous infinite regression and the insane theories of causality can be?

    Yet atheists fancy themselves as being the only intelligent free thinking beings around. I beg to differ.

  • Wishful thinking…I wonder what’s so intelligent about observing symptoms of creation and then declaring that to be the source of intelligence and the purpose of life? It’s one thing to maintain a belief system, but entirely different to use it as a soap box from which to dismiss other belief systems. 

    I always wonder how prudent a use of time it is to spend your life seeking purpose and forgetting to live in the process? Perhaps some would argue that the search is in fact living in itself, and perhaps there is truth in that. But given that atheists firmly establish their belief system in science, and given that the foundations of science have recently been shaken to their core with the discovery that the speed of light is in fact not the limit that we thought it was, I wonder what implications that may have on the belief systems that are based on science?

    Seems rather convenient to suggest that theism is flawed because it can’t be proven when in fact atheism is just as theory-based. Big difference is that theism is capable of defining theories of existence that atheism was denying until they could prove scientifically that the theistic theories were actually true to begin with. The fact that those theistic theories were based on broadly accepted divine inspiration will always be conveniently overlooked. But the fact that the speed of light was based on one of the greatest scientists this side of the Ice Age and has now been proven to be incorrect as the basis for the theory of relativity will also be conveniently overlooked.

    But science is progressive, and must therefore be allowed the convenience of breaking its own rules in its search for the truth. It’s all just too convenient for me. Far too convenient to take the moral high ground as an atheist, dismiss the definitive influence that religion has had and continues to have on that same moral code, and then conjure up even more elaborate theories about how morality is independent of religion when a simple study of various cultures will confirm that morality is very definitely based on the religious customs of any community. 

    Reminds me of another post I wrote not too long ago on the subject of Atheism and Theism.

  • On Atheism and Theism

    This is a subject that has fascinated me for a long time, and will continue to do so for an even longer time. So when I came across this in a book that I’m reading (which is extremely rare for me, to read a book that is), I just couldn’t help myself but share it because of the eloquence in how it explains my perspective on the subject.

    “…the parable of the feeble-minded person who thinks that the light of the sun is the result of its rising, is like the parable of an ant which as it happened upon the surface of a sheet of paper, was endowed with reason and thereupon watched the movement in the process of writing, only to think that it was the work of the pen, but would not go beyond that to see the fingers, and behind the fingers the hand, and behind the hand the will which moves it, and behind the will a deliberate and an able scribe, and behind all, the Creator of the hand, and the ability, and the will. Most people do not look beyond the nearby and earthly causes and never arrive at the Cause of all causes.” ~ Imam Al-Ghazzali (The Book of Knowledge)

    The reason I’m so positively incensed about this is because recently I’ve been plagued with the arguments of science and religion on so many blogs. And the one thought that always lingers in my mind is that science will always be on the back foot because it is always an observation of what has been. Never will it be able to advise on what is to be, or why, only how. It will always be an observation after the fact, and never before, since it is aimed at establishing the knowledge of how everything relates to everything else.

    Anything before the fact is considered mere theory and therefore subject to change, interpretation or perspective. This does not imply that our ability to predict future events based on established relationships between different events or forces is not part of science. It is, but it is also entirely dependent on what is known, and will therefore always be a work in progress. Weather forecasting is a typical example of this.

    Therefore, in my mind at least, the belief in science as the ultimate pursuit of knowledge to define the purpose of our existence is inherently flawed. But this is just my opinion, and I suspect that I may be blissfully unaware of numerous refutations that have already been compiled in defense of science and atheism, of which I have no knowledge because of my aversion to read lengthy discourses about the philosophies of others.

    Am I naive, or perhaps ignorant? Am I over-simplifying a complex issue? Or does this perspective hold some merit?