



Visit my home on the internets:
Lunar Obverse
Where I talk about strip clubs, atheism, computers, and whatever else I wanna.
Did someone have a bit too much firewater to drink last night?
"Have you ever been to American wedding? Where is the vodka, where's marinated herring?" - GB
"And do the cats give a shit? No, they do not. Why? Because they're cats."-from The Onion
Originally Posted by Mia M
Check this out: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/j...su/powersof10/
And---to REALLY see the stars, you need to be way out in the middle of nowhere, away from the city lights. I've been camping in the desert and in the mountains, and at night you can see so many more stars than in the city. The Milky Way is AWESOME, but you can't even see it in the city.





The night sky is actually a big piece of black paper. Somewhere along the way, God poked holes in it.
Well, we know that isn't true, but when I was four and pondering this very question that was the answer that my Dad gave me.
And like a chump I bought it. Don't even give me started on what he told me for "Where do babies come from?"
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Former SCJ now in rehab.
I'm so into astronomy I don't want to anser this one.It's a very serious intense hobby for me.
I do want to add tho that one of the stars of the Orion constellation could supernova anytime.By anytime that means tomorrow or 100 years from now.It may have already but since it's 450 light years away the light hasn't gotten to us yet.If it gets to us during the day it'll still be visible and light up the entire sky.I think that's so cool.
I think everything about the Universe is cool tho.Everytime I look out at the stars all I can think about is what the Planets around them are like and what other life is out there is like.And no I not one of those who thinks they've been here,or that we've been visited
I like Tonight, Tonight! Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is one of the defining albums of my life, as I was 12 when it came out. I know Corgan feels me on this one. I have a deep love for the Smashing Pumpkins. I once laid in a bed with a boy and listened to every album they've ever made in chronological order.




I am just waiting for zxcire to wander over here....




For the record, I thought this was a beautiful thread idea.
Last edited by Lunarobverse; 03-12-2008 at 04:18 PM. Reason: Added "idea" because that's what I was going for originally.
Visit my home on the internets:
Lunar Obverse
Where I talk about strip clubs, atheism, computers, and whatever else I wanna.





So you can have sex in the outdoors on an inflatable matress with a pretty background....................... Or the hope that when this little rock is too small the best of us can move out and make somewhere else into a new home.![]()





"He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"





Some scientists say it is the understanding of the universe that brings out the true artistry of tongue via inspiration. Especially earlier ones like Newton who used science as way to get them closer to God.
Writing poems about mysteries isn't nearly as cool.
If I were to write a love poem to somebody, if I didn't know how, it would be the ramblings of a guy imagining how she is. But if I know her, I can extract lines about all her delicious qualities combining the impact of truthfulness and verse.
My favorite views of the stars was standing on the deck of the Bonhomme Richard, in the middle of the ocean, daydreaming that the love of my life was staring up at the same stars, sharing that moment with me, even though we had yet to meet at the time.
I doubt you're the only one who understands the chemical and physical properties of stars, Jay Zed.
It depends how you look at it.
There is a story of incredible depth, effort, and a burning desire to know that motivated humans to find out the truth about how our Universe works. No poet's efforts or commitment to the topic even comes remotely close to the passion and multiple life times of study that some have truly committed to trying to find out the truth of what is really out there.
I find that the scientific truth is often far more fascinating, and amazing than the human stories or poetries. The notion of "there are far more things in heaven than are dreamed of in our philosophies" applies.
Humans are capable of coming up with some fascinating ideas, but they are predictable, and limited by our imagination. There are ideas that humans would have never imagined had it not been for science that left them with no other choice, but to let go of human fantasy and accept that reality behaves in ways that no human in history had previously conceived of. Scientists are like poets to me, but unlike lone poets, they are accountable to each other and accountable for consistent results, and it's that accountability that pushes human knowledge beyond the limits of our imagination.





The "accountability" in institutionalized science is way overrated and mythical at other times.
My love is for the independent wacko who is ever-so-curious but was spurned by the Ivory Tower for his "wacky ideas".
The ones who give us commercially useful advances, the caffeine-fueled nerds, starring unblinkingly at code, the garage tinkerer who invents a better way to deliver fuel to a cylinder...mmmm
In some ways, I consider the arts a science. take the "art" of screen-writing. In a sense, it's a science to try and find the best ways to entertain via motion pictures.
Though it seems to be regressing quite a bit since Poetics
Is sculpture the science of extracting emotion from viewing chiseled marble?
Poets aren't in a vacuum either. There is probably more literary criticism around today than there ever was "peer review" for science.
Accountability, like all things is a gray scale from none to very much so. The difference is poets create poetry and are accountable to other poets. Nobody dies or is dramatically harmed by bad poetry. No lawsuits will be filed due to poetry that fails to measure up. Poetry is good stuff to read but it has little other accountable purpose. Products of science are dramatically far more likely to result in harm, or benefit; the stakes are many orders of magnitudes greater, and the accountability is generally higher as a result.
Poetry falls short in the areas of producing food; communications (like this one that makes these discussions possible); poetry doesn't produce printing presses making books possible for all; poetry doesn't warm us when we are cold or cool us when we are hot; it is not taking us off our planet to discover new worlds; it doesn't repair broken bones or kill viruses that kill us; it doesn't produce computers or cell phones or automobiles or entertainment devices we enjoy; the list of things poetry is limited too is immense.
Many people like myself get a much bigger emotional thrill out of reading science then we do poetry. This is more of social viewpoint then anything else. People in our society stereotype science as cold, when in fact many of it's greatest contributors were individuals of immense passion who spent their entire life's pursuing a small, but vitally useful piece of info that others then later built on. Science is a history of the sum being greater then the individual contribution, the parts.
Poetry is glamorized in our modern world by people that have modern things unheard of until recently. Poetry is a lot less glamorous in a world without those things. Poetry is much harder to enjoy when you are very hot or very cold; when you are very hungry; when you are in much pain and no science to relieve it; when there are no printing presses to print poetry for the masses; when travel is slow and difficult; when just finding food is an all day chore; when news takes days and weeks to communicate vs microseconds. Science has freed up a lot of time for us to have time to enjoy more entertainment, like poetry (as well as other forms of entertainment).
Why is the stars in the sky?
To light our dreams...
To sparkle in your eyes...
That we may know, in darkness there is hope.





I beg to differ.
To some, a warm heart is more important than a warm body. Emotional comfort is superior to "commercialism", etc. I don't necessarily agree, but it's a view held by a good chunk of people. Many claim a lot of those "scientific" advances are anti-useful, if not downright a cause for regression. Luddites are legion.
That is also a terribly wide definition of "science" as well. You basically have anything materially useful there as "science". You can also make the case that science is only useful because it helps us to spend more time writing and reading poetry by giving us more leisure time and easier ways to transmit our art.
It might be poetry and other literary works inspiring the pursuit of better ways to do things. Many scientists involved in spaceflight were motivated by reading Heinlein as a kid.
As far as effects on mankind...
Poetry has inspired racism, hatred, has been jingoistic, encouraged
imperialism, etc. Take works like "White Man's Burden" and similar war glorification(by accident in Kipling's case). Poetry has been a major aid in courtship, providing us with more humans, our most valuable resource.
I think the biggest problem in your post is that you can't really classify every material achievement as "science". That is far too vague to be useful. A lot of our knowledge came from people held up as "anti-scientific" until we entered the third stage of truth about their ideas. Most commercial advances have not been made by formal "scientists".
What about social science? Is that included in your definition of science?
The overriding point is that people can and have waxed poetic in their minds endlessly about the stars, but that requires no real commitment or accountability. What has pushed us further is people working together, holding each other accountable, to get out of our heads and into a reality we can all measure reliably.
I find the scientific explanation of the stars to be the far more heart warming one, and the far more amazing, because ultimately human imagination is limited, cold in the sense that is lifeless the same way stories involving puppets are lifeless. The real thing, the non-fantasy, is much more amazing and exciting to me then fantasy stories.
I also admire those who took the step to get out of the fantasy ideas into their heads, and had the courage to stand up in a peer group, prove their ideas to a degree that their ideas are repeatable, and have resulted in practical value.
Practical value is interesting for one reason - it is indicative that the knowledge has some relationship to the real world as it is, versus nothing but a story in our heads. Stories have a place, but the Universe is a story that amazes me far more then the stories that I read that fail the accountability test. Fantasy stories make magic in our heads, but not in real life. Science makes magical like things come true in real life.
As an aside... the old saying about the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill is a truth about human nature. The best way to find out how people really feel about the science they benefit from everyday is to look at their actions, not their words. It is easy to imagine that a world without science is a better world, but if they aren't living it, then it's just another fantasy in their heads, while the truth remains and is visible to all.
When we wake up to our house warmed by gas/electricity and lighted by electricity, to our alarm clocks, check our email, make our coffee in our coffee makers, turn on the radio while we shower, turn on the TV to catch up on the morning news, read our paper, hop in our automobiles, make a call on our cell phone, to set up an appointment for our MRI, to review our drugs, while we adjust our glasses to better see our SMS text message, flip on our satellite radio, driving over smooth paved roads, stopping for a train, flipping through our very detailed map of the city, checking our GPS, ... waxing poetic about a simpler time without these things, I think it's okay to say, yep, the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.
I love entertainment, including poetry of course, but to really get my heart racing, I love learning about the reality of the Universe that is even more than the fantasies we can dream up in our heads.
Yes, for the individual it is all the same. But there is a very real difference in terms of the bigger picture.
He who sees campfires in the sky (or spirits, or gods, or holes in black paper) leaves behind a world really no different when he dies. The next generation will wake up and ask the same questions, and come up with the very same types of explanations (more gods, more spirits, more fantasies).
But he who sees thermonuclear reactions and learns a small something about them, leaves behind a useful bit of knowledge that the next generation of people build on, ultimately leading humans to new discoveries and maybe eventually we will find ourselves on new worlds. Space travel and exploration, the stuff of pure sci-fi past, is already a reality.
I'm more thankful, and more impassioned by, those who left something useful behind for the future then I am of those who left behind a fantasy story (even if the story spawns a religion, an excellent entertainment, or a fantastic but false set of beliefs). Campfires in our heads are of course romantic, but real campfires are better still and lose none of their romantic appeal for me just because I know a little something about the science behind them.





Damn. How'd I miss a gem of a thread like this?!
Because there ain't no tits on the radio
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