Actually there's substantial evidence that, historically, almost all religious allegory was taken as allegory. In fact, if you ever have time to read the dryest, most insanely difficult to plow through book ever, read "Hamlet's Mill". It's a book about how huge numbers of our classic myths, legends, and religious stories may, in fact, be meticulous astronomical calculations and records, put into story form to prevent them from being forgotten.
This, as a response to someone commenting that Bible stories were once considered literally and only recently have been treated as allegory, seems only to make sense if I assume that you take "Hamlet's Mill" seriously and believe astronomical encoding to be the norm in mythology. You seem to be presenting it, in fact, as "substantial evidence" regarding whether an arbitrary myth was historically considered allegorical. I'm further assuming here that the first use of "allegory" in your first sentence should be "myths" and you didn't intend the apparent tautology. If either of these assumptions (or both!) are in error, I apologize for the lack of faith, but "Hamlet's Mill" is not the sort of recommendation that inspires a lot of faith.
IIRC, after Jesus died he spent a weekend in Hell before coming back and winding up in Heaven.
Really? Huh, I never actually thought about where he went after he died. Interesting, I'll have to bring this up next time I see my wife's menonite family. I'm sure they'll be quite pleased heh.
Actually there's substantial evidence that, historically, almost all religious allegory was taken as allegory. In fact, if you ever have time to read the dryest, most insanely difficult to plow through book ever, read "Hamlet's Mill". It's a book about how huge numbers of our classic myths, legends, and religious stories may, in fact, be meticulous astronomical calculations and records, put into story form to prevent them from being forgotten.
This, as a response to someone commenting that Bible stories were once considered literally and only recently have been treated as allegory, seems only to make sense if I assume that you take "Hamlet's Mill" seriously and believe astronomical encoding to be the norm in mythology. You seem to be presenting it, in fact, as "substantial evidence" regarding whether an arbitrary myth was historically considered allegorical. I'm further assuming here that the first use of "allegory" in your first sentence should be "myths" and you didn't intend the apparent tautology. If either of these assumptions (or both!) are in error, I apologize for the lack of faith, but "Hamlet's Mill" is not the sort of recommendation that inspires a lot of faith.
Did you ever actually read Hamlet's mill? If not, what do you believe are the theories which it espouses?
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I think one Gospel said he descended into hell, then went to heaven, and one said he went straight to heaven. I can't remember . . .
Regarding "did people take fables and myths literally" . . . I think it depends. In Native American stories, sometimes Coyote is an actual coyote, sometimes he's a human. Sometimes he's both in the same story. There are various versions of some myths, sometimes multiple creation myths in the same culture. So there's a fluidity there. Based on that, I'd say that--at least in some cultures--there was an acceptance that the story was the byproduct of the storyteller, who could alter it to make a better story. Not "this is the way it happened, the ONLY way, and I am telling you unalterable facts."
On the other hand--I've read about a Native American tribe who would flee up a particular mountain when their enemies were after them because they drew power from the mountain, and their enemies wouldn't dare follow. This wasn't a fable (the fleeing up the mountain part, that is), it seems to just be the plain truth--the other tribes feared the beings they thought lived on the mountain. Some Native Americans today believe that bears are literally the reincarnations of their relatives and won't shoot them.
The idea of myths being some elaborate system to track the stars seems really, really far-fetched. The common denominator is that they all spring from the human psyche . . . That's why there are similarities.
That being said, I read a book of old Indian (as in "from India") fables once and it was really striking how some of the morals were not at all what you'd find in western fables. The one that particularly stood out to me was one about how a couple had five daughters with speech impediments. The village matchmaker was coming to look them over and their parents told the girls firmly not to speak the entire time she was there. They told the matchmaker that the girls had sore throats, but the oldest girl forgot to keep silent and revealed her speech impediment at one point . . . According to the ethnographer who'd collected the story, this symbolized how the oldest daughter dashed the chances of the younger daughters (for marriage) through her flaws.
I found a lot of the fables in that book very unsatisfying from my western preconceptions of how a story "should" go.
So legends about someone eating or stealing the sun (or a light or creator god going away to hide at proscribed times) are not related to the tracking and prediction of eclipses, even if the years cited in the stories perfectly correspond with times when we know there were eclipses?
A story about someone swallowing the sun / fire could be inspired by an eclipse, sure. But the argument was that ALL fables / myths were an elaborate form of celestial record keeping.
I don't know where that argument came from. I think someone made it up earlier in the thread to argue against. My original statement was that I'd read a book that said a huge number of myths were based on astrological observations and calculations.
Mostly, it's a question of whether or not ancient man knew about the precision of the equinoxes. It's a simple phenomena, and any society that keeps astronomical records for more than a few centuries has a good chance of noticing it. Imagine a society notices that gemini rises over a specific mountain on the vernal equinox so they declare gemini the sky king. If that society still exists a thousand years later they may notice that now Gemini rises slightly to the left of the mountain on the vernal equinox and Taurus rises slightly to the right... clearly Gemini is on his way out and Taurus is on his way in. If they're around another thousand years later they'll see Taurus now rising over their sacred mountain on the equinox... maybe they'll declare a new sky king. They may tell a story about how Gemini was king until Taurus defeated him. (note: I'm pulling this description of the Precession out of nowhere, the specific constellations and directions may be incorrect).
Now imagine, and this is the next leap... that this society notices that logically, based on all this zodiacal movement, Pisces will be the next constellation to occupy the spot over the mountain. They make the connection, and predict Pisces will rule in the future. They now develop a story that talks about Gemini, then Taurus, then Pisces.
This is what Hamlet's mill is arguing is theoretically possible.
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I'm actually up to chapter three, 'The Iranian Parallel,' because I totally have a weakness for this sort of thing (I'm a huge Joseph Campbell fan, for instance). I'm finding it way more pleasurable than I was expecting, not too terribly cryptic, and I haven't read anything hugely objectionable yet. I'd been introduced to "Hamlet's Mill" before as basically "the worst thing ever written" by a friend who had a less positive experience than I am currently having.
I remain frankly hostile to the notion of a ~6k year old "advanced culture" whose astronomical advances are encoded in later cultures' myths, but now that I'm actually reading the text in question I'm less certain that this is really the thesis (unless it shows up later on, that is).
The more limited sense of "myths relate astronomical phenomena to time, and this is a recurring theme almost everywhere" seems totally uncontroversial and very interesting to me. Tracing something like "the Holy Bull" in Babylon forward to "Taurus" the astrological sign even seems pretty plausible. But trying to argue that the Mayan signs are the same - when they clearly aren't, and originated from a widely different tradition - smacks, to me, of ancient-Astronaut rubbish.
This may be at least partially my own biases speaking, though; when I've actually read this thing I'll have a better idea.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
The first third of that Zeitgeist movie goes a little bit into what ya'll are talking about:
A story about someone swallowing the sun / fire could be inspired by an eclipse, sure. But the argument was that ALL fables / myths were an elaborate form of celestial record keeping.
I don't know where that argument came from. I think someone made it up earlier in the thread to argue against. My original statement was that I'd read a book that said a huge number of myths were based on astrological observations and calculations. [/quote]
Yeah, I actually realized after I posted that that you hadn't said "all myths" and went back and editted my post (which also somehow grew into a huge wall o' text after I editted.) That was my bad.
Mostly, it's a question of whether or not ancient man knew about the precision of the equinoxes. It's a simple phenomena, and any society that keeps astronomical records for more than a few centuries has a good chance of noticing it. Imagine a society notices that gemini rises over a specific mountain on the vernal equinox so they declare gemini the sky king. If that society still exists a thousand years later they may notice that now Gemini rises slightly to the left of the mountain on the vernal equinox and Taurus rises slightly to the right... clearly Gemini is on his way out and Taurus is on his way in. If they're around another thousand years later they'll see Taurus now rising over their sacred mountain on the equinox... maybe they'll declare a new sky king. They may tell a story about how Gemini was king until Taurus defeated him. (note: I'm pulling this description of the Precession out of nowhere, the specific constellations and directions may be incorrect).
Now imagine, and this is the next leap... that this society notices that logically, based on all this zodiacal movement, Pisces will be the next constellation to occupy the spot over the mountain. They make the connection, and predict Pisces will rule in the future. They now develop a story that talks about Gemini, then Taurus, then Pisces.
This is what Hamlet's mill is arguing is theoretically possible.
It's theoretically possible, sure. But I see some pretty big flaws with it.
First, it assumes that all humans are going to be impressed by the heavens above all else. Now, most cultures have at least some stories about the sun, moon, and stars. What are they? How's they get there? Why does the moon wax and wane, why does the sun travel across the sky? Why do those ones (planets) not move like the rest of them? And so on.
But it's a big leap to go from that to "those stars are the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, let's base most of our fables on those." I mean, why would every culture do that? Why not based most of their fables on, say, water--a necessity for life that makes things grow? Or dirt. Everyone's standing on it, everything grows out of it, that's pretty important.
From a practical standpoint, it assumes the story can be handed down generation after generation without being altered. In a society that writes down stories, this is possible. Still not likely, in my opinion (unless they have a printing press too), but possible. In an oral tradition, it's impossible. It's just impossible. The gist of the story might remain the same, ie "this is about a princess on a glass hill who gets rescued by a knight", but the details are going to fluctuate. I read a book of Celtic and Irish legends years ago and there were SO MANY stories about someone in glass boots (sometimes a guy, sometimes a girl) doing this, that, and the other . . . Sometimes two stories were almost exactly the same, sometimes they were sort of the same, and sometimes they were really different. Imagine that this fable had started out as a way to accurately predict the occurance of some heavenly movement . . . If so, it must have failed miserably as it evolved and the details gradually changed. And I think that's completely typical for an orally transmitted story.
Also, a lot of cultures wouldn't have a lot of reason to care about specific heavenly movements (like hunter-gatherers and nomads. If you're planting seeds, you might judge when to plant by the stars, but if you aren't . . . so what if Jupiter is in the rising house? Either there's a deer in the woods to eat or there isn't.) BUT they still have fables and myths, and which are often similar to the fables and myths of other cultures.
I mean the argument is decent, but I simply don't care enough to look further into it.
If someone came to me and said, "Hey, look at all these common elements in these different religions. Three kings, virgin birth, born near the winter equinox . . . What do you make of it?", my response would be that a virgin birth shows the figure is significant (rare and unusual event--and it is worth noting there are a LOT of gods and heroes who had virgin births, not just the ones connected with the sun, December 25th, etc etc.) The sun--it gives light and heat, not unusual to make a god out of it. The winter equinox--the symbolic value of going from less and less light per day to more light every day (so I agree with the video on that one.)
Three kings, December 25th, dead three days, and all that other stuff? Yeah, what that says to me is "these people lived in close enough proximity that they picked up different bits of one another's religions and added them to their own."
It is worth noting that the number three is kind of a mystical number in western culture that shows up all the time. Three golden apples, three bears, three wishes, three stooges--erm, you get the idea.
I'm actually up to chapter three, 'The Iranian Parallel,' because I totally have a weakness for this sort of thing (I'm a huge Joseph Campbell fan, for instance). I'm finding it way more pleasurable than I was expecting, not too terribly cryptic, and I haven't read anything hugely objectionable yet. I'd been introduced to "Hamlet's Mill" before as basically "the worst thing ever written" by a friend who had a less positive experience than I am currently having.
I remain frankly hostile to the notion of a ~6k year old "advanced culture" whose astronomical advances are encoded in later cultures' myths, but now that I'm actually reading the text in question I'm less certain that this is really the thesis (unless it shows up later on, that is).
The more limited sense of "myths relate astronomical phenomena to time, and this is a recurring theme almost everywhere" seems totally uncontroversial and very interesting to me. Tracing something like "the Holy Bull" in Babylon forward to "Taurus" the astrological sign even seems pretty plausible. But trying to argue that the Mayan signs are the same - when they clearly aren't, and originated from a widely different tradition - smacks, to me, of ancient-Astronaut rubbish.
This may be at least partially my own biases speaking, though; when I've actually read this thing I'll have a better idea.
Haha yes if Hamlet's mill was about some 6000 year old crazy culture that influenced all the other cultures I'd be just as skeptical as you are. If there's a bit that says that it was obviously one of the bits I didn't understand.
I don't remember him arguing that the Mayans are the same, but like I said... mostly read the thing six years ago. I think he might argue that the Mayans also noticed the precession, which I wouldn't doubt because, as I've said, basically anyone who looks at the stars consistently for a few centuries and possesses a system of writing would be a fool not to notice it.
I'm glad that the source of the confusion on both our sides is cleared up now.
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Graham Hancock made something akin to the proto-culture claim in Fingerprints of the Gods.
He drew a lot of the same lines to get there, though. Cycles and circles in myths, repeated use of specific numbers across cultures, monuments that were built in alignment with celestial phenomena, etc.
Graham Hancock made something akin to the proto-culture claim in Fingerprints of the Gods.
He drew a lot of the same lines to get there, though. Cycles and circles in myths, repeated use of specific numbers across cultures, monuments that were built in alignment with celestial phenomena, etc.
Entertaining, but crazypants nonetheless.
Hancock isn't that accurate as i'd wish but he makes some important points. Uncommon, yes. Crazypants? No.
Well, considering the project was started 1987 and it practically in the neighbourhood, the thesis Earth is a big exception just took a serious blow. Of course it could just have been a incredible stroke of luck, but as always (Occam Razor) incredible strokes of luck are not to be expected (tough they happen admitably). Probability wise we are now talking about 20-30% stars with habitable worlds out there, because of the short timespan it took to find one and the vicinity (in cosmic dimensions a 300 year sub ligh trip is like "really close").
Gentelmen:
We have observed 1000000000000 (thats 12 times zero) galaxies.
Each single one, including our own is estimated to consist of 10000000000000 (thats 13 times zero) stars.
To suggest that 20-30% are habitable has... quite some impact.
Do the math.
Of course it could all be an incredible coincidence, but probability weighs against it.
This is a significant breaktrough. And that is why its called "a new age of discovery".
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
We will place the Gilseans in small reservations on undesirable pieces of land. It's worked before!
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
I also feel like there are some pretty important ethical issues involved with generation ships.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
I also feel like there are some pretty important ethical issues involved with generation ships.
Why? Parents already make their kids do all sorts of stupid shit. If people are OK with homeschoolers teaching their kids that the earth is 6000 years old, I'm pretty sure they'd be ok with birthing them on generation ships.
(the only ethical issue I can think of is one of consent, and obviously the adults starting the trip would be consenting.)
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
I also feel like there are some pretty important ethical issues involved with generation ships.
Why? Parents already make their kids do all sorts of stupid shit. If people are OK with homeschoolers teaching their kids that the earth is 6000 years old, I'm pretty sure they'd be ok with birthing them on generation ships.
No, seriously: if we're OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that isn't true, why wouldn't we be OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that IS true, namely: if you don't keep the ship working, you're all going to die.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
No, seriously: if we're OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that isn't true, why wouldn't we be OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that IS true, namely: if you don't keep the ship working, you're all going to die.
It's not so much the beliefs that are at issue as the physical consequences (I just can't imagine that, even if we could work out a self-sustaining city-ship, it would sustain people for the same sort of life expectancy/quality that earthbound life can). That said, sign me - and my progeny - up, live fast (like 0.6C) die young imo.
No, seriously: if we're OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that isn't true, why wouldn't we be OK with parents indoctrinating their kids to believe shit that IS true, namely: if you don't keep the ship working, you're all going to die.
It's not so much the beliefs that are at issue as the physical consequences (I just can't imagine that, even if we could work out a self-sustaining city-ship, it would sustain people for the same sort of life expectancy/quality that earthbound life can). That said, sign me - and my progeny - up, live fast (like 0.6C) die young imo.
People today are well within their rights to pack up their kids and move out of populated, civilized areas, and to teach those same kids whatever the hell they want about the outside world.
If it's ok to move away from healthcare and anything resembling safety, and to indoctrinate children, then going into space is hardly an issue.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
It's not so much the beliefs that are at issue as the physical consequences (I just can't imagine that, even if we could work out a self-sustaining city-ship, it would sustain people for the same sort of life expectancy/quality that earthbound life can). That said, sign me - and my progeny - up, live fast (like 0.6C) die young imo.
OK. But we don't consider it sufficiently unethical to stop someone from moving from a rich country to a poorer one just because they'll have kids one day and the quality of life of their children won't be as high as it could have been, or to stop adults from dropping out of university for the sake of their future children. So I just don't see a difference. Children are born into the circumstances of their parents, and the circumstances of parents are largely up to the parents themselves. Parents have to be pretty fucking bad before we actually take away their children or stop them from having them.
Anyhow. I'm pretty sure out of several billion people, we could find some who's children would only be better off from being born in a generation-ship than in their Earthen hell hole.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
We sent probes. You're shifting goal posts.
We sent probes, but we could send humans. Its just less hassle with robots. Not that expensive.
Also:
'The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 per cent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy.'
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
We sent probes. You're shifting goal posts.
We sent probes, but we could send humans. Its just less hassle with robots. Not that expensive.
It's not quite that simple. We didn't need to get Spirit or Opportunity out of Mars' gravity well again after we dropped them in there. It's a much more challenging engineering problem even than the already formidable one we dealt with when we got our Apollo folks back off the moon, because Mars is so much more massive. I'm absolutely confident that we could have had a bunch of round trips to go look at Mars from a comfortably distant orbit, but... why bother? The real goal, and the real challenge, is to physically set foot on another planet. That's almost certainly possible, but it remains sufficiently expensive that nobody has bothered yet.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
We sent probes. You're shifting goal posts.
We sent probes, but we could send humans. Its just less hassle with robots. Not that expensive.
You need more than some dismissive hand waving to send people to mars.
The biggest problem with generation ships is... generations. It's pretty damned difficult to sell people on a project that they won't live to see the benefit of. And that problem exists, even, with unmanned probes (which are of course the sane thing to be sending to Glise or wherever first). Even though the tech exists, and has existed for a while, no national space program (or nation) has the kind of patience to wait a hundred years for a mission that will probably be obsolete within a hundred years. It brings to mind Douglas Adams' description of war-fleets that get sent out by rival interstellar nations, passed by later war-fleets with better propulsion technology, then arrive at each others' respective bombed-out lifeless worlds and are left twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do.
EDIT: so yeah this thread is allegedly about how atheists are totally kickass, i dunno what it is about generation ships but I just completely forget whatever else I was talking about when they come up. Perhaps we should try to steer things back on track? Here, lemme start a good dozen pages worth of controversy:
Richard Dawkins, though occasionally tactless, is not in any way, shape, or form "militant" and in fact seems like a pretty chill dude.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Richard Dawkins, though occasionally tactless, is not in any way, shape, or form "militant" and in fact seems like a pretty chill dude.
He is a favorite target of self-satisfied moderates who think that splitting the difference is always the reasonable thing to do.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
It's not quite that simple. We didn't need to get Spirit or Opportunity out of Mars' gravity well again after we dropped them in there. It's a much more challenging engineering problem even than the already formidable one we dealt with when we got our Apollo folks back off the moon, because Mars is so much more massive. I'm absolutely confident that we could have had a bunch of round trips to go look at Mars from a comfortably distant orbit, but... why bother? The real goal, and the real challenge, is to physically set foot on another planet. That's almost certainly possible, but it remains sufficiently expensive that nobody has bothered yet.
I believe it will be substantially more practical if we get something like VASIMR working.
Because it provides acceleration over a nice long period it substantially reduces the amount of time taken to get to faraway places like Mars. The payload issue for getting on and off Mars is still there though - I've heard some murmurings of sending an unmanned mission first carrying spare boosters etc then sending the humans after.
It's not quite that simple. We didn't need to get Spirit or Opportunity out of Mars' gravity well again after we dropped them in there. It's a much more challenging engineering problem even than the already formidable one we dealt with when we got our Apollo folks back off the moon, because Mars is so much more massive. I'm absolutely confident that we could have had a bunch of round trips to go look at Mars from a comfortably distant orbit, but... why bother? The real goal, and the real challenge, is to physically set foot on another planet. That's almost certainly possible, but it remains sufficiently expensive that nobody has bothered yet.
We are talking about colonization. First the planet has to be probed, and if the data holds up you send colonists. This is not a trip to visit a neighbouring star system and return. Its about expanding the human race to another world. Takes roughly 600 years if we start soon. Considering stellar distances and sub light propulsion its really not that far.
The biggest problem with generation ships is... generations. It's pretty damned difficult to sell people on a project that they won't live to see the benefit of. And that problem exists, even, with unmanned probes (which are of course the sane thing to be sending to Glise or wherever first). Even though the tech exists, and has existed for a while, no national space program (or nation) has the kind of patience to wait a hundred years for a mission that will probably be obsolete within a hundred years. It brings to mind Douglas Adams' description of war-fleets that get sent out by rival interstellar nations, passed by later war-fleets with better propulsion technology, then arrive at each others' respective bombed-out lifeless worlds and are left twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do.
What benefit had the colonization of the american continent? We are extremely lucky to have such a promising candidate that close. All those years people estimated thousands or even millions of years travel at sub light speed. And now you act scared of a few hundred? LoL?
I assure you there are many people who are willing to make the trip. The only question is who will do it first. China? Russia? America? Europe? All united? Imagine: an entire world to colonize. I can't imagine any nation willingly being left out of that. I'd rather expect ships being sent with humans WITHOUT probing, cutting the trip short by 300 years to gain a headstart at the expense of possibly sacrificing a few lives. Being a pioneer always meant having courage and accepting unknown risks.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
What benefit had the colonization of the american continent?
God this is silly.
The colonization of the American continent(s) had immense political and economic impetus, from the relief of population pressures and religious tensions in Europe to the cultivation of tobacco, cotton, and sugar, and the concurrent plunder of vast resources of precious metals. There's a reason why it happened when it did: those pressure combined uniquely with developments that made it actually practical. Columbus wouldn't even have been able to get his expedition bankrolled had he not been able to convince the crown that he was going to find a faster way to the Asia and make them some fat loot. "For shits and giggles" was never the reason.
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
No its bloody not.
Generation Two would be so pissed.
"Wait... So, you mean I have to live my entire life in this tin can? Thanks dad..."
And Generation Three would probably be totally unequipped (mentally and physically) to deal with colonisation.
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This, as a response to someone commenting that Bible stories were once considered literally and only recently have been treated as allegory, seems only to make sense if I assume that you take "Hamlet's Mill" seriously and believe astronomical encoding to be the norm in mythology. You seem to be presenting it, in fact, as "substantial evidence" regarding whether an arbitrary myth was historically considered allegorical. I'm further assuming here that the first use of "allegory" in your first sentence should be "myths" and you didn't intend the apparent tautology. If either of these assumptions (or both!) are in error, I apologize for the lack of faith, but "Hamlet's Mill" is not the sort of recommendation that inspires a lot of faith.
Really? Huh, I never actually thought about where he went after he died. Interesting, I'll have to bring this up next time I see my wife's menonite family. I'm sure they'll be quite pleased heh.
Did you ever actually read Hamlet's mill? If not, what do you believe are the theories which it espouses?
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
Regarding "did people take fables and myths literally" . . . I think it depends. In Native American stories, sometimes Coyote is an actual coyote, sometimes he's a human. Sometimes he's both in the same story. There are various versions of some myths, sometimes multiple creation myths in the same culture. So there's a fluidity there. Based on that, I'd say that--at least in some cultures--there was an acceptance that the story was the byproduct of the storyteller, who could alter it to make a better story. Not "this is the way it happened, the ONLY way, and I am telling you unalterable facts."
On the other hand--I've read about a Native American tribe who would flee up a particular mountain when their enemies were after them because they drew power from the mountain, and their enemies wouldn't dare follow. This wasn't a fable (the fleeing up the mountain part, that is), it seems to just be the plain truth--the other tribes feared the beings they thought lived on the mountain. Some Native Americans today believe that bears are literally the reincarnations of their relatives and won't shoot them.
I don't know where that argument came from. I think someone made it up earlier in the thread to argue against. My original statement was that I'd read a book that said a huge number of myths were based on astrological observations and calculations.
Mostly, it's a question of whether or not ancient man knew about the precision of the equinoxes. It's a simple phenomena, and any society that keeps astronomical records for more than a few centuries has a good chance of noticing it. Imagine a society notices that gemini rises over a specific mountain on the vernal equinox so they declare gemini the sky king. If that society still exists a thousand years later they may notice that now Gemini rises slightly to the left of the mountain on the vernal equinox and Taurus rises slightly to the right... clearly Gemini is on his way out and Taurus is on his way in. If they're around another thousand years later they'll see Taurus now rising over their sacred mountain on the equinox... maybe they'll declare a new sky king. They may tell a story about how Gemini was king until Taurus defeated him. (note: I'm pulling this description of the Precession out of nowhere, the specific constellations and directions may be incorrect).
Now imagine, and this is the next leap... that this society notices that logically, based on all this zodiacal movement, Pisces will be the next constellation to occupy the spot over the mountain. They make the connection, and predict Pisces will rule in the future. They now develop a story that talks about Gemini, then Taurus, then Pisces.
This is what Hamlet's mill is arguing is theoretically possible.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
I remain frankly hostile to the notion of a ~6k year old "advanced culture" whose astronomical advances are encoded in later cultures' myths, but now that I'm actually reading the text in question I'm less certain that this is really the thesis (unless it shows up later on, that is).
The more limited sense of "myths relate astronomical phenomena to time, and this is a recurring theme almost everywhere" seems totally uncontroversial and very interesting to me. Tracing something like "the Holy Bull" in Babylon forward to "Taurus" the astrological sign even seems pretty plausible. But trying to argue that the Mayan signs are the same - when they clearly aren't, and originated from a widely different tradition - smacks, to me, of ancient-Astronaut rubbish.
This may be at least partially my own biases speaking, though; when I've actually read this thing I'll have a better idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw
I mean the argument is decent, but I simply don't care enough to look further into it.
I don't know where that argument came from. I think someone made it up earlier in the thread to argue against. My original statement was that I'd read a book that said a huge number of myths were based on astrological observations and calculations. [/quote]
Yeah, I actually realized after I posted that that you hadn't said "all myths" and went back and editted my post (which also somehow grew into a huge wall o' text after I editted.) That was my bad.
It's theoretically possible, sure. But I see some pretty big flaws with it.
First, it assumes that all humans are going to be impressed by the heavens above all else. Now, most cultures have at least some stories about the sun, moon, and stars. What are they? How's they get there? Why does the moon wax and wane, why does the sun travel across the sky? Why do those ones (planets) not move like the rest of them? And so on.
But it's a big leap to go from that to "those stars are the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, let's base most of our fables on those." I mean, why would every culture do that? Why not based most of their fables on, say, water--a necessity for life that makes things grow? Or dirt. Everyone's standing on it, everything grows out of it, that's pretty important.
From a practical standpoint, it assumes the story can be handed down generation after generation without being altered. In a society that writes down stories, this is possible. Still not likely, in my opinion (unless they have a printing press too), but possible. In an oral tradition, it's impossible. It's just impossible. The gist of the story might remain the same, ie "this is about a princess on a glass hill who gets rescued by a knight", but the details are going to fluctuate. I read a book of Celtic and Irish legends years ago and there were SO MANY stories about someone in glass boots (sometimes a guy, sometimes a girl) doing this, that, and the other . . . Sometimes two stories were almost exactly the same, sometimes they were sort of the same, and sometimes they were really different. Imagine that this fable had started out as a way to accurately predict the occurance of some heavenly movement . . . If so, it must have failed miserably as it evolved and the details gradually changed. And I think that's completely typical for an orally transmitted story.
Also, a lot of cultures wouldn't have a lot of reason to care about specific heavenly movements (like hunter-gatherers and nomads. If you're planting seeds, you might judge when to plant by the stars, but if you aren't . . . so what if Jupiter is in the rising house? Either there's a deer in the woods to eat or there isn't.) BUT they still have fables and myths, and which are often similar to the fables and myths of other cultures.
If someone came to me and said, "Hey, look at all these common elements in these different religions. Three kings, virgin birth, born near the winter equinox . . . What do you make of it?", my response would be that a virgin birth shows the figure is significant (rare and unusual event--and it is worth noting there are a LOT of gods and heroes who had virgin births, not just the ones connected with the sun, December 25th, etc etc.) The sun--it gives light and heat, not unusual to make a god out of it. The winter equinox--the symbolic value of going from less and less light per day to more light every day (so I agree with the video on that one.)
Three kings, December 25th, dead three days, and all that other stuff? Yeah, what that says to me is "these people lived in close enough proximity that they picked up different bits of one another's religions and added them to their own."
It is worth noting that the number three is kind of a mystical number in western culture that shows up all the time. Three golden apples, three bears, three wishes, three stooges--erm, you get the idea.
Careful, we all know where this kind of logic leads.
Haha yes if Hamlet's mill was about some 6000 year old crazy culture that influenced all the other cultures I'd be just as skeptical as you are. If there's a bit that says that it was obviously one of the bits I didn't understand.
I don't remember him arguing that the Mayans are the same, but like I said... mostly read the thing six years ago. I think he might argue that the Mayans also noticed the precession, which I wouldn't doubt because, as I've said, basically anyone who looks at the stars consistently for a few centuries and possesses a system of writing would be a fool not to notice it.
I'm glad that the source of the confusion on both our sides is cleared up now.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
He drew a lot of the same lines to get there, though. Cycles and circles in myths, repeated use of specific numbers across cultures, monuments that were built in alignment with celestial phenomena, etc.
Entertaining, but crazypants nonetheless.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Hancock isn't that accurate as i'd wish but he makes some important points. Uncommon, yes. Crazypants? No.
Would you like to see something really crazy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwNMg5JB_ic
Welcome to the new age of discovery wich begun THIS year. Last month, to be precise.
Gentelmen:
We have observed 1000000000000 (thats 12 times zero) galaxies.
Each single one, including our own is estimated to consist of 10000000000000 (thats 13 times zero) stars.
To suggest that 20-30% are habitable has... quite some impact.
Do the math.
Of course it could all be an incredible coincidence, but probability weighs against it.
This is a significant breaktrough. And that is why its called "a new age of discovery".
If we would build a generation ship, we could reach Gilse 581 g within three generations with sub light propulsion. That is quite practical. This world is ours for the taking... if not already inhabited.
We've found one 'good' exoplanet. Even it isn't perfect (it's tidally locked.)
That's about one in five hundred. Still really good odds, so far, but there's absolutely no reason to overstate things.
We will place the Gilseans in small reservations on undesirable pieces of land. It's worked before!
No its bloody not.
Carl Sagan would say it is
Then again he had silly notions
We can't reach mars yet. How do we think we can send a ship for 3 generations off into deep space to a planet we know little about?
I also feel like there are some pretty important ethical issues involved with generation ships.
Why? Parents already make their kids do all sorts of stupid shit. If people are OK with homeschoolers teaching their kids that the earth is 6000 years old, I'm pretty sure they'd be ok with birthing them on generation ships.
(the only ethical issue I can think of is one of consent, and obviously the adults starting the trip would be consenting.)
Your logic is flawless
We have. Spirit and Opportunity roam its surface. The trip took seven months.
It's not so much the beliefs that are at issue as the physical consequences (I just can't imagine that, even if we could work out a self-sustaining city-ship, it would sustain people for the same sort of life expectancy/quality that earthbound life can). That said, sign me - and my progeny - up, live fast (like 0.6C) die young imo.
If it's ok to move away from healthcare and anything resembling safety, and to indoctrinate children, then going into space is hardly an issue.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
We sent probes. You're shifting goal posts.
OK. But we don't consider it sufficiently unethical to stop someone from moving from a rich country to a poorer one just because they'll have kids one day and the quality of life of their children won't be as high as it could have been, or to stop adults from dropping out of university for the sake of their future children. So I just don't see a difference. Children are born into the circumstances of their parents, and the circumstances of parents are largely up to the parents themselves. Parents have to be pretty fucking bad before we actually take away their children or stop them from having them.
Anyhow. I'm pretty sure out of several billion people, we could find some who's children would only be better off from being born in a generation-ship than in their Earthen hell hole.
We sent probes, but we could send humans. Its just less hassle with robots. Not that expensive.
Also:
'The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 per cent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy.'
source:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316538/Gliese-581g-mystery-Scientist-spotted-mysterious-pulse-light-direction-newEarth-planet-year.html
It's not quite that simple. We didn't need to get Spirit or Opportunity out of Mars' gravity well again after we dropped them in there. It's a much more challenging engineering problem even than the already formidable one we dealt with when we got our Apollo folks back off the moon, because Mars is so much more massive. I'm absolutely confident that we could have had a bunch of round trips to go look at Mars from a comfortably distant orbit, but... why bother? The real goal, and the real challenge, is to physically set foot on another planet. That's almost certainly possible, but it remains sufficiently expensive that nobody has bothered yet.
You need more than some dismissive hand waving to send people to mars.
EDIT: so yeah this thread is allegedly about how atheists are totally kickass, i dunno what it is about generation ships but I just completely forget whatever else I was talking about when they come up. Perhaps we should try to steer things back on track? Here, lemme start a good dozen pages worth of controversy:
Richard Dawkins, though occasionally tactless, is not in any way, shape, or form "militant" and in fact seems like a pretty chill dude.
He is a favorite target of self-satisfied moderates who think that splitting the difference is always the reasonable thing to do.
I believe it will be substantially more practical if we get something like VASIMR working.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket
Because it provides acceleration over a nice long period it substantially reduces the amount of time taken to get to faraway places like Mars. The payload issue for getting on and off Mars is still there though - I've heard some murmurings of sending an unmanned mission first carrying spare boosters etc then sending the humans after.
And you need more than dismissive hand waving to send probes to mars. Still, that is reality.
We are talking about colonization. First the planet has to be probed, and if the data holds up you send colonists. This is not a trip to visit a neighbouring star system and return. Its about expanding the human race to another world. Takes roughly 600 years if we start soon. Considering stellar distances and sub light propulsion its really not that far.
What benefit had the colonization of the american continent? We are extremely lucky to have such a promising candidate that close. All those years people estimated thousands or even millions of years travel at sub light speed. And now you act scared of a few hundred? LoL?
I assure you there are many people who are willing to make the trip. The only question is who will do it first. China? Russia? America? Europe? All united? Imagine: an entire world to colonize. I can't imagine any nation willingly being left out of that. I'd rather expect ships being sent with humans WITHOUT probing, cutting the trip short by 300 years to gain a headstart at the expense of possibly sacrificing a few lives. Being a pioneer always meant having courage and accepting unknown risks.
God this is silly.
The colonization of the American continent(s) had immense political and economic impetus, from the relief of population pressures and religious tensions in Europe to the cultivation of tobacco, cotton, and sugar, and the concurrent plunder of vast resources of precious metals. There's a reason why it happened when it did: those pressure combined uniquely with developments that made it actually practical. Columbus wouldn't even have been able to get his expedition bankrolled had he not been able to convince the crown that he was going to find a faster way to the Asia and make them some fat loot. "For shits and giggles" was never the reason.
Generation Two would be so pissed.
"Wait... So, you mean I have to live my entire life in this tin can? Thanks dad..."
And Generation Three would probably be totally unequipped (mentally and physically) to deal with colonisation.