Nice discussion of astronomy, but sending people to Mars or mining asteroids, far ahead of sufficient technological progress or attainment of globally cooperative and peaceful societies is light years away, ideologically speaking, from putting a telescope in space to observe the universe. We should not be doing the former while the planet is on fire, wars erupt every five seconds, and oligarchic maniacs are pushing the exhaustion of resources to feed egos expanding faster than the universe.
Jennie, it is through focusing on science driver programs that we find the solutions for today's problems. It is a similar concept to China's BRI. People may ask "Why focus on transportation corridors and infrastructure when many of these regions suffer from extreme poverty, disease, warfare and famine? Don't we need to achieve peace and stability first before we can focus on such things?" It is in fact by focusing on such things that we solve those problems. Such progress will create a qualitative upshift in general and not just on the seemingly one endeavor one is focusing on. It also exits people out of the old paradigm mindset, which is the real cause of stagnation.
“Don't we need to achieve peace and stability first before we can focus on such things?”
I agree that things like the James Webb telescope were beneficial, although studying the universe is not as easy as these things seem to make it. There is still much disagreement about the nature of matter and the state of the universe.
However, space exploration, beyond perhaps an observational station on the moon is a waste of time. This is partly because the universe is so vast, we will not be able to achieve deep space exploration. It’s a myth of science fiction. Even in Star Trek, they never leave our own galaxy. Mars colonization is a fool’s errand, certainly now.
We should spend resources and technology on sustainable methods of transportation and return many things to traditional methods, such as farming and animal husbandry. Technology is not always better. Our soils are denuded, our skies and waters are full of toxic chemicals, our lifespans are declining and we will see more war as technologically induced climate catastrophe and hoarding by developed nations reduces resource availability.
Some technological advancements, such as modern surgeries, have improved the loves of many, but many others have not led to greater peace and prosperity, nor have many transportation corridors. Trains, if utilized in the US would be of far greater benefit than forcing people to drive cars, which run on fossil fuels, on tires and roads made of fossil fuels. Electric cars green wash our fossil fuel driven energy grids. I have been traveled extensively and there is as much poverty, violence and warfare in Silicon Valley, one of the places that drives innovation, as nearly anywhere.
Corruption and warfare are also driven by technology, certainly from a US perspective, because more efficient remote killing machines remove much of the domestic public’s opposition to wars fought abroad, as it reduces ‘our’ casualty rate compared to that of ‘them’.
Gil Scott Heron said it best. We must learn to care and support each other, regardless of color or culture, before we waste resources needed here to fix this planet, before going looking for others.
Well Jennie, China is leading both of those missions. Correcting those problems I mentioned in my above comment (and more) as well as focusing on an eventual mission to Mars. You should see a paradox here. Why is China leading both of those missions? Because they are not in contradiction to the other. Perhaps instead of getting upset over Ye Peijian Head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program discussing their orientation towards exploring Mars like their ancestors explored the Diaoyu Islands, you should focus on understanding what is the economic as well as cultural principle behind what China is working towards. No country is as serious as China right now on the Mars question, however, China is in no position to be lectured by others as to not doing enough for the problems on Earth today. What you are in fact criticizing is the old paradigm that we are in the process of exiting from. You have two choices before you, exit that old paradigm, or remain within it and perish (culturally speaking).
I think you’re putting the rocket before the spaceship. China has spent more time focusing on infrastructure and peace than the US, thus they have more resources to devote to space. I still think Mars is a waste.
Jennie, that made absolutely no sense and I think you just want to argue at this point. I will leave some parting advice. When one needs to think further on a subject it is good practice to take some time to reflect before offering up the first reflex impulse that comes to mind. You may think that Mars is a waste but China does not, thus perhaps you have something yet to discover?, or perhaps you will conclude that that response that took you moments to think up, which is not even really a response but simply an opinion, is indeed superior to that of China's. It is not just countries that get stuck in old paradigms of thinking, it works on the individual level as well.
I’ve previously already studied and thought on this extensively. I merely disagree with the conclusions you draw and wanted to state it. I think putting rovers there is fine, but people? No. You’re entitled to your perspective. Perhaps you think we must all agree on everything?
Loon, I think sometimes there is something lost in translation when you read my papers. I am not saying that those in the past looked at the heavens as an imaginative place, I am saying they looked at the heavens with an imaginative disposition, which are two very different things. For example, a scientist must have the imagination to think of his/her hypothesis before proceeding with their investigation. Like Plato's hypothesis of the higher hypothesis. Imagination does not mean it is not real, imagination is the exercise the mind can utilize to contemplate the unknown. You imagine the different possibilities of something and proceed to investigate them. Thus imagination is key in all great scientific discoveries and you will notice that many scientists of the past were also writers, philosophers, artists, and so forth. They were not the sort of scientists we see today who put too much emphasis on sense perception and not enough emphasis on the mind. The reason why we can use our mind's imagination to hypothesis about scientific questions is because our mind is not separate from what we study, but is a part of the order of the universe. This is one of the fundamental mistakes made with scientific inquiry today, they treat themselves as if they were separate from the whole. The reason why we can contemplate such things as eternity, or great distances such as the distance from our planet to the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy is because of our imagination. The reason why we can think of things such as gravity and physical space time, things beyond sensory experience, is because of our imagination.
I just view imagination differently than you but we are basically in agreement.
I see imagination as a reflection of one’s culture to interrupt the observation.
To observe is a beautiful thing as no judgement is passed, letting time give dimension a depth.
Others work upon it as well as you know.
Science is very social as you say and so is life itself. But what often passes for science is a ridiculous social bias of the times. It can’t be helped I think.
New radical ideas have no social relevance and seem to come out of nowhere.
I have heard by extremely educated people there is no such thing as a
natural intelligence which I find completely absurd.
I translate differently than you but look forward to your articles.
What might the mystical connections be to this awesome event of 1054 in the heavens with the ecclesiastic 'split' in Christianity between East & West on earth? Awesome article...
This was too coincidental not to comment. Last night I posted Cosmology & the Course, saying: "Astrology or the astro-logos is behaving as if the stars have meaning and purpose, as if there is a consciousness behind the design that governs their movement. Even more, it entertains the possibility that we, as individuals, matter to this consciousness as much as the stars. It’s not the stars that govern our lives but the trajectory of our lives that’s been aligned with the most beneficial cosmos for our life’s purpose. What could be of more practical use than studying this?"
Mine is merely setting the stage for Vedic astrology, as I've been learning from Isaac Middle. How is it possible I never knew that India had it's own deeply developed understanding? And now, mere hours later, you're giving me a lesson in China's study of the heavens. Mind blown!
Beautiful, Cynthia, I learn so much from you and Matt, and in such a diversity of fields! I've been talking about The Dawn of Everything in some recent episodes, by anthropologist David Graeber and archeologist David Wengrow. They also talk about the sophisticated understanding of the heavens and the large earth structures used to mark their movements. I think you would like their book. Here's my comments on it: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/muskrat-love-and-anarchy
"In large suns—small circular nebulae—when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, if such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support for the outer gas regions, then a sudden collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes give origin to vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential, and such particles readily escape from the solar interior, thus bringing about the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days. It was such an emigration of these “runaway particles” that occasioned the collapse of the giant nova of the Andromeda nebula about fifty years ago. This vast stellar body collapsed in forty minutes of Urantia [Earth] time.
As a rule, the vast extrusion of matter continues to exist about the residual cooling sun as extensive clouds of nebular gases. And all this explains the origin of many types of irregular nebulae, such as the Crab nebula, which had its origin about nine hundred years ago, and which still exhibits the mother sphere as a lone star near the center of this irregular nebular mass."
When observing, the imagination isn’t in play. That’s a future sense . Just taking it in without imagining anything is a treat and the experience is without judgement of a conclusion.
One does not imagine what one is seeing in my books.
This is another distraction. More meaning and purpose for mankind in addressing things like BlackRock & Vanguard & cronies upcoming meeting in Jackson Hole.
Personally all for multi-polar cooperation. But “Look up there! There’s something we call a planet! Let’s Go!”
Realizing you’re based in Canada; perhaps a blithe attitude toward the ongoing NASA hoaxes, and the outrageous sabotage and neglect of basic needs, purposely degrading and debilitating our Western countries. Digital passports? This talk was posted two years ago on YouTube.
I may be alone in this, but without context, or footnotes, you imply ancient Chinese astronomy was all aboard a heliocentric model. Dubious.
Look out at the night sky and wonder.
No more is necessary.
In other words, all life is imagination.
Imagine...
enjoyed the article!
Nice discussion of astronomy, but sending people to Mars or mining asteroids, far ahead of sufficient technological progress or attainment of globally cooperative and peaceful societies is light years away, ideologically speaking, from putting a telescope in space to observe the universe. We should not be doing the former while the planet is on fire, wars erupt every five seconds, and oligarchic maniacs are pushing the exhaustion of resources to feed egos expanding faster than the universe.
Jennie, it is through focusing on science driver programs that we find the solutions for today's problems. It is a similar concept to China's BRI. People may ask "Why focus on transportation corridors and infrastructure when many of these regions suffer from extreme poverty, disease, warfare and famine? Don't we need to achieve peace and stability first before we can focus on such things?" It is in fact by focusing on such things that we solve those problems. Such progress will create a qualitative upshift in general and not just on the seemingly one endeavor one is focusing on. It also exits people out of the old paradigm mindset, which is the real cause of stagnation.
“Don't we need to achieve peace and stability first before we can focus on such things?”
I agree that things like the James Webb telescope were beneficial, although studying the universe is not as easy as these things seem to make it. There is still much disagreement about the nature of matter and the state of the universe.
However, space exploration, beyond perhaps an observational station on the moon is a waste of time. This is partly because the universe is so vast, we will not be able to achieve deep space exploration. It’s a myth of science fiction. Even in Star Trek, they never leave our own galaxy. Mars colonization is a fool’s errand, certainly now.
We should spend resources and technology on sustainable methods of transportation and return many things to traditional methods, such as farming and animal husbandry. Technology is not always better. Our soils are denuded, our skies and waters are full of toxic chemicals, our lifespans are declining and we will see more war as technologically induced climate catastrophe and hoarding by developed nations reduces resource availability.
Some technological advancements, such as modern surgeries, have improved the loves of many, but many others have not led to greater peace and prosperity, nor have many transportation corridors. Trains, if utilized in the US would be of far greater benefit than forcing people to drive cars, which run on fossil fuels, on tires and roads made of fossil fuels. Electric cars green wash our fossil fuel driven energy grids. I have been traveled extensively and there is as much poverty, violence and warfare in Silicon Valley, one of the places that drives innovation, as nearly anywhere.
Corruption and warfare are also driven by technology, certainly from a US perspective, because more efficient remote killing machines remove much of the domestic public’s opposition to wars fought abroad, as it reduces ‘our’ casualty rate compared to that of ‘them’.
Gil Scott Heron said it best. We must learn to care and support each other, regardless of color or culture, before we waste resources needed here to fix this planet, before going looking for others.
Well Jennie, China is leading both of those missions. Correcting those problems I mentioned in my above comment (and more) as well as focusing on an eventual mission to Mars. You should see a paradox here. Why is China leading both of those missions? Because they are not in contradiction to the other. Perhaps instead of getting upset over Ye Peijian Head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program discussing their orientation towards exploring Mars like their ancestors explored the Diaoyu Islands, you should focus on understanding what is the economic as well as cultural principle behind what China is working towards. No country is as serious as China right now on the Mars question, however, China is in no position to be lectured by others as to not doing enough for the problems on Earth today. What you are in fact criticizing is the old paradigm that we are in the process of exiting from. You have two choices before you, exit that old paradigm, or remain within it and perish (culturally speaking).
I think you’re putting the rocket before the spaceship. China has spent more time focusing on infrastructure and peace than the US, thus they have more resources to devote to space. I still think Mars is a waste.
Jennie, that made absolutely no sense and I think you just want to argue at this point. I will leave some parting advice. When one needs to think further on a subject it is good practice to take some time to reflect before offering up the first reflex impulse that comes to mind. You may think that Mars is a waste but China does not, thus perhaps you have something yet to discover?, or perhaps you will conclude that that response that took you moments to think up, which is not even really a response but simply an opinion, is indeed superior to that of China's. It is not just countries that get stuck in old paradigms of thinking, it works on the individual level as well.
I’ve previously already studied and thought on this extensively. I merely disagree with the conclusions you draw and wanted to state it. I think putting rovers there is fine, but people? No. You’re entitled to your perspective. Perhaps you think we must all agree on everything?
I don’t think humanity considered looking at the heavens as if it were a imaginative place.
It’s a unknown universe existing beyond our lives and the greatest mystery imaginable for the earliest peoples.
The unchanging North Star was called the star of heaven which will tell anyone how heaven originated and what on earth does this mean for us?
As a living one I want to live as long as this universe!
How do I do it is the question being explored and has nothing to do with the imagination.
It’s to go with observation which is independent of our social reflection in the mirror we are occupied with most of the time.
It’s a long thought looking into the heavens with questions raised lasting thousands of years across generations.
These questions aren’t learnt in school and reside in us naturally I think.
One doesn’t have to qualify with a test here to participate in opening heavens door.
The unknown beckons with romance. As the saying goes “To wander in the wonder doesn’t mean you are lost”
Loon, I think sometimes there is something lost in translation when you read my papers. I am not saying that those in the past looked at the heavens as an imaginative place, I am saying they looked at the heavens with an imaginative disposition, which are two very different things. For example, a scientist must have the imagination to think of his/her hypothesis before proceeding with their investigation. Like Plato's hypothesis of the higher hypothesis. Imagination does not mean it is not real, imagination is the exercise the mind can utilize to contemplate the unknown. You imagine the different possibilities of something and proceed to investigate them. Thus imagination is key in all great scientific discoveries and you will notice that many scientists of the past were also writers, philosophers, artists, and so forth. They were not the sort of scientists we see today who put too much emphasis on sense perception and not enough emphasis on the mind. The reason why we can use our mind's imagination to hypothesis about scientific questions is because our mind is not separate from what we study, but is a part of the order of the universe. This is one of the fundamental mistakes made with scientific inquiry today, they treat themselves as if they were separate from the whole. The reason why we can contemplate such things as eternity, or great distances such as the distance from our planet to the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy is because of our imagination. The reason why we can think of things such as gravity and physical space time, things beyond sensory experience, is because of our imagination.
I just view imagination differently than you but we are basically in agreement.
I see imagination as a reflection of one’s culture to interrupt the observation.
To observe is a beautiful thing as no judgement is passed, letting time give dimension a depth.
Others work upon it as well as you know.
Science is very social as you say and so is life itself. But what often passes for science is a ridiculous social bias of the times. It can’t be helped I think.
New radical ideas have no social relevance and seem to come out of nowhere.
I have heard by extremely educated people there is no such thing as a
natural intelligence which I find completely absurd.
I translate differently than you but look forward to your articles.
Fantastic! Great work...I am grateful. Thank you!
What might the mystical connections be to this awesome event of 1054 in the heavens with the ecclesiastic 'split' in Christianity between East & West on earth? Awesome article...
This was too coincidental not to comment. Last night I posted Cosmology & the Course, saying: "Astrology or the astro-logos is behaving as if the stars have meaning and purpose, as if there is a consciousness behind the design that governs their movement. Even more, it entertains the possibility that we, as individuals, matter to this consciousness as much as the stars. It’s not the stars that govern our lives but the trajectory of our lives that’s been aligned with the most beneficial cosmos for our life’s purpose. What could be of more practical use than studying this?"
Mine is merely setting the stage for Vedic astrology, as I've been learning from Isaac Middle. How is it possible I never knew that India had it's own deeply developed understanding? And now, mere hours later, you're giving me a lesson in China's study of the heavens. Mind blown!
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/cosmology-and-the-course
Beautiful, Cynthia, I learn so much from you and Matt, and in such a diversity of fields! I've been talking about The Dawn of Everything in some recent episodes, by anthropologist David Graeber and archeologist David Wengrow. They also talk about the sophisticated understanding of the heavens and the large earth structures used to mark their movements. I think you would like their book. Here's my comments on it: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/muskrat-love-and-anarchy
"In large suns—small circular nebulae—when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensues, if such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support for the outer gas regions, then a sudden collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes give origin to vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential, and such particles readily escape from the solar interior, thus bringing about the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days. It was such an emigration of these “runaway particles” that occasioned the collapse of the giant nova of the Andromeda nebula about fifty years ago. This vast stellar body collapsed in forty minutes of Urantia [Earth] time.
As a rule, the vast extrusion of matter continues to exist about the residual cooling sun as extensive clouds of nebular gases. And all this explains the origin of many types of irregular nebulae, such as the Crab nebula, which had its origin about nine hundred years ago, and which still exhibits the mother sphere as a lone star near the center of this irregular nebular mass."
The Urantia Book, Paper 41, Section 4
When observing, the imagination isn’t in play. That’s a future sense . Just taking it in without imagining anything is a treat and the experience is without judgement of a conclusion.
One does not imagine what one is seeing in my books.
Gatekeeper, without footnotes.
?
This is another distraction. More meaning and purpose for mankind in addressing things like BlackRock & Vanguard & cronies upcoming meeting in Jackson Hole.
Personally all for multi-polar cooperation. But “Look up there! There’s something we call a planet! Let’s Go!”
Realizing you’re based in Canada; perhaps a blithe attitude toward the ongoing NASA hoaxes, and the outrageous sabotage and neglect of basic needs, purposely degrading and debilitating our Western countries. Digital passports? This talk was posted two years ago on YouTube.
I may be alone in this, but without context, or footnotes, you imply ancient Chinese astronomy was all aboard a heliocentric model. Dubious.
?
?