Comments on: 3 billions years is a really, really long time http://www.lolife.com/2008/03/3-billions-years-is-a-really-really-long-time/ blunt observations Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:19:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: b2b http://www.lolife.com/2008/03/3-billions-years-is-a-really-really-long-time/comment-page-1/#comment-954 b2b Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:06:39 +0000 http://www.lolife.com/newblog/2008/03/23/3-billions-years-is-a-really-really-long-time/#comment-954 How nicely put, Mike, I am glad I dropped by. Further, what I don't get is how many otherwise intelligent people cannot see the parallels to the complexity that exists around us even on human timescales, and get a little humbler about their ability to control even little bits of it, let alone understand it all, and to therefore seek to optimize human processes using the most natural mechanism possible (other than their limited brains), self-organized competitive evolution, to question its results less, and to recognize that each step away from it in any social or economic process, though perhaps consensually necessary, is treading on pavement of good intention, but not Nature's path. b2b How nicely put, Mike, I am glad I dropped by. Further, what I don’t get is how many otherwise intelligent people cannot see the parallels to the complexity that exists around us even on human timescales, and get a little humbler about their ability to control even little bits of it, let alone understand it all, and to therefore seek to optimize human processes using the most natural mechanism possible (other than their limited brains), self-organized competitive evolution, to question its results less, and to recognize that each step away from it in any social or economic process, though perhaps consensually necessary, is treading on pavement of good intention, but not Nature’s path.

b2b

]]> By: Mike Phenow http://www.lolife.com/2008/03/3-billions-years-is-a-really-really-long-time/comment-page-1/#comment-953 Mike Phenow Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:14:16 +0000 http://www.lolife.com/newblog/2008/03/23/3-billions-years-is-a-really-really-long-time/#comment-953 I come back to this over and over. We have not evolved the mental capacity to be able to comprehend the temporal or spacial scales of the universe in any meaningful way without some serious Fermian acrobatics. I've read some good descriptions of some of these numbers in Sagan, Hawking, Bryson, Diamond, et al. Every time it knocks me on my ass and forces me to try to grasp it, as feeble as that grasp may be. One of the best is the mapping of the history of the universe (or spacial dimensions of the universe) onto a 24-hour day, 365-day year, or some linear spacial distance. Here's two of them: “So if we imagine the history of the universe represented by a line which is roughly 24 miles long, human life would occupy only the last inch. Or if we imagine this history of the universe represented by a single year, humanity would emerge only in the last few seconds of the last minute of the last hour of the last day of the year. So for something more than 99.999 per cent of the history of the universe, the very creatures which are meant to be the jewel of creation have been absent from it.” <a href="http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_scale/" rel="nofollow">http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_scale/</a> And this last inch, this last few seconds is unfathomably long itself. Almost all of us have no experience or memory of anything beyond the last few decades. The vast majority of the population considers any year that doesn't begin with 19 or 20 to be in the misty dark of ancient history, while it was actually somewhere around the last breath. He's not talking about the few hundred years since the enlightenment. He's not referring to the 2,000 years since the beginning of Christianity. He's not referring to the 6,000 years since the beginning of Judaism. He's not talking about the 12,000 years since the agricultural revolution. He's not talking about the 40,000 year since we reached central Asia. He's not talking about the 80,000 years since humans left Africa. He's talking about the 200,000 years since the appearance of homo sapiens. These are scales for which we have no reference point that will get us anywhere near understanding it on an intuitive level. These are scales at which patterns can't help but emerge. Instead of focusing on "how could randomness bring about all of this complexity?" people ought to ask "over that much time and given the abundance of matter and energy, how could complex patterns _not_ emerge?" If you just randomly combine matter and energy in random ways over and over and over and over again the vast majority of those ways will amount to nothing. But every once in million blue moons, a particular combination will result in something rather interesting--something like, say, a fractal--something self-referential--something self-reproducing. And when it does, how could you expect it to do anything _but_ reproduce? Math is naturally selected. Pattern is naturally selected. Once you have something reproducing itself and interacting with matter and energy (and being bombarded by radiation), you will continue to get variety and in exactly the same way, some variations _can't help_ but be better suited than others. Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” More people need to stop looking at our tiny little temporal and spacial gutter and instead take a gander at the stars long enough to realize that the universe is exactly as it is with defiant disregard for any wishes to the contrary and is, in fact, infinitely more profound and beautiful than any fairy tales we can dream up in a charming attempt to fit its vastness into the meager confines of our inherited network of neurons. I come back to this over and over. We have not evolved the mental capacity to be able to comprehend the temporal or spacial scales of the universe in any meaningful way without some serious Fermian acrobatics. I’ve read some good descriptions of some of these numbers in Sagan, Hawking, Bryson, Diamond, et al. Every time it knocks me on my ass and forces me to try to grasp it, as feeble as that grasp may be. One of the best is the mapping of the history of the universe (or spacial dimensions of the universe) onto a 24-hour day, 365-day year, or some linear spacial distance. Here’s two of them:

“So if we imagine the history of the universe represented by a line which is roughly 24 miles long, human life would occupy only the last inch. Or if we imagine this history of the universe represented by a single year, humanity would emerge only in the last few seconds of the last minute of the last hour of the last day of the year. So for something more than 99.999 per cent of the history of the universe, the very creatures which are meant to be the jewel of creation have been absent from it.”

http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/argument_from_scale/

And this last inch, this last few seconds is unfathomably long itself. Almost all of us have no experience or memory of anything beyond the last few decades. The vast majority of the population considers any year that doesn’t begin with 19 or 20 to be in the misty dark of ancient history, while it was actually somewhere around the last breath. He’s not talking about the few hundred years since the enlightenment. He’s not referring to the 2,000 years since the beginning of Christianity. He’s not referring to the 6,000 years since the beginning of Judaism. He’s not talking about the 12,000 years since the agricultural revolution. He’s not talking about the 40,000 year since we reached central Asia. He’s not talking about the 80,000 years since humans left Africa. He’s talking about the 200,000 years since the appearance of homo sapiens.

These are scales for which we have no reference point that will get us anywhere near understanding it on an intuitive level. These are scales at which patterns can’t help but emerge. Instead of focusing on “how could randomness bring about all of this complexity?” people ought to ask “over that much time and given the abundance of matter and energy, how could complex patterns _not_ emerge?” If you just randomly combine matter and energy in random ways over and over and over and over again the vast majority of those ways will amount to nothing. But every once in million blue moons, a particular combination will result in something rather interesting–something like, say, a fractal–something self-referential–something self-reproducing. And when it does, how could you expect it to do anything _but_ reproduce? Math is naturally selected. Pattern is naturally selected.

Once you have something reproducing itself and interacting with matter and energy (and being bombarded by radiation), you will continue to get variety and in exactly the same way, some variations _can’t help_ but be better suited than others.

Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” More people need to stop looking at our tiny little temporal and spacial gutter and instead take a gander at the stars long enough to realize that the universe is exactly as it is with defiant disregard for any wishes to the contrary and is, in fact, infinitely more profound and beautiful than any fairy tales we can dream up in a charming attempt to fit its vastness into the meager confines of our inherited network of neurons.

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