Re-Defining the Concept of "God"

I was listening to a Jesuit on the Neil Tyson show the other day,  that show does some pretty interesting segments sometimes, for sure. One part of that Jesuit show that was interesting was the priest talking about how Einstein often used the word "God" and Tyson tried to explain to the priest that science's concept of "God" is not what you think it is.

This essay will use three instances of popularizers of science and try to further explain what Tyson was trying to explain to the priest. The popularizers of modern science will be A) Buck Fuller, B) Carl Sagan, and C) Albert Einstein.

We'll do Einstein last to talk about his definition of "God" after the other two popularizers are explained to help delve into what Einstein's concept of "God" was.

Alright so first my boy Fulla...


Buck Fuller on "God"

I've read most of what Buck's written and there's a lot to work with in using his texts to try and explain how people of science view the concept of God, but, one clear-cut easy to work with example is Buck's re-writing or "re-thinking" rather of the "Lord's Prayer" which was composed in 1979 and reads as follows:

To be satisfactory to science
all definitions
must be stated
in terms of experience

I define Universe as
all of humanity’s
in-all-known-time
consciously apprehended
and communicated (to self or others)
experiences.

In using the word, God,
I am consciously employing
four clearly differentiated
from one another
experience-engendered thoughts.

Firstly I mean: —

Those experience-engendered thoughts
which are predicted upon past successions
of unexpected, human discoveries
of mathematically incisive,
physically demonstrable answers
to what theretofore had been misassumed
to be forever unanswerable
cosmic magnitude questions
wherefore I now assume it to be
scientifically manifest,
and therefore experientially reasonable that

scientifically explainable answers
may and probably will
eventually be given
to all questions
as engendered in all human thoughts
by the sum total
of all human experiences;
wherefore my first meaning for God is: —

all the experientially explained
or explainable answers
to all questions
of all time —

Secondly I mean: —
The individual’s memory
of many surprising moments
of dawning comprehensions
of an interrelated significance
to be existent
amongst a number
of what had previously seemed to be
entirely uninterrelated experiences
all of which remembered experiences
engender the reasonable assumption
of the possible existence
of a total comprehension
of the integrated significance —
the meaning —
of all experiences.

Thirdly, I mean:–
the only intellectually discoverable
a priori, intellectual integrity
indisputably manifest as
the only mathematically statable
family
of generalized principles —
cosmic laws–
thus far discovered and codified
and ever physically redemonstrable
by scientists
to be not only unfailingly operative
but to be in eternal
omni-interconsiderate,
omni-interaccommodative governance
of the complex
of everyday, naked-eye experiences
as well as of the multi-millions-fold greater range
of only instrumentally explored
infra- and ultra-tunable
micro and macro-Universe events.

Fourthly, I mean: —
All the mystery inherent
in all human experience,
which as a lifetime ratioed to eternity,
is individually limited
to almost negligible
twixt sleepings, glimpses
of only a few local episodes
of one of the infinite myriads
of concurrently and overlappingly operative
sum-totally never-ending
cosmic scenario serials

With these four meanings I now directly address God.

“Our God —
Since omni-experience is your identity
You have given us
overwhelming manifest: —
of Your complete knowledge
of Your complete comprehension
of Your complete concern
of Your complete coordination
of Your complete responsibility
of Your complete capability to cope
in absolute wisdom and effectiveness
with all problems and events
and of Your eternally unfailing reliability
so to do

Yours, Dear God,
is the only and complete glory.

By Glory I mean
the synergetic totality
of all physical and metaphysical radiation
and of all physical and metaphysical gravity
of finite
but nonunitarily conceptual
scenario Universe
in whose synergetic totality
the a priori energy potential
of both radiation and gravity
are initially equal
but whose respective
behavioral patterns are such
that radiation’s entropic, redundant disintegratings
is always less effective
than gravity’s nonredundant
syntropic integrating

Radiation is plural and differentiable,
radiation is focusable, beamable, and self-sinusing,
it is interceptible, separatist, and biasable —
ergo, has shadowed voids and vulnerabilities;

Gravity is unit and undifferentiable
Gravity is comprehensive
inclusively embracing and permeative
is nonfocusable and shadowless,
and is omni-integrative
all of which characteristics of love.
Love is metaphysical gravity.

You, Dear God,
are the totally loving intellect
ever designing
and ever daring to test
and thereby irrefutably proving
to the uncompromising satisfaction
of Your own comprehensive and incisive
knowledge of the absolute truth
that Your generalized principles
adequately accommodate any and all
special case developments,
involvements, and side effects;
wherefore Your absolutely courageous

omnirigorous and ruthless self-testing
alone can and does absolutely guarantee
total conservation
of the integrity
of eternally regenerative Universe

Your eternally regenerative scenario Universe
is the minimum complex
of totally intercomplementary
totally intertransforming
nonsimultaneous, differently frequenced
and differently enduring
feedback closures
of a finite
but nonunitarily
nonsimultaneously conceptual system
in which naught is created
and naught is lost
and all occurs
in optimum efficiency.

Total accountability and total feedback
constitute the minimum and only
perpetual motion system.
Universe is the one and only
eternally regenerative system.

To accomplish Your regenerative integrity
You give Yourself the responsibility
of eternal, absolutely continuous,
tirelessly vigilant wisdom.

Wherefore we have absolute faith and trust in You,
and we worship You
awe-inspiredly,
all-thankfully,
rejoicingly,
lovingly,
Amen.
(Buck)

 (video version of an older version of Buck Fulla's "Lord's Prayer": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJKLs6zEU8g&t=2m8s)
 

B.U.C.K.

Here in this prayer he is in total "Synergetics" mode which is kind of like some super-autistic language he made up. In English, Buck is basically saying that the concept of "God" is a direct synonym to the word "Universe". Everything that exists and can be understood by humans is defined as our Universe and our Universe is our God. Buck, just like Nelson Dwight Sickels, never put the word "the" in front of Universe...to him that was a form of blasphemy. It is "Universe" not "The Universe"...just like a religious person wouldn't say "The God" like "I'm praying to The God today" they would just say "I'm praying to God". Similarly with Buck, who believes Universe IS God, he never referred to Universe as "The Universe."

This, I think, is a good intro into understanding how people who deal with science view the concept of "God" and even though Buck mentions God in his prayer....he is not invoking the same concept as a religious person is when they use that term. God to Buck is simply Universe....nothing more and nothing less. God to him is "a series of integral truths which are a combined plurality of generalized principles."


Carl Sagan on how Spiritual this "Universe" is

Ok, so in trying to explain this rational yet spiritual view of "God" we are going to continue on with the definition of "Universe" to be a synonym of "God." If Universe is deified to represent "God" can people thus have spiritual experiences from this plurality of integral truths known as Universe?

Sagan has a book, I think it was a post-humous printing of talks he gave, which is called Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God.

Since this essay is trying to show that Universe can be spiritual in itself this book is a good place to go to next. The topic of spirituality derived from the beauty of the "Cosmos," on the radio show the other day where Neil Tyson debates a Jesuit priest he does cover this. At one point Tyson stated that while looking off a tall mountain and seeing the world under you and the clouds under you....a person can feel this sense of awe inspiring emotion from the beauty of the world. The beauty of Universe itself can surely be a spiritual experience in and of itself without the need for deities.

A guest on the radio show was also Richard Dawkins, a evolutionary biologist, who once described Sagan's book Varieties of Scientific Experience as....

"Was Carl Sagan a religious man? He was so much more. He left behind the petty, parochial, medieval world of the conventionally religious, left the theologains, priests, and mullahs wallowing in their small-minded spiritual poverty. He left them behind, because he had so much more to be religious about. They have their Bronze-Age myths, medieval superstitions and childish wishful thinking. He had the Universe." -Dawkins

First off, I don't know why he refers to Universe as "the" Universe...it looks really odd that "the" there. What he's saying makes sense though. I mean why when you're looking off a mountain enjoying how awesome your world is should you need to thank some voodoo "god" or stone-age deity for it? Why can't you just enjoy it? Not only enjoy it but let it invoke a sense of wonder about it that urges you to study it and understand it?

Who needs those "Bronze-Age" myths and texts anyway? There's parts of those books that are not very uplifting for today's society. A good chunk of the christ book is on how to properly punish sinners that's rife with eye plucking and terrible terrible burning, there's parts of the muslim book on what's the proper procedure for having relations with a child slave, there's parts of the jew book about what a jew isn't allowed to do and what you need to force "goyim sub-humans" to do that stuff for you. These old religious texts are ATROCIOUS and FUCKED UP. They don't instill a sense of wonder or awe in me....the bible, talmud, quran, etc. are super-duper depressing! I wouldn't allow children to read these books....they are 100 times worse than today's most violent movies and video games.

Not to burst your bubble but people like Carl Sagan and Neil Tyson are MORE religious than conventional religious people. These Bronze-Age myths aren't edifying or awe-inspiring in the least...there's nothing spiritual about them. They are just offensive and gross. Sagan and Tyson and others, can enjoy the beauty of Universe without the bull-doo-doo that goes with organized religion.

Since we're laying out the quotes hard up in here...we'll throw down a Sagan one too:

In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build-up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a little short of a trans-national, trans-generational meta-mind. - Sagan

Science is all of humans' combined understanding of the "Cosmos" (which thanks to Tyson has become a popular word again.) Science is thus a "meta-mind", an all encompassing log of all humans' opinions/thoughts/feelings/generalizations/principles over all of trans-generational time.

"Cosmos" is a pretty good synonym for God too. I'm not so crazy about "Nature" anymore because over the last decade that word has been bastardized and ruined by the "organic food" and "organic medicine" people. "Natural" is quickly becoming a word solely used by jabronies in modern times so "Nature" with no "the" isn't a good go-to word for "God" these days.

Cosmos is written with a "the" so it can't be the best replacement word for "God"....it seems "Universe" with no "the" is still the coolest word at this point, I think.

Einstein and his Concept of "God"

So, coming back around to the main point, where the priest on the Tyson show claimed Einstein believes in God and Einstein is like the smartest guy so therefore smart people believe in God. As we can see from the previous two popularizers of science/rationality it is unlikely that this claim is gonna hold true. Einstein's concept of "God" is much more like Buck's concept of "Universe" and Sagan's concept of the "Cosmos."

Here is Einstein on religion:

"Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.

However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.

But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive."

-Einstein

From these words it's not hard to deduce that yes he was a religious guy and did believe in "God" yet after reading Fuller's concept of "God" and Sagan's concept of "God" can you maybe begin to suspect that Einstein is more in that area as well?


The final statement is him saying that, yes, he is religious but not in the "naive" sense of reading the bible/quran/talmud and praying to voodoo gods in the sky for a plentiful harvest this year or to make it rain. His belief in "God" is of a "special sort" which is based on the "laws of nature."

His view of God is an amalgamation of the laws of nature....the combination of all generalized principles in Universe and the trans-generational meta-data of the Cosmos....nothing more and nothing less. Yes he uses the word "God" but that doesn't mean he thought he's going to "Heaven" when he dies or that he can ask a magic man in the sky to give him a thousand bucks if he thinks really hard to him...no....he believes "God" is a set of natural laws.



Conclusion

The views of rational thinkers on religion and spirituality is not that much different than that of non-rational thinkers. Rational dudes/chicks just cut away the bull crap to get to the good part.

It's like chipping away at a rock until you are left with the diamond stuck in the center. Rational thinkers cut away all the silly crap associated with spiritualness....they cut away all the silly passages from books written two thousand years ago about floods n' slaves n' castration n' flying human-faced donkeys who kill entire armies of infidels...they throw ALL that GARBAGE away and focus on the meaty part of spirituality....the ever-invoking awe and wonder of the cool-cool world around us.

They find comfort in how cool the Natural Laws are that govern the Cosmos of our Scenario called Universe. You know what I mean?


End note: I'm not always sure Carl Sagan was that less naive than conventional religous-types as Dawkins was saying. With Sagan's alien bull-doo-doo, he did believe that there was a force "out there somewhere" that we can talk to and entrust our hopes and dreams to and this force in space would end up being our salvation.

His views on finding Aliens with radio signals really is a conventional religious experience, no doubt. The yearning for science people like Sagan, Hawking, SETI Institute and others to search for these "aliens" is definitely a replacement for religion for them. Sagan recorded messages for these Aliens which, I dunno 'bout you, but listening to them...it pretty much sounds like he's "praying" to these alien deities "out there." The alien stuff might be a very conventional religion for the non-religious types to use as a replacement for their discarded religions.

A Couple of Alternate Hypotheses to "The Land Bridge" Theory

I was watching that great great show "Cosmos" starring Neil Degrasse Tyson the other day and it was cool as usual. That show is pretty good, it really is. I've been into rationality since a young age and I've always kind of felt like people think I'm weird or something because of it. Even teachers in school giving me Fs just because I can't deal with bullshit religion. People think "oh he doesn't believe in god what a heathen...he's goin' to hell!" No, I don't think so, pal. There's no such thing as "hell." People think if you don't believe in some religion that you will be depressed, wrong again, the stuff I believe in actually makes me way more happy than any religion could because the stuff I'm into makes sense and can actually benefit humanity. I'm happy a show like Cosmos is back and showing that the things rational people think about are very uplifting and interesting.

Cosmos is getting good ratings it looks like: (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-foxs-cosmos-pulls-687189)

People are interested in this and I hope parents watch this show with their kids so the next generation can get started on the right foot and have a basic understanding of how things operate in this cute little Scenario called Universe we got going on here. Kids will dig it because the special effects are done very well and the visuals will really catch a younger audience's attention.

I also really dig that it has a comedic slant to it, it's lead in is Fox's cartoon shows and the producer of the new Cosmos is Seth Macfarlane who is a funny guy. I think comedy and humor is the most important thing humans have and explaining anything difficult is always more enjoyable to the audience if it's done in a light-hearted and humorous way.

Ok, so the show rules, that's for sure, but I do have to make one small critique of one small statement made in the last episode regarding "land bridges."

Land Bridges

In Episode 9, Neil presents the theory of land bridges explaining why certain species of flora and fauna appear on both sides of the ocean (i.e. on Brazil and similarly on Africa)...stating that land bridges were suggested to be the reason, these bridges being land masses that are now under the ocean and cease to be visible.

In the next segment he promptly refutes this theory and we are treated to a nice animation of one Marie Tharp and her work into researching tectonic plates. The real reason as to why certain flora and fauna appear on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is explained that it was due to those land masses being one singular unit in the past. Yes, before the moving of the tectonic plates, both those land masses were connected. The continents look like puzzle pieces for a reason, it is because they used to be one singular land mass before breaking up.

A few segments down the line, we are given another land bridge theory, very quickly stating that the aboriginal populations of the Americas came to be here by crossing a land bridge that is now under water/ice (usually referred to as the Bering Strait bridge).

It seemed odd that the first theory of land bridges was quickly debunked and falsified on the show yet the second land bridge explanation was just sort of a quick aside/throw-a-way statement with no follow-up.

I would like to offer two alternate theories as to how the Native Americans came to the Americas for the sake of argument.

Theory 1: Ocean-Faring

It always strikes me odd and even offensive when people say things like "Columbus Discovered America!" because it doesn't make much sense. If he discovered it then why were there people already fucking there?

I sometimes feel that this mind set that people tend to believe that Europeans were this advanced culture and everyone else was savage and retarded is maybe the most ridiculous thing ever. The Land-Bridge theory of how the Natives got to the Americas strikes me as being part of this backward mindset as well. It seems like people came up with this theory whilst thinking along the lines of "Well, how did a bunch of savages get here? They are too stupid to use boats so I guess they must have walked."

If you know anything about Maritime and Sea-Faring history then you probably know that small wooden vessels, wind-powered vessels, man-powered vessels, and even deep-bellied cargo ships were being used way before the "exploration age" of the Europeans. Deep-bellied vessels which were able to hold cargo were being used way back in B.C. times by many different cultures around the world (from Africa, to Arabia, to Asia, etc.).

South East Asia is the major concern for this theory, although any sea-faring culture could have made it to North America, South East Asians are by far the likely culture to have done so. It is a theory I first came across in Critical Path and it seems to check out.

Does the current physiognomy of Native Americans look similar to Africans? No. Europeans? No, not really. What about South East Asians? I'd say it's much closer than anything else.

It's like a chain those islands...it goes Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua, Solomon Islands, Vanatu, Fiji, Samoa, Rapa Nui/Easter Island (the one with the Face Statues).....then next thing you know, boom, your island hopping adventure has landed you in South America.

MoAi

Carbon dating places the construction of the Moai statues on Rapa Nui island at around 1200 A.D., that's quite a few centuries ahead of Colombus. Rapa Nui is dead smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean...how could people have been there building Moais in 1200? This island is only accessible by ship...there's is no other option of getting to Rapa Nui.

Are you with me? Obviously if island hoppers in their vessels from South East Asia were able to get to Rapa Nui (which is way out in the Pacific) then obviously they could get to the South American landmass. It's literally that simple.

The whole "Land Bridge" theory, I really believe, is for Euro-descended peoples to pretend other cultures didn't have technology. Obviously someone took a boat to Rapa Nui because there's no other way to access it. Island hopping down East Asia and over the Pacific is BY FAR the most likely means that they accessed South America.

Theory 2: Boats n' Snow

That covers the South pretty good. It's pretty obvious and the proof of the Moais does tend to show that white Europeans were not the first people to construct deep-bellied ocean-faring vessels. Yet, what about the North? Does the Bering Strait land bridge still hold up in explaining Inuit migrations?

I don't think it applies in this case either.

Episode 9 of Cosmos claimed that the migration took place whilst the ice was melted and a land bridge exposed itself. Is that the only way those Inuits could have managed to migrate to North America, by patiently waiting millions of years for an ice age to end and then politely walking over the exposed land bridge and settling down in northern North America.

I don't know about that, it's another cop out to say that Inuits were a backward people who couldn't do anything other than walk around like bozo-clowns all day. We're talking about people who adapted to live in the coldest climate on friggin' earth, you need some insight into tech and survival to do that.

They wore the skins of the animals they hunted to stay warm, they fished seals and whales out of the water (yes big huge whales), they built convex heat-trapping ice-block domes which kept them warm at night (the interior of a well built igloo is actually hot thanks to the body warmth of the people inside it).

You're telling me that people who could manipulate snow and ice to STAY WARM (that's pretty hard to do), people who could hunt fucking whales, people who made snow-shoes to walk great distances in snow and ice, people who tamed fucking wolves to pull their sleds for them (bad-ass)....are the same people who waited politely for nature to gradually melt the Arctic so they could politely cross some fabled "land bridge"?

I don't know about that, I think the Inuits just crossed the Arctic with wolves and kayaks when it was cold as fuck and barely even gave two or three cares about it.

It is perfectly 100% plausible that they crossed the strait using seal-skin re-enforced Kayaks. Researchers claim the oldest kayak known to them is over 4000 years old meaning these bad-ass Inuits were kayaking over small bodies of water for a good four thousand years.

Conclusion

I love the new Cosmos show it is 100% bad as can but I did take a small umbrage with one small statement made on it in the May 4th airing.

I do believe that this Land Bridge explanation of how Natives got to the Americas is a cop out by historians to try and portray the people in the Americas who were present prior to Euro-peoples as stupid savages who's only skill and technology they possessed was the ability to walk. That is totally not true in the least.

People who arrived in South America obviously had ocean-faring vessels prior to the European "age of exploration" and were by no means the savages many historians claim them to be.

The same is true for the Inuk people of the North, they obviously had to be pretty intelligent to devise a means to adapt to the harshest and coldest climate on earth. I'm sure they had little trouble kayaking and wolf-sledding over the Arctic...they are obviously bad ass people.

Why the Scientific Community is Concerned about Climate Change...

...and why you shouldn't hate on them.

Recently, it appears that a few tabloid articles from tabloid news agencies (Daily Mail (UK) was the first I believe to run it), have claimed to prove that climate change is a hoax.

I do not personally 100% agree with the articles of late that claim to have proven climate change to be a scam..but...there's some factors of it that I do agree with. I hate the climate change apocalyptic prognosticators as much as anyone, I think Al Gore is a sheister/buffoon, and I do not believe we will see immediate disastrous effects out of our backyard windows in the next few years.

Yet, that is not to say that because the apocalyptic prognostication faction has been slow to show us any awesome apocalypses, we can officially demote climate science to junk science.

The following are the reasons I believe climate change is occurring and why it can be very dangerous.

1. Humans evolved with their environments in a similar fashion throughout the entire planet. Humans are far and foremost a coastal sea-faring species. The percentage of humans still living in coastal regions vary from source to source yet a general estimate of 40-50% seems like the mean figure.

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/papers/Coastal_Zone_Pop_Method.pdf

2. A 2006 study carried out by Church and White found that global sea levels are rising. They have concluded that sea levels have risen at a steady rate and will keep rising. Any proceeding study into sea levels supported the results of this study.

http://naturescapebroward.com/NaturalResources/ClimateChange/Documents/GRL_Church_White_2006_024826.pdf

So...if half of the humans on earth live on the coast and global sea levels are rising, could all these cities eventually be submerged? The answer is yes but it will not be tomorrow or next month. This is a gradual process. The cities can be submerged in 2100, 2300, 2500, 3100...we don't know. The possibility of this coastal submerging occurring is definite yet due to the time frame, me and you won't have to worry about it. Your great great grandchildren? Yes, probably.

3. Global sea/ocean temperatures are going up at an incredible rate. As water heats it expands (through convection) causing the density of the liquid to drop but the mass to increase. This only explains a portion of why water levels are rising. The other factor is that glaciers, ice shelves, and other blocks of solid liquid are also losing density and increasing in overall mass (melting).

The ant-arctic ice is staying stagnant and even growing (to the glee of climate change opponents) yet we have lost millions of square kilometers of ice in the opposite pole. Millions of square kilometers of ice in the north pole is becoming liquid.

(See: https://climate.nasa.gov/)

That's how they derive their statistics.

4. Why are global waters getting hotter? Why are they melting ice? What is causing this? Some speculate that it is only natural. Others speculate that a dense covering of gas is trapping heat within the planet, the oceans then absorb this heat and convect. The proof they cite is that they have measured the acidity of the water and it is increasing at a gradual rate as well.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F

This is the theory which gets everyone excited and worried because it is the one that links human-made pollution to the rising temperature of global waters.

2 Things to Remember...

Firstly, Tabloids are not very educational. Sadly, all news outlets are of the tabloid variety because it is the only profitable method to sell news. The definition of "tabloid" is as follows (as per wikipedia):

"Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news. Such journalism is commonly associated with tabloid sized newspapers like the National Enquirer, Globe, [Fox], or the The Sun and the former News of the World."

This is not the place to get your understanding of the world and how it operates. This style of journalism is designed to run stories that make readers mad/happy/sad (i.e. generate some sort of immediate emotional response) it is not designed to be educational. The Daily Mail (UK) column this story initially surfaced from is a tabloid...nothing more and nothing less.

If you would like to verse yourself in scientific journals and have a broader opinion on the matters at hand then by all means do so. Getting your info from scientific journals is going to give you far more credible information than a tabloid source.

Secondly, scientists understand the sands of human time in the scope of the god damned universe. Here to try and explain it is my home-slice, the deceased but still awesome Carl Sagan, and he's rappin' 'bout how short human history has been:

He's trying to explain it with calendar-esque day/hour/minute/second metrics that most of us are used to judging time in. We've only been here but for a moment, we really have. To the cosmos billions of years is nothing. Things take a long time, forces such as the erosion of rocks, the forming of continents, or the evolution of species are forces that alter the planet very GRADUALLY. You have to understand that it's not a bang-bang one-two punch. It takes a long time.

Yes, the average human only lives for about 75 years but your life is just one moment in the grand scheme of human existence. Theoretically, we can carry on the human game we're playing for billions of years right to the end (when the sun peters out), we can carry on the human game for a coupla hundred more years (by killing ourselves)...or we could even possibly harness technology, save ourselves, and fly out to settle other space rocks heated by other damned suns and play the human game infinitely.

The sensational tabloids will report the matter on either polarized perspective of climate change as if it will or will not kill us right now. People who are interested in science don't tend to think of the right now all the time, they know gradual processes take immense amounts of time.

Nuclear war will kill us all right-here-right-now and it is the only immediate apocalyptic event...but the destruction of our life-support system on earth through natural forces and/or man made pollution is a gradual process that may take thousands or hundreds of years.

Conclusion

Yes, climate change is occurring. No, it is not a hoax (my opinion anyway). Should we worry about it? Not in the immediate future.

In the case that you are a future-thinking dude/chick and wonder what the lives your great great great ancestors will be like....then yeah, you should worry.


Note (added Sept. 25/2013): I mentioned nuclear war as being the only event that will instantaneously assure our mutual destruction but I was not correct with that statement. There are many ways we can go extinct from natural causes. A good read on the subject of how we may all die is the 5th section of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's excellent book..."Death by Black Hole and other cosmic quandaries."

on Deception and counter-Deception. also on Devising and/or Deciphering Informations

The internet age has brought to us an abundance of information. There are mounds and mounds of nutty little documents, snipets, and tid-bits at the fingertips of every human in arms reach of a computer. If you have not realized it yet, we are living in an information golden age, never in history has so much data been available for analysis.

It sounds great, and it really is...but nothing is perfect. Is all information credible? Of course not. Is it all true? No way. Out of all the data on the net, how much of it is accurate and factual...and how much of it is fiction, lies, propaganda, nonsense, or deception?

It's great that everyone is acquiring more data and decoding more information but should you believe what you are reading? Nope, you surely cannot believe it...and figuring out what is correct and what is incorrect is almost futile sometimes.

If you search for anything on google, you will find conflicting reports on your questions. For example, is coffee a healthy beverage? Out of the two hundred millions search results, you will be able to find any answer to that question, it is not a matter of accessing information anymore it is now a question of deciphering which out of those two hundred million results are valuable pieces of info and which are not. Factoring in that coffee will have a different effect on different people, the answer to the question is not even concrete to begin with.

If you didn't see it happen with your own eyes, hear it with you own ears, you can never be sure if it is true (and even then your senses/bias/perception can deceive you).

Be aware that History is recorded by the people who choose to record it. In the old days, people would keep histories orally through talking about it, then in writing, and now in writing/pictures/video/multi-media/etc. It's scary, but 100% of recorded history may be false. You cannot take an old text and investigate it, you just have to trust that what was recorded in it was factual and truthful. Judging now from how much erroneous data is on the internet, I don't think it's safe to trust any history book.

Wikipedia

Anyone with a Wikipedia account is able to record history now. In the future, every child will learn about the past from Wikipedia I believe, and the fact that any kid can learn about anything is great...but what percentage of that information is true?

Obviously things like science and math, texts that must adhere to specific rules and must have proof will be fine. We can experiment with data of scientists from 200 years ago and make sure that what they stated was accurate, that's great...but history is different, once the data has any room for arbitrary interpretations it can not be tested for its accuracy 200 years from now. Anything recorded today will likely be believed as fact in the future...even if it's not true.

Willy wanted wheels.

Wikipedia was frowned upon by teachers when it first came about, and with very good reason. It was erratic and insane when it first came out. There were a few moderators who were mostly 16 year old kids and none of the data on wikipedia could be trusted. The early days were rife with hooligans and vandals too, like people who made tongue-in-cheek entries or put everything on wiki-wheels (this was hilarious, though, you gotta admit).

The first experience I had editing wikipedia, was in 2004 when the Montreal Expos were moved to Washington. One of the wiki moderators deleted the Montreal Expos page, merged it with the Washington Senators page, and the 36 years of the team's history was reduced to "This team used to play in Montreal." I put it back up (I'm sure others did too) but it would keep getting deleted again. Foraying into the mad world of wikipedia moderators was a horrifying experience, they discuss every change on wikipedia at length like this secret club of data deities.

(example: http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2007/02/04/whispers-the-people-over-on-wikipedia-is-crazy-yo/)

That example is just to show an average everyday discussion of the wiki Data Deities. The woman wanted to register her account name as "angryblackwoman" and they discussed at length if she was allowed to use this user name or not. Those "weak allow" and "strong dissallow" and whatnot is them voting on whether or not she can use that name.

Anyways, every change to wikipedia goes through a myriad of discussion. It's not like you think, that anyone can edit it, that is not true. You can edit it, but it will instantaneously be checked over by moderators and they will decide if that data is allowed on wikipedia. It is interesting that hundreds of thousands of entries have been deleted, some of which surely were factual. In fact there is a site (deletionpedia) which archives the articles wikipedia deletes which I think is actually a great service.

Jiang is not imporant enough for Wiki

Deletionpedia has an entry, for example, on Bin Jiang which was deleted by wiki memeber "DGG" because he didn't think Jiang was important enough to be recorded into the annals of history. The wiki article had a photo of Bin, a song listing next to the photo, and a short bio of the man. The "speedy deletion" was contested it shows, but upheld by the Data Deities.

Isn't the whole process arbitrary? Should some teenager somewhere in the world be allowed to judge whether or not Bin Jiang is important enough to be recorded into history or not?

History was always selective, in the old days it was edited by kings, queens, and rulers to make them look like heroes. Now, it is edited by some greasy kids somewhere.

Sneaking erroneous data into wikipedia is still pretty easy, for example, an entry for the video game Photoboy, has a somewhat untrue, badly written, odd backstory applied to "David Goldman" the lead character in of the game. It has stayed up there for about 5 years now.

"David Goldman is an amateur photographer, who always loved to take pictures. One day, he went to Los Angeles Photography School to study more about taking pictures. Everyday, David commutes on the crowded trains, but trained and learned better in the academy so he can achieve his dreams on becoming the best photographer he ever wished for. He was happy at that time, but suddenly misfortune hit him. David's parents suddenly died in a plane crash, leaving him orphaned and all alone. He loved his parents deeply and cried at their burial, thinking that they will come back. David lost his confidence and is about to leave the academy to live a lonely and sad life. However for Dean, the principal of the academy saw him and made an unexpected proposal to him. The principal said if he completed 8 tests by taking 8 special photograph shots in 8 different locations, then he's allowed to graduate in the academy. Unsure about this offer, David still accepted the test and did everything he could to pass." 

-Wikipedia

There was also a statement about "David Goldman's" signature mannerisms and walk and how they were based on World War II aviation photographer Bob A. Boughy, but sadly, that tid-bit did not survive the wrath of the moderators.

If that Bob A. Boughy (say it a few times) statement, was phrased "Some argue that David Goldman's signature mannerisms and walk were based on WWII aviation photographer Bob A. Boughy" then it more than likely would have survived as well.

Apparently, according to wiki user "Einsidler" over 38,000 wiki pages contain the term "some argue" which is not very professional when you think about it. Who are these "some" that are arguing these all these claims? Who are these people?

Who knows...but for every "some" that is arguing there is a "some" that is reading those arguments, despite how crazy or laden with errors those claims may be.


Credulity

It's okay that there's silly or erroneous data on the web, what's not okay is that there are a lot of credulous web surfers out there. What's credulous? It's another way of saying "gullible" (and "gullible" of course...is not in the dictionary).

Credulity is hard to overcome, and most people don't want to. It's being credulous that lets us believe things that make us happy, it lets us believe in Gods, in Santa Clauses, and it helps us sift through information until we get to something that strengthens our current beliefs and state of mind. If you really wanted to convince yourself that Santa exists...I'm sure you could find articles on the web which would back you up.

Credulity and the information golden age cannot co-exist. The internet is churning out multitudes of data every second and all of it is questionable. The veracity of this data that "some" are arguing in most cases can be taken with a grain of salt...and surely not unconditional belief.

The credulity of today's society is outrageous. People believe anything, and I know it helps them through their troubles, and people who tell other people to stop believing always look mean...but I think it's time that society started leaning into skeptic territory.

A very old text urging people not to be credulous that's out there is a great read called Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot (available: here). Scot was writing this in an age when the government was going around accusing people of witch craft and if they didn't pay the fine, they would torture these people into admitting they were witches, and then upon confession...they would burn them alive. The government was using this method to get rid of their critics and enemies, and they were basically using the people's credulity against them to make money and stay in power. This is a beloved book amongst skeptics up to this day and in the opening sentence, even Scot, feels bad about telling people not to believe,

Now, because it is relevant, and witchcraft so apparently accomplished through the art of sleight of hand, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain it. I am sorry to be the one to do this, and regret any effect this may have on those who earn their living performing such tricks for purposes of entertainment only, whose work is not only tolerable but greatly commendable. They do not abuse the name of God in this occupation, nor claim their power comes through him, but always acknowledge what they are doing to be tricks, and in fact through them unlawful and unpious deceivers may be exposed.

-Discoverie of Witchcraft, p.1

"He is sorry," he says, because he knows people make a living off of selling magic pendants, other voodoo shit, and knows some people are using deception for entertainment purposes but he also saw the very real danger of what credulous minds will do when they believe too foolishly. He helped reduce credulity of the age by explaining how common magick tricks were done, like thrusting bodkins into your skull and stuff like that...

TO THRUST A BODKIN INTO YOUR HEAD WITHOUT HURT.

Doin' it wrong: Bodkin WITH hurt.

    Have a knife made so that the handle is hollow and allows the blade to slip into it when held upside down. Hold it to your forehead and appear to thrust it in. With a little sponge concealed in your hand you can wring out blood or wine. If wine is running out of your forehead you can excuse it by explaining you have had a lot of wine to drink. Then, after an appropriate show of pain and grief, appear to pull the knife out of your head suddenly, so quickly that the blade falls back into place without being noticed. Immediately place the trick knife in your lap or pocket and switch it for an unprepared one. 

-Discoverie of Witchcraft, chapter XXXIV.

You think people are better today? The Wikipedia pages for psychics and talkers to the dead have a small section on "controversy" but mainly states that they are professional psychic mediums and leaves it at that. There is no such thing as a professional psychic medium...get real.

The Wikipedia page for him should literally read as follows, "Edward cons grieving people out of hard earned money by pretending to talk to their dead relatives." That is the sanest and most accurate way of recording him in history.

Prop up your Propaganda

Propaganda used to be easy as pie. An authority in power tells you what to believe, and you believe it. Why were kings allowed to be in power and rich while everyone else suffered? Either they told them it's because they had blue blood, or were ordained by a God to rule and be rich, or some shit like that. Today it's different, you have to win a popularity contest in most countries and be an expert liar to stay in power.

It's harder to make people believe in authority for no good reason this day and age, but that doesn't mean authority hasn't figured out how. They play on your fears, your hatred, your xenophobia, your nationalism, your language, your religion, and certainly your credulity to get you on their side. Media has become a war of images, a war to prove a point, an image is now literally worth a thousand words. News outlets should not overtly be trusted for no good reason. If your government owns your news network for instance, you should practice extra skepticism on the reports issued from that outlet. The Chinese government for instance tries to ban most of the internet from its people, except for government controlled web servers.

Watch out for non-critical articles written about your government.

Handy Tools

Here's a couple of links which may be interesting or come in handy while surfing the intertubes:

Some argue (me) that this is the greatest macro of all time. G.O.A.T. son!

1. First off, here's Neil Degrasse Tyson in 9 photos. Choose which ones are real and which ones are shopped and you win some internets. This site is actually the first time I ever heard of science superstar NDT. If you choose right or wrong, Hany Farid will still explain why or why not the picture is shopped. It's not always about the pixels or how many shops you've seen in your journeys.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0301/03-fakeorreal.html

2. List of Fallacies (this site is one of many, it's just the first one from google I picked. You can search for others too). It has examples of fallacies such as Loaded Language and others. In literature and entertainment writing all language should be loaded chock-to-the-brim with emotion, but in a news article NO language should be loaded up with emotions.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Loaded%20Language

3. Photos have been edited for a long time, here's some (then again maybe some of them are hoaxes, who knows).

http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/

4. I love this site Snopes ever since it first came out. They investigate hoaxes and now they try and investigate just about everything on the net. It's been around a while and is not only great but fun to read as well.

http://www.snopes.com/




Keep it real.