Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

"In fact, Chimps and Bonobos are more closely related to humans, than they are to Gorillas."

Yes but the pygmy chimps and bonobos are more related to each other than they are to humans. And australopithecines are closer to humans but have their own genus too. So it is probably appropriate for chimps to have theirs as well.

"...a rationalist would compute that our importance is nil."

I think a true rationalist would recognize that this is a highly presumptious statement and realize that the 'importance' of humanity can only be reckoned if one knows the entire future history of humankind and any hyper-intelligent species that might one day evolve from it.

Intelligent life in general could have a very important role to play, even in the very evolution of the Universe. Quite frankly, we don't know, since we cannot possibly imagine what sort of life forms or intelligences could exist trillions of years in the future or what their capabilities might be.

But our role in this regard (as distant ancestors to some of these species) could be more 'important' than we can imagine. Utterly independent of whether one believes in god(s) or anything else.

James, I don't know if you have kids but speaking as a parent, in my experience there are protective feelings you experience that go wayyyyy beyond anything you were ever taught. I mean, my parents were very caring too but you don't really appreciate their feelings or protectiveness (which at times seems to go to irrational extents) until you are put in their place and really experience it yourself. Parental instinct is very real. Emotions become awakened that cannot be explained simply as learned behavior, IMO.

"Separating what is innate, from what is learned is extremely difficult to do, and I will assert, that most of the qualities that we admire so much about humans, are learned behaviors, not innate behaviors."

I would tend to agree with that. I guess that's what we have civilization for.

"we have a healthy fear of death."

'This fear is a learned condition.'

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The knowledge of what sort of circumstances are likely to result in death may be learned, but I would say the fear itself is not.

Even people who believe fervently in a very specific sort of blissful afterlife, who have in effect been taught all their lives NOT to fear death, will be in a state of extreme fear if confronted unexpectedly with the event.

My reaction -- they call that "red"?

Maybe whether it's red or not doesn't matter as much as the psychological significance of the announcement -- could be a good war-starter from that standpoint.

"if you are trying to breed to perfect red heifer on purpose, isn't that cheating?"

That would be self-fulfilling prophecy. You have a prophecy, someone wants it fulfilled, people will manage to fulfill it.

1) depends on focal ratio and how stiff the mirror mount is. Faster scopes are more sensitive to collimation errors. If you've got an f/4.5 dob with the mirror resting in a loose sling (like the old coulters) you need to collimate every time. I once had a 14.5" f/4.5 dob with a good mirror cell that I only had to collimate once every 4-5 uses. I currently have a 10" f/8 dob that only needs collimation about once every 10-12 uses.

2) Once you've done it a few times, about a minute.

3) Whether you 'check' your collimation or not, the need to re-collimate will make itself known through the out-of-focus star images while you're focusing -- central obstruction shadow will be off-center in the blur circle if you're out of collimation.

"Do you visualize god as a physical being? Why/why not?"

You might need to define 'physical' here. Anything exists has to have some form -- otherwise it doesn't exist, LOL! But it may not be matter in the sense of consisting of protons, neutrons, etc. as these are the building blocks particular to our universe.

"Could you describe for us what you see in your mind's eye?"

A sort of cosmic massmind, an accretion of intelligence from those races of previous universes that managed to preserve theirs. What it would look like, I don't know -- cannot even assume it would be 3-dimensional and therefore "look" like anything.

"How did you happen to come to this image?"

Logical conclusion. Given an eternity of time and infinity of space I think it would simply occur unless it is zero-probability, i.e. literally impossible. Intelligence seems naturally accretive in nature. Note this does not necessarily constitute a standard 'creator-god' that most theologies employ although creating 'universes' like ours probably would not be beyond its capability. This is a more subtle, co-existent god, effectively infinite in age and knowledge but not pre-existent and not prescient except insofar as future probabilities are theoretically calculable. It may not fit some people definition of "god" as it may not be supernatural enough.

This is also subject to change without notice. ;-)

"It has been suggested that life here on earth is the hell that has been spoken of,..."

That's definitely one of those 'the glass is half empty' things!