Careful with that Telescope, Eugene

[littlegreenman]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100425/...h-870a197.html

Seems like a reasonable thing to assume.

[Skodster]

For a scientist, I am surprised that Hawking went into as much detail as he did. It's one thing to postulate upon the existence of alien life but to propose the purpose and demeanour of the visitors is interesting. Whatever next....a belief in God?

[SnakemanStoo]

I suspect he'd watched Independence Day just before he made that statement.

[digitalscream]

It won't really be our problem - or even our great-great-great-great-grandchildren's problem. People sometimes forget that while the visible universe is significantly smaller than the whole universe, it's hugely larger than the portion of the universe from which our civilisation is visible. Unless there was an alien ship already on its way through here, they wouldn't be close enough to pick up any of our radio emissions.

Of course, there would probably be no reason for them to be passing through, because there aren't any other radio sources nearby to attract them (at least, not that we've detected)...mind you, I suppose that's not counting that there might have been another civilisation nearby which died out a long time ago.

[frankus]

For a scientist, I am surprised that Hawking went into as much detail as he did. It's one thing to postulate upon the existence of alien life but to propose the purpose and demeanour of the visitors is interesting. Whatever next....a belief in God?

I don't think so, for one thing Hawkins is saying:

"The Universe is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it all is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the corner-store chemist, but compared to space, that's peanuts."

If he then went on to say "and it was all made by one entity" people would unplug his speak and spell. Thousands of planets equals more chances of life. Using conventional logic (see the works of St Thomas Aquinas) the more planets there are, the less chance there is that one entity created it.

However there is a great deal of quantum physics that corroborates the contents of some Hindu texts - if you're genuinely interested in where science and religion do agree.

[hungrymark]

However there is a great deal of quantum physics that corroborates the contents of some Hindu texts - if you're genuinely interested in where science and religion do agree.

I read that in The Lost Symbol but disregarded it because the rest of the book was bollocks. Can you point me in the direction of some decent reading material on the topic?

Ta

[frankus]

I read that in The Lost Symbol but disregarded it because the rest of the book was bollocks. Can you point me in the direction of some decent reading material on the topic?

Ta

I'm going to have to think back to my visit to the Temple in Neasden, I'll see if I can recall any names...

I think it was Carl Sagan the US Cosmologist who had a lot to say but there are a lot of comparisons and similarities between the two disciplines going all the way back to The Wall of Planck, Hinduism extends beyond that to claim that before this time the current laws of Physics would not apply as the Universe worked in a totally different way... at that point Scientists shrug and say "well our tools don't work that far back" - the better ones maintain their respect of how the religion and science have co-existed and are prepared to explore the Hindu's claims, even though it might require a totally different mathematics system.

[digitalscream]

However there is a great deal of quantum physics that corroborates the contents of some Hindu texts - if you're genuinely interested in where science and religion do agree.

I'd be genuinely interested in the sources for this, too - all I've seen to date is a description of the physical idea of quantum entanglement and the metaphysical idea of consciousness and reality being entwined, with some specious logic suggesting that they're exactly the same thing. Seems like pseudo-science at its best to me; if there's more to it, I'd really like to know 'cos that sort of thing interests me

[frankus]

Seems like pseudo-science at its best to me

I think that depends on your definition of science. Concerning the Scientific interpretations of the Vendata: I've not read anything that would make me dismiss it or the Scientists who've worked on it.