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 smmu
Organism
Registered: 05/15/08
Posts: 222
Last seen: 6 hours, 38 minutes
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 Time...
#8862891 - 09/01/08 08:41 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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Quote from a textbook I am reading:
"Compress, for example, the entire 4.5 billion years of geologic time into a single year. On that scale, the oldest rocks we know date from about mid-March. Living things first appeared in the sea in May. Land plants and animals emerged in late November and the widespread swamps that formed the Pennsylvanian coal deposits flourished for about four days in early December.
Dinosaurs became dominant in mid-December, but disappeared on the 26th, at about the time the Rocky Mountains were first uplifted.
Manlike creatures appeared sometime during the evening of December 31st, and the most recent continental ice sheets began to recede from the Great Lakes and from northern Europe about 1 minute and 15 seconds before midnight on the 31st.
Rome ruled the Western world for 5 seconds from 11:59:45 to 11:59:50.
Columbus discovered america 3 seconds before midnight, and the science of geology was born with the writings of James Hutton just slightly more than one second before the end of our eventful year of years."
This little passage really puts the timelessness of it all into perspective for us, doesn't it? We really are just a tick on an eternal clock... a drop in a vast, endless cosmic sea of time... 
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up and down
and in the end, it's all just round and round.
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learningtofly
Stranger
Registered: 05/21/07
Posts: 2,435
Last seen: 6 hours, 20 minutes
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Re: Time... [Re: smmu]
#8862900 - 09/01/08 08:43 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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LOL your textbook believes that Columbus discovered America. I guess the native americans, norsemen, and everyone else that traded there didn't count?
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GnuBobo said:
You're a stupid hippie. That's my point.
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Irieforester
Head to toe inH2O
Registered: 03/10/08
Posts: 455
Loc: That state seperating fro...
Last seen: 5 hours, 44 minutes
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Exactly, I always wondered why they still teach that.
I could understand if it was just the native americans, but some good white vikings found it too, so why not give them the credit?
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I am still and forever learning
Apollyphelion said:
You can learn A LOT from shitting in the right set and setting!
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 7,653
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 7 hours, 28 minutes
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Because they didnt spread the knowledge to greater Europe... Obviously Columbus discovered america. He didnt know it was there and then found it, that's what discovery is. Yea other people discovered it too.
Anyway, back on topic.. Universe: very old.
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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smmu
Organism
Registered: 05/15/08
Posts: 222
Last seen: 6 hours, 38 minutes
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Let's disregard columbus... yes, of course he was a crock of crap.
the message of the post is what I was trying to get at... it was just such an interesting way of putting it. throwing the earth on something we look at every day: a calendar. I thought it was interesting 
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up and down
and in the end, it's all just round and round.
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Shad0w
In trouble again.
Registered: 06/08/08
Posts: 532
Last seen: 1 month, 3 days
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Re: Time... [Re: smmu]
#8863645 - 09/01/08 11:15 PM (3 months, 1 day ago) |
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saw a show with carl sagan in it a few monthes ago that said something like that.
Really neat to think about.
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 Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 23,817
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Time... [Re: smmu]
#8864985 - 09/02/08 09:48 AM (3 months, 22 hours ago) |
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This is the truth that humans cannot bear. We are insignificant to the max. We live within our mind and our mind believes it perceives everything but all it perceives IMO is the reflection of it's own insecurities. This is mostly the case.
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What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. R.A.W.
I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. R.A.W.
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” ~Stephen Roberts
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Lakefingers
Proto-over-under-neo-modern
Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 1,550
Loc: mumuland
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
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so many of us want to etch our names on different materials or onto the minds of others,
just to be remembered, but
we have nothing to etch ourselves to that is permanent
instead of living well most of us try leaving a mark or
attempt being remembered for ages and ages to come.
it's obvious, but easily ignored
why do we put up with so much crap?
how do we put up with ourselves?
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shroomzey
Dreamer
Registered: 05/17/08
Posts: 131
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To add to the grid. Look at humans as one organism, even though our art and creativity seems bold and "Human!" we are still governed by instincts (primarily). I think we're starting to break away from what we are at the basic level and push for higher ground seeing how that basic level is well, killing itself individually. On the macro scale we are definitely prospering, right now. Our actions as a whole seem to be very short sited like our own senses, touch, sight, taste, etc. Mostly ignoring the future.
But what I find interesting is how we believe that our human lives are but a grain of sand on the beach of this earth. Think of the millions of thoughts, feelings, occurrences, etc that happen within a second of our lives.
(insert substance) I know that I have felt like I experienced a year's worth of study and information in what was only a 4 minute DMT trip. Sadly, I think it was too much life to hold onto at once and like a dream fades quickly. We're not built to live that long.
And even "long" is a speculative thing. To think that our lives are so small in what, in comparison to numbers? Do those numbers represent life? Is the life of a fly really any longer than the life of a human? Like an idea I've heard in the movie Waking Life...
It's like we're all just saying "No" to the end. Until we're finally ready to say "Yes" to it. We all end up saying Yes. There is no comparison to life lived.
Edited by shroomzey (09/03/08 03:20 AM)
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 1 day, 10 hours
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Columbus didn't lose his credit until 37 ms from midnight.
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Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
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Lakefingers
Proto-over-under-neo-modern
Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 1,550
Loc: mumuland
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
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by propsering "on the macro scale" i suppose you mean the Enlightenment, humanism, technology, internet, etc.
but we live in the age of genocide.
if you calculate all the people that were born before 1970
and look at how many were killed
you will find that a large minority of them were killed (with the future as the motive).
only recently 1,033,000 people have been killed in the
Iraq War. Should we bring up Hitler, who was nothing when
counting numbers and comparing with Mao, Stalin and the
like? Around 170,000,000 people were killed in the 20th
Century's wars and revolutions, for the future.
something's propsering on the macro scale, but it ain't kindness, my friend.
One estimate I read said that there have been 45 billion
homo sapiens since H. sapiens arose. The total estimate of
war-murders throughout history (written records) is
estimated at 750 million to one billion. If this is
correct, 1 in 45 people have been killed in war over time,
over half of those in the 20th Century. In fact, in the
past hundred years if you coursely group all people
together, 1 in 30 were murdered, with the future as the motive.
Quote:
But what I find interesting is how we believe that our human lives are but a grain of sand on the beach of this earth. Think of the millions of thoughts, feelings, occurrences, etc that happen within a second of our lives.
it is wonderful!
there's no time for it,
unless you have the time of your life
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Lakefingers
Proto-over-under-neo-modern
Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 1,550
Loc: mumuland
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
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Quote:
Icelander said:
This is the truth that humans cannot bear. We are insignificant to the max. We live within our mind and our mind believes it perceives everything but all it perceives IMO is the reflection of it's own insecurities. This is mostly the case.
insignificant, but very precious
what is valuable is what is rare
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shroomzey
Dreamer
Registered: 05/17/08
Posts: 131
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By prospering I meant that our population is growing, we're covering this earth like a network and don't stop. So, in the most base way of observing and qualifying life. We're live'n.
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 "I think of going to the grave without having a psychedelic experience like going to the grave without ever having sex. It means, that you never figured out what it was all about. The mystery, is in the body, and the way the body works itself into nature." -Terence McKenna
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 blewmeanie
Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 6,915
Loc: Gainesville Fl
Last seen: 1 second
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Quote:
Lakefingers said:
Quote:
Icelander said:
This is the truth that humans cannot bear. We are insignificant to the max. We live within our mind and our mind believes it perceives everything but all it perceives IMO is the reflection of it's own insecurities. This is mostly the case.
insignificant, but very precious
what is valuable is what is rare
Why?
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Gazing through the
night and its stars,
or the grass and its bugs,
I know in my heart these swarms
are the craft of surpassing wisdom.
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Arden
Explorer
Registered: 09/01/08
Posts: 363
Loc: Among the Lemurs
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Without being too redundant in light of Terence McKenna, change is definitely accelerating to the point where it almost seems an indispensable part of nature. There is also a trend, a moving towards higher states of complexity and intricacy of order.
Quote:
This little passage really puts the timelessness of it all into perspective for us, doesn't it? We really are just a tick on an eternal clock... a drop in a vast, endless cosmic sea of time...
But nevertheless we're an important part of it, no less than the explosions of stars, and no more important than the existence of rocks. At least according to Thich Nhat Hahn, if one minuscule was removed from the flowing cosmic picture, nothing would be able to exist as it exists now.
Robert Anton Wilson once made a point similar to your original post (but also emphasized the connectivity of it all). Think of all the past events, all connected, that must have occurred to enable you to be sitting here reading this writing right now.
Fun stuff.
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deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 531
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Re: Time... [Re: Arden]
#8882948 - 09/05/08 03:22 PM (2 months, 28 days ago) |
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My opinion is that we are one of the most extravagant bags of limited number of degrees of freedom in this sector of the solar system when it comes to spending energy trying to answer our questions and problems. The most energy hungry apes the Earth as ever see when it comes to questioning. Or is it humanity, or life, or is it Earth, or is it the solar system, the universe spending this energy ?
In fact we take time and energy (the product of which is called "action" in physics) to question our environment, using our environment, about itself through ourselves. The more these questions we ask are remote in the past, in scales or in complexity, the more expensive it seems to construct the human representation of an answer. The world we perceive is the world we are in, and the world we are in should be the world we are made of. The world we are made of should be the world our questions and answers are made of.
Or again, if the discovery of the DNA structure, of contemporary physics, of literature, of art or philosophy are to be taken as indicator of a creative thriving toward understanding the human drama as part of its environment, and it is a debatable if, then could we also thrive to understand this thriving, this life, in any creative way ?
Thriving in living, in asking, in approximately answering, begs to thrive about itself too. It is something which consumes time and energy to fold the universe into itself into a brain. The more we fold, the more it cost, the more it takes time.
Could we fold further, deeper into folding itself, make a knot and be gone with time once and for all ? A timeless process might emerge, or is it ever incommensurable, ever asymptotic ?
Time and space and science and art are so human; what would a human understanding of "man by man" bring about ?
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adrug
a child of theuniverse
Registered: 02/04/03
Posts: 14,230
Loc: into the mystic
Last seen: 59 minutes, 59 seconds
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Quote:
Lakefingers said:
by propsering "on the macro scale" i suppose you mean the Enlightenment, humanism, technology, internet, etc.
but we live in the age of genocide.
if you calculate all the people that were born before 1970
and look at how many were killed
you will find that a large minority of them were killed (with the future as the motive).
only recently 1,033,000 people have been killed in the
Iraq War. Should we bring up Hitler, who was nothing when
counting numbers and comparing with Mao, Stalin and the
like? Around 170,000,000 people were killed in the 20th
Century's wars and revolutions, for the future.
something's propsering on the macro scale, but it ain't kindness, my friend.
One estimate I read said that there have been 45 billion
homo sapiens since H. sapiens arose. The total estimate of
war-murders throughout history (written records) is
estimated at 750 million to one billion. If this is
correct, 1 in 45 people have been killed in war over time,
over half of those in the 20th Century. In fact, in the
past hundred years if you coursely group all people
together, 1 in 30 were murdered, with the future as the motive.
Quote:
But what I find interesting is how we believe that our human lives are but a grain of sand on the beach of this earth. Think of the millions of thoughts, feelings, occurrences, etc that happen within a second of our lives.
it is wonderful!
there's no time for it,
unless you have the time of your life
Here's something you might find interesting:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
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Posters and prints:
http://www.zazzle.com/leannsj/
Shroomery Tshirt store:
http://www.printfection.com/shroomery
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 1 day, 10 hours
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Re: Time... [Re: adrug]
#8883867 - 09/05/08 07:19 PM (2 months, 28 days ago) |
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Good video.
I can see how it makes sense throughout stationary human history;
I'm not so sure that humans would have been at each other's throats before they had possessions worth taking, however.
I imagine before there was settlement there was probably quite a high value of life...
But that's the thing, imagining is all you can actually do when you go back that far.
I definitely agree that it has been a slow decent since biblical times.
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Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
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Lakefingers
Proto-over-under-neo-modern
Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 1,550
Loc: mumuland
Last seen: 1 month, 12 days
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similar to an IKEA plastic vase not measuring up to a Minoan vase
like in people, what is valuable is what is rare,
not what you find everywhere, the general things, the mass-produced things
...although we live in an age of a moralism
that preaches the values of the massproduced
(which is only an ill attempt to obfuscate the rare)
Edited by Lakefingers (09/07/08 09:01 AM)
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ackack9000
Smart pants are risky
Registered: 05/08/08
Posts: 258
Loc: Captain of the ship
Last seen: 1 month, 26 days
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I can't wait till I'm reincarnated as a dinosaur. Scientists still don't know why time only goes in one direction.
Not to beat a dead horse, but Columbus believed he discovered America. Therefore, he discovered America- OF COURSE he wasn't the first person to discover it: there were people ALREADY HERE.
Native Pride motherfuckers, I'm 1/32 Comanche!
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http://www.zefrank.com/sequencer/index.html
<!--gradient:#FF0808,#00FF04//-->WonderrrrfFulll I"m so fullll. If I was any more full my eyes would turn brown.[/gradient]
Edited by ackack9000 (09/07/08 10:35 AM)
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