Concern For Earth Life In Earth Life

An accomplished diver got cramps on the bottom of an aquarium but no one noticed, except a whale.

The whale sensed the problem, so the whale took the diver 20 feet to the surface in order to save the diver's life.

No ifs ands or buts about it:

Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralysed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. She had been taking part in a free diving contest WITHOUT any breathing equipment.

Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20ft arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible amid the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China.

But when Yun, 26, tried to head to the surface she struggled to move her legs.

Lucky Yun said: "I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me - I was dead. Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface."

(The Sun). This brings to mind Tenet Four which indicates that all life on earth should be respected because there is a common need to survive.

Earth creatures have a common bond in that sense, and all species should be respected as carriers of some helpful knowledge, substance, ability, or thing that could insure the survival of all of us.

The Butterfly Textbooks As Doorstops

The Monarch butterflies can migrate 4,000 miles, and they can do it every year.

As it turns out, they have functions in their antennae which work hand and glove with functions in their brain, which means throw out the textbooks:

Scientists say the finding is a surprise as it has always been thought that the butterflies used a 24-hour clock in their brains in conjunction with their "Sun compass" when they migrated.

But some observations from 50 years ago indicated that when the butterflies' antennae were removed the insects no longer flew in the right direction.
...

Dr Reppert said: "So this suggested that: Wow! Maybe there's a clock in the antennae that's more important for the time compensated component of the insects' Sun compass orientation ... It was a total surprise."

(BBC News). At some point in time we must migrate too, yes, we must learn to travel safely through space at very high rates of speed.

It is not safe to run into a piece of debris at near light speeds. So how are we going to learn to detect small rocks or debris 400,000 miles dead ahead (2.5 seconds at light speeds)?

We are going to have to learn it somewhere, and that somewhere is going to be from the material of the cosmos, and that "material" will be either organic, inorganic, or both.

Change Is Not An Option - It Is A Must

One of the early debates about possible flaws in Darwin's hypothesis of evolution, at least as it applies to biological life forms on earth, was the issue of there being "a purpose" to evolution.

Included in that original scenario or hypothesis he advanced was the premise that the "reason why" biological life evolved was to get more fit, get better, become the most fit to survive, thus survival was thereby guaranteed in any particular ecosystem.

Apologists and revisionist historians, who attempt to clean up this problem, ignore the truck loads of books and scientific papers written about it, and retroactively try to clean it up by saying that is not what Darwin meant.

They typically go on to say he meant fit enough to survive in a "local" ecosystem.

But Darwin was not so embarrassed, and flatly said:

"The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient"

(Darwin, Charles (1869), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (5th ed.), London: John Murray, p. 72).

Social Darwinism was a reaction to Darwin's early writings which ended up being a form of militant imperialism where "survival of the fittest" was interpreted to mean "domination by might".

Survival of the fittest was eventually rejected in that sense, but in Ecocosmology it is plainly pointed out that this cosmos does in fact impose an evolutionary test on all species who inhabit planets near central stars.

Only the fittest will survive, and the fittest are those who pass "The Test".

The nature of "fittest" in that context, set out clearly in The Four Tenets, includes technological evolution as well as behavioral evolution, leaving out biological fitness as the main criterion in cosmological evolution.

Ecocosmology calls for the survival of kinder, gentler, and wiser species, not war like imperialists set on domination.

Biological evolution on a planet circling a central star only sets the stage for the far greater cosmological evolution that must take place in order for species to survive within this cosmos.

In that sense, Darwin was, and his progeny are, majoring in the minors.

There is a need to evolve our thinking, to shift the focus onto what the human species must evolve into in order to sustain human existence across the broader cosmos.

Because it is certain that only those species who have become fit via memetic evolution into a wiser and more competent species will survive.

Where Have All The Visionaries Gone?

The windmill in the photo is an 1880's windmill near Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York.

As others do, I also wonder out loud "where have all the visionaries gone", whose bodies and visionary work have now seemingly returned into the dust of the earth?

Are you wondering why I am getting all ubi sunt ("where have all the flowers gone") on you?

Within the tenets of Ecocosmology, because it is based on the hard core reality we can observe scientifically, ubi sunt is not considered directly.

That practice is the same for evolution and cosmology too, because so far as we can detect currently, such functional discourse is properly limited to the realm of metaphysics and/or philosophy.

In Ecocosmology, since we do not know where they have gone, from a scientific proof point of view, the notion of ubi sunt is only considered indirectly, because the tenets of Ecocosmology urge a merging of the best of science and the best of mysticism and "religion" (defined as essentially all non-scientific, but still truthful, endeavours) for the survival of the human species. It points out that the only way out of the star migrations is to:

... morph into a species free from that type of solar/planetary cosmic dependence.

(Tenet 3(f)). Ok, lets imagine for the moment that the human species, a million years from now, is living in its second star system, after having traveled there in our own space vehicles.

That is, imagine humanity is living on a habitable planet 76 light years away from the earth, a planet which was originally discovered by the Kepler Mission in our time (21st Century).

The tenets of Ecocosmology say that this "new" star too will wear out and die, and then humanity will have to move on again to yet another star in order to continue to survive.

What breaks that cosmic nomadic cycle is a morph or evolution into a species that does not depend on stars, and by extension does not depend on "habitable planets", in the manner now required prior to that morph.

Ok, so a transcendent event well beyond the current concepts of science, yet often contemplated in various ways by the metaphysical ideologies, must take place according to that tenet of Ecocomsmology.

But even when that tenet and morph is articulated well, and fully contemplated, still that discourse will not solve the problem or notion of ubi sunt, because we do not know where everyone who has died has gone (from a scientific viewpoint).

We can still, even at that time in the far distant future, ask "what happened to all of those who went before us" and ache with remorse that they are no longer with us.

Is the universe so uncaring or unjust to forget those who will have made the survival of the human species possible?

Are the only human beings worth considering those presently alive at any given time and place?

There you have it, if that was the case, then that selfish notion would doom the human species then and there, because no one would be thinking of the future of humanity, and instead would think only of themselves and that moment in time.

Religion and/or philosophy has addressed the notion of a resurrection from the dead or some other return to life, reincarnation, endless life existing within us already, and other ways of dealing with the ubi sunt problem.

The thrust of Ecocosmology is to allow contemplation of all of this as we work together on our common denominator issues: keeping the earth healthy, helping each other at an international level, and developing technology that will allow migration to other habitable planets as needed.

That is a full plate that does not find it necessary to leave anyone out of the picture, whether they are "alive" or not.

Putting A Face on Machine Mutation

Dredd Blog has a post, which focuses on the issue of the evolution of machines.

Surprisingly, there is more to the question this issue deals with than what at first appears.

It is a post which asks the question: "which came first organic species or machine species?":

Looking at it that way, the machines are at the foundation of biological organisms aren't they? We are in a sense cyborg, then, because we are both machine and organic.

We are composed of atoms and elements which are organized in such a way that they morph into organisms. Organization.

So goes the cosmological theory of machines mutating into "higher forms". Atomic quanta which are composed of non-organic mass and non-organic energy, and therefore are machines, morph or evolve into other machines we call atoms and elements. Then those elements morph into molecules which morph or evolve into organic, biological life forms.

What is puzzling in many ways is that this is called both science fiction and evolutionary science. What makes it fiction on the one hand, but science on the other hand, on the same set of facts? By facts I mean machines morphing or evolving into biological organisms.

(Putting A Face on Machine Mutation, emphasis added). New research tends to agree with the position that the machines came first:

"Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial." Professor Lithgow said.

...

"François Jacob described evolution as a tinkerer, cobbling together proteins of one function to yield more complex machines capable of new functions." Professor Lithgow said.

"Our work describes a perfect example of Jacob's proposition, and shows that Darwin's theory of evolution beautifully explains how molecular machines came to be."

(Science Daily, emphasis added; cf. Monash Univ.). When you look at your wrist watch or your cell phone you may have more resistance to the notion that a machine evolves, yet the fly you just swatted away (which is far more complex) does not make you so skeptical.

That is one reason we bring these issues up, so that we do not fall asleep at the wheel and believe anything that comes our way.

With that in mind, notice how they came up with this new notion that machines do evolve:

"Our cells literally are chimeras of a "host" cell and these intracellular bacteria. Yet bacteria don't have TIM complexes – to understand where the TIM complex came from we simply applied scientific reasoning and looked at a modern-day bacterium akin to the organism that gave rise to mitochondria." Professor Lithgow said.

(ibid, Science Daily, emphasis added). Uh oh, the "scientific reasoning" statement, which we found in another post, can be translated "have faith" at times.

Even scientists balk at the faith of their peers at times, which this blog pointed out, and why not, since that is called "peer review".

We will keep watching and reporting these issues for your perusal, and your decision as to which came first, the machine or the organism.

The next post in this series is here.

Micro vs Macro & Individual vs Group

The difference between blest bog and best blog can be a simple slip of the tongue, a twist of fate, or hard work and talent.

The same holds true for the ideology that contrasts the individual with the vast sea of humanity and the natural tension between them.

This tension can also be considered in the light of a star vs a galaxy, a planet vs a star, free speech vs yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, and the other entire universe of dichotomies that also perplex us.

Religion or theology and evolution or science are other realms where we run up against the wall that should have a door in it.

In a recent post it was said "Some of the ideas of existing theology and of mysticism, which address that subject, will be brought up in future posts".

Well, "that subject" being talked about is the notion of the "ultimate morph", the concept of "biological morphing into non-biological", which Ecocosmology endorses but does not mandate as being required in its tenets.

That of course is because a species can remain biological and continue existence in this universe as long as stars have habitable planets that can be reached in a timely manner.

The tenets of Ecocosmology are obviously macrocosmic and group oriented, but they also totally implicate the microcosmic and the individual because a peace between science and religion is called for.

It is fairly clear that the bulk of theology tends to be a matter between the individual and the "superior something" talked about in that post.

So what is the impact on humanity, as a whole, of an individual passing "The Test", the ultimate morph? None, in the sense of mathematics and statistics, but Ecocosmology clearly directs its tenets toward the whole species, rather than an individual in that species.

So to the extent that the issue of theology is individual, not the Whole Species, that exercise becomes how to unify those two realms, i.e., how to minimize the tension in the areas where there really is tension.

Thus, Ecocosmology advances tenets that promote individual participation in all activities designed and dedicated to saving the whole species from extinction.

The reality is that in Ecocosmology, just saving any one individual from extinction is not considered to be an effective tactic or strategy.

But at the same time, since there is no tension between an individual passing The Test and the whole species passing The Test ("the more the merrier"), it boils down to religions and theology adapting to the needs of the whole species (to the extent that their efforts are only individual based) without sacrificing the needs of the individual in that process.

If you haven't ever detected what I am talking about, remember that theology and religion in general is primarily the interaction between the individual and deity (with as many go between robe wearers as can be "tolerated").

Remember, Uncle Sam pointed and said "I want you", not "I want all of you", which is at least an example of this considerable distinction.

I will set forth some detailed examples in a future post.

Until then, read the Tenets of Ecocosmology again, and keep on morphing in the free world.

Gravitate Towards Light Speed?

A well known scientist, known for, among other things, his willingness to question the status quo, said before his death this January:

Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR — at least, not in favor of SR. Indeed, far from upsetting much of current physics, the main changes induced by this new perspective are beneficial to areas where physics has been struggling, such as explaining experimental evidence for non-locality in quantum physics, the dark matter issue in cosmology, and the possible unification of forces. Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau.

(Tom Van Flandern, Meta Research). Yes, taking physics to the next plateau is a noble purpose indeed, and it must be done if humanity is to exist long term in this cosmos.

One of the tenets of Ecocosmology is that species like ourselves who live on planets near central stars must develop physics, technology, and spacecraft that can attain light speed or near it, or morph into species which do not need to live on habitable planets near central stars.

And like Van Flandern pointed out, it has been pointed out on this blog that our current physics must reach another plateau, free from some of its current impairments, if we are to move to a new habitable planet near a central star.

Perhaps the breakthrough will come during the study of gravity which we really still know little about, compared to what we need to know.

Did Anyone Survive The Catastrophe?

The photo shows the residue of a star that exploded 190,000 years ago.

The light traveled for 190,000 years to reach us.

The Sun will do the same thing to us one day, after first expanding out past Mars to destroy Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

In a catastrophe like this we usually quickly ask "did anyone survive the catastrophe"?

That is, did any life on habitable planets in that solar system make it out before the explosion and destruction, and will we be able to do so before the time comes?

Ecocosmology of Big Bangs and God

The dudes over at space dot com are asking some of the Ecocosmology questions.

Tenet 3(e) of Ecocosmology has an interesting, philosophically and theologically challenging aspect to it.

Nevertheless, there is an all important meme in that tenet of Ecocosmology:

e) then repeat the entire process ad infinitum;

(Tenet Three Basics). This tenet of Ecocosmology says that species in the universe who are bound to planets near stars nevertheless may be able to develop effective space travel.

So we can migrate to another planet orbiting another star to perpetuate the species longer.

That process will have to be repeated until that species changes and no longer is a form of life that needs the biological cycle which stars with habitable planets now provide.

That is, unless Tenet 3(f) kicks in.

I will call this Ecocosmology meme "the god meme".

This radical notion is that we must "evolve or morph" into beings that no longer need what we need now, which is "biological everything."

There is a branch of thinking bound to the notion that humanity thought up the god meme, and it has by now evolved into many religions and theological concepts.

One web site offers a book with substantial sections online where many concepts deal with the notion of a go between, a human who can do things regulars can't because of contact with a superior something.

The concept of Ecocosmology we are talking about in this post, however, indicates that humans must become that superior something, must become more than biological, and yes must become like a god or gods.

And of course that would bring up the question "what is god?" which the aforesaid website considers to be an "afterward":

In this book I’ve used the word “god” in two senses. First, there are the gods that have populated human history—rain gods, war gods, creator gods, all-purpose gods (such as the Abrahamic god), and so on. These gods exist in people’s heads and, presumably, nowhere else.

But occasionally I’ve suggested that there might be a kind of god that is real. This prospect was raised by the manifest existence of a moral order—that is, by the stubborn, if erratic, expansion of humankind’s moral imagination over the millennia, and the fact that the ongoing maintenance of social order depends on the further expansion of the moral imagination, on movement toward moral truth. The existence of a moral order, I’ve said, makes it reasonable to suspect that humankind in some sense has a “higher purpose.” And maybe the source of this higher purpose, the source of the moral order, is something that qualifies for the label “god” in at least some sense of that word.

(Evolution of God, Afterward). The Ecocosmology tenet we have been discussing considers the morph from a biological species into a god being as merely a better survival mechanism; but beyond that "a higher purpose" is contemplated in some other circles outside of Ecocosmology.

That other circle deals with the why of it, which would seem to be superfluous rhetoric and polemics, because I would argue that the gist of the matter is "how it can be done", "how can a species accomplish that morph or evolution?".

Some of the ideas of existing theology and of mysticism, which address that subject, will be brought up in future posts.

Keep on morphing in the free world.

Fuse Tautologies & Algebra For Gödel

It may be possible to salvage the flaws in Algebraic equations alleged by Gödel, Turing, and Penrose.

I am thinking of trying it by way of fusing equations to the logical tautologies (of symbolic logic) any time such binding would be required to avoid a contradiction, or to certify an argument (after all, even Isabelle is a step in that direction).

What "flaws" one might ask? Those pointed out by Gödel in his two theorems, and proven in 1931:

First: "Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory."

Second: "For any formal effectively generated theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent."

(Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems). This whole issue is brought up in the context of Tenet 3(b), which indicates that in order to survive in this cosmos, species who live on habitable planets near central stars must develop spacecraft that can travel at or near the speed of light.

Currently we cannot travel at the speed of light, or even anywhere near that speed, even though it will be required for our species to survive in this cosmos according to Tenet 3(b). Maybe understanding the nature of gravity will be a solution.

Light travels at about 670,618,800 miles an hour (186,283 miles per second x 60 x 60), but our spacecraft at optimum speed (helped by gravity, not simply pushed by their own engines) get about 30,000 or so miles per hour.

Thus light travels about 22,354 times faster than our spacecraft do. For each light-year a distant habitable planet is from us, it will take us about 22,354 years, at our current "speed", to get there.

A planet at 50 light years distance from us would take us about a million years of travel to reach.

Kepler is looking for habitable orbs "up to 500 light-years away from the Sun".

Do you get my drift? If not, you will not need to worry about it.

Thus, "a new physics" (better understanding and better technology) will be required for our species to survive the cosmos we live in.

That new physics must be better than our current physics, which is based upon flawed formal equations, and that new physics must be safe at any speed.

Ladies and gentlemen, create then start your engines.

Our Trail Into The Lights Of Time

An amateur, Stephane Guisard, took many photos of the Milky Way Galaxy then combined them into the mosaic shown in the photo.

Good work!

Stephane is an astronomer and an astrophotographer who has shown that amateur does not mean "without great skill and imagination".

The Milky Way Galaxy, our home galaxy, is the expanse where the human species must limit our efforts at space travel, as we try to find our next home world somewhere in the future.

A close up of stars taken by Hubble and a discussion of the extreme challenge we face in order to get there was posted here recently.

I was reflecting on that difficulty as I listened to leaders of the world speak at The United Nations for the past few days.

Sadly I had to conclude that many of them are focusing on short term endeavours and do not yet understand the vastness of the "ground" we need to cover to survive, or that it absolutely must be done together.

We can fail or we can prevail.

Maxi-Morphs & The Copy Katz

The exceptionally successful movie series Star Wars unveiled the notion that wisdom does not always reside within an envelope of physical beauty.

The almost ugly, almost reptilian, and at the same time almost amphibian looking Yoda was a Jedi Master, a source of wisdom for bringing down the evil empire, and masterfully fought for good.

On a somewhat similar note, there is an astounding ability in a tiny, some would say ugly, creature that is worth noting:

The newt can reconstruct almost any body part, including the brain, spinal cord, heart and limbs. Planarians, a high-school laboratory favorite, can be sliced to bits and each piece will regenerate a new individual.

(The Scientist). The biological ability to morph back into what one was before being severely damaged is notable to say the least, and adds a new dimension to "physician heal thyself".

It stands out as very hip or evolved, especially remembering all of the national hoopla and debate about stem cells and stem cell research.

It seems that every cell in some creatures is like a stem cell, because when damaged, legs, tails, eyes, and even the brain can be reconstructed by these "lowly creatures".

Try walking into your super-duper best in the world realm of the robe wearers at your local hospital and have them grow you back a leg, eye, brain, or arm. Not gonna happen.

Trillions upon trillions of dollars in fantastic equipment and millions of hours of university study, yet the medical robe wearers can't do what the lowly newt can do. The fictional Yoda was spot on when he said:

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.

(Yoda Quotes). The Star Wars writers gave fictional life to what scientists who labor in the field of biomimicry know: the sum of wisdom and knowledge is not stored in the human species; so they artistically created the notion of The Force as the repository of that special something.

So, Tenet Four advocates learning from any and all of the creatures of the earth, including microbes, based upon the hypothesis that wisdom and knowledge is hidden down deep in these creatures.

Wisdom that may help pass The Test if we can only learn first to value our home: the earth's ecosystem.

High Technology Boll Weevil

Here it is, a NASA photo from the newly repaired space telescope in the famous Hubble Mission everyone is once again excited about.

It is a photo of deep space beauty in an area of the cosmos NASA describes as:

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster.

The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars. Globular clusters, ancient swarms of stars united by gravity, are the homesteaders of our Milky Way galaxy. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old. The cluster lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth."

(NASA Hubble). That "16,000" figure is how long it takes light to travel from Omega Centauri to us, so the photo actually depicts what Omega Centauri looked like 16,000 years ago.

I have always considered it interesting that our modern cosmological dogma, for the most part, is based on what the cosmos looked like well before human civilization existed, and in some cases even before the human species ever existed.

Anyway, do you remember the song Woody Guthrie, and other folk singers, sang about the Boll Weevil looking for a home?

Let me tell you that Omega Centauri is out of reach for any Earth species looking for a home; even though, in the long run, according to the tenets of Ecocosmology, we are like the Boll Weevil, and must find another solar system with a home world, another habitable planet, for the human species to live on.

To be sure, it will not be Omega Centauri that we migrate to first, even though it has millions of stars and probably thousands of potential home worlds.

We will not migrate there first because it is way, way out of our range. Even if we travel at the speed of light, it would take us 16,000 years one way.

We must focus on another NASA project, The Kepler Mission, to potentially realize our hopes as a species needing a new home world.

The maximum stellar distance criterion in that mission is about 500 light years, which compared to the 16,000 in Omega Centauri, leaves a 15,500 light year difference.

Hey, read this closely and stay in awe, because we live in a very large neighborhood:

A planet at 50 light years distance from us would take us about a million years of travel to reach.

(Fuse Tautologies & Algebra). That is how long it would take unless we develop a new physics, then the science to develop speeds required by Tenet 3(b), which is at or near the speed of light.

We can learn from the cat species and hang in there hoping beyond hope, because there is a chance we will survive too.

Forest Area Has 350 "New" Species

Only 25% of a forest remains, however, they found about 350 previously unknown species of life:

A flying frog, the world's smallest deer and the first new monkey to be found in over a century are among 350 new species discovered in the eastern Himalayas in the past decade, the WWF said Monday.

But the environmental group said the vital habitats of the mountain range were facing growing pressures from unsustainable development in the region, which spans Nepal, China, India, Bhutan and Myanmar.

In a report released here Monday, it said climate change, deforestation, overgrazing by domestic livestock and illegal poaching and wildlife trading threatened one of the biologically richest areas of the planet.

(Live Science). The other 75% of that forest was destroyed by human civilization in that region, so we may never know how many species became extinct there.

This violates Tenet Four and could endanger the long term prospects for survival of the human species.

The Little People

The Fourth Tenet, says:

4) The seeds of intelligence (genetic and memetic clues) required to successfully perform The Test are distributed into all species, races, religions, creeds, and genders; thus all individuals should be respected as carriers of the seed of intelligence required to pass The Test, lest a fundamental quantum of necessary intelligence be lost.

(The Tenets of Ecocosmology). Included in the "all species" portion of the tenent are microbes, and included in the "all individuals" portion of the tenet would be individual microbe types.

Microbes are the "little people", the oldest known forms of life on earth, and are still the most abundant form of life here.

A new discovery has indicated some hope that microbes may be used in the future to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and thus, help us with the effects of too much carbon dioxide, which we describe at various times as global climate change, global warming, and the green house effect.

This example is one of thousands which illustrate what is meant by the "lest a fundamental quantum be lost" portion of the tenet; the human species could be saved from premature extinction by the help of the tiniest life form.

Respect for the environment, including its "little people", and finding the wisdom for survival contained in it is a fundamental construct very necessary for passing The Test we must pass.

Message of Science & Religion - Western

Tenet 3(f) brings up an alternative to the purely scientific manner of passing The Test, and gives the religious, mystical way of belief a place.

Summary:

Science and religion both tell us of future catastrophe and a way out.

They both tell us to learn to live together to avoid the catastrophe, and they both tell us we must go into "heaven" or suffer "hell" for it. Yes they do.

Proof:

Science says our star the sun will destroy the earth in the future, but there is a way out.

We must go into the heavens and find another home planet to live upon.

We must learn to live together here and now, and be decent to this planet in the interim.

Looking forward we must develop space travel technology but we must solve social problems now. Because our final trip into heaven is a very, very long time from now.

While we develop the space travel technology we must sustain a habitable planet until we do launch that final trip of salvation.

If we do not travel into the heavens our fate will be determined when the sun eventually turns the inner four planets of this solar system into the fires of hell.

Religion talks of potential Armageddon but those who are good will be spared, those who are good will go into heaven to a better home.

It generally teaches us that the golden rule is to be good to each other treating one another as we would be treated. If we do not there will be a hell instead of a heaven.

That is essentially the same story told by two factions, but the how it is done is where the two stories drift far apart.

Science teaches us we must physically do it ourselves, but religion in a general sense teaches us that we are to be saved by metaphysical intervention.

Effect:

Science launched a spacecraft recently which will look for habitable planets near us. Near in the sense that telescopes have a limited range.

But those planets are in other star systems, other solar systems far away by our standards of distance. Yes, far, far away in the sense of how far we can now travel in space with our current technology.

Meanwhile scientists are teaching astronauts how to do space travel, are exploring the planets around us, and are learning how to travel deeper into the heavens.

They hope to avoid hell that way. They are practising what they teach.

Religion has been launched everywhere, and its people believe they are converting from one behavioural pattern into a better one.

As a result they reason that they can more easily live in peace with one another, that the Metaphysical Realm will reward them with a trip into the heavens.

They hope to avoid hell that way. They are practising what they teach.

Tenet Four Basics

Tenet Four is a recognition that we learn from the nature around us, derive all we need for sustenance from it, cannot exist without it, and that if we are to pass The Test we will do so using the resources in the natural web of interdependent life around us.

One area of science, called Biomimicry, recognizes that wisdom is to be found in nature; hopefully including knowledge about how to make a space craft capable of the journey of salvation sometime in the future before the Sun destroys us.

We will have to study gravity and light in a new way, a new physics, if we are to attain the efficiencies required for that journey.

This tenet warns that no species should be destroyed or become extinct by our behaviour on any habitable planet, because a necessary clue to our survival may be hidden in that species.

The term "species" certainly includes all "groups" (white, black, red, yellow, brown, male, female, etc.) within the human species.

Tenet Three Basics

Tenet 3(a) is not much more than a statement of ecological maturity that we take care of our home world because it takes care of us; that we obviously should not put poison into the area from which we eat and drink; that we need to keep the ecosystem safe and sound for all species; and that we recognize the existence of toxins and ideas contrary to and opposed to that social harmony: such as disease, the corruption of power, and warmongering.

Tenet 3(b) recognizes the great distances to other stars with habitable planets orbiting them. Look at the stellar distances of about the 50 nearest stars, which cover an area from 4.2 to 16.3 light years distance from earth.

Light travels about 670,618,800 miles per hour (186,283 x 60 x 60) . Voyager 2 travels about 38,000 miles per hour.

Light travels about 5,878,644,400,800 miles in a year (670,618,800 x 24 x 365.25). Voyager 2 travels about 333,108,000 miles in a year (38,000 x 24 x 365.25).

Thus for each year that light travels, Voyager 2 must travel 17,647.86 years (5,878,644,400,800 / 333,108,000) to match that distance.

If the nearest star is 4.2 light years distance, Voyager 2 must travel 74,121 years to get there (17,647.86 x 4.2).

Voyager 2 is the longest lasting of our current spacecraft, and it is only about 32 years old in terms of space travel. Would it last 74,000 more years? And what about the return trip?

Tenet 3(c) recognizes that we won't find a habitable planet unless we look for it, which the Kepler Mission is trying to do.

Tenet 3(d) is the next logical step, colonizing a habitable planet after finding it and travelling to it.

Tenet 3(e) recognizes that stars will all die out, so this process of finding, going to, and then colonizing planets orbiting stars must continue as long as we are the human species.

Tenet 3(f) recognizes alternatives to the process in 3(a) - (e), such as the realm of the mystical and the realm of the religious that believe divine beings or some mystery force will help us become a different type of being no longer needing stars and planets in order to survive; and Tenet 3(f) further recognizes the ideology of further evolution into such beings without divine or mystical intervention.

In short, whatever works in order to pass The Test, is fine with the Tenets of Ecocosmology.

Tenet Two Basics

One of the early debates about possible flaws in Darwin's hypothesis of evolution, at least as it applies to biological life forms on earth, was the issue of there being "a purpose" to evolution.

Included in that original scenario or hypothesis he advanced was the premise that the "reason why" biological life evolved was to get more fit, get better, become the most fit to survive and survival was thereby guaranteed in any particular ecosystem.

It came down to a statement made by Herbert Spencer which was "the survival of the fittest".

Apologists and revisionist historians, who attempt to clean up this problem, ignore the truck loads of books and scientific papers written about it, and retroactively try to clean it up by saying that is not what Darwin meant, he meant fit enough to survive in a "local" ecosystem. Darwin was not so embarrassed, and flatly said:

"The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient"

(Wikipedia, emphasis added). Social Darwinism was a reaction to Darwin's early writings, which pit human against human and other species because "fittest" was defined as if fittest meant some militaristic, imperialistic struggle to dominate everything else.

Ecocosmology plainly points out that this cosmos does in fact impose an evolutionary test on all species who inhabit planets near central stars, and that only the fittest will survive.

The fittest are those who pass "The Test".

The nature of "fittest" in that context, set out clearly in the Four Tenets, includes technological evolution as well as behavioral evolution, leaving out biological fitness to dominate as the main criterion in cosmological evolution.

Biological evolution on any one planet circling a central star only sets the stage for the far greater cosmological evolution that must take place in order for species to survive within this cosmos.

In that sense, Darwin was and his progeny are majoring in the minors, that is, being myopic and having a very narrow and limited vision.

There is a chronic need to evolve this thinking and shift the focus onto what the human species must evolve into in order to sustain human existence across the broader cosmos.

It is now clear that memetic evolution is the mainstay, the way to pass The Test, long after biological evolution has reached its apex.

Thus, we can say that evolution does have a purpose, one of which is a kinder, gentler, wiser, and technologically advanced species which sees itself as a caretaker of planets and the species on those planets across the cosmos.

Tenet One Basics

The Sun ("our star") will eventually expand out to about the orbit of Mars, and later "burn out".

All planets within that orbit level, including the Earth, are doomed, and therefore have a time limit upon them.

All life on those doomed planets is in jeopardy in the very long run:

Earth's fate is precarious. As a red giant, the Sun will have a maximum radius beyond the Earth's current orbit, 1 AU (1.5×1011 m), 250 times the present radius of the Sun. However, by the time it is an asymptotic giant branch star, the Sun will have lost roughly 30% of its present mass due to a stellar wind, so the orbits of the planets will move outward. If it were only for this, Earth would probably be spared, but new research suggests that Earth will be swallowed by the Sun owing to tidal interactions. Even if Earth would escape incineration in the Sun, still all its water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere would escape into space.

(Wikipedia, Astronomy Today, PBS, and Space Dot Com). Exactly when this will happen, or could happen has become more foggy as we observe some stars going through that phase much earlier than the current stellar models allow for that to happen.

The logical behavior and path for the human species, since we are faced with this reality, is to preserve the life sustaining essence of this planet earth while we find another habitable planet within our reach. We have no reach yet (see Tenet 3(b) Basics).

Meanwhile, we must develop a way to travel to that habitable planet so we can colonize it so as to perpetuate the human species.

Tenet One is part of The Tenets of Ecocosmology which this blog focuses exclusively on.

A recent study of the Sun, which raised eyebrows, underscores our need for more study and research so as to build a more solid foundation for solar science.

The Tenets of Ecocosmology

The fundamental Tenets of Ecocosmology make up the structure of the ecocosmology hypothesis.

These four tenets have been developed by careful extrapolation from known principles developed within the scientific disciplines of astronomy, cosmology, ecology, and biology.

The four tenets are:

1) The stars like our Sun, at the center of all solar systems, will support life forms for an amount of time, but will then destroy life on the planets near them at an unknown time during each solar system's developmental life cycle.

a) For stars that are late K thru M, such as dwarfs, this applies to the deadly outbursts, that come short of physical destruction, of the planets orbiting close to that type star.

2) That final catastrophic event (destruction of life on inner planets), and all events leading up to it, comprise "The Test" (This test is composed of all the preliminary and final evolutionary requirements for the life forms on all planets near central stars. The Test works as a wall, moat, or barrier, to divide those species who may continue to live in the physical universe from those who may not).

3) To pass The Test, intelligent life forms inhabiting any planet will be required to:

a) first learn to live and work together within, and in accord with, their planet's ecosystem, and to substantially coexist with all the other species on that planet, while overcoming any toxins of power that are contrary to social harmony;

b) develop technology that produces space vehicles able to substantially meet or exceed the speed of light;

c) find another solar system with a habitable planet which contains a central star still having enough time left in its stellar life cycle for them to colonize a habitable planet in that solar system (since it is unknown whether the toxins of power are to be found on all planets, as they are found on Earth, that possibility should be taken into consideration when selecting any new planet or moon as a home world); Note: since white dwarfs and red dwarfs (main sequence) are the most stable and most abundant stars, they should be favored over Sun-like stars. If biotic evolution in a solar system takes place on a dwarf star, the cosmic nomadic behavior may not be a factor of "The Test" (see On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses - 8 at "III. The Consequences of Premature Biotic Evolution");

d) colonize that habitable planet, and then improve ecocosmological skills as needed;

e) then repeat the entire process ad infinitum;

f) or, experience a morph into another "species" free from that type of solar/planetary cosmic dependence.

4) The seeds of intelligence (genetic and memetic clues) required to successfully perform The Test are distributed into all species, races, religions, sciences, creeds, and genders. Thus, all individuals should be respected as carriers of some quanta of the seed of intelligence required to pass The Test, lest a fundamental quantum of necessary intelligence be lost.

These Four Tenets define the basics of Ecocosmology, and are designed to provide a platform from which more details can be expanded upon in the days, weeks, months, and years before us.

(Last updated 7/18/2014)

About Ecocosmology

The word ecocosmology is constructed from two main word components.

The first word component "eco" comes from the ancient land of the Greeks, who had a wonderful language, including the word:

oiko-, oik-, oikio-, oico- (Greek: house, dwelling, home) ...

(Wordinfo). It means your home, and in its extended application it means your home world. It is used in the words 'ecology' and 'economy' for example.

The second word component "cosmology" is defined as:

1. the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and esp. with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom.

2. the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe.

(Cosmology). When we combine the two word components "eco" and "cosmology" to fuse them into a new word, that new word is ecocosmology, which means:

The philosophy, "religion", and science dealing with the origin and general structure of home worlds in the universe, with their parts, elements, laws, their habitable characteristics, including especially the knowledge and wisdom about how species become fit to survive in the universe.

This blog's Mission Statement is:

Concern for the Earth’s environment has become a dominant social issue of our time. The problem is no longer definable in the traditional terms of conservation of natural resources.

Ecocosmology focuses on the survival of human life in terms of the adaptability to the local planetary environment first, but primarily surviving in the cosmic environment of the universe, which means finding another habitable planet from time to time.

The challenge is as vast as a trip to a distant solar system, yet as small as a child joyously playing in a stream of water free of disease, harmful bacteria, and poisons.

Ecocosmology is a basic reaffirmation of human value and dignity, as a promise that the future need not be more and more of worse and worse.

To this end, humanity must understand not only the natural world, but must master the natural cosmos which requires a humane type of survival of the fittest.

Therefore …

The mission of Ecocosmology is to offer a Cosmic Environmental Education Program online which will create in the most rapid and efficient way possible, a cosmic, environmentally-literate citizenry – a citizenry that understands humanity's interdependence with and responsibility for the total environment of the cosmos, both natural as well as human-made.

Which will also be a citizenry that possesses the knowledge and concern with which to solve existing problems, prevent future environmental degradation, and prevent failure to properly advance into the culture of the cosmos.

The Tenets of Ecocosmology define the complete structure of this hypothesis, together with the fundamental map to be used during this very long term mission.

Whew ... I feel moody ... so ... let's listen to some cosmic blues:



(last updated 12/21/13)