Here at The Science Liaisons, we write about the things that really matter. We also have access to a time machine, so we are able to write about things you will care about in the future, as well as topics that have already been cared for and subsequently text-message-broken-up-with. We write about things we like, at the moment, and hope that some of the things we say are true, not unlike the Bible, actually.
I work with children between the ages of 7 and 13 on a daily basis, and often times the kids get stumped on a particular word or topic of discussion. In the room I work in, we have access to a collection of encyclopedias from 2003, the World Book collection, as well as a large assortment of atlases, dictionaries, thesauruses, and random primary school text books. I often suggest that the children consult these references if they are in need of any information, and I almost always get a blank stare. The kids have never seen the World Books before, and you can forget an atlas. They, on the contrary, suggest we search for the answer on the internet.
No, how dare we, the internet is full of pages made by average, every day people, how can they be even remotely scientifically accurate?
I have been taught to be very cautious when approaching the internet. I am to make sure, if reading any form of scientific literature, that it is peer-reviewed or under the authority of a University or highly regarded research group. God forbid I elicit the help of, one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia. Throughout my college "career", I was told that Wikipedia was one of the deadly sins of research, and to stay very far away from it. It was nice to find that Wikipedia may not be so bad after all. In 2005 the journal Nature put forth some interesting figures regarding the validity of Wikipedia. They found that the accuracy of science entries found on the Wikipedia website, was nearly on par with those entries in Britannica. The link is here,but you will need access to the site through a subscription, or perhaps you can gain access if you are a college student (just use the portal found in your libraries web page). Now, this article was written almost 5 years ago, and the popularity of Wikipedia has soared since. Many people will fetch up the typical debate against this wonderfully gathered website: anyone can edit it, so there must be falsehoods, Right? Upon further analysis, you will find that most pages on Wikipedia, at least the important ones, can not be edited. If, in fact, the pages can be edited they go through a rigorous moderation period, in which time the page can be reverted back to its original state.
So am I archaic in principles of research, or have I just been taught the archaic ways by old guys who can't get with the times? Maybe I SHOULD steer clear of Wikipedia, but then again, this idea that we can build off of one another, and learn from one another to create one all encompassing, literal World Encyclopedia, is incredible. After all, some really smart guy once said that "We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants." even if those giants are made from a bunch of little smart guys. I would like to think that we could all learn something from one another and this crazy thing called Wikipedia, even if it is in a location surrounded my porn, Facebook, and the World of Warcraft.
Well, at the very least, and most cautious, use Wikipedia as a starting point. Use it to get an understanding of the topic, and then go from there.
Welcome to the middle section of my highly acclaimed trilogy on time travel! How do I know it's highly acclaimed when I've only written two of the three? Think about it, silly. (I'm a time traveler.)
Last post I discussed how time travel might (or might not) be possible (for someone other than me, who doesn't already have an awesome, quite functional, time machine). This article is about the paradoxes involved in time traveling. Or, rather, some of them. There's quite a few depending on which avenue of time travel you wish to explore. And most have existential and historical ramifications that can change who you are at the most fundamental levels one can think of.
Here is a good primer on some of the paradoxes one might be confronted with. Of the ones mentioned there, perhaps the most famous paradox is the grandfather paradox. The grandfather paradox states that if you were to go back in time and murder your own grandfather, would you still exist? Logically, why you would want to do this is beyond me, but I'll buy into the initial premise.
As outlined in Michio Kakus book, Physics of the Impossible, there are a few possible solutions to this problem. If you don't believe in free will, but rather some sort of destiny, then whatever happens in the past is the way it was meant to happen. This would also hold true for what happens in the future. This is a closed time loop. Whatever happened, happened. If you go into the past to change it, that means you were already there trying to change it and everything is going according to plan. Whose plan? I don't know, someones somewhere. Possibly the man?
Oh God I Hope This is The Man
There is also the idea that there is some natural law that would prevent you from ever altering the timeline in that fashion. If you were to point a gun at your grandfather, state you were going to kill him, underline the reasons for why you felt it necessary to kill him - perhaps he told one too many stories of this time a guy claiming to be from the future tried to kill him - and then tried pulling the trigger, something would happen.
The gun would jam. You'd have a crisis of conscience. Your grandmother hits you in the head from behind with a shovel. Your grandfather is actually Ozymandias from Watchmen and he catches your bullet before beating the snot out of you. Point being, some natural occurrence prevents the death of your grandfather from happening, and nothing major changes. This still allows for the fact that you have free will, as it only states that the past cannot change. For example, you may in you heart of hearts wish to fly, and you should be able to because of your free will, but you can't because of gravity.
The solution to almost any paradox is likely to be alternate universes. If you were to pull the trigger and shoot your grandfather dead, it wouldn't matter in your universe because it never happened there. You simply traveled along a different timeline where your grandfather did get murdered by your evil doppleganger.
How Do You Fight Yourself?!
This would ostensibly happen every time you traveled to the past or future to change something. However, the biggest flaw I see in this theory is that it's not actually time travel. It's simply going to a parallel universe where things have changed only slightly. Unless, because of your dicking around in the past changing things, you created a new universe with just your actions. But how would that work? Considering what a universe physically is (lots and lots of energy and a tiny bit of matter), how could one persons actions create an alternate timeline where things were the same up until the moment they changed them, and dramatically different thereafter? Seems to raise more questions than it answers if you ask me. This is one of the major issues with time travel my esteemed colleague, Anthony, has. We've spent countless hours in our smoking room drinking whisky discussing how it could be possible that our matter is transfered to a time before our matter existed. Or, how the matter of anything in the past can still exist if it's in the present.
Imagine this situation: You want to go into the past to stop your best friend from contracting herpes from this girl he met at a club one night. Now, let's ignore the impossibility (in my experience) of a girl actually being at a club for something other than dancing. You head back in time and see your best friend - but how? How could he exist in the past if he is still existing in the future? I proposed a few solutions that I admittedly pulled out of my ass. Obviously I went to the alternate universe theories first, Anthony countered with the fact they're parallel and therefore running on the same timeline as our universe. I was skeptical of this stance, but whatever. I also proposed that time is constantly repeating itself, somewhere and somehow. Kinda weak, that one. I moved on to the fact that matter has always been around in some form or another, since the big bang. I brought up wormholes, and the curvature of spacetime. I said, relighting my corncob pipe, which had gone out in our breathless debating, that perhaps because of this curvature, there is only a displacement of matter. I asked him to picture how a tornado tube works; The water in the top half of the tube can only go to the bottom half if there is a displacement of air. That's why it works, and that's why time travel works! Anthony took a long, pensive sip of his whisky, sent our servant to the kitchen for a fake steak dinner (he's a vegetarian), and wondered how there can be a displacement of matter in that way. I countered that it probably has something to do with quantum entanglement and I conceded that I did not know. My, what a tangled web of intrigue these paradoxes weave!
The April, 1976 issue of American Philosophical Quarterly tackled some of these same issues, to a less humorous effect. The author, David Lewis immediately throws away the alternate universe theory. What he does distinguish between, instead of a multiverse, is a difference between what he calls "external time" and "personal time". External time, in the way he describes it, is time as we know it. It's whatever is happening in the present. Personal time is whatever is happening for the individual in their present. Even if their present happens to be someone else's (even their own) past. It can be equated with biological time, but it does seem to encompass more than that. This would make it possible for things to be happening along different planes of time, but it still glosses over the fact that our matter would still be existing and interacting in two places at once. However, Mr. Lewis does insinuate that perhaps it's not the same matter that is interacting. Do our atoms change into something else over time, as we grow older in our personal time? This seems a likely answer, as people do biologically and, dare I say, atomically change over time.
So what is the grand answer to the question of paradoxes? I don't know, what do I look like? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Jeez, leave me alone.
Be sure to tune in soon for the exciting conclusion to this three-part series on time travel!
Almost everyday I'm bombarded with emails asking me about our heading, because it seems most people don't read past that. Most are a lot like this email from reader n00b$f8: "i notised that u say u guys have a time machine. 1st off, tiem machines rnt possible. 2ndly even if they were u coulnd't use one because of the paridoxes involved. i saw in that movie butterfly effect how badly you can screw up the past if you mess with it!!!11!!"
Usually my response goes something like this:
"Dear n00b$f8,
Thank you for reading our blog! It's so nice to see that the youth of the great undeveloped nations of the world (judging by your somewhat tenuous grasp of the English language) has an interest in what we're writing about! Now, on to what you said in your email.
While I can see why you would think that time travel isn't possible, as it seems counter-intuitive to how we perceive time and the natural world (as Newton thought, progress only ever moves forward through time in a straight line, right?). However, because we live in a spatial universe where time is interwoven into that fabric, certain physical laws can be bent. But, as you'll see if you come back and read my blog post on this very subject, there are problems with that if you believe at all in free will.
As far as your other comment goes, I would first like to point out that Ashton Kutcher is not a good actor. I would also like to say that the paradoxes are avoidable, if they exist at all. Check back sometime to see why.
Thanks again for your time,
Craig?"
So here it is, my explanation of how our time machine works. Later this week, just in case there are some non-believers out there (like I would ever lie to you, my dear reader), I will post the meticulously recorded transcript of one of my time-traveling misadventures in honor of the greatest day in the history of the world, February 12th. Now, on to how our time machine works.
There are a lot of different theories about time travel, and how it can possibly be achieved. Most have to do with Einstein's Theories of General and Special Relativity. Special Relativity details how the speed of light is constant for all observers, because nothing can travel faster. What this has to do with time travel is simple, and it's called time dilation. Time dilation is similar to the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, except it's nothing like that at all. Supposing I'm traveling close to the speed of light (as I'm wont to do), and you're not, you will age quicker than I will. This has already been done with astronauts in orbit, who age nanoseconds less than people on Earth. So, if you can travel at or close to the speed of light for an extended period of time, when you slow down the Earth will have progressed past you and you'll be in the future. There is also a theory that says if you can travel past the speed of light, you may be able to go into the past. Almost like in Richard Donner's original Superman, when Superman finds out that he couldn't save Lois Lane in time and he freaks out and decides that he'll break every known law of physics and turn the Earth's rotation around in the vague hopes that maybe he'll reverse time and have a second chance at saving her which - thanks to the fact that it's only a movie - totally works and he totally saves her and totally ends up with the girl eventually, maybe, I've never actually seen it.
The Best Picture of Superman I Could Find
Of course, traveling anywhere near the speed of light with current technology isn't possible, let alone surpassing lightspeed in order to travel into the past. It also defies the laws of physics, as in order to travel past the speed of light one would need to have infinite mass. We know that kinetic energy is converted to mass thanks to E=mc2. To have infinite mass (and also apparently stop in time) just doesn't make sense according to Einstein, so we'll have to count that one out. Not to mention that method requires a lot of waiting. I'm not interested in that. So what other options do I have?
There is the other theory of relativity, the less fancy sounding General Theory of Relativity. This basically states that mass displaces spacetime, which is in itself a cause of gravity. If the gravity is strong enough, it may warp spacetime enough that you can travel through time (remember earlier how I mentioned that spacetime is like a fabric, all interwoven and shit? Well it can also bend like a fabric). Black holes are massive enough to do this. However, black holes are also massive enough to tear you apart atom by atom. That, to me anyhow, just doesn't sound too pleasant. Not to mention the fact I couldn't afford the bus ticket to get there.
A similar idea to traveling through a black hole is to go through a wormhole. What's the difference you ask? Well, according to Michio Kaku's book Physics of the Impossible, black holes are "non-transversable wormholes" while a wormhole is, in fact, a "transversable wormhole". What this means is that black holes are a one way trip (because they destroy you at their event horizons) while wormholes in the sense time travelers like myself discuss them are not. The trick to using wormholes (besides generating one) and surviving the event horizon of one is a little something called negative energy. This is not the same as antimatter, as it doesn't destroy any matter it comes into contact with but, rather, repels it. Which is why it would be so perfect to get through the event horizon of a wormhole.
So what's the issue with this theory? A few things, but mostly the insane amount of energy it would need to work. At least the equivalence of the energy that wants to tear you apart. Even if you were able to harness that energy, there would be enough radiation generated by the wormhole to kill you instantly if it were stable enough to stay open at all. These are a lot of variables for me to be worrying about as I have my sexy adventures through time.
And yet, I do have sexy adventures through time. All because of the time machine that n00b$f8 mentioned in his email, and we've written about in our heading to our blog. But how does it work? Well allow me to ask you this, n00b$f8 and others like him/her/it, do you know how your iPod works? Or do you just use it, thankful that it does work? Because I've never read the users manual to my Time Machine either.
Our Time Machine Looks Like Santa's Sleigh
Check back soon for Part II: The Paradoxes and next week for Part III: My Time with Lincoln and Darwin!
It occurred to me, when I was awakened to find myself both confused and lost, that during our slumber we have no time stamp on our dreams. More importantly, we can't seem to grasp the relativity of time as it passes us in our sleep. Just think about all those times after you have turned off your alarm because you KNOW you will only sleep for five minutes, only to wake up 30 minutes later swearing and punching your cat because you will now be late to work. Why? Why is it that we have no conceptual idea of time when we are sleeping? Why is it that our dreams may sometimes seem to last ages, but in reality only a few minutes? What the hell is this time code our brains stamp on our thoughts all about?!
In January GQ ran an article by Dan Halpern entitled “Are You Ready for the Singularity?” It chronicled the author’s misadventures at the Singularity Summit held annually in New York City. For the uninitiated, the Singularity (the technological kind, not the physics kind) is the “technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence”. Now this can occur in many ways, including a super-advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) kind of like the kind Haley Joel Osment played in the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence.
The Fall of Man?
The Singularity website offers some more suggestions: "... direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-high resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation". Certainly intense stuff and, in theory, completely plausible.
That is, if you know what consciousness is (we don't know). And understand what exactly it means to learn (we aren't sure). And can feel (we can do this, but outside of Mr. Osment up there, robots cannot - yet). The reason for the Singularity Summit is a mixture of (unfounded) fears and extremely high hopes. As Mr. Halpern points out, there "are very smart men and women who have spent a lot of time doing a very creditable job at finding the right answers to whatever difficult questions they have pursued, and they have a lot of data that says they're right about this, no matter how strange it sounds."
But are they right? Really? Really really? No, seriously, I want you to be sure. OK... if you say so.
I think the main problem with believing in the singularity as an event that spells the end of mankind is hubris. People are actually cocky enough to believe that they can create an intelligence greater than their own. Part of the fantasy, in some sick, masochistic, pour more hot wax on my nipples you dirty, dirty scientist because I forgot our safe word, way is the idea that we humans who have already conquered nature (thanks evolution) can create something so much better than us that it can destroy us, and take our place at the top of the food chain - not that they'd need food.
Robots Hate Pancakes... It's A Trick!
But I digress, let's talk about how plausible all of this is shall we? Because of Moores Law, which states that however many transistors a chip has will double in about 18 months, people expect computers to have as much or more processing power than the human brain as soon as 2030. At this point, it is assumed, machines (for lack of a better word) will become smart enough to self-replicate and improve on themselves. This will eventually lead to said machines becoming conscious, and realizing that the world would be a much better place without those pesky humans running around causing global warming and deforestation! At least, I hope that's their motivations for genocide and not something like... I don't know... money? Would robots like money?
Here's the problem, at least on the outset: Machines are more than just hardware. They're software too, and usually pretty crappy software at that (I'm looking at you Windows Vista, I'm looking at you hard...). Jaron Lanier summed it up perfectly in his "One Half of a Manifesto" in 2000. He said, "For computers to design their own successors, someone has to write the initial software. Humans have given no evidence of this ability." He also says, along the same lines, "As processors become faster and memory becomes cheaper, software becomes correspondingly slower and more bloated, using up all available resources." One more quote, for the road: "... processing power isn't the only thing that scales impressively; so do the problems that processors have to solve." Really, the article should just be read. It's quite the argument, and covers a lot more territory than the three tethered quotes I chose to reproduce.
"Now hol' on there kiddo," I imagine you're saying right now, "Imma not good at the whole arithmetic thing, but by my figerin', that was 9 years ago that article you gon and mention there's been written. Somethin' musta gotten better since then." To this I would respond, "My good clearly southern based on your accent sir, I only need to point to the aforementioned Windows Vista, or maybe the dreaded RROD."
The Savior of Man?
So there's that. There is also the fact that consciousness is hard to define, let alone understand on such a fundamental level as to recreate it in a lab through code or processing power. The neuroscientist Gerald Edelman defines it in this way: "It is a process, and it involves awareness." Wow, way to be specific there Mr. Edelman. Based on that I can safely say I don't know many people that can be considered conscious. Hey-oh! Digressing from that awesome burn, that definition doesn't seem to be too far off from Merriam-Websters definition that I won't repeat here due to laziness.
So if we can't even really, accurately define the term, how will we know when machines have it? I suppose since we know we have it, and we know that animals seem to have it, we'll be able to tell through careful observation. If machines can think, and plan, then they'll be attributed consciousness. This is only fair. But what type of consciousness? Edelman, in the interview with Discover Magazine linked above, briefly mentions two types of consciousness: Primary Consciousness and Self-Consciousness. The biggest difference between man and beast is man's self-consciousness. I mean, how often do you see a cat checking itself out in the mirror before a date?
He's Ready for his Scuba Date!
Besides not even knowing their own reflection, animals aren't aware of their own impending dooms (especially from robot apocalypses). So how will we know which consciousness our machine overlords have? Maybe some sort of a symbol test? "The human brain is capable of symbolic reference, not just syntax." says Mr. Edelman. While a machine might be able to learn, and it might be able to remember, will it associate things without meaning with meaning? Will this lead to art? Religion? Anything like that? Doubtful, as any software a machine would run would be based off algorithms, and algorithms are pretty straightforward.
Besides that, if a machine is mass produced with the same components, and is given or achieves or however-you-want-to-look-at-it consciousness, will it share a consciousness with it's brethren? Actually, on a simple level, that's a very stupid question. Twins, for instance, are born via the same components but don't share a consciousness. Edelman says, "Every single brain is absolutely individual, both in its development and in the way it encounters the world." Although these twin machines may not be different in their development, they will no doubt become different via different experiences, just like any animal or person. But people and animals have something machines don't (and probably won't ever have): Organic materials.
Which brings me to my final, and my biggest reason, I don't believe the robot uprising will actually happen. Any real, organic brain is more than just electrical signals running through neurons. We, more than any other example, aren't just ones and zeroes as computers are. The neural code is far more complicated than that, so much so that we aren't even close to understanding it. The way the brain communicates within itself, and with parts of our bodies, has as much to do with hormones and chemicals as it does with electrical signals.
For example, the hypothalamus is a tiny part of your brain that releases hormones that control things in your body such as growth hormones (for puberty) and sex hormones (for women being bitches once a month). Let's focus on the sex hormones for a second. Besides the obvious joke already made about how it plays with women's emotions, how many guys in the room have had their thinking all clouded up due to some sex hormones being released at a bad time? Considering I'm the only guy in the room as I'm writing this, I'm going to raise my hand and say, "Amen brother!"
Sometimes You Just Have to Remind Yourself
How about the amygdala, which controls not only positive emotions such as sexual responsiveness (which shows that parts of the brain work together, my amygdala sees a bangin' hot chick and tells my hypothalamus, which then releases the appropriate hormones to the, uh, less reputable parts of my body). Emotions are mostly a hormonal response to a stimulus, which the amygdala controls. Will computers have that? It's been said that if you experience a strong stimulus, or something emotionally scarring, that your brain will scar from it. New neural connections are formed on a daily basis. Unlike a motherboard, an organic brain is not a static thing. It's constantly evolving, constantly remaking itself in response to stimuli.
Now does that mean that the singularity in it's most base form won't happen? No, I do believe eventually we'll make machines that are smarter than us in terms of processing power. Hell, that's an inevitability. It is also completely possible that once technology advances that far some evil, evil men will want to use that power for evil, evil purposes. And, I mean, cyborgs are a possibility. However, cyborgs would still be human on some level. And with that humanity would come some sense or morality. There is a huge worry over what constitutes human, and while I won't get into that here, I think it's deeper than just our hardware. We like to see the trees in the forest, but not the forest itself. Our bodies, our consciousness, is a whole. To use a sports metaphor only 250,000 people at best will understand, consciousness in people is a lot like the Buffalo Sabres; There aren't any great individual players but the team as a whole is great.
Scientists are crazyGod is a large white man in the sky
Has science proven to be better than God? Is this necessarily a bad thing? Can there somehow be a marriage between the two? Will I actually answer any of these questions or just digress into talking about my favorite childhood television and radio shows? Just kidding, we didn't have radio shows when I was a kid.
First, we need to define God: "The supreme or ultimate reality: as A: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe." In other words (mine), that means some dude that may or may not be our reality who is basically the be all end all of everything, ever. It's kind of mind-boggling to think about it, as our tenuous grasps on concepts such as "perfect", and "wisdom", and "goodness" are flawed at best, considering we as a species aren't any of those things. Except me, of course. I'm pretty perfect(ly acceptable looking), wise(assish), and good (at air hockey).
Now, in order to figure out whether or not scientists are playing God, we should first define the phrase "playing God". According to my sources (that hyperlink up there), there are three overlapping meanings:
1.) "The sense of awe rising from new discoveries into the depths of life", which might mean something along the lines of finding a new species of animal (Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp mayhaps?).
2.) "...Supposes that scientists are substituting themselves for God. Like Prometheus, scientists are said to be overstepping finite limits; out of pride or hubris they are risking a backlash from nature." This is pretty self-explanatory, scientists are cocky bastards that don't care what boundaries they overstep, even if nature herself tells them to back the (expletive) off.
3.) "...Refers to the sacralization of DNA." Perhaps this definition is against bringing dinosaurs back from extinction to put them into large parks for people to come look at? Although, that could be one hell of a learning experience for any children interested in paleontology.
Allow me to take on those definitions one by one by one, if you will. I don't think "the sense of awe rising from new discoveries" can get anyones panties in a bunch, as that seems pretty harmless. Discoveries are only discoveries, and awe simply means someone like you or me looking at said discovery and going, "No shit..." with eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Hardly a reason to get up in arms if you ask me, unless someone somewhere has something against awe. Which is completely possible.
The second definition is where people of the religious variety get pissy about science like an old person who can't figure out how to make their VCR work. The definition brings up Prometheus , which is kind of funny because he doesn't have anything to do with a monotheistic God. Although, I guess as a metaphor it works comparing Prometheus to scientists, as scientists could be seen as stealing "fire" from God when they cure the flu, or make someones heart beat when it wasn't supposed to, or any number of other evil sciency things.
But perhaps the worst thing about science in light of that definition is that they're "overstepping finite limits", although it is vague in terms of what limits they're talking about. I'm going to make a logical leap here (much like the Bible - oh snap!), and take that to mean that science has overstepped its bounds in terms of the origins of the universe, evolution, and basically anything else that contradicts Genesis, because Genesis does a good enough job of contradicting itself and doesn't need anyone else to do it for him!
Get it? Genesis?
Is this the great evil of science (disproving the Bible, not Genesis the band)? Why people hate it so? Considering the basic tenets of intolerance most religions have subscribed to throughout history (including now - gay rights anyone? No? Alright...), this seems like a logical argument. Science and religion, in this way, are not compatible. My good friend Dr. Richard Dawkins would like to say something now: "The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no."
Wow, strong words there Mr. Dawkins. Any rebuttals from anyone else, anywhere? How about you, Dr. Francis Collins? "Yes. God's existence is either true or not. But calling it a scientific question implies that the tools of science can provide the answer. From my perspective, God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God's existence is outside of science's ability to really weigh in."
Wow, that's a strong argument. And one I would like to expound on, if I may. No objections? Good, here it goes: If God cannot be quantified by scientific study, then why is there still an argument about this? If you believe he can be, as Dr. Dawkins seems to, then it only makes rational, logical, more synonyms for those two words, sense that you cease to believe, or at least revise it. Let's face it, the Earth is billions of years old, not thousands. Genetically it's impossible for us to have come from two people, or one really if Eve was a part of Adam's rib. And Noah's Ark, really? Do I really have to point out the flaws in the story of Noah's Ark? I'll leave that to my colleague Anthony.
So... Where did brown cats come from then?
And of course, there's the argument that science (better sit down for this one) isn't necessarily bad. In fact, it could be more merciful than an already all merciful (if vengeful) God. As Minette Martin says in her article, "Nature is astonishingly cruel. Science, by contrast, has the power of mercy." She later goes on to say, "...Whatever we may think about playing God and defying nature, we are doing it already..."
Everything about mankind is unnatural. In this way we shunned God and the world (universe?) he created long ago. Probably around the time we started using toilets. Man has even been known to change the rate of evolution, if you believe the December/January issue of Discover Magazine and the fact that we've wiped out more than one species of animal singlehandedly. On the reverse side of that coin, as Ms. Marrin points out, "...one could argue that rescuing such (disabled) people from extinction is also rescuing their disability from extinction - a godlike activity, surely." Yet I think you would be hard-pressed to find a religious individual that thinks we should just let people with disabilities suffer for it.
So what was the point of this dissertation? The point is that I'm kind of tired about hearing creationists vs. skeptics/atheists/scientists, or religion vs. science, or God vs. science, or Jesus vs. giant ape men or whatever is top billing this week. Science is not bad, nor does it have to do with God in a direct way necessarily. Tolerance would be a good word here, although religion does not have a good track record under that heading as I pointed out above. They can co-exist, as they do in Dr. Collins life, but need to be kept separate. When they're not you get things like creationism, or that horrible movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I don't even want to link that one.
Here are some facts to close this out, the universe is 13.4 billion years old, the Earth about 4.54 billion years old, evolution is a real, observable thing, God is not, everything about man is unnatural, and my hands hurt from typing so damn much.
- Craig
P.S. - I know I didn't tackle the third definition, but I don't need to in order to make my point, whatever that was. I don't remember now.
Ok, so when I was a wee lad, slowly growing out of diapers and into power rangers, I was often awakened by a very strange and haunting dream that would not leave me the hell alone. These types of dreams are referred to as recurring dreams, and I am sure many of you have been the recipient of this strange phenomenon. What is weird to me, and to this day has never been revealed, is why in the world I kept having that dream. Come to think of it, why did I have ANY dream at all?
During the time of these relentless nocturnal brain fillers, I lived in St. Petersburg Florida home of sand, sun, and Hungry Howie's pizza. Now, as with many small persons growing up in the world, my favorite place to go, out of ANYWHERE, was (and still is) Chuckie Cheese. My world WAS Chuckie Cheese, and every free moment I had was used begging my parents to take me to this awe filled place of pizza, tokens, tickets, and skee ball. This MAY explain why my recurring dream always dealt with Chuckie himself (the mouse, not the My Buddy-turned-killer). Yeah, I know, Chuckie Cheese, haunting MY dreams. And that is just it, they weren't happy dreams of the multi talented musician-mouse, they were horrendous manifestations of a very eerie 6 foot tall mouse. Chuckie Cheese was always a haunted house in my dreams, and I was riding a carnival ride through it all. There was fire, demons, a few dragons sprinkled in there, and a huge black and red castle. There were no tokens, no tickets, and definitely no pizza. So why the hell did hell manifest itself as Chuckie Cheese?!
These dreams have since been stuffed away in the corner of my head where I keep the memories of things like Kazaam and Juwanna Mann, among other things I would like to forget. I wonder though, why did I have that dream, or why did I have the dream where I trip over pine cones to my death, or the one where I was dancing with a bunch of walking rams around a fire, or the one where I sat talking to an old man whispered sweet nothings into my ear and abruptly transformed into a jaguar. Point is, we all have super weird dreams from time to time, and some are actually brought on by our diet that night, or our lack of sleep from the week, or even the last thing we hear before we hit that all-important R.E.M (stupid band reference joke here).
Now that we have all dismissed the misogynistic, sex driven man who coined the phrase Psychoanalysis, It is safe to move on to another explanation of dreams. After all, Freud thought dreams were things of our unconscious that came about because we are all repressed. In his book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud alludes to many different reasons for the dreams we have, but they all relate back to the repression of our inner most sinister and secret thoughts. Freud was sure that our dreams were our way of dealing with the constant societal pressures that keep our thoughts to ourselves. According to Freud, everything we dream about is a symbol for something in our waking lives. Eh, I find this interesting, but it gives us humans far too much credit in the field of metaphor and symbolism, I don't think we find universal symbolism in ALL of the same organic and in-organic objects.
SOOOOO, if it isn't symbolism for our sexually suppressed minds that our dreams are created, what is it? Entertainment? Fear Mongering? what about Evolution? Whoa whoa whoa...evolution, dreams? Sorry Freud, its time I hang out with a REAL man of Science... Mr. Darwin, Is it true that our dreams are really mechanisms for survival?
Dogs dream don't they? Well, we can see them flailing around as if they were frolicking with the best of the best rabbits all the while enjoying the best steaks ever produced. So we don't really know what dogs are dreaming about, but lets assume they have a similar perception in their dreams as in their observation of their real world. We would then assume, according to Freud, that symbols arise in dreams for the same reasons in dogs as in humans. In lieu of getting deeper into this anti-Freud postulate, I will just say this: humans do not share the same symbols in their lives, and I don't think I need to prove that humans and dogs do not share common symbols either.
Back to Darwin and his "dangerous idea". Seeing as how I can't find any recent empirical evidence in any form, nor have I found any REAL theories about the idea, I must deduce for myself and create for you a blueprint of the newest theory of why we dream:
Random Thought Mutations
The mutation of our thoughts, somewhat homologous with genetic mutations, may be the real reason we dream. The idea is that we use all five senses to perceive things during the day as well as in our sleep, and mix and mash those perceptions into new scenarios to see how we would react to them. They are almost like test runs for what MAY happen in our future, and our mind is preparing accordingly so that we may survive and continue the transferring of our genes unto the next generation. We dream at night to prepare ourselves for the next wave of dancing chickens with uzis for hands and rainbow colored feathers. NO! well, maybe, but that isn't the theory. The theory is that we formulate all of these mash-ups for our own benefit in the world. A way to see if those thoughts could be useful sometime in our future. Almost like genes randomly arising with no observable purpose, our thoughts can be randomized to create novel thoughts. These thoughts, like novel traits in evolving organisms, could help shape the success of our existence. With the aid of our brain and the random mutation of thoughts, we could dream about the next big Twilight rip-off, or even a new approach to curing diabetes. All of the information could already be in our underutilized brains, and we just need to "see the light" in our dreams. Sure, dreams could just be entertaining ways for our brains to relax, a sort of prime-time programming for our all-day-laboring brains to sit on the couch and enjoy. If this is the case, why do I always wake up before I am going to die, because I thought death was a big money maker in the entertainment world. I guess that is another question all together.
This theory is yet another way our minds and bodies are reduced to nothing but complete slaves to nature and survival (of genes that is). It seems kinda neat, at the very lest, to think that our brains are using all incoming stimuli to construct possible futures for is to delve into as well as novel ideas to latch onto and create. I wonder if people in the early 1600's had dreams about 25 foot tall Ronald McDonalds rampaging through bio-domes on the moon. Doubtful, unless of course they had different names for the parties involved. There were clowns back then, right?
I work with children between the ages of 7 and 13 on a daily basis, and often times the kids get stumped on a particular word or topic of discussion. In the room I work in, we have access to a collection of encyclopedias from 2003, the World Book collection, as well as a large assortment of atlases, dictionaries, thesauruses, and random primary school text books. I often suggest that the children consult these references if they are in need of any information, and I almost always get a blank stare. The kids have never seen the World Books before, and you can forget an atlas. They, on the contrary, suggest we search for the answer on the internet. 
