Re: Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July with Deep Space Fireworks


Eric Chomko wrote:
> spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> : Eric Chomko wrote:
> [...]
> : > : > Your implication about Deep Impact is that we've somehow decreased our
> : > : > chances of survival by sending a probe into comet. The notion is false on
> : > : > its face!
> : >
> : > : No, my implication is that we seem in the past to have decreased our
> : > : chances of survival by treating nature-on-Earth as a dead system. We
> : > : found for example that DDT kills disease vectors. We did not realize
> : > : the impact this would have on biodiversity.
> : >
> : > Which has nothing to do with a probe hitting a comet several AU from the
> : > earth!
>
> : Methodologically, it does.
>
> No it doesn't! Your belief is what is present here, nothing more!
>
> : Dude, we've just discovered a new planet, or
> : planet-like object (larger than Pluto). Its working name is Xena
> : because the geeks who discovered it at Palomar thought Xena (Warrior
> : Princess) was hot (as did I). Its official name is secret because it is
> : under review by the international body responsible for planet names.
>
> : See International Herald Tribune (or New York Times) *circa* 8-1-2005.
>
> I'm familar with the object!
>
> : The point being that we do not know enough about the risks of
> : destructive stunts because our knowledge of bodies in space is
> : incomplete.
>
> And always will be. But scrathing the surface of a comet is safe enough to
> risk.
>
> : > : My implication is that IF space is NOT a dead system then we might
> : > : learn from the past.
> : >
> : > We do, by knocking bits off the surface of comets with a probe.
>
> : No, we learn from the past by acquiring maturity and learning that
> : "dead" nature (whether on Earth or in space) might be "live" in the
> : (scientifically verifiable) sense of taking steps to defend its
> : teleology, steps we cannot anticipate.
>
> Your whole hands-off approach is akin to treating a lab rat as the Indians
> treat cows as sacred.

It is just moronic in this day and age to report other culture's
beliefs in this reified style.

Industrial discipline has long forced people in the West to act as if
certain concepts (such as economic "productivity") were realities, even
personalities.

Psychological transference might explain the ignorant Westerner who
narrates them damnfool Indians with their "sacred cows".

It is true, of course, that the cow is treated differently in
India...but as part of a complex network of beliefs, a mental ecology.
Describing the belief as a "sacred cow" oversimplifies to the point of
absurdity and also manages to ignore the way Western reifications of
"industrial growth" may also, someday (after, perhaps, ecological ruin)
may be spoken of as outdated, reifying superstitions in their turn.

A very interesting essay on the Greeks was a while ago titled "did the
Greeks believe in their gods?"...that is, the god-talk may have been
the use of nouns, with their reifying tendency, to speak simply about
complex networks of forces.


>
> : > : Sure, Deep Impact probably, to several decimal places, will not effect
> : > : life on earth. My thesis is that it continues and sets a precedent of
> : > : prefering destructive and invasive space exploration (that is subject
> : > : to Heisenbergian effects, metaphorically and in the large) and this
> : > : increases the probability of the Empire (of space) Striking Back, for
> : > : this is what systems, as opposed to Newtonian assemblages, tend to do.
> : >
> : > The solar system is not a biological living thing despite what you have
> : > seen on Star Wars.
>
> : How do you know, and what are the consequences of being wrong?
>
> We would have suffered them by now.

Perhaps we're suffering them alreddy. A tornado, of destructive power,
hit Birmingham last week. Not Alabama, instead the midlands city in the
UK. This is most unusual, yet the incident was played down in the
press, perhaps because destructive effects of global warming (a
consequence of regarding the Earth as dead which should teach us a
lesson about Space) are multiplying and the small number of privatized
media monopolies, which today control so much news in the selfish
interest of rich men (who believe, perhaps, that they can buy
protection from environmental ruin) may be ***-canning investigations
into these increasing frequencies.

>
> : > : > : Probability good: 10e-5: probability bad 10e-4. Probability diff: order
> : > : > : of magnitude. Hmm, big difference in terms of the inputs.
> : > : >
> : > : > It is probably closer to 10e-25 and 10e-26, though you are correct about
> : > : > the order of magnitude.
> : >
> : > : But: note that until very recently, the past couple of years in fact,
> : > : "getting hit by lightning" was a metaphorical way of speaking of the
> : > : very rare occurence.
> : >
> : > Not as rare as being struck from outer space by anything.
>
> : Take a look at the moon which like other bodies without atmosphere
> : contains a permanent record of asteroid strikes. Sure, the number of
> : craters and subcraters has to be considered in relation to aeons, but
> : the "rarity" is NOT zero.
>
> The moon is not the earth, so your analogy of it to counter my point about
> earth safety WRT metorites fails. And lightning is a constant event on
> earth.
>
You've already been corrected about lightning. And "the moon is not the
earth" isn't even an argument even in strict Newtonian terms, which
treat all objects the same with respect to mass and force.

Indeed, your response "the moon is not the earth" is a demonstration of
how "science" reverts to barbarism, because you want me to
simultaneously accept a Newtonian account as exhaustive, but then treat
objects as different in a way that would only be justified in a
pre-Newtonian cosmology.

> : > : Last week, here in Hong Kong, a fire and rescue team had to run across
> : > : an open field in relays to a burning house, timing its runs to be in
> : > : the interval between lightning flashes (measured by averaging the times
> : > : before), because the lightning was so "improbably", so "unusually",
> : > : heavy.
> : >
> : > Lightning is ALWAYS happening on earth someplace all the time. It is a
> : > never ending event. Get it? Objects from outer space don't nearly hit the
> : > earth at a rate even close to constant.
>
> : No, violent storms and hence lightning are on the increase as a result
> : of human impact on climate change, a human impact which resulted from
> : Newtonian beliefs that until proven otherwise, a natural phenomenon was
> : not an interlinked system.
>
> So now Deep Impact is the cause of Global Warming?

As I have said, the linkage is humanistic in the technical sense, for
the relation between global warming (the consequence of assuming that
the Earth is dead) and space passes through the human mind.

>
> : Connect the dots. During the SAME WEEK when several scout leaders were
> : killed in a violent storm that downed a power line on their tent, Hong
> : Kong police had to improvise a special drill for crossing an open field
> : to avoid lightning in a storm that would be considered quite unusual in
> : the past.
>
> More power lines has nothing to do with lightning.What it means is that
> the Boy Scouts picked too much of a suburban (not rural) area to have
> their jamboree. IOW, too many people in an already populated area, hence
> the utility lines that the tent post struck.
>
> : > : Today (July 30th) we read (International Herald Tribune) that Mumbai
> : > : received in a few hours more rain that London receives in one year.
> : >
> : > : The increase in lightning strikes and the heavy rains have, it is now
> : > : known in the sense of being acknowledged by global science, resulted
> : > : from human impact on climate change. Period.
> : >
> : > Which has nothing to do with Deep Impact. Nothing! If you feel that NASA
>
> : The very idea of "relevance" ("that has 'nothing to do'") is itself an
> : artifact of Newtonian reassurances that the behavior of the system is
> : fully satisfied by the known equations.
>
> Newtonian physics has nothing to do with the probability that humans will
> be involved in anything WRT the motion of planets and the like in the
> solar system. You're astrological thinking, likewise, has no bearing in
> astronomy. Like many before you, and no doubt many after, you are trying
> to tie in the motion of the bodies of the solar system into the fate of
> human lives. We simply don't matter than much in the grand scheme of
> things when it comes to celestial mechanics. Astrology may be fun, but it
> is not science.
>
I haven't even mentioned astrology and I would have to question why you
do. Perhaps, in a scientific regression based on your failure to win an
argument based on no more reading than your out of date college
textbooks, the outdated notion of astrology returns as one more
primitive club.

Of course, by suggesting, based on recent discoveries and research (and
the theory of computation) that we cannot completely calculate the
(Newtonian) trajectories of all possible bodies, I made no use of
astrology.

I think you're making the same mistake Columbus made in 1492, Theodore
Herzl made in 1880, and the American buffalo hunters made between 1850
and 1900. You look at space, or, more precisely, at your Newtonian
mental model as mediated by your out of date college textbooks, and,
like Columbus, you see an empty land: like Herzl you see a depopulated
Palestine outback (because, d'oh, the Palestinians were city and
village folk even in 1880): like the Buffalo hunter you see nothing but
meat and fibre on the hoof.

Columbus' mistake was tragic for more than a million inhabitants of the
New World. Herzl's mistake created a fifty year war (which isn't over).
The buffalo hunters and miners created a desert out of an ecology in
which even today it's impossible to make a living.

> : > is contributing to the industrial gas output to our atmosphere, then I'd
> : > say that you're about 180 degrees wrong as it is NASA satellites that are
> : > telling us about GloBal Climate Change.
>
> : NASA is a macho diversion from the mess we are making on Earth and the
> : irresponsibility of the Bush administration in not signing Kyoto.
>
> That said a women is piloting the shuttle. When will the Chinese put a
> woman into space?
>
> : > : The point being that a "small" effect, including a preference for the
> : > : destructive stunt, becomes a large effect when it sets a precedent and
> : > : when the system effected contains unknown amplifiers of the "small"
> : > : effect, such as an unknown asteroid.
> : >
> : > No, that is what you believe to be true, in the face of no scientific
> : > evidence to back it up. You are claiming that astronomical events in space
> : > will have meteorlogical consequences with nothing to link them.
>
> : Oh? Then you are unaware of discoveries in the 1930s that a number of
> : craters in the American southwest were the results, meteorological
> : results, of astronomical phenomena, and not the result of geologic
> : processes. As recently as 1905, in Siberia, an astronomical event had
> : meteorological consequences.
>
> Those craters could be 10s of thousands of years old or older. No one is
> sure exactly what happened in Siberia near the turn of the century.

No, we're sure. Again, scientific regression is the reinvention of
convenient ignorance disguised as skepticism. See for an example of
this "intelligent design".

>
> The point, again, is that the distrubance we put upon Tempel 1 has he same
> probablility of doom us as it does saving us, both infinitesimally small.
>
> : The point is not the frequency of these events, which is high in terms
> : of geological time but low in terms of historical time (but not, as the
> : 1905 event shows, nonzero). It is the irresponsibility (in light of new
> : SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE) of believing that we can retain the principles of
> : "things will continue as before" (when lightning strikes provide
> : scientific evidence that they won't) and "nothing is related to
> : anything else" (which is just FALSE).
>
> : You think like a techie and not a scientist.
>
> In fact, I am both. You think like a dreamer steeped in astrology.
>
> Eric

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