Man one step closer to God?

[DoTheFandango]

You didn't even join the forums till December of 03, nobody cares what you say newbie.

check my date.
n00b.

also,

[MetalHeadz]

A brief look at the history books reveals that those countries which have favoured modern scientific ideas in favour of superstituous religious ones have been most successful. Religion is largely a waste of time, from the perspective of a pragmatist, unless you can somehow use it to inspire order or control.

[DoTheFandango]

Right, because the Romans and Greeks were so secular.

[Fit of Rage]

It occured to me a few years back that humanity will go extinct before we can invent time travel, because otherwise someone would have come back and warned us about the fact that we would go extinct. Since no one except Ahnold has travelled back in time, it's safe to assume that it will never happen.

That thought made me sad.

Most physicists agree that time travel to the future is entirely possible, but due to that altering of light cones and universe histories, going back in time wouldn't work at all. It's basically like you could travel to 2050 or 2100, but couldn't return once you were there. I'm also pretty sure there are Fermilab experiments going right now that are trying to simulate this using particles--basically to have the particles time travel from our instant to some point in the future and have detection software ready at that specified time, and basically the particles will just "appear" as if out of thin air. Complicated shit, to be sure, and exactly why I'm not a quantum physicist.

[Zerzera]

I could see it happening, I have always said that "The Time Machine" is a pretty accurate depiction of the future of humanity.

Yes, and Alexander Hartdegen is guilty of ethnic cleansing.

[Kolar]

Most physicists agree that time travel to the future is entirely possible, but due to that altering of light cones and universe histories, going back in time wouldn't work at all. It's basically like you could travel to 2050 or 2100, but couldn't return once you were there. I'm also pretty sure there are Fermilab experiments going right now that are trying to simulate this using particles--basically to have the particles time travel from our instant to some point in the future and have detection software ready at that specified time, and basically the particles will just "appear" as if out of thin air. Complicated shit, to be sure, and exactly why I'm not a quantum physicist.

Isn't it easier then that Fit? If you sent a spacecraft at sufficient speed away from Earth the time-dilation effect would "send" them to the future, given that the local-perceived time within it is slower in relation to the rest of the universe.

[the_paul]

Right, because the Romans and Greeks were so secular.

This.

[Vykromond]

a distant roar heard from outer space

-- lols produced by this thread

[Summa]

Back on topic ignoring some semantics about rome and greece, humanity will never achieve the level of 'God'. I mean cloning yeah, but actually creating life and engineering DNA? No one truly understands DNA or how its written. Furthermore, if some God didnt exist how was something as complex as DNA ever created? Some things are just meant for us to never fully comprehend

It seems a bit ridiculous to make this claim after reading this article. Someone just created RNA, so how could DNA not be a possibility? It is merely one step further, one more scientific advancement. Or if the RNA world theory is correct, DNA is just a mutation of the RNA that we just created. If that is the case we just need the correct circumstances to mutate the RNA into DNA and potentially have life. Isn't one of the principle characteristics of God is that he and only he can create life? Well if we are knockin' on the doors of creating life, then aren't we also beginning to put a foot in God's realm? (barring there is a God of course)

[Noah]

This thread has a pretty terrible title.

An imaginary friend lesser persons has isn't worth mentioning to such an impressive scientific achievement. It just opens up for retarded posts like "My imaginary friend is better than your science".

[Izor]

lol neither you nor I know how far we are away from it. To you it is as simple as 'mutating RNA into DNA' but if it were that simple it would have been done already. Even if we could do it, how could we manipulate that code into something we want? We dont understand any bit of it. DNA is something that is very complex and the smartest human alive imo has no chance at fully understanding it.

Kolar: so you believe in intelligent design then? Also, the theory of relativity, while it may make sense to you, is still just a theory. Theres no proof that I'm aware of that tells me you stop aging when you get to light speed...it makes no sense. If I just was flying around at light speed I'd still age

[Kolar]

Kolar: so you believe in intelligent design then? Also, the theory of relativity, while it may make sense to you, is still just a theory. Theres no proof that I'm aware of that tells me you stop aging when you get to light speed...it makes no sense. If I just was flying around at light speed I'd still age

Intelligent design has been completely discredited as a scientific theory so no I don't believe in it. Just because we can conceive of designing a form of life from scratch doesn't mean it suggests life was therefore designed intelligently.

I think you're taking one big ass assumption, that our understanding of genetics is almost nothing, then moving to the next (I wanna say logical) step that we will never know more about it in the future, therefore biology and genetics can not be understood and we should just say fuck it and live in ignorance.

A practical example of how the theory of relativity can be proven, the GPS System. The satellites orbiting Earth and the ground base systems have a variance between their clocks, they run faster in orbit then the ones on Earth which would result in the system giving incorrect data if not corrected. You would age but slower in relation to that of a person on Earth depending on the velocity you attain. Also matter can't travel at the speed of light but close to it. Unless there's a breakthrough in the next few decades like at the LHC faster then light technology is probably hundreds of years away.

[L1 TW]

It occured to me a few years back that humanity will go extinct before we can invent time travel, because otherwise someone would have come back and warned us about the fact that we would go extinct. Since no one except Ahnold has travelled back in time, it's safe to assume that it will never happen.

That thought made me sad.

Actually that is incorrect. John Titor came back to warn us of what was to come via message boards. He was teh time travels.

[Izor]

Of course intelligent design is a theory...all of it is. Do you believe in the theory of evolution then?

I'm not saying we will never know more, I just think theres a point where we'll hit a roadblock and just not understand how it all comes together.

The one 'big ass assumption' science and scientists in general make is that just because science has proven a lot of what people have thought were acts of god in the past to be natural that god must be some fairy tale made up to explain the unexplainable

I'm not contesting the theory of relativity at low speeds, im contesting it at light speed. None of us know about that until it actually happens.

[Kolar]

Of course intelligent design is a theory...all of it is. Do you believe in the theory of evolution then?

I'm not saying we will never know more, I just think theres a point where we'll hit a roadblock and just not understand how it all comes together.

The one 'big ass assumption' science and scientists in general make is that just because science has proven a lot of what people have thought were acts of god in the past to be natural that god must be some fairy tale made up to explain the unexplainable

I'm not contesting the theory of relativity at low speeds, im contesting it at light speed. None of us know about that until it actually happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact

I don't think either of us understands genetics enough to debate that but I believe as theory and later practical applications has always shown us that as long as something complex can be reduced it can be understood.

That's the "God of gaps", I commented on this in an earlier thread that it was an idea pushed by evangelicals at the time. I don't know of anyone who pushes this idea, especially in any academic setting that God or any kind of mythology is irrelevant or inferior in the face of scientific observation and examination. Science deals with the physical, natural world therefore it can not use supernatural causation to explain phenomenon, nor explicitly disprove it.

I don't know what you mean by lightspeeds, matter can not move at or beyond the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s). If we sent a spacecraft on an escape trajectory from our solar system it could only attain 99.99 percent the speed of light but not at or above that limit. If it were going 1% or 50% the speed of light it would make no difference, the principle is the same. The faster an object moves the slower time within the craft would slow relative to an outside observer.