I had expected to reread and post more about Poul Anderson's
The People Of The Wind this evening. However, BBC 5 re-showed the first episode of Carl Sagan's
Cosmos. Then Brian Cox, a sort of British Carl Sagan, introduced a re-showing of the first (only?) episode of Gerry Anderson's
Into Infinity, starring Brian Blessed - who spoke to Cox on TV earlier this evening about his real life training for space travel.
Into Infinity, a sort of improved
Lost In Space meets
2001, is showing now but meanwhile I am tired from a late night last night and planning an early start tomorrow.
Cosmos, about galaxies and the history of science, is where Poul Anderson is at. Sagan's sf novel,
Contact, answered the questions:
Might faster than light travel be possible according to current scientific understanding?
If this universe was designed, where could the designers have left a message that would unequivocally be from them?
Posting about
The People Of The Wind will resume soon.
7 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Discussion of Carl Sagan's COSMOS reminded me of how I have an analogous book named THE HEAVENS PROCLAIM, by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J. Briefly, the book is a history of the role played by the Catholic Church in developing astronomy. I'm not sure yet, however, if Dr. Consolmagno discusses issues like a FTL drive in this book. He did discuss the question of whether intelligent life exists on other worlds in his pamphlet INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE?
I thought your concluding question puzzling: "If this universe was designed, where could the designers have left a message that would unequivocally be from them?" My thought was that if we humans, using reason alone and the instruments we built, could still discover so much about the cosmos and how it developed or evolved along certain lines, had by that very fact discovered a Designer existed. And one crucial fact about the Designer was how He bound Himself to work thru the laws of nature.
And I certainly hope announcing of a FTL drive is given soon! Preferably tomorrow!
Sean
Sean,
2 points here: Sagan's novel (CONTACT, not COSMOS) does end with an ingenious idea about where a message could be placed within the structure of the universe; like many, I do not think that development or evolution are evidence of design, let alone of a single Designer.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Alas, Sagan's novel CONTACT has not been read by me. So I can't comment about it. Altho I have read other first contact novels, such as Pournelle/Niven's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE.
But I was not thinking only of how evolution of LIFE is a proof of a Designer existing. I was thinking of the entire cosmos, in the context of astronomy.
Sean
Sean,
I am familiar with Design and Order arguments but don't buy them. The ordered cosmos is explained impersonally by the laws of physics. If we saw many disordered universes and only one ordered, then we would have to explain the exception. But, if, as is the case, the only known universe is ordered, then the simplest hypothesis is that universes are naturally ordered.
paul.
Hi, Paul!
But how did those "laws of physics" come to exist at all? Doesn't it take a Designer or Creator to create those laws in the first place? Remember, I am a Catholic, which means I don't believe God is arbitrary, capricious, or lawless.
Sean
Sean,
"How did those 'laws of physics' come to exist?" is a scientific/philosophical question. I do not know the answer to it. Scientists and philosophers need to continue their inquiries. They have already learned far more than would have been thought possible until very recently. And the inquiry is only beginning.
A Designer/Creator is only one possible answer and leads to further questions. To explain a complex universe by referring to an intelligent being who might have created it is to invoke an even greater complexity, requiring a further explanation. Human beings are more complex than their artifacts and, of course, require an explanation for their existence.
Paul.
A unified field theory, if one is possible, would be a single equation describing the most basic properties of the most basic entities and unifying the forces of nature. It would be possible to deduce the familiar laws of physics and chemistry from it. This would be as much explanation as we could ask for. I think that it would even account for alternations between being and nothing: virtual particles are created and mutually annihilated until some imbalance causes the expansion of a universe.
Alternatively, each explanation is provisional, to be superseded by a more fundamental equation with no unified theory possible.
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