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AS Ajahn Sumedho says 'human beings are in the goldilocks zone..if life was anymore dukkha ridden we would give uo in despair. if it was easier we would have no motivation to transcend it..as it is its just right.'
I don't believe in such grand coincidences. Get it yet?
I know your position well enough, Vinlyn, thanks. Since you oversimplified (or perhaps misunderstood) the points made by @Tosh, I tried to explain.....that's all.
AS Ajahn Sumedho says 'human beings are in the goldilocks zone..if life was anymore dukkha ridden we would give uo in despair. if it was easier we would have no motivation to transcend it..as it is its just right.'
Yes, that's a fair summary of how the suttas describe it.
re: hair Our ancestors lost their hair to live in the desert and to barely survive using a tool kit of barely effective survival strategies including hunting animals by running after them until they drop over from heat exhaustion. Humans are one of the only animals that can run and run and run, thanks to sweat glands and hairlessness-- other animals will overheat and collapse helplessly. This hunting technique is still used by Aborigines in Australia to hunt kangaroo and I saw a nature film where a wolf hunted a young caribou this way.
We also liked to scavenge, eat snails, coastal shell fish and turtles-- man, we were crappy hunters specializing in the dead or not moving. My how things have changed.
ref: lots and lots of pop-sci books on ancient humans.
you speak as though we know much of the universe. the fact is we know very little about the universe. the solar system is only a speck in the universe. who knows what else exists out there...
Because the mind has some serious limitations. We're lousy at comprehending very large numbers or complicated, slow processes we cannot observe in action. We're also pretty stuck up when it comes to the importance and unique position of humanity in the world.
If you think of all the many elements that had to come together to create us, the species with the brains to dominate the entire world, it seems impossible it's all due to chance or blind forces in the universe that did not have consciousness as a goal. Yet given the vastness of the universe, the billions of galaxies each with billions of stars and most of those stars with multiple planets, and all of them constantly changing including our own system....if the conditions our world provides turns out to be duplicated on one in a million planets, then there are still millions of planets exactly like our world out there. And millions more that existed in the past and another few million yet to be born. It boggles the mind.
We can intellectually understand the concept of huge expanses of time, but the mind has a hard time looking at that mountain in the distance and understanding it's only a hunk of crust that used to be on an ocean floor and is on its way to becoming sand on a beach. The mountain has always been there and seems to be eternal. Same thing with the moon, which has been pointed out started much closer to the earth and is slowly moving away.
The fascinating thing about the universe is, it is always evolving. If aliens observed our star and planets a billion years ago using advanced telescopes, they would have said, "Nope, no world capable of life there. Couple of planets inside the liquid water zone but they're all lethal to life. Shame that we're unique in the universe."
the known universe ( just the universe we know today, and may be it is more big) is too much big enough that coincidence happen much more than we think. we think the chances of lives on earth is too perfect, no no it is not perfect. the chance that living things arise on a planet in the whole universe too much. the known universe's age is 13.5 billion years and the earth's age is 4.5 billion years, if we think those numbers as one hour, the time that organic compounds were first made from a chance is just a second compared to the hour. this is not mysterious thing, just the universe works in that way. we dont know other results, we know the only one result that is what we are now, theist people are asking the questions like that, and with those questions they are trying to prove their god or mysterious thing exist in somewhere out there. i would suggest to play a video game called spore, this game explains how life on a planet made, from this game making a life on a planet needs several things such as terraforming which is planet's location on a system and temperature and plants to make oxygens and animals to live and etc :P it is good game for knowledge of science.
@absolute, all I can say is your brain came from algae.
I suspect that the first show of intelligence life elsewhere would involve our quarantine. Ya know..if only out of compassion to not tell the Teriann May fly's what their lifespan is compared to everyone else's.
you speak as though we know much of the universe. the fact is we know very little about the universe. the solar system is only a speck in the universe. who knows what else exists out there...
Because the mind has some serious limitations. We're lousy at comprehending very large numbers or complicated, slow processes we cannot observe in action. We're also pretty stuck up when it comes to the importance and unique position of humanity in the world.
If you think of all the many elements that had to come together to create us, the species with the brains to dominate the entire world, it seems impossible it's all due to chance or blind forces in the universe that did not have consciousness as a goal. Yet given the vastness of the universe, the billions of galaxies each with billions of stars and most of those stars with multiple planets, and all of them constantly changing including our own system....if the conditions our world provides turns out to be duplicated on one in a million planets, then there are still millions of planets exactly like our world out there. And millions more that existed in the past and another few million yet to be born. It boggles the mind.
We can intellectually understand the concept of huge expanses of time, but the mind has a hard time looking at that mountain in the distance and understanding it's only a hunk of crust that used to be on an ocean floor and is on its way to becoming sand on a beach. The mountain has always been there and seems to be eternal. Same thing with the moon, which has been pointed out started much closer to the earth and is slowly moving away.
The fascinating thing about the universe is, it is always evolving. If aliens observed our star and planets a billion years ago using advanced telescopes, they would have said, "Nope, no world capable of life there. Couple of planets inside the liquid water zone but they're all lethal to life. Shame that we're unique in the universe."
What is amazing is what we do know now, from direct observation with a new generation of telescope arrays, both earthbound and orbiting. The true miracle is that this tiny world orbiting an ordinary star contains life capable of pondering the big questions and capable of building tools that allow us to answer them.
But what we have been able to observe tells us planets are common as dirt. We also know the elements that make up life as we know it are common as...well, it is dirt. Thanks to the internet, I'm able to watch lectures by scientists and see pictures of our solar system and the universe that outdo anything our science fiction writers dreamed of growing up.
We do live in an age of wonders. Unfortunately, only a few people are even interested enough in exploring the universe to know that we still have a manned space station and a car sized robot roaming Mars and other probes busy exploring planets and asteroids.
But I was promised a flying car in my Scientific America magazines. I want my flying car.
My oldest loves all things quantum physics related and is planning on going into astrophysics or a related field. He's built up some amazing contacts thanks to the internet and regularly communicates with space scientists around the world. He's pretty amazed how few people care anything about what's out there and what it really means to look at the stars and ponder them. It'll be interesting to see where he goes with it all.
the known universe ( just the universe we know today, and may be it is more big) is too much big enough that coincidence happen much more than we think. we think the chances of lives on earth is too perfect, no no it is not perfect. the chance that living things arise on a planet in the whole universe too much. the known universe's age is 13.5 billion years and the earth's age is 4.5 billion years, if we think those numbers as one hour, the time that organic compounds were first made from a chance is just a second compared to the hour. this is not mysterious thing, just the universe works in that way. we dont know other results, we know the only one result that is what we are now, theist people are asking the questions like that, and with those questions they are trying to prove their god or mysterious thing exist in somewhere out there. i would suggest to play a video game called spore, this game explains how life on a planet made, from this game making a life on a planet needs several things such as terraforming which is planet's location on a system and temperature and plants to make oxygens and animals to live and etc :P it is good game for knowledge of science.
@absolute, all I can say is your brain came from algae.
whatever you think is your problem not mine, i just said my opinion and i know that mentioning a video game is extremely stupid for group like this , but i just tried to tell my feelings on this game :P ( i am a young-adult) people get idea from different things, for me this game is interesting for getting a biological knowledge in difference way from most conventional ways, you know: reading, listening, watching... and of course if you like to play a game.
Why would mentioning video games be stupid? I'm 38 and I still play video games! Though I'm more a fan of the older version of spore rather than the newer one. It had potential and fell a bit flat for my tastes. But if it helps people understand or seek further information on biological functions, then all the better. (though I'd recommend cross-checking any supposed video game facts with actual science facts because video game developers still take a lot of artistic license.)
the known universe ( just the universe we know today, and may be it is more big) is too much big enough that coincidence happen much more than we think. we think the chances of lives on earth is too perfect, no no it is not perfect. the chance that living things arise on a planet in the whole universe too much. the known universe's age is 13.5 billion years and the earth's age is 4.5 billion years, if we think those numbers as one hour, the time that organic compounds were first made from a chance is just a second compared to the hour. this is not mysterious thing, just the universe works in that way. we dont know other results, we know the only one result that is what we are now, theist people are asking the questions like that, and with those questions they are trying to prove their god or mysterious thing exist in somewhere out there. i would suggest to play a video game called spore, this game explains how life on a planet made, from this game making a life on a planet needs several things such as terraforming which is planet's location on a system and temperature and plants to make oxygens and animals to live and etc :P it is good game for knowledge of science.
@absolute, all I can say is your brain came from algae.
whatever you think is your problem not mine, i just said my opinion and i know that mentioning a video game is extremely stupid for group like this , but i just tried to tell my feelings on this game :P ( i am a young-adult) people get idea from different things, for me this game is interesting for getting a biological knowledge in difference way from most conventional ways, you know: reading, listening, watching... and of course if you like to play a game.
Gotcha!
The question is, do you know why? If you do, then you know more about evolution than I thought.
My oldest loves all things quantum physics related and is planning on going into astrophysics or a related field. He's built up some amazing contacts thanks to the internet and regularly communicates with space scientists around the world. He's pretty amazed how few people care anything about what's out there and what it really means to look at the stars and ponder them. It'll be interesting to see where he goes with it all.
It says something about America, at least, that we have a new generation that is eager to reach the stars, while a previous generation of politicians are trying to outlaw the teaching of evolution in our schools.
Hi, i have a beatiful quote from Sariputto:"The objective changes of matter are being felt as sufferung. All what was mentioned above is in different form of matter and steadyly changing.Buddhist teaching is a place where matter shouldn´t matter any more.
Comments
saw it on national geographic channel.
the fact is we know very little about the universe.
the solar system is only a speck in the universe.
who knows what else exists out there...
Ya know..if only out of compassion to not tell the Teriann May fly's what their lifespan is compared to everyone else's.
But what we have been able to observe tells us planets are common as dirt. We also know the elements that make up life as we know it are common as...well, it is dirt. Thanks to the internet, I'm able to watch lectures by scientists and see pictures of our solar system and the universe that outdo anything our science fiction writers dreamed of growing up.
We do live in an age of wonders. Unfortunately, only a few people are even interested enough in exploring the universe to know that we still have a manned space station and a car sized robot roaming Mars and other probes busy exploring planets and asteroids.
But I was promised a flying car in my Scientific America magazines. I want my flying car.
The question is, do you know why? If you do, then you know more about evolution than I thought.
i have a beatiful quote from Sariputto:"The objective changes of matter are being felt as sufferung. All what was mentioned above is in different form of matter and steadyly changing.Buddhist teaching is a place where matter shouldn´t matter any more.
anando