Aliens are Lurking in the Dark Forest—a Serious Scientific Theory—and Beyond

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There is a theory described at

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/01/the-dark-forest-theory-a-grim-answer-for-where-all-the-aliens-are/

which suggests a solution to the Fermi Paradox.  It proposes that there are many space-faring technological civilizations among the stars and planets of our galaxy, but that we have not detected them, because they are hiding.  Furthermore, the Dark Forest Theory (DFT) posits that they are hiding not only from us, but also, from each other.

And with good reason.

In the galaxy presumed by the DFT, every technological civilization that arises has one priority:  to survive.  As in any wilderness or frontier, only the fittest survive.  There are two main methods of doing this.  One of them is to eliminate (kill) all threats.  The other method is to hide from those threats that one cannot eliminate.

It can be argued that any civilization that does not successfully execute one or both of these survival methods does not survive.  Those who failed no longer live.  Therefore, all the surviving exo-planetary alien civilizations have either eliminated the threats against them, or are hiding.

As reasonable as this theory sounds, there are those who argue against it. 

The dissenters propose that, in order to survive, an alien civilization has to be, well, civilized.  Being civilized, means that a society has to solve its problems in an orderly way that furthers its progress.  In the early stages, this means using the “kill or be killed” policy, but in the later stages, there comes a time when this becomes counter-productive.  War is expensive.  Instead of producing wealth, it destroys it.  Even though warfare does incentivize technological advancements, it does so only in the early stages.  As the destructive potential of advanced technology increases, the risk of both sides destroying each other reaches unacceptable levels.  Therefore, the optimum survival strategy requires cooperation.  Let’s call that, the Friendly Aliens Theory (FAT).

If there are numerous exo-planetary alien civilizations in the galaxy, one of these theories may be correct.  Indeed, some combination of them may apply.  For example, they may be at war with each other, but in circumstances that favor defense over offense.  One might compare that condition to the situation in World War One, where both opposing sides were safer in their own trenches, than they were when attacking across the “no man’s land” that separated them.

The main problem with the FA Theory, compared to the DF Theory, is that, if the aliens are not in hiding, then we have not yet solved the Fermi Paradox.  If all the neighbors are friendly, they should stop in and say hello.  Even if the distances are too great, they should at least turn the front porch light on, that is, to send some sort of signal.  Instead, we see only darkness; we hear only silence.

What is it, then?  Should we favor the Dark Forest Theory, the Friendly Alien Theory, or the Trenches Theory?

Before we settle on one of these, we should carefully consider the possibility that none of them is even close to being right.  We may be anthropomorphizing, that is, assuming that the aliens are like us, at least in terms of how they (and we) solve the problem of survival.

Let’s speculate.  Let’s do so reasonably.

Let’s speculate that life has arisen on faraway planets.  Let’s assume that on a dozen or so of them, life arose billions of years ago, as it did on earth, but that on those dozen or more planets, either the event occurred long before it did on earth, or else, that it afterward, developed much more quickly than we did.  In either case, we are reasonably speculating that any space-faring civilization is much older than ours.  Indeed, even the most advanced civilization on earth is only about five thousand years ahead of the hunter-gatherer phase.  Five thousand years compared to a galaxy is the blink of an eye.

Moreover, because technology moves at an ever-faster pace, we have advanced amazingly far in only the last five hundred years.  In less than a century we both invented the first airplane, and traveled to the moon and back.

What this tells us is that, an exo-civilization that is even five thousand years ahead of us could be so far advanced that, to us, its capabilities would seem magical.  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961

Five thousand years may seem like a long time (okay, it is a long time), but there may be alien civilizations that are a million years, or much more than that, older than ours.  At compound interest, at the accelerating pace of technological advancement, that million years could provide an unimaginable advantage to the older civilization.

What effect age has on survivability, however, is not the main issue here.  One could propose that the first interstellar civilization could easily have conquered the entire galaxy.  Or, one could propose that it chose not to do so, but pursued some other objective, for example, galactic brotherhood.

The effect of age would very likely mean that a million-year-old civilization might have become so vastly advanced technologically, that it has moved into realms that we cannot imagine.

Consider that our scientists now claim to have discovered the existence of dark matter.  Consider further that, aside from its gravitational effects, we have virtually no idea what dark matter might be.  How much less we can imagine, then, what could potentially be done by using dark matter?

Is there a science of dark physics?  Dark chemistry?  Dark biology?  Dark psychology?

Then ask yourself, what else might there be?  Are there fundamental laws of nature that we have not discovered?  Might not any sufficiently advanced alien technology have discovered them, and employed them in their technology?

To speculate even further, might aliens have harnessed the powers of pure consciousness?  Might they have moved beyond the need for physical bodies?  Might they be able to travel between universes?

What has all this to do with Fermi and the Dark Forest?  Only this:  we can only speculate, and our speculations may be hopelessly wrong.

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Portal to Never (Fiction)

 

Portal to Never
(a brief science fiction story)
by Robert Arvay

The strangest person I ever met was memorable, which is the most ironic of ironies, as you shall shortly see.

I was a very low-level research assistant, in an obscure project, that was running out of its funding.  All the important people were spending more time and energy seeking opportunities elsewhere, than wrapping up what increasingly seemed to be a failed venture.  Even the bottle-washer had gone.  And so, most nights found me staying late, along with the project manager who, in previous months, had deemed himself too important to even ask my name.  He had recently taken note of me, however, and even authorized generous overtime pay for me, from the dwindling funds remaining on account.  Otherwise, I would already have joined the bottle-washer in his quest for greener pastures.

As it was, Dr. Gershner was particularly morose this night.  At first, I attributed his dark mood to his poor prospects for future employment, since the project he had long been leading, seemed now to have been discredited in the journals.  Needless to say, there would be no Nobel Prize in Physics for him.  Ever.  Or, am I saying too much, too soon?

“Quite to the contrary,” Dr. Gershner quipped, “I’ll be lucky if they don’t lock me in a rubber room.  Nobody even claims to know me.  Isn’t that the most bizarre twist?  That I, who caused so many others to disappear, should myself be utterly forgotten?”

At this point, I became a bit uneasy.  Gershner had leaned so close to me that I thought I detected the faintest scent of bourbon on his breath.  Before my silence could grow too awkward, I forced myself to say, “How could you have made anyone disappear?”

Gershner stepped away from the workbench, and glumly strode to his desk, where he brushed aside some papers that once had been important.  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning me to the chair opposite his.  I did as he bade.

“What do you know of our project?” he asked.  It seemed a rhetorical question, but I humored him.

I answered, “Only that it deals with retro-causation.”  Not that I knew what retro-causation is, but I had heard the term often enough, back when there had seemed a sense of excitement among the senior researchers.  Those days of heady optimism were long gone.

“Well, okay,” Gershner said, with a hint of condescension, but just a hint, mind you.  “We’ll call it that.  Retro-causation.  Do you know what that means?  Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t.  Few people do.  It has to do with the Grandfather Paradox.”

“Yes,” I said, hasty to establish myself as not a complete dolt.  “I know what that is.  It says that backward time-travel is impossible, because if it were, the time traveler could go back in time, kill his own grandfather before he had children, and by doing so, prevent himself from ever being born."  I said all that in one breath.  “And this in turn, would prevent him from ever traveling back in time to kill his grandfather.  That proves that backward time travel is impossible.”

 
Gershner chuckled.  “That is the conventional dogma.  And that is why this project uses the term, retro-causation, instead of retro-time-travel.  But here’s the thing, Conrad.  It’s all the same.”
 

Again, I felt the silence to be awkward.  Finally, I spoke.  “Are you saying that it is possible to travel back in time?”

 
Gershner reached downward to open a desk drawer.  He pulled out a half-empty fifth of bourbon, and placed the bottle on his desk.  My eyes must have widened a bit, because he said, “I take it you don’t imbibe.”
 

“Uh, no,” was all I could say.

 

“Just a drop,” Gershner insisted.  “Humor me.  Please.”

 

I’m not sure why, but I took a sip.  He was so pathetic, so forlorn, I could not refuse.

 

“Thank you, Conrad.  I hardly ever drink.  I just have a small sip now and then.  I actually don’t like the stuff, but it settles my nerves.  Yes, Conrad, it is in fact impossible to travel backward in time, at least for humans—at least in the tradition of an H.G. Wells fantasy.  Retro-causality is the reason why there is no time-travel.  But just because retro-causality forbids time-travel, this does not mean that retro-causality cannot exist.”

 

By this time, I was thoroughly confused, and I didn’t mind that it showed.

 

“All right, then,” Gershner said, “I’ll let you in on the secret.  I found a way to change the past.”

 

The bourbon, I presumed.  Even I could sense that it could cloud one’s judgment, just from the tiny bit I had taken.

 

Gershner continued.  “Look, there is nothing unscientific about that.  I got a grant to study the possibility.  The government wanted to make sure.  If it is possible to change the past, then sooner or later, some bad guys will do it, and so instead, we should be first.  My job was not just to prove that it can happen, but to find out how to control it—to prevent others from doing it.”

 

I felt obliged to comment, so I said, “If it were possible to change the past, then reality would be chaotic.”

“Exactly,” Gershner said.  “And there are those who say that, it is, indeed, chaotic.  Think about it.  How do you know that yesterday really happened?  You remember it, that’s how.  But if somehow, yesterday were to change, to become a different version of yesterday, then you would remember only the different version.  You would have no clue that it had changed.  You would correctly assume that the other yesterday had never really happened, because it didn’t.”

 

This was all a bit too much, and I said so.  “Dr Gershner, I’m just a lab assistant.”

 

“Very well,” Gershner said, perhaps growing a bit testy.  “Then I’ll just get to the point.  I caused people to disappear.  Not just disappear, mind you.  I caused them to never have existed in the first place.”

 
He’s crazy, I thought.  Not even the bourbon he was sipping could explain his delusional claim.  Although, I thought to myself, maybe it’s having that effect on me.
 

“See that machine?” he pointed to it.

 

“Yes,” I said.  “The quantum tunnel generator.  But it doesn’t work.”

 

“Oh, it works,” Gershner said.  “But not the way it was advertised.  I lied.  It was never about tunneling through space.  It tunnels through space-time.”

 

“Yes,” I said, pretending to be smart.  “Space and time are two sides of the same coin.  Einstein proved that.”

 
“There was an accident,” Gershner said abruptly.  “So many scientific advances begin with an accident, but this one was tragic.  There was a man named Frank DeBouss.  He was one of our research associates, very well known in the physics community.  Very famous.  But you never heard of him, Conrad.  Do you know why?  Because, after the accident, he never existed.  He had never existed.  Ever.”

 I squirmed.  “Perhaps I should go now.”

 

Gershner openly laughed.  “Not only did you never hear of him, no one else did, either.  I reported the accident.  I told everyone that Dr. DeBouss had stepped into the warp field, generated by the quantum tunnel generator, and that he had instantly vanished.  When people asked me who Dr. DeBouss was, I was astonished, incredulous.  What do you mean, who was he?  We all worked with him.  We all read his books, attended his lectures, reviewed his journal articles.  But, everybody insisted that they had never heard of him.  Ever.  It was exactly as if he had never existed.  Never.”

 

“I remember,” I said, “that you were the butt of a few jokes for a time.  People said you had been working too hard, that you had become eccentric.  Some even called you the mad scientist.  It was touch and go for a while.  But, Dr. Gershner, if Dr. DeBouss vanished, why are you the only one who remembers him?”

 

“That,” Dr. Gershner said, “Is why, for a time, even I began to doubt my sanity.  But then I discovered, that the quantum tunnel generator, generates a reciprocal field, and I had been in it when Dr. DeBouss had inadvertently stepped into the warp field.”

 

“Okay.  And that reciprocal field allowed you, and only you, to remember him.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

Gershner frowned.  “You will, Conrad.  I mean that in a nice way, the nicest of ways.  Do you remember Sally Danek?  Of course not.  She never existed.  But I remember her.  She was always very nice.  She even pretended to believe what no one else believed.  She told me so.  She told me that she understood my theory.”

 

“Very well.”

 
“She offered to collaborate with me on a journal paper.  I gave her all my notes.  Everything.  I was confident that, with her reputation as a theoretical cosmologist, the two of us could make others believe, as well.  Conrad, Sally tricked me.  She stole my work.  And then, she tried to turn on the tunnel generator while I was in its warp field.  She didn’t know that I had disabled it.  When I did not disappear from reality, she became angry.  Her plan to eliminate me had failed.  She cursed me, accused me of fraud, and said that she was going to report me.  And report me she did.  The next day I got a summons to appear before the full research committee for a hearing.  Then, Conrad, Sally made the most dreadful mistake.  She stood in the warp field, and dared me to make her vanish.  Dared me!  Conrad, I don’t know what came over me, but I did it.  I stood in the reciprocal field, and I threw the switch.  Sally instantly disappeared.  She disappeared, Conrad, not only from this room, but from reality.  Nobody has any memory of her.  There is no record anywhere of her having ever existed.  Conrad, it’s not just that it seems she never existed—not just seems—Conrad, Sally Danek never did exist.”

 I sighed.  “Indeed, Dr. Gershner.  She never did—except in your memory of her.”

 

“And soon, not even there.”

 

I was puzzled.  Gershner could see that.  I think he intended it.

 “Conrad, I have modified the tunnel generator.  I’m going to make it cause me to forget.  I’m going to make it reverse the reciprocal effect.”

 

“Okay,” I said tentatively.

 

“I’m serious,” Gershner said.  “I can’t live with myself after what I did.  It wasn’t just Frank and Sally.  There were others as well.  They were back-stabbers.  Liars.  Cheats.  Each one of them accused me of terrible things.  I had found the way to commit the perfect murders.  After all, Conrad, you can’t murder someone who never existed.  If they never lived, then they never died.”

 

“True,” I said.  Suddenly, I felt faint.  The drink.  Had Gershner put something in my glass?

 

Gershner spoke to me, but I could barely make out his words.  The room seemed to spin.  “Stand here,” I seem to remember him saying.  Then, something like, “Here is the switch.  When I tell you—”

 

Then I remember him saying, “Now.  Do it now, Conrad.  Turn the switch.”
 

I must have passed out, because I found myself on the floor, struggling to stand up.  Finally, after some time.  I regained my senses enough to look around the room.  The tunnel-generator was gone.

 

The security guard came to the door.  “Conrad, are you okay?”

 

“I think so,” I said.

 

“Well, it’s awful late, and I’m locking up.”

“Very well,” I said.  “By the way, the tunnel-generator is missing.”
 

The guard shrugged.  “Make out a report on it.”  He must have thought it was a minor thing.

 

“But it can’t be gone,” I said.  “The darn thing weighs over a ton.”

 

The guard seemed perplexed.  “Whatever.  We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
 

“And Dr. Gershner,” I said.  “Did you see him leave?”  The guard knew everyone in the project.  Everyone.  Personally.

 

He asked, “Who is Dr. Gershner?”

 

P.S.

 

By the way, for anyone who accuses me of insanity, I wish to assure you, this is only a science-fiction story.  It never really happened.  And Dr. Gershner never existed.

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

The Never Machine

--by Robert Arvay
 
As I revealed in my earlier account, I was a lowly laboratory assistant in a research project, run by the famous Dr. Emanuel Gershner.  You never heard of him, because he never existed.  Strange as those words may seem, they are true.  Dr. Gershner invented a machine that tunnels through space-time.  The whole idea behind the machine was to effect retro-causality, that is, to change the past.  Of course, doing that changes also the present.

Dr. Gershner deliberately stepped into the machine’s warp field, and when it was activated, he instantly vanished from existence.  When that happened, the past was changed, his past was changed, in such a way, that no one now remembers him except me.  Gershner had tricked me into standing in the machine’s reciprocal field, which is why I remember him, but no one else does.
 
It must be emphasized, and I know this sounds contrary to reason, but it must be made clear that Dr. Gershner never really existed.  He is a fiction.  When I tried to tell people about him, they thought me daft.  The same had happened to Dr. Gershner when he had told everyone about the disappearance of his colleague, Dr. Frank DeBouss.  No one knows about Dr. DeBouss, not even me, because Dr. DeBouss never existed.  He accidentally stepped into the warp, while Gershner was operating it in the reciprocal field.  Poof.
 
This places me in a very peculiar position, and in a sense, I feel cursed and betrayed.  If Gershner had felt so guilty, why couldn’t he have just vanished without a trace?  Why did he have to explain everything to me in such detail?  Why did he have to lure me into the reciprocal field?  He must have known that, in doing so, I would remember him, but no one else would.
 
That is a heavy burden to bear, as well he knew it would be.  It took me a long time to adjust.
 
But that was not the end of it.  Just when I began thinking that I could pawn off my account of him as a fiction, getting me off the hook—just then, there was a further development that, once again, caused people to doubt my sanity.
 
After taking a week off, I returned to the laboratory, not to resume my job, but to collect my final paycheck.  You see, the quantum-tunneler had vanished when Gershner had.  I’m not sure why that happened, but I am guessing that since Gershner had invented it, the elimination of his past had eliminated the machine’s past.  Does that make sense?  So little does anymore.
 
But upon returning to the lab, I found that there was a similar machine being assembled.  Not only that, but when I introduced myself to Dr. Gershner’s replacement, a Dr. Muhazzim Barsoom, he already knew me.  Indeed, it soon became clear that I had been his lab assistant for more than a year.  I remember none of that.
 
Worse yet, as time went on, I myself began to feel that I had indeed known Dr. Barsoom for more than a year.  It was as if I had amnesia, but was slowly recovering my memory.  Indeed, I met other people who knew me, but whom at first I did not remember.
 
Matters became critical when I contacted my family.  I had a sister whom I did not recognize, but one of my brothers did not exist.
 
Although I was completely sane in fact, but I was mentally ill in effect.
 
As time went on, there was an accumulation of bizarre findings.  History itself was no longer as I remember being taught in school.  Machines had been invented that were unfamiliar to me.  Worse yet, as if things were not already bad enough, I began to find that every day included new things that had not been there before.  A new lab tech showed up for work, but all my coworkers insisted that he had been employed at the lab for many months.  I finally concluded that, whatever had happened to me, it had disrupted the universe.  I feared that there was some kind of chain reaction going on that would reduce everything to chaos.
 
Finally, I was contacted by some very strange people, but people who seemed to know what I was going through.  One of them even sympathized with my plight, agreeing that Dr. Gershner had been selfish.  Gershner had extinguished other people, people who had vanished with no record of their ever having existed—making them in fact never having existed at all.  But Dr. Gershner, although he had become suicidal, wanted to be remembered by at least one person.  So, in a weird sense, he had not completely and totally vanished after all, because his past continued to affect my memory.  That created a glitch in reality, one that kept getting more widespread.
 
That inconsistency in reality, formed a sort of hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum, and the fabric was beginning to unravel.  Nature was somehow trying to correct the defect, but the repair was only an inadequate patch.  It was not holding.  If the defect were allowed to continue to unravel, then eventually, the entire universe would dissolve, and finally, everything would cease to exist.
 
The strange people told me that the only solution will be for me to enter the warp field of a machine operated by the strange people.  There is no other choice for me but to trust them.  In any case I am going insane, so I might as well go out on a positive note, saving the universe.  Once I do that, everything will return to normal.  If this works, even I will return to normal.  I will forget all the strange things that happened.  My memory of it will vanish.
 
The universe will return to the moment when Dr. Gershner vanished, never to have existed.
 
Of course I asked, won’t the process just start all over again?  Won’t someone else repeat the experiment?
 
No, the strange people assure me.  We’ll take care of it.  And you, Conrad, you will return to your hobby of writing science-fiction stories.
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Noah’s Ark, Mythology and Science

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The Biblical story of Noah’s ark is fairly well known to a very large portion of the population, including those who have little or no familiarity with the Bible.  Even those who do not believe it recognize the terms.  Worldwide, there are other myths of global, prehistoric catastrophe resembling the Noahic Flood. 

See https://www.mythoreligio.com/15-flood-myths-similar-to-the-story-of-noah-2/ for examples.

A point that is often missed in the story of Noah is the fact that, in one way or another, the earth has experienced what are referred to as evolutionary bottlenecks.  Some of these are geologically recent, for example the human population bottleneck of 70,000 years ago.  See

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c

Prior to that event, there were several mass-extinction events, most famously the massive meteor strike that triggered the worldwide calamity that killed off all the dinosaurs.  There were other events as well.

What I wish to point out here is that the account of Noah’s Flood was written long before (as far as we know) there was any scientific knowledge of meteors, extinctions or population bottlenecks.  So were the myths, not only of extinctions, but of the Biblical war in heaven, which is somewhat mimicked in the Greek mythology of the Titans.

The point is that, even in ancient times, there seemed to be a widespread sense of an unseen history that predates modern humans.  Why should this be?

One idea is that there were books available that recorded these events, perhaps written by eye witnesses.  Two libraries that were destroyed were the one at Alexandria, Egypt, in 48 BC (exact year is disputed) and the Mayan Codices in 1562 AD.

There are other theories of prehistoric civilizations, one of them being that the Sphinx was constructed long before the rise of the Pharaohs, and that it was subjected to heavy rainfall before any such rain in Egypt’s written history. 

See http://www.catchpenny.org/sphinx.html

Even the great Pyramids at Giza contain the unsolved mystery of their technology and purpose.  (There is no evidence of interment of corpses.)  Standard theories of their construction by use of copper tools are considered implausible by many, and in fact, no one in modern times (AFAIK) has ever demonstrated how such tools could have produced the many thousands of precisely carved stones in the time frame necessary.  Indeed, attempts to make such demonstrations only undermine the standard theory, in the opinions of critics.

Furthermore, the pyramids contain numerous other mysteries, for example, the inclined passageway inside the structure, the lack of hieroglyphs where one would surely expect them, and the absence of any signs of soot, the product of torches, when no other means of illumination were known to exist.

No one of these mysteries is decisive in itself, but in the aggregate, it seems unreasonable to cobble together a credible theory that explains all of them.

Getting back to Noah’s ark, the Biblical story seems to be far more detailed than would seem necessary to someone concocting a myth.  The details of the maritime construction alone are impressive.  While some say that the myth was copied from earlier sources, the same details in those accounts would seem superfluous, unless they were true.

Moreover, the same author of the Ark story (presumably Moses) detailed the construction of an entirely different kind of ark, the Ark of the Covenant, in such exacting detail that modern engineers were able to construct a copy, and the copy exhibited some amazing electrical properties that fit the (also seemingly superfluous) Biblical story of a man touching the ark and being apparently electrocuted thereby.

Göbekli Tepe is another example of prehistoric technology that defies standard explanation on more than one account.  First, it was apparently built by hunter-gatherers, an implausible theory.  Second, it seems to have been buried after construction.  It is implausible that this was intentional, and more plausible that it occurred due to a natural catastrophe.

See https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/monumental-cover-why-did-gobekli-tepe-end-dirt-008355

Undoubtedly (to me), the several surviving examples of ancient technology, including the amazing Anti-Kythera device, are proof that ancient societies, which we might consider to be technologically primitive, were in fact, capable of astounding technological achievements.  For example, when the Anti-Kythera mechanism was first found, many historians tried to explain it away using theories that were themselves less believable than the eventual, unavoidable explanation.

Nor are the things I have mentioned so far, isolated singularities.  There are too many to list here, so many in fact, that some have resorted to such easy excuses as space aliens, time travelers and other unnecessarily fantastic explanations that are worse than the normal theory, that a global catastrophe concealed or camouflaged an unwritten history of humanity.

Whether one believes in the Biblical account or not, of Noah’s ark, the accumulating evidence suggests that, at the very least, it (and other stories in the Torah) give us a window into a forgotten past.  It, along with other windows, provide an opportunity to open our minds to further research.

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Why the Laws of Nature are Not Laws

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Scientists have studied nature, and discovered many of its laws.  Or, have they?  Are the laws of nature really laws?

 

Laws are rules.  They are imposed by authority.  Rule-makers (by definition) make the rules.  But, whereas manmade rules can be violated (they often are, even by the folks who make them), laws of nature cannot be broken.  Attempts to do so (for example, by jumping off a tall cliff in defiance of the law of gravity) can result in serious injury or worse.

 

But, where does the law of gravity come from?  Did someone impose it?  Or, does it emanate from matter?  If so, why is the law of gravity able to be formulated into numbers that accurately predict the gravitational orbits (trajectories, and other behaviors) of any two objects?

 

The fact is, there is no law of gravity.

 

The laws of gravity do not accurately predict the behavior of three or more objects.  There is no formula for three dissimilar objects.  For four or more dissimilar objects not in a plane, the prediction becomes even more difficult.  (Computers can simulate the movements of millions of objects at a time, but they only approximate those movements.  After trillions of iterations, those errors become too pronounced to be useful as predictors.)

 

But, here is the catch.  Even for two bodies, there is no precise formula, because any object can be mathematically expressed as two objects, joined together.  This is why, in a vacuum, we can prove that a lighter object falls with the same acceleration as a heavier one.  The proof of that counter-intuitive truth is because, if a heavy object is said to fall faster than a light one, then attaching them together should make the light object slow the heavy one in its fall.  This introduces the paradox that, if a heavy object falls faster, an even heavier object falls more slowly.  (We are ignoring here factors of density.)

 

But, surely, you say, even if we cannot fine tune our formulas, there must be some underlying principle that we can call the law of gravity.  Of course.  But can we call it a law?

 

Here is a thought experiment.  Suppose someone notices a sequence of numbers, all positive integers, and wishes to find the underlying pattern.  At first, they seem entirely random.  Indeed, the numbers seem to follow the so-called laws of random numbers.  But, let’s see if they are random or not.  Here are the first 14 integers of the sequence:

 

1, 4, 1, 5. 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5, 8, 9, 7, 9

 

As you can quickly see, they are the first fourteen digits (after the decimal point) of the value of π (the Greek letter, pi).  Not everyone is as quick as you are, and so they might spend a very long time working out the underlying principle that determines each digit.  Some people might never discern the answer.

 

So, if someone were to be presented with this riddle, they might conclude that there is a “law of pi.”

 

The law of gravity has an underlying principle, but we cannot know what that principle is, no more so than we could discern π if we did not know what a circle is, or a diameter or circumference.

 

Likewise, all the laws of nature are expressions of an underlying reality, but we can never visualize the mystic circle, the eternal verities.  We see only the surface of reality, not its underlying truth.

 

 

I find that to be awesome.

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The Brain as Camera (Analogy)

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Among the many attempts to explain how (or if) the brain gives rise to consciousness, the analogy is often made, comparing the brain to a computer.

 

A simpler analogy is to compare the brain to a camera.  Just as does a computer, the camera takes input (in this case, light waves, photons) and converts them into an output, that is, a photograph.

 

However, the camera has a lens.  The purpose of the lens is to take the input, the light waves, and focus them in such a manner that the photograph will make sense to the person using the camera.

 

It would make no sense, of course, for the camera to take in the light waves (the input) only for its own use.  The user must be someone outside the camera.

 

Likewise, whether we compare the brain to a computer or to a camera, it would make no sense for the brain to take inputs (from neurons) without converting them to an output—but an output for whom?  If the function of the brain is to process inputs and convert them to outputs, we must ask, for whom is the output produced?

 

Of course, the analogy involves even greater questions, including the design and production of the device (be it camera, computer or brain), but for the purpose of this commentary, we need focus only on the question, who is the user?

 

Our conscious selves perceive that we are not our brains, but the users of our brains.  Just as music is not created by the musical instrument, but instead requires a composer and a player, so also, our thoughts come from outside our brain, and it is there that they are processed.  Just as your radio does not produce music, but relays it to you by converting radio waves to sound, so also, the brain does not produce consciousness.

 

Consciousness is proof that we are not physical beings, but spiritual beings inhabiting a physical body, in a physical world.  We travel through this world, but our home is the world of spirit.

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Good and Evil; Moral and Immoral; Right and Wrong

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Most people have some concept of good and evil.  Good is that which is pleasant, or leads to pleasant outcomes.  Evil is its opposite:  misfortune, and the path to unpleasant outcomes.

In more practical and immediate terms, good is seen as the abundance of food, comfort, and health, among many other things.  Evil is pain, sorrow and loss of good things.

When it comes to morality, however, there is far more disagreement.  Many people aver that there is no such thing as morality or immorality, not in the objective sense.  They say that these are only opinions, or at most, changeable social constructs.  Others say that morality is defined by a basic universal source.

 

While we may mostly agree that killing people is both evil and immoral, there is ambiguity.  Most people would say that when it is necessary to kill someone in self-defense, protection of loved ones, or justifiable warfare, then killing in those cases is moral.  Others disagree.  They believe that killing a human is never justified under any circumstance.

 

Much more disagreement concerns sexuality.  Something like half of Americans consider homosexual relationships to be completely moral, while others say differently.  Other issues concerning sex are even murkier, for example, the condition known as gender dysphoria, and its proposed remedies.

 

Finally, there are issues that are so complicated that social experiments with them have resulted in tragic outcomes.  Eugenics is one of them.  Voluntary single parenthood is another.  Both had arguments on their side that seemed logical and irrefutable to many.  It was only in later years that the folly became apparent, and by then, much grievous damage had been done.

 

As society becomes ever more complex and unpredictable, there are those who say that no human mind is capable of devising a moral code that will serve well.  If not, then are we doomed?

 

Or, is there a universal moral authority that shows us the correct path?  If so, what is it, and how do we persuade our fellow humans to abide by its revelations?

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