'Environmental apocalypse is coming': http://www.businessinsider.com/environmental-collapse-rio-conference-2012-6?op=1

Is this based on empirical science?

Was life then the first thing in the universe to find a purpose? I don't think so, as that's like saying we were the first to invent intelligence. I've argued elsewhere that in one way or another everything that exists serves a strategic purpose, but few agree.

Dawkins has denied that the universe has a purpose or that evolution has a purpose. Coyne has denied it. Harris has denied it. On the other hand, people I support, such as Mary Midgley, Mae Wan Ho, James Shapiro, etc., say that we purposely evolve ourselves.
But if you want to misinterpret what I'm saying anyway, be my guest.

The word 'myth' has two meanings in my dictionary, and as I understand it, Big History is to become an example of the first meaning, but, importantly, not the second.

Mythology:
1. "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon".

2. "a widely held but false belief or idea"

Hi Roy, by the comment "we purposely evolve ourselves", do you mean that we are taking control of factors that would normally be selected for naturally? eg. I have lived long enough to reproduce only because a doctor removed my appendix at age 10. A few hundred years ago, a boy with my condition may have died at age 10. If that is your meaning, then it seems reasonable to me. Not sure if Dawkins, et. al. would question it either. Perhaps I have misinterpreted.

Mark, I don't want to be clever here - chance would be a fine thing, I hear you mutter - but I've long and often thought about the words 'myths' and 'mythologies'.

Isn't it possible, also, for a definition to include the kernel of a truth or the possibility of a truth?

Like your second definition here, almost allows the word 'falsehood' as a synonym, yet surely that comes no where near defining 'mythology', unless you defer to the superiority of the compilers.

In your second definition, who has decided that that belief is 'false', and how do they really know that?

Given that it's 'widely held', it shouldn't be too difficult to provide an example or two.

Doesn't that obscure piece of linguistic, philosophical wrapping paper, simply mean that consciousness gives us little choice?

Once we're born and have consciousness of it, we're sunk, in my view.

Whoops. To clarify my poorly worded comment, I believe it is the *first definition* of myth that Big History is to become. The second definition is not relevant to this topic, as it describes a different concept (eg. the idea that 'camels store water in their hump' is that type of widely held myth).

The novel thing about Big History as a Myth (definition 1) is that it will change over time, and become less wrong over time. At least, that's the idea.

I am confused by your reply. I would think that the doctor's consciousness was foundational to making the choice to save my life at age 10.

Thank you, Mark, for that response.

Over time, then, can you foresee a myth like the one you've given, becoming more like an 'old wives' tale'?

If it does, or is, maybe then we can go deeper into this mythology idea so that it says more about our wants and needs, with the emphasis being firmly on 'our', and not the substance, such as it is, of the myth.

Thus, Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor is an old wives' tale, but the myth of it is in our desire for it to be true or have even a grain of truth to it.

Do you mean the Big History 'myth' becoming an old-wives-tale? As I understand the intent behind it, it would become, over time, not an old-wives-tale, but a traditional story, concerning the early history of a people and explaining natural phenomena.

I think that 'our wants and needs' in relation to the Big History project is that it hopefully provides the psychological benefits of having an origin story, and specifically, quoting from the article, "a universal origin story that works in today’s globalised societies".

"all of you was made by exploding stars. You are quiet literately a star child :)"
Another myth.
What about Muon catalysed transmutations?
Mitsubishi has been experimenting with transmutation for the last twenty years.
http://coldfusionnow.org/updates-from-iccf-17/
Science changes. Dogmas die.

Are you suggesting that cold fusion made all of the carbon, iron, etc that is on Earth out of the hydrogen and helium which formed from the big bang?

Where was this done? And how did it get here?

But a quick internet search suggests that the star child bit of the Big History is still correct, so I'm not expecting answers.

And why all this talk of myth and dogma? If the science is found to be wrong, then it is wrong.

Michael, I was referring there to the camel myth but in relating my comment to the Big History idea, you do raise the point.

I can't really go along with your last sentence here. Surely, subconsciously, we are driven by factors that science doesn't do much more than paper over?

I look at our three dogs and my lovely wife's ponies, and our two cats, and all the other animals on this magical planet of ours, and I do think that they are freer than us by virtue of their lack of consciousness.

Clifford - it's a little off topic - but on what basis do you claim that (a) animals lack consciousness

http://news.discovery.com/animals/animals-consciousness-mammals-birds-octopus-120824.html

and (b) that such a lack is "liberating"?

Consciousness and self awareness (related but different) are emergent phenomena possesed by many living entities with a brain. It is a question of degree - not all or nothing.

Mark, only on the basis of common sense.

When I use consciousness, I really mean in relation to mental awareness of one, like in Rene Descartes' 'Cogito ergo sum'.

Of course, I don't have, and never will have, evidence of this, and I don't think anyone else has or ever will have.

But of all the creatures of the planet, man alone is aware of his mortality.

This is a knowledge that I think enslaves rather than liberates, and I'd contend that religion provides plenty of evidence to support that idea or belief.

I don't wish to be rude but I don't want references to examples of animal intelligence - one of our three dogs, a Border Collie, is extremely intelligent as a dog - at times I'd swear she's reading your mind.

But never, if she exists from now until Doomsday, will she ever know, that one day she will not exist.

"Are you suggesting that cold fusion made all of the carbon, iron, etc that is on Earth out of the hydrogen and helium which formed from the big bang?"
Science progresses one death at a time.
I am suggesting that the majority of the metals(as defined by astronomers) is formed in stars. However absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In other words nuclear synthesis is constantly happening.
Professor Hagelstein has developed his coupling model between the nucleus and phonons. With this he predicted that collimated x-rays would be produced from the surface of the metal mercury.
In other words we now have a testable (not a toy) hypothesis to explain the anomalous excess energy from the empirical experiments.
Celani et al are producing demonstration models to present to key universities around the world.
You can help. I need to know. What evidence would satisfy you of the excess heat effect?

Clifford - fair enough but I can't agree.

1) I don't believe in common sense - especially when it is used as argument to support a belief about reality of which we can have no direct experience. "Common Sense" suggests quantum mechanics is absurd - but it is a very useful descriptioon of how relaity behaves at a sub atomic scale

2) If you accept that consciousness is a matter of degree, not of kind - something Darwin himself suggested based on his observations - then you must admist of the possibility that animals may have sense of awareness that includes the possibility that they can die - even if not as well developed (some might say to an obsessive level) as humans

I'm not skilled enough in this area to devise an experiment to test the hypothesis - but some tests have already shown that some animals, including magpies, are capable of self-recognition.

So, I think you are being too absolute. We know animals have a degree of consciousness, we know that they can suffer, we know they can exhibit behaviours that indicate self-awareness and even the ability to predict how others will behave (which suggests some distancing and empathic capabilities).

We also know that what they experience is beyond our "senses" - we can only observe external phenomena and infer (much like with quantum mechanics). So "Common Sense" is unlilkely to be a reliable guide to the truth of the matter.

perhaps as our "Big History" evolves - we will learn something that might suprise you :)

"However absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - this is a common fallacy.

Whether or not absence of evidence constitues evidence of absence depends on one's epistemological situation in relation to the matter about which one is considering the existence of the evidence.

Once can indeed claim absence of evidence is evidence of absence if you are in a position to (a) expect there to be evidence and (b) expect to have knowledge of such evidence. Such a claim is unlikely to be 100% conclusive (but then very few claims are) but can be resonably certain - depending on one's situation.

For example - if there is no evidence of an elephant in my bedroom I can resonablly claim that this is evidence of the absence of an elephant in my room. On the other hand the somewhat famous claim by Carl Sagan that absence of evidence for ET life forms is not evidence of their absence is very reasonable because our civilisation has only been in a position to detect evidence of ET life forms for less than 100 years - which would not put us in a epistemological position to expect such evidence given the vast size of the galaxy and the probability that such life, if it exists, is likely to be sparsely populated in space time terms.

With respect to cold fusion (or low temperature nuclear synthesis if you prefer) and whether or not it is a real phenomena - the situation is much more akin to the elephant in the room. There should be evidence of it producing more energy than is used to run the process and there should be evidence of nuclear transmutation having occured. So far many people (as your conference link makes clear) have attempted to produce such evidence that can be reproduced by others and have comprehensively failed.

So the absence of the existence of evidence for cold fusion is fairly compelling evidence for for the fact that the phenomena does not exist.

But hey - if you can provide such evidence the world will be your oyster! ;)

Good luck with that :)

Go read the literature.
http://lenr-canr.org/
You have been given enough rope to hang yourself.

This is of course being one of the most heinous crimes and frauds committed against kids and uni students over the past two decades by the poststructuralists.

I have no idea what this comment is talking about.

Poststructuralism is/was an obsessively 'written-word' movement, obsessed with sucking anything joyful, profound, truthful, and especially beautiful out of - again almost exclusively - other texts of written words. Come on, when you come across a poststructuralist, the last thing you will want to talk to them about is the visual, or aural. Art, singing, and iconography were not part of the poststructuralists skill set or ideological project.

What a complete irony that the prattlings of a gang of Frenchmen who abandoned Communism after losing to the Nazis, and writing mostly before they even had colour TV, could take over the universities of Australia, the US, the UK, just as the most pagan, visual culture takes over that world from the 1980s until today.

Are you talking existentialism?

It may help the discussion,

if myth and science can be viewed in context.

Myths were once the way the world was explained.

Science emerged to reveal another way of explaining the world.

If our view of the world remained at the stage of Newton, then we would be living in a Newtonian myth.

As more is discovered about the cosmos, old world-views diminish.

Our proudly held scientific view of the world today will run the gauntlet of time to become tomorrow's myth ~ a good story to recall, but no longer adequate for describing the world.

Maybe it pays to be humble enough to remember that today's science is tomorrow's myth.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

But does it really matter or mean anything, anyway, what combination of words we kick around in the darkness of our 'understanding' and 'philosophical explanations' of our origins?

My consciousness tells me that in a hundred years from now, the vast, vast majority of living human beings, including babies leaving the womb at this instant now, will be as the ashes of all life of the past centuries and the billion years of time that has passed..

Do we even have a vocabulary to make sense of that, let alone being able to explain any why?\

Why we will all probably be dead in 100 years is very easy to explain.

Death is needed to make way for new, and new life evolves. If there was no death then the world would be filled with the very first lifeforms (whom one would expect would be rather bored by now).

And without death we would not need new life and so we would miss out on sex :)

I think the word 'purpose' is difficult, and 'the reason why' need not have a purpose.

"It can potentially be a normative story as well, laden with important moral messages and guidance for the future"

Dangerous ground.

Who is going to play God and decide what are "important moral messages and guidance for the future"?

And this is a serious question.

The more science discovers, the more it realises how much it doesn’t know. For example:

“Mr Quach said the standing model for the origins of the universe, the big bang, needed to be rewritten.”

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/melbourne-researchers-rewrite-big-bang-theory-20120821-24j5z.html#ixzz2BWtran59

However, I am more interested in general guidelines that people should use to best decide how to live their lives.

Much of that comes down to libertarian and utilitarian arguments, that seem endless and undecided.

So, who should decide how someone should live their lives, and just lay down the law, and all this decisiveness?

How about, within the laws agreed by us all under a democratic system, YOU decide how to live your life.

Adding a spiritual component on top of the Big History would not produce one answer. A discussion on what type of answers it would be likely to produce is well beyond the scope of what I could write as a comment.

I think it is more likely to come up with answers more similar to some Eastern philosophies, and as I've already written here, I've personally found a very good match with some Tantric ideas.

There is a band called Tantric. I sometimes listen to one of their albums, although I prefer other music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4-HoxfIf-U&feature=related

So individual preference and subjectivity is now a part of the equation, and who is actually going to write the Big History, and law down the law for all to follow?

If you were to follow scientific theories only, children would be taught they are simply a series of metabolic chemical reactions.

“So Johnny, time to wake up and eat some chemicals to supply you with enough energy to go to school. “

What else should be told to Johnny at school, and who will set the curriculum?

It will more than likely be a socialist/Marxist/feminist world government which will set the curriculum and tell you how to think and behave?

Either way, it sounds so interesting that I just can't wait to ...................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Big History does have connotations of Big Brother, which wouldn’t make many fall to sleep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WupvCZhKMnM

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sighsighsighsigh,

I have just read an article where an academic feminist attempts to demonise the male gender, and then wants a quota system of females on boards.

I’m sure they will want to rewrite history also, but it won’t bear much resemblance to facts about the male gender, or much else.

Are you saying she wants more private parts?

For the ignoramuses who marked me down without looking up I2a(P37.2) you will find that it has a very direct bearing on my deep ancestry. From before we left Africa. We were holed up in the Balkans for 10 thousand years during the last Ice age.
A very salient point.
http://www.igenea.com/en/index.php?c=132&st=342

Arthur - nobody cares. Your haplogroup lineage is not "Big History". I appreciate it is important to you as an individual - but to think it should be write large in relation to this topic seems to me to be just your ego seeking recognition

The topic of this thread is the idea that Big History - based on scientific epistemology as a better and evolving way of knowing the universe's true mythos (as opposed to religious mythos frozen in time based on ignorance) might provide a unifying force for humanity (when religious mythos tends to do the opposite).

Perhaps you might reflect on that

Perhaps you might reflect upon the fact that no-one here has clue as to what religion is.
There is a lot of self-congratulatory patting on the back from people who have successfully knocked down a straw man.
"Bring forth that which is within yourself.
If you bring forth that which is within yourself what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not have that which is within you, what you do not have will destroy you."
"Seek and do not stop looking until you find. When you find, you will be perplexed. When perplexed, astounded. And rule over all"
It appears that some have stopped looking. Scientists indeed!
and something about casting pearls before swine.

Compassion and love do get a look in, as necessary to developing co-operative civilisation.

My understanding of Buddhist ethics is that it does not bother with the concepts of "good" and "evil": instead, choices of action are on a spectrum from skillful to stupid.

eschew obfuscation I always say.

Arthur should try it :)

Thanks Mark. I had to look obfuscation up. Now I know. I am sorry that you could not follow me. I did try my best with short sentences and simple words, unlike obfuscation.
You have not had time to inwardly digest the implications of the link I gave you.

Au contraire Arthur. I followed you - I was just pointing out that I felt you were employing deliberately obtuse meaningless (and factually incorrect) prattle. I tried to say it nicely.

Paul Marmet is a well known crank who asserts that Einstein and relativity are wrong - shame that the experimental evidence says otherwise.

This is dangerous ground. I'd be treading very warily, if I were you.

I can ask you point-blank here - if you can boldly and baldly state that: 'The greatest myth of all is the illusion of reality', then you must have concrete knowledge of that reality, chapter and verse.

If I assert that we only see the illusions, ipso facto, I must be aware of the realities.

How can I have a knowledge of a reality that does not exist?
I have said reality does not exist, but that the illusion exists.
Further I said that arguments about Proof are sterile because they all are either based on inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning. Neither of those forms of logic are sound.
Therefore I argue that the strongest statements we can make about reality are based on the evidence.
On the (Very) microscopic scale we have a breakdown of space/time at Quantum foam. A limit to knowledge.
At Macroscopic scales all information is denied to us because light has only 14.something years to get here from there, another limit.
Heisenberg says that you cannot know the momentum and position of an object. Another limit.
Mathematicians have shown that knowledge itself can never cover every fact of reality. The more one knows about one subject, the less one knows about another. This is a fundamental law. Another limit.
And so on and so forth.
All these limits to Knowledge lead me to believe that the illusion is bounded and all bounded objects must have an outside.
(Except for various improbable topographical mathematical objects.)
The inside of the bound volume is the illusion. It is just too fantastical to believe.
This little fishy has seen the water.

Oof!! Straight for the ad hominems. Shame on You.
I know when to disengage.
Bye.

Because you know it does not exist. If you know the illusion exists, how do you know it is illusion unless you also know what the reality is? It doesn't make sense, otherwise.

If Heisenberg says that you cannot know something, he has to know that something in order to asert that others cannot know it.

If you say 'all bounded objects must have an outside', you must have knowledge of that outside, otherwise how do you know that?

If the 'inside of the bound volume is the illusion', what is the reality? You must know this to be able to assert that the inside is the illusion.

You finish with 'This little fishy has seen the water.' - Exactly. You have seen the reality, us only the illusion, thus tell us what that reality is - tell us so we can also see the water.

Clifford ~

If I could tell a good joke and you got it, in your experience of humour there would be only the experience of humour,

In considering the singularity at the birth of the cosmos, there is no room for thought.

Beyond thought, maybe, we can begin the experience of the multiverse.

Then we may be filled with humour.

Kim Peart

Only if you are in Copenhagen and entangled with the notion that consciousness is required for measurement as opposed to superposition of states collapsing by any external interaction. No relativity involved.

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

'Beyond thought, maybe'.

Aye, there's the rub indeed, Our consciousness enslaves us.

There is no need for someone to feel enslaved or trapped by the knowledge of their own morality.

I certainly hope that my death is not painful or bad, and I'm certainly not wanting my life to end soon, but like paying taxes, I accept that death is consequence of life.

Purpose can also be found from within without any need for Gods or sacred texts.

Once these non-religious views are accepted it is consciousness that has liberated us from superstition.

Clifford ~

As a visual artist I have a great appreciation of the beauty and power of Nature. I look out into the cosmos at the endless stars, breathless in awe at this vast pageant.

I am amazed at what must exist with the transcendent multiverse, the underlying reality of our cosmos. I only have to consider the cosmos, to know that the multiverse is something far more than I can imagine.

I am delighted that I have the consciousness that allows this perception and feel empowered to know this beauty. Like great music, I delight in the beauty of Nature flowing through me and by implication, also the multiverse.

It is in this mix of wonder that I consider the revelations of science, including that our cosmos began as a singularity that stretched to infinity and that energy can change form but never be destroyed. Here I am in that strange cosmic drama, a stretched oneness where energy plays.

The idea of God is a moving feast through the centuries, but when the individual comes into an appreciation of the primal oneness of the cosmos, there can be no other. God can be the embodiment of natural law, as simple as the play of action and reaction, which in the East becomes karma.

In oneness it is OK just to be and treat others like they are part of the oneness, which they are, if we agree with current science. It is my hope that we will increase the beauty of life, as we live and demand delivery of a safe Earth.

I wonder if it will be the people empowered with beauty who move the mountain and win back a safe planet. When I look into this dynamic, I see a stellar economy without poverty, that will be achieved because we see that we must build a sustainable presence beyond Earth, if we wish to have a sustainable human presence on Earth.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

Clifford ~

Thanks for the clarification.

I have a concern about Christianity that runs a little deeper.

The Nicene Creed states, "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."

Since 1976 I have been engaged in advocating expansion beyond Earth with space development and I now wonder if persons of Christian persuasion may have contributed to resistance to our cosmic expansion, as the core belief of Christianity requires a reception committee on Earth for the transition to the divine theocratic dictatorship on Earth.

I suggest it helps to know your enemy.

It also helps to fathom how a religious political position that has been behind many wars and crusades, may still have an influence on contemporary thinking.

In rejecting the Christian political theocracy and leaving a kind of concept vacuum, I wonder if there is a risk of subconsciously imitating that which is rejected.

While the Christian concept of purpose is rejected, I am left wondering if a view now predominates that sees the need to work everything out on Earth alone, or first, before expanding beyond Earth.

Also, in rejecting purpose, the tendency appears to have become one of embracing a form of chaos and failing to appreciate a fundamental aspect of natural law, of shifting to new beginnings.

Natural law was in full working order at the Big Bang and has systematically allowed new beginnings toward ever increasing levels of diversity, but the academic outlook appears to be a preference for chaos.

In 1969 we had a new beginning, with the first step onto the Moon, but we fell back to Earth.

I am concerned about a failure to see a new evolutionary beginning that was in process in 1969, or that our current carbon crisis is a direct result of clinging to the Earth.

Still the chorus is for Earth alone, or fix the Earth up first.

Is this an echo of the Nicene Creed?

Many in the West have moved on from one religious political philosophy, to an alternative view based on chaos that has come to dominate academia and much of the World.

This situation suits Christian political religion down to the ground.

It also gives unbridled licence to the carbon energy industry.

In this hour of crisis, rather than being trapped in a kind of cargo cult mentality, waiting on Earth for salvation, there is a need for a new awareness of the meaning new beginnings mean in terms of evolution and natural law.

If this awareness will arise, there may be hope that we will begin to win back a safe Earth, by running with Nature in an evolutionary expansion beyond Earth.

We need to find our confidence and know what we should be getting on with, rather than allow the world to go its way of dogmas into rack and ruin.

I cannot help but wonder about the Jonestown incident in 1978, when 909 Christians died in a mass suicide.

If we will not fight for our cosmic survival and a safe our Earth, are we running the risk of a kind of global suicide in a kind of Jonestown mental trap?

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/