Does This Explain the Fermi Paradox?

Posted on April 7, 2013 by James Cross
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Timeline of the Universe Image credit: Rhys Taylor, Cardiff University.

The Fermi Paradox asks why our galaxy hasn’t already been colonized by alien civilizations. The argument goes like this. A lot of stars in the Milky Way are like our Sun. Many of them are a lot older than the Sun. Many of these stars would have habitable planets like Earth. If intelligent life developed on some these planets, a few would have developed a technological civilization capable of space travel. Therefore, the galaxy should have already been colonized.

Clearly, however, the galaxy hasn’t been colonized by an alien civilizations. We would have noticed them. For that matter, they would be here by now unless they are deliberately choosing to hide themselves from us. So something must be wrong with the arguments. The often drawn conclusion is that life or at least intelligent life may be very rare. Some go as far to say that we on Earth may be the only intelligent life in our galaxy, perhaps in the universe.

While I believe it is true that many stars in our galaxy will have habitable planets, most of them may not have hospitable to life until much more recently.

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Posted in Aliens, Fermi Paradox, Origin of Life | 15 Comments

Brain Organization, Not Size, Key to Intelligence

Posted on March 27, 2013 by James Cross

This is good news for all of us who believe we still have additional potential for biological evolution before we need to plug in non-biological implants.

A new study, Brain reorganization, not relative brain size, primarily characterizes anthropoid brain evolution, published by Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that brain organization is more important than size. This aligns completely with observations that brain size, even when adjusted for body size, seems to have minimal correlation with intelligence or abilities to function as a human.

Although brain size must still be of some importance, this study makes it clear that it is not everything. This also shows that evolution has already developed a solution to the brain’s energy problem by developing a way of increasing intelligence and capability without requiring more energy.

I have speculated that there was a major change in brain organization approximately 60-90,000 years ago that accounts for the capabilities of modern humans. I have also speculated that our brains are still evolving and reorganizing and that new abilities may be developing in the human psyche.

Although the full study seems to be pay walled, a good explanation of it can be found at Live Science.

Posted in Brain size, Human Evolution | 2 Comments

Beyond Belief: Divine Knowledge

Posted on March 23, 2013 by James Cross

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In the early 1970’s living in Oregon I would periodically encounter members of the Children of God. This group was a fundamentalist Christian group regarded generally as a cult. The group lived communally and recruited dropouts from the hippie movement with an evangelical message about End Times and salvation. The ones I encountered were young, about my age at the time, and very sincere. They would say various things: “Jesus loves me.”; “Christ is my salvation”; “The Judgment Day is near.” These are all “words of belief”that led to the recruitment pitch for me to become one of their community.

What struck me at the time was the fundamental abstractness of their statements combined with an obvious internal emotional resonance that they felt but that I did not despite my attending a Baptist church in my childhood. While millions of Christians may believe in the statement “Jesus loves me”, the basis of this belief cannot be checked factually. It is a statement that a person saying it finds true through internal sense and feeling. It comes from hearing others – usually parents and loved ones or, in the case of the Children of God, the other members of their group – profess belief and the association of certain feelings with that belief. The words in themselves mean nothing. None of the people had ever seen Jesus and had known anyone who had. The belief can only come from hearing other people say they believe. In a sense the words are like mantras that make internal alignments in the psyche of the speaker but have no meaning in themselves. They are words that grow out of shared belief. The affirmation of others in the group is what makes the words real to the individual.

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Posted in Consciousness, Tantra, Time | 19 Comments