Existentialism....

....and a "Birthday Party".

On the existential view, to understand what a human being is it is not enough to know all the truths that natural science—including the science of psychology—could tell us. The dualist who holds that human beings are composed of independent substances—“mind” and “body”—is no better off in this regard than is the physicalist, who holds that human existence can be adequately explained in terms of the fundamental physical constituents of the universe. Existentialism does not deny the validity of the basic categories of physics, biology,psychology, and the other sciences (categories such as matter,causality, force, function, organism, development, motivation, and soon). It claims only that human beings cannot be fully understood in terms of them. Nor can such an understanding be gained by supplementing our scientific picture with a moral one. Categories of moral theory such as intention, blame,responsibility, character, duty, virtue, and the like do capture important aspects of the human condition, but neither moral thinking (governed by the norms of the good and the right) nor scientific thinking (governed by the norm of truth)suffices.

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Today, would have been my father's 97th birthday. His physical body past away, nearly 22 years ago in November of 1988. I try to focus on all the good memories and then go for a walk, thankful for the day, and even go and buy a piece of birthday cake. Well, I figure 1/2 of my genes came from him and since he cannot eat a piece of cake.......and that spiritually he's at the table...I'll eat the cake and that way we've shared the day and the cake.

Plus, I get three birthdays parties a year, with two birthdays existentialism. 1/2 of a cake to celebrate them and a entire cake on my birthday.

So, I turn the emptness into something good and enjoyable, a positive. It is better than going to a grave and standing alone in a field for 15 minutes.

I celebrate my Mom's birthday this way too, and then my birthday as well where they are invited.

The rest of the year, when occassionally they cross my toughts. I think of Dad out mowing the yard or Mom working in the garden and canning; somewhere out in West Virginia, in that place called Appalachia (Almost Heaven). As well as thoughts about my Aunts or Uncles or even Grandparents.

Those individuals were part of my life, just because "they are not here physically" their memory is a part of my life.

So, Happy Birthday Dad!

Gliese 581g and a Purple Sky.

What would the sky or even a sunset on Gliese 581g look like, considering a Red dwarf star with a surface temperature of 3700 F?

Purple and the clouds would create a Purple Haze or mist, with rain falling in a purple darkened sky.

Seriously, no joke.

The sunset would be that region between the light side and the dark side of the tidally locked planet with the sun overhead, just if one was wondering or asking the question "Wait, how can there be a sunset or twilight region on a tidally locked planet?"

Scientific Debates...

Is there a planet, is there not a planet, is there a planet, is there not a planet, pulling petals off the Daisy.

Daisey, Daisey...the artificial HAL 2000 intelligent computer system in Space 2001.

Image Credit: NASA, Lynette Cook.

In a recent article, there is arguments that the Planet Gliese 581g does not exist.

At this point in time, why not call it "Daisy World", pardon the pun.

Yet, this type of disagreement is part of the scientific process and the validation of data or discoveries that are made. As a comparison, Darwin's concepts and ideas upon evolution and change with species, were first laughed and scoffed at. Alfred Wallace, independently of Charles Darwin, noticed a similar occurrence and gradual changes of species that resided in Southeast Asia.

Vogt is standing by the data collection and analysis that the team of researchers analyzed. As a professional scientist would do so. Give him the professional respect, for him standing by the data. Just because another team with a different data set or observation cannot claim that they can find "proof" of a planetary object, they are equally entitled to make that statement and professionalism of respect.

Basically, it boils down to further observations and further collection of data is needed to prove or disprove the claim by both independent teams. This can and does occur within the scientific community; logically or illogically as it may seem to those not trained in scientific discoveries, debates, and approaches.

If subsequent observations overtime indicate the presence of a planet, then Vogt's discovery will stand, because it is being validated and verified to having mutual agreement within the scientific community.

If subsequent observations overtime indicate there is not a planetary object within the habitable zone, then Vogt's proclamation of the discovery will have been proven false.

The star is 20 light years away and the technology just borders upon finding and Earth-size planet in the "Goldilocks Zone". Eleven years of data, while sizable probably indicates greater than 90% there is a planet. Volt indicates that the data is 99% accurate. Yet, shouldn't further observations and refinements in technology occur with sharper and more detailed observation and images? Yes, they should occur to dispel any margin of error within the data and even conjectures.

With all due respect of science, the process of scientific enquiry and thinking, at least have the respect for the science involved in the process of discoveries. Even criticism is a process of science, but criticism of which team is "The Best" is reducing science and the scientific process down to the absurd.

This discovery of a planet in the "Goldilocks's Zone" around Gliese 581 cold be debated for 20 or the next 150 years. There are going to be individuals who say "There is a planet there and it has approximately 3 to 5 Earth mass with a ratio size of 1.3 to 1.5 Earth-size" and there are going to individuals who say the opposite or "There is not a planetary object, because the data and observations do not support the claim".

This is science.

Vogt has made a claim based upon the observations of his team members and the data collected.

"I stand by our data and analysis," Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an e-mail interview with SPACE.com."I feel confident that we have accurately and honestly reported our uncertainties and done a thorough and responsible job extracting what information this data set has tooffer. I feel confident that anyone independently analyzing this data set will come to the same conclusions."

Vogt added that he looks forward to reading the other team's results when they're published in a peer-reviewed journal. He's not necessarily expectingGliese581g to be yanked off the list of extrasolar planets, though.

"In 15 years of exoplanet hunting, with over hundreds of planets detected by our team, we have yet to publish a single false claim, retraction orer ratum," Vogt said. "We are doing our level best to keep it that way."

In the process of validation of the planet by various teams and making further observations, then the next phase would consist of the question to habitability; Vogt indicates it does exist in the "Goldilocks Zone". Yet, Venus or Mar's are in the fringes of the habitable zone in this solar system.

Intelligent Life, Advanced Civilizations might just be very Rare in the Galaxy.

Humans have for thousands of years looked upward and into the night sky, for their God's exist up in the Heavens and the very Gods are responsible for the planets, moons, and even Stars that one can see. When Zeus, Jupiter, and Ra were dethroned and cast into the shadows of human history and the monotheistism became common, the mysteries of the world began to fade with the enlightenment of the scientific discoveries and thoughts upon evolution began to occur, astrobiology was born as a discipline.

As discipline, astrobiology considers the aspect that life occurs on planetary systems and even neighboring planets. Yet, even with the plausibility that life may reside on Mars, methogenetic bacteria that contribute methane gas to the atmosphere, we still do not have verifiable proof. No micro-organism or bacteria has been collected, analyzed, or even genome sequenced and compared with terrestrial organisms and bacteria from the Earth. One could argue the aspect of panspermia, or the transfer of biological and bacterial organisms from one habitable planet to another; did life arise on Mars and then transfer to Earth or vise versa? Or that microbial bacteria life exist out in space and via asteroids and comets arrive to the planets and then begin a long evolutionary path of diversification that leads to unique species. Did that occur on Venus, Mars, or even the moon Europa? The Earth is a virtual bacterial garden with life existing in the Polar regions to the Tropical forests and then to the depths of the oceans and even 2 miles below the surface in the gold mines in Africa.

Like it or not, even every human that walks around is covered in bacteria. Even taking a hot shower will not destroy some of the various species of bacteria that live on the skins surface. Bacterial life has existed with humanity for over 125,000 years and even for several million years as our species developed from the hominid ancestors of 3.5 million years ago.

How did life begin on Earth, 4.3 or 3.7 Billion years ago? What was the chemical process that lead to the formation of the peptides that eventually became incorporated into the DNA sequences of life? There are a thousand questions and many of them have been answered, but further questions remain unknown.

Does intelligent life exist out there in the night sky? Can we talk and communicate with a Alien Species? If they happen to exist, do they look like us and should we call them "Vulcan's or Klingons"? Awe, a good old Klingon Opera or a Romulan Opera would suffice with some of that Andorran Blue Brandy as the respected Dr. Hawking plays a hand of poker with Lt. Data and Lt. Worf.

Yet, we should take a look at the infamous Drake Equation and consider that "Humanity" is the only one that has arose to even question the possibility of life else where. In 1962, Frank Drake devised the equation to give meaning upon the possibility of Aliens existing somewhere out in the depth of Space on a habitable planet, thus is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence life, SETI. One can google "Drake Equation" or even Wikipedia the actual equation. The summation of which is that we only really know of one species; humanity, that exists and has become technologically capable of venturing out into space or even send their broadcasting signals out into the depth of space.

But does Intelligent life exist? Well, that is the ultimate goal of SETI to discover.

However, intelligent life or life that is comparable to 'as we know it' may actually be rare. Humanity may never actually talk or communicate with another species from another star system, sadly the Vulcan's or the Klingon's might not exist at all. Or even Aliens that "want to come to Earth and ravage the planet for mineral extraction and take all of the fresh water", to paraphrase Dr. Hawking. One might be asking the question "Why" or "What is he talking about"?

What is being talked about is human evolution and then broadening that aspect outward to another solar system, so this is a 'thought concept' with broader aspects upon Alien life. There is a discussion in the article: Ancient Viral Invasion Shaped Human Genome that should be considered when thinking about the possibility of life, or intelligent life, existing else where in the galaxy. The article states and quoting Professor Raymond L. White; "In particular, it was discovered that specific types of viruses that inserted themselves in the human genomes millions of years ago have dramatically changed the gene regulatory network in human stem cells" and "the investigators go further and demonstrate that many of the sites are embedded within a class of DNA sequences called "transposable" elements because of their ability to move to new places in the genome." Furthermore, the author, Professor Raymond L. White, adds to the discussion "Indeed, many think that regulatory changes are at the heart of speciation and may have played a large role in the evolution of humans from their predecessors. This is likely to be a landmark paper in the field", speaking specifically about human genome fields.

Basically, what the article is stating that over millions of years the various virus and bacterial infection that occurred lead to unique changes in the genome structure and the DNA expressions. In this aspect, the various polypeptide chains and expression lead to the development of humans and subsequently our mental capacities as an intelligent species. Unfortunately, the same viral exposure with Chimpanzees and the Pongidae groups did not lead to advance intelligence levels. What we use as a marker for intelligence or how it is gaged and our ability to learn and cognitive perceive our environment and the modification that modern humans do to the Earth, are in fact due to our evolutionary stages and exposure to the various virus and bacteria over millions of years.

Dr. Jane Goodall and the primatologist can see that our closest living relative, the Bonobo or the Chimpanzee has the precursors for eventually evolving into a technological species; they use tools, they recognized themselves, they communicate with other members in their troops or group, they protect their young, and they forage in the forest as marginal and primitive hunter/gathers. Even so, the chimpanzee that exist today would need nearly 3.5 million years of evolutionary development to approach what we have, given that Lucy was one of our ancestors and was capable of bipedal locomotion.

In the last 3.5 million years, there have been over 20 hominidae species that could have further evolved into an intelligent species, they became extinct over the course of time. Even humans, nearly became extinct 75,000 years ago during the Mt. Toba super volcanic eruption that decimated the human population down to a low number of less than 10,000 individuals, creating a bottleneck within the human genome that still shows a lack of diversity within the genome across the entire 6.7 billion individuals on the Earth. Humanity, or the great minds that have existed in our history, came very close to not having existed at all.

Broaden that out to the aspect of Aliens or an intelligent species existing on another planet, for a moment. They too would exist on a planet where virus and bacteria, over millions of years, would have altered the DNA sequences. However, that does not necessary indicate that intelligent life arose on another planet. There probably are Earth-like analogues, worlds where life exists with oceans, trees and animals that migrate across vast distances. Imagine what the Earth would be like without humans, then image another planet without an intelligent species. A world without cities, without highways, shipping industries and everything that is comparable to the hallmarks of an advance civilization.

SETI, will have to update and recalculate variables in the Drake Equation. There is no definitive proof that life exists even on Mars, until human explorers have gone and actually made discovery of the bacterial forms and possibly discovered more advance multicelluar life or sometype of plant species. As to the existance of intelligent life, out there on some planet within 200 or 2000 light years distance, no known signal has been detected that would indicate the possibility of such. If an Alien species were to exists, what is known about the various microbial species or virus species that occur on that planet? Nothing, exists to indicate that possiblity so far.

As far as humanity knows, with all of the science available and with all the variations of religions and philosophical paths...we still gaze up into the night sky. In wonderment of "whats out there"? But intelligent life, maybe very, very, very rare in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Earth is a garden, worms and all.

Busy over the last few months...

Well now, back to updating and writing a blog article. The last couple of months has been quit busy, I realized that when I logged in that I haven't written something since April. It is now the first week of September, what happen...Aliens abducted me, I walked through a time portal to a far away place...hysterically smirking. I've been busy with a few courses in business management and that took up some of the months between then and now.

In July, I attended a family reunion and it was wonderful seeing individuals that I haven't seen for quite some time and reconnect through the social networks with newer members. Both my parents, deceased, came from large families as each had 10 siblings. Needless to say, one can imagine how many cousins, second cousins, third cousins, and so forth now exist. The oldest family member that attended, my second cousin, is 90 years old and I remember her from my earliest childhood memories when I had Great Uncles and Great Aunts. Great memories from 40 years ago.

Some place in a rural part of the country, the nights are extremely dark without light pollution and the entire Milky Way shines overhead in the night sky. The stars seem so bright and of course one can reach the moon if they just reach far enough with their hand. Awe...the imagination of the childhood self and the entire world is magical with fireflies and lighting bugs glowing in the late evening and early nighttime hours. Frogs, crickets, and a field of cattle that moo or occasionally a bellowing bull, firing the imagination and raising the hair on the back of even the friendly beagle that one once had. Overall, it was great to reconnect to a place and individuals that have always had a special place in my heart and soul. It was a wonderful family reunion, despite the rain storm that caused a minor delay of everyone enjoying swimming and possibly hiking activities around a small lake, Moncove Lake, out in the mountains of Monroe County, West Virginia. Hopefully, next year scheduling will be better and more individuals within the larger multi-families can attend. Multi-families, are family members over multiple generations and family reunions allow individual to reconnect in traditional methods, beyond the social networking of the 21st Century and the vastness of the web.

Awe, but the night sky still beckons and calls....
The planets and the Moon are still visible and more information about them exists than in the past. Thanks to the scientific community of astronomers and professional astronomers and their observations and discoveries. Remember it was less than 70 years ago that science minded folks thought that life existed on Mars or under the moisture laden clouds of Venus.


Atlast, I am going to call Chicago home. Two weeks ago, arrived or beamed in by Amtrak transporter technology, it is great to be here. Going into the City and walking along the water font near Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium is a peaceful joy. Walking through the redesigned Grant Park and then under Lake Shore Drive from Michigan Ave is fantastic. I am so looking forward to a bike ride in the city around Grant Park and up to the Art Institute. What is there not to love or like about Chicago, because when I look around and travel here, I always see something new. Chicago just has that lifelong "WOW" signal factor. The burbs are great and the new lanes on I94 North and the multiple IPASS lanes do make driving around here tolerable, course I have seen the traffic backed-up for quite a distance and I'm just enjoying learning the CTA train routes. Like I said, Chicago has the wow factor.

"Aliens are dangerous" Part 2.

Dr. Hawking's statement "Aliens are dangerous" is a valid statement and basis of an argument upon the existence of space faring intelligent alien life that has developed technology throughout the course of their evolutionary existence.

Not only is the statement valid, but it is also rational. Paraphasing "to my mathematical mind a discussion is logical" on the existence of aliens somewhere in the galaxy or the larger universe, because he is considering the plausibility of aliens that have progressed along a technological route of their society to become a space faring society. Furthermore, it is rational to consider their existence based entirely upon our own existence and current state of technology that has allowed humanity to travel beyond our home world to our neighboring Moon and our exploration of the planets in our solar system.

Yet, it is irrational because humans do not really have a definitive example of an Alien species from another world or solar system; all that humanity has is a preconceptual idea of what an Alien might physically be like. Unknowingly, humanity is trying to describe and define the proverbial Elephant all the while blind to the unknown existence based on the plausibility.

Therefore, to express the idea and promote the concept that "Aliens are dangerous" without fully knowing if Aliens are dangerous, as some may not be, is thus an irrational fear based upon unknowns.

Yet, there is more to Dr. Hawking's statement and that would include humans and our very essences of further evolutionary development beyond the Earth. What if "We" become the "Aliens"?

If a group of humans colonist decide to move to Mars in the later half of the 21st Century and exist for 50,000 or 200,000 years genetically separated from Earth; the plausibility of evolutionary changes to the genetic sequences might thus give rise to a new species of humans. Hence, they would become Aliens. His argument that the Aliens are aggressive with their technology use, is even valid given that humans have aggression and our entire prehistory and history is full of wars and destruction.

Oftentimes, within a simple statement there is rationality and irrationality that occurs. It is often surrounded by valid and validity arguments and debates.

Is he actually referring to the plausibility of and the existence of extraterrestial aliens, or is he foreshadowing the future evolution of humans in extraterrestial environments and what they would be capable of if they were to discover a primitative society that is just beginning to develop their own space technologies?

Even the psyops discussion takes one into the shadow lands of the unknowns and paranormal.

Our species has existed for 200,000 years without the discovery of an extraterrestial alien species. Although one could equally argue that humanity has discovered terrestial alien species as they moved out of Africa into the various climates and ecological regions of the world, to the demise of various other species. However, only one or two actually poised a potential threat to their existence: H. neanderthalus and H. florensis, both of which are now extinct. Our species could exist for 200,000 to 500,000 more years without ever contacting or having a "First Contact" with an extraterrestial species or a message from some extraterrestial species could be discovered tomorrow.

However, Dr. Hawking has stated "Aliens are dangerous" and the implied meaning is they are a potential threat whether they exist or not. In our fears we progress from the unknown to the known then to a new relm of the unknown.

So Aliens are "dangerous".....

British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking indicates "aliens are out there, but it could be too dangerous for humans to interact with" according to Yahoo News article from the Associated Press.

Well, he is probably right and does make compelling arguments for his statements regarding the aspects of intelligent alien species existing somewhere in the Galaxy or even in the Universe.

However, the comparison to Alien visitors being like Christopher Columbus in the New World, and humans being the open minded trusting Sun-God worshiping natives, I have to disagree with you there Dr. Hawking. This is a complimentary disagreement because of your respected level of knowledge and wisdom upon the Universe and unique aspects thereof. However, the stance that Aliens existing as some advance mythos of tribal Alien Warlords gallivanting through the cosmos ravaging rocky terestial planets for various resources including food, is a reflection of humans barbaric existence for our own recorded history.

Granted, if they have developed the technology and survived the E=MC^2 atomic stage of development to become a space traveling society or even space traveling nomad society, they would still have far advance knowledge on their computer systems and a wealth of knowledge of species that they probably were responsible for their own extinction.

They, as a species, probably came to value the uniqueness of life when they encounter life forms in other solar systems that they travel too. If they are capable of building large nearly planetary size ships, to support their "exploration" of the galaxy, then they would have advance knowledge of terraforming planets.

Yet, isn't it humans that project the aspects of the Evil Aliens traversing the Galaxy? Nearly every movie version that has aspects of dealing with "aliens" presents them in a negative light of destroying the Earth and consuming the human population as if humans were nothing more than cows or pigs, to be slaughtered and butchered by the Aliens for their food resources. So the argument stands, our very movies perpetuates this mythology because they have advance technology, we only have computer virus that destroys the great mothership in the movie "Independence Day" and humans only have bullets to fight the alien in "Alien".

Awe, our primitive human cognitive post chimpanzee screams and squeals in anger and aggression at some black monolith in Space 2010.

Maybe, and this is a matter of opinion for we have our conjecture of beliefs, they are more civilized and advance than we mear humans can only dream of in 200,000 years.

What if they were to build planetary starship the size of Mars or Earth, traveling the dark reaches between the stars for thousands of years. Each generation being instructed and schooled in concepts of nanotechnology, genetics and planetary engineering. Generation after generation learning via repetitive simulations on a variety of planets and the potential of finding a terrestial planet, such as Earth, where life is unique and diverse with various species. What if they have in their computer systems simulations of rocky worlds; Mars and Venus, or ice worlds such as Europa and Sedna? Or the gas giant planets of Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter?

Instead of the Aliens that you envision, what about a species of Aliens that would arrive on a planetary starship then survey the various planets for potential life and potential areas for establishing a colony via terraforming a world such as Venus. If they are capable of traveling 20 or 1000 light years from their home world, then surely they have the capabilities of building a space elevator that can transport water from Jupiter's moon Europa to a planet the size of Venus or Mars.

Europa, has the equivalent of twice the water of Earth. What if an advance Alien species could transport some of that water over to Venus, establish a hydrosphere, guide a few asteroids for impact to break up the crust of Venus in some areas to establish plate tectonics, seed the planet with various flora and fauna species of their distant homeworld.

Why not have an Alien species that would just observe Earth at a close distance, with their presence known. Yet, if a space ship the size of a planet were to magically arrive in this solar system and occupy the region between Mars and Jupiter, and then collectively as humanity were to start observing a magical transformation of Venus into an Earthlike planet. Or a species that is intelligent just being a neighbor to a species that just started to crawl and no longer is needing the cradle?

We, in our current existance, would worship them as Gods! Because they would mean us no harm. And we could go on about our daily lives without the fear that is so common to the descendants of "The Naked Ape". Aggression is part of the genetic coding of the hominid groups, extinct or extant. Maybe it is the fear that our human species will evolve with the continue aggression that have existed in the history of our species.

Yet, why should aggression be part of a species of Aliens that are capable of interplanetary and travel between the various supporting star systems that reside within the Milky Way?


Dangerous Aliens and the mythos of tribal Amazonians from Atlantis, sells and develops scripts for multi-million dollar movies. Because it is full of blood, guts, weapons of mass destruction, human extinction. It is the basis of slavery, the destruction of millions of bison and the various cultures of a planet all because of the Gold collected in the New World by the Europeans.

Aliens, that have the capabilities to build planetary size star-ships for terraforming rocky worlds that are geological unwelcoming to humans, i.e., Venus....wouldn't even be of interest.

What humanity can agree upon is very simple: whatever Aliens are, they are not primates. Yet, we have not met any in our existence as a species, so we go into the future fearful because of our own myths that prevail. If we do, and at some point probably will, encounter an alien culture or civilization, it is going to be humans that bring out the nuclear weapons or the harpoons. Just so that humans can hang its head upon our cavern wall.

Aliens that are capable of interstellar and interplanetary travel, if they visited Earth and were to walk inside a muesum or even download our entire internet for a complete analysis of our cultural ideas and concepts probably would be repulsed at the idea of even having various species in zoological parks or as muesum specimens. The would have the wisdom and abilities to create worlds for life to exist.

Just think of the concept: A planetary size spaceship in orbit around Jupiter would destablize the gravity wells of the Jovian moons. The same planetary size spaceship could gravitationally direct a moon the size of Europa or Io for a Venus or Martian impact. They may as well live thousands of years, and our lifetime is measures like we measure that of a fruitfly.

When humans can use their technology to change the geological processes on the neighboring worlds of Venus and Mars to allow them to become habitable, then we will have gained emense knowledge and wisdom because we will apprieciate the uniquiness that is life. Until then we overpopulate our planet and cause the extinction of thousands of species per year.

Dr. Hawking, Aliens are dangerous?