/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2854638]

Astronomers have witnessed a cosmic explosion so strange they don’t even know what to call it. Although the blowup, discovered with NASA’s Swift satellite on March 28, emits high-energy radiation like a gamma-ray burst would, the event has now lasted for 11 days. Gamma-ray bursts last for an average of about 30 seconds.
Also unlike a gamma-ray burst, the explosion has faded and brightened, emitting staccato pulses of energetic radiation lasting for hundreds of seconds.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/cosmic-explosion-swift/

[Anonymous No.2854655]

/x/phile here..its Planet X

[Anonymous No.2854660]

>It would be only a matter of time for the humans to realize that their so-called "explosion" was not, in fact, "pulsating" - It was moving. Approaching their planet at an ever-increasing rate.

[Anonymous No.2854675]

when you dont know what the fuck is going on...BLAME ALIENS

[Anonymous No.2854694]

>>2854660
no actually it will be in the distant universe and thus red-shifted
if it was moving towards us it would be blue-shifted which it is not
and unless it was moving violently back and forth movement like that wouldn't cause pulsation

0/10

[Anonymous No.2854698]

God sure is magnificent isn't he?

[Anonymous No.2854700]

THE THIRD COMING

[Anonymous No.2854741]

>>2854698
Yup, sure is amazing. Just like those shooting stars, they were amazing too. Just like those times when the sun is blocked out for a while during the day, those really do make me believe extra hard.
Oh! What about those mountains that spit fire?! Boy you can always tell that God's pissed when those suckers go off! Speaking of pissed, let's not forget the pestilence that befalls sinners. Their sins may not be known but they would not be so afflicted had they not angered the almighty Lord!

Pic related. True HUMANS do not cower in fear and ignorance, we face the unknown and dangerous with conviction, intelligence, and determination. We plunge into the ocean's depths to study its most dangerous beasts. We hurl ourselves among the stars to understand and master their wonder. We fear nothing and our curiosity will see us through.
The rest of you APES can kindly return to the trees to cower in fear of the predators below, the HUMAN RACE has a destiny to fulfill.

[Anonymous No.2854765]

>>2854741
you were trolled like... really hard but this:
>True HUMANS do not cower in fear and ignorance, we face the unknown and dangerous with conviction, intelligence, and determination. We plunge into the ocean's depths to study its most dangerous beasts. We hurl ourselves among the stars to understand and master their wonder. We fear nothing and our curiosity will see us through.
The rest of you APES can kindly return to the trees to cower in fear of the predators below, the HUMAN RACE has a destiny to fulfill.

fucking epic

[Anonymous No.2854796]

>>2854765
I know it was a troll, just wanted to write that down, commit it to /sci/. Sometimes we think of ourselves as "only human" but humans really are magnificent. I believe that mastery of one's fear is what makes a human great. Fear is the last vestigial remnant of our evolution that's holding us back. How much has a given person lost in life thanks to fear? Fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of the unknown, fear of consequences, fear of death. Fear holds us back as a species, makes us behave ignobly. Fear turns the mighty Man into the quivering ape.

To accomplish anything, we must master our fear. So it was on the savanna, so will it be among the stars.

[Anonymous No.2854814]

>>2854796
you're my hero and i fucking love you, you're going to be the next sagan

[Anonymous No.2854820]

>>2854796

it's not about eliminating fear (or any emotion) altogether, it's about understanding why we feel that way and having the willpower to still use our higher order thought processes to do what needs to be done.

[Anonymous No.2854832]

It's Aliens.
They're testing a new weapon that will blow up an entire galaxy, they choosed a random one where they don't own any planets to test this weapon..it's our galaxy. Bye, guys.

[Anonymous No.2854842]

>>2854814
Thank you, I don't really know what to say aside from that. Fuck it, I'm posting more of the shit I've written.

I think the reason that humans, despite our very impressive intelligence, do powerfully stupid things is because of our "design" if you will. Yes, humans have experienced selective events throughout our history that favor greater cooperation, compassion, etc. However, our brain is still based on the primate model. Deep down, there's a lemur-like creature in all of us that wants to acquire more food, more mates, piss to mark our territory, fight, throw shit to ward off enemies, and fears the shit out of the unknown.

In some ways, we still do a lot of these things. This is MY neighborhood. This is MY country. This ink on a map is MY PISS marking MY territory. We fling high velocity metal instead of shit an the results are far deadlier. We fight for mates, sometimes it gets violent. This contrasts with the noble nature of our frontal lobes that drives us to explore, discover, and create. The noble "Dr. Jekyll" update to the primate brain has arrived but it's still running on "Mr. Hyde/Chimpanzee" hardware.
We try to suppress our primitive side, but it's as much a part of human nature as art, culture, and science. Those primitive instincts and designs got us through the worst conditions nature could throw at us and they were naturally selected for a good reason. In the modern context though, those traits are causing us immense harm. We are programmed to love fatty and sweet foods, as they provided energy for long treks and lean periods on the savanna, but they cause obesity in our modern world of plenty. We are programmed to acquire all we can to survive, but it's led to staggering greed and accumulation of ultimately unnecessary wealth.
Can we rid ourselves of our barbaric side? Who knows? The very traits that enabled our survival may well be those that ultimately engender our extinction...

[Anonymous No.2854859]

>When scientists analyzed the signal spectrum of the cosmic event, they recovered a startling pattern

>http://myspacefilehosting.com/lmxhz/signal.ogg.html

[Anonymous No.2854887]

>>2854842

MOAR

[Anonymous No.2854890]

>“It’s either a phenomenon we’ve never seen before or a familiar event that we’ve never viewed in this way before,”
quite the catchall...

[Fr 87 No.2854938]

>>2854887

I concur.

With a bit of refinement you could totally turn this into an awesome lecture or speech.
Seriously... Do it.

[Anonymous No.2854968]

>>2854938
>>2854887
Because I was asked...


Maybe we will shed ourselves of our more primitive side. Maybe, someday, we can overcome the deleterious effects of our primate heritage, but will we still be human? Will we conquer the solar system and meet extraterrestrial intelligence only to realize that we're just apes with a much bigger savanna? Have you ever considered that we could be the anomaly in the universe; that we are the primitive monsters with nuclear weapons? Maybe most other species evolve out of their brutality before they develop technology.

Then again, maybe our brutality is what makes us... us. The ideal social/cooperative creature is the eusocial insect. Maybe the individual drive to secure resources and more of everything for ourselves is what makes our great creative boldness possible. Maybe our consciousness itself is a manifestation of the chimera, composed of the brutal ape and the ivory tower philosopher coexisting in the same brain. Maybe that dichotomy makes us great.

I studied biochemistry because it was fascinating and its pursuit, in my mind at least, noble. I also studied it seeking a better career. A better career leads to more money, more women, more territory, more personal power. Maybe what ultimately motivated me to go to law school is the same primitive instinct that ultimately motivated the genocides in Rwanda; the drive to secure more for oneself and ones tribe. Group cooperation, as a facet of the human psyche ultimately evolved for one reason: because it benefits the individuals cooperating in the end.

[Anonymous No.2854984]

>>2854842
You were around here a week or so ago, weren't you? Your passage looks mightily familiar.

[Anonymous No.2854990]

>>2854968
Even eusociality evolved as a quirk of reproductive genetics, the drones being more related to their queen than they would ever be to their own offspring. You serve your genes and your society better as a sterile drone than as a reproducing individual. This could be applied to human societies as well. "Die for your country" is touted as a noble sacrifice. Maybe that sacrifice is comparable to that of a drone. Die in combat to benefit your country, your family, your unit, your friends. Your loss has furthered the goals of your cooperating group. Maybe the same archaic instinct that motivates ants to form a living, yet lethal, bridge across streams for their queen's migration is the same that motivates millions to mobilize to the battlefields of the modern era.

[Anonymous No.2855016]

>>2854968
>>2854842
i can't believe that's exactly what i was thinking to day, human software is more advanced than it's hardware and that the same instinct of survival causes scienctific knowledge but also war, please start your own thread if you have more

[Anonymous No.2855020]

>>2854984
Yessir. I try to copy my more "critically acclaimed" comments to repost if they're relevant or requested. I've found myself rambling generally on /sci/ or /b/ and my rants don't seem too bad compared to cries of "nigger,nigger,nigger,nigger" and religious trolls... so I re-post occasionally. It's really very flattering to see that people read (much less like) what I write.

Anyone up to start a "Secular Religion"? I can't think of a better word, though philosophy comes to mind.

[Anonymous No.2855047]

>>2855016
I think a lot of people share these thoughts and are aware of the underlying science, there's just no "mass voice" for these people. Hitchens, Dawkins, etc. are all great, but they don't exactly have a belief system/philosophy behind them. Sagan is as close as I can imagine.

However, I'm instinctively averse to the idea of "guruism", considering the "gurus" of the modern age tend to be anywhere from harmless morons to dangerous zealots that get trotted out and approved by Oprah. Speaking of her...
Years ago, my parents told me that TV would rot my brain. I would watch the Simpsons every day after school on a local station until my father would proudly announce at 6:00 that it was time to "get educated" as he put it. "Homer's d'oh won't teach you anything about the world.", he would proclaim as he got ready to absorb the local newscast.

I think my parents were wrong. Television, violent video games, and the internet were all rather benign as far as their effect on myself goes. However, I think television HAS rotted the brains of our parents' generation. Rapists behind every corner, child molesters in every van, terrorists in your gated community, "Aruba: where your pretty white daughters go to DIE" , incomprehensible foreigners invading your country and culture, kids doing jenkem, D&D as a satantic front, and Saddam coming to get granny with his WMD's.... all this and more is not only watched with credulity but fully believed and acted upon. The people of this country are just too gullible, too scared of their fellow man, too absorbed with sensationalism, too engrossed in an US vs THEM siege fantasy... television certainly rotted someone's brain but it certainly wasn't mine.

[Anonymous No.2855061]

>>2854990

war in a nutshell

>that would be good for our people

>no, THAT would be good for our people

>points

>counterpoints

>fuck you and everyone like you

>fuck YOU

>FUCK YOU!!!!!

[Anonymous No.2855086]

i think that instead of seeking to overcome our animal natures, which is not something feasible to do anytime in the near future, we should seek to harness those drives more actively.

after all, as pointed out, it was these drives that created civilization. the trick is to harness and encourage them without letting them run wild to destructive extremes.

[Anonymous No.2855109]

>>2854765
>>2854814
>>2854820
>>2854887
>>2854938
>>2854984
>>2855016
>>2855047
>>2855061
>>2855086
I'm going to have to make my own thread one of these days. Sorry for mucking up your thread and completely derailing discussion, OP. Blame the troll that got me started.

[Anonymous No.2857124]

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