February 18, 2007

gifts, god and particle physics

choose444.jpg

Two posts to brighten up your day:

1. An eloquent post from Robert Patterson about the "Gift Economy":

In a Gift Economy, the highest status belongs to those who have given the most. But what is most important, he says, is that the gift must always move. This idea was recently popularized by the terrific little movie called Pay it Forward.

Every gift is its own reward, but that reward is multiplied, without limit, when the gift, or any gift, is passed along to others.

A story is a gift. Blogs are gifts. Ideas and insights and teaching and counsel are gifts. Conversations are gifts.

2. Tony Goodson talks about God and particle physics:
Two particles can communicate with each other at faster than the speed of light, over considerable distance!! The first thing I would question is the experiment. Is what was measured and observed accurate!! If it is then how the hell do we explain entanglement.

And where does God come into this. Well for me, I'd rather place this stuff which is way out, in the realms of spirituality for the time being, rather than science, which looks to be struggling like a cornered Creationist, on this one.

Posted by hugh macleod at February 18, 2007 10:03 PM | TrackBack
Comments

[Re. the cartoon] This kind of stuff might be what's freaking out the ladies...

Posted by: Holly at February 18, 2007 11:15 PM

Hmmm, disagree... i think that would touch someone... i think it shows vulnerability and risk... and the ability to love

Posted by: Lucy at February 19, 2007 12:10 AM

Love it...absolutely love it!

Posted by: Kath at February 19, 2007 2:47 AM

Very intense. I think it rocks!

Posted by: Shripriya at February 19, 2007 3:05 AM

Keep on keepin' it real.

Posted by: Michelle at February 19, 2007 4:41 AM

i'm a big fan of gapingvoid, i love every card you make.
you have fans in mexico!!
this is a great one!

Posted by: bambi at February 19, 2007 5:46 AM

Belongs in ther realms of spirituality for sure :0)

Posted by: Cat at February 19, 2007 9:18 AM

Every time some bonehead suggests it would be better to say "god did it" rather than work something out, a little angel science dies in science heaven.

...mind you, it would get the scientists out to the pub a lot earlier.

Posted by: jon kudelka at February 19, 2007 9:36 AM

I love the drawing. I think the idea of attributing to God what science hasn't yet figured out is a sure way to keep people in the stone age. Science (unlike some religions) doesn't claim to have all the answers - just some good questions and a useful process for finding answers and then improving or abandoning those answers as the quest reveals more.

Discovery of things like how blood works were delayed for centuries by just this type of thinking. Maybe had the thinking been different many more problems like disease and famine would have been worked on sooner.

Posted by: John Seiffer at February 19, 2007 1:05 PM

Sorry, that should have been "little angel scientist"... a little angel subeditor just carked it.

Posted by: jon kudelka at February 20, 2007 4:00 AM

Dig the drawing. Everybody's got their take on the love thing...and this is a conversation, after all.

Re: the God and particle physics. There's an enormous amount of mystery still left in science and spirituality. Read The Tao of Physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, or some other quantum physics theory, and it can get quite metaphysical. Why is the Universe so perfectly ordered? Yes, there's the Big Bang, but what started that? And the particle stuff you reference — whoa.

I agree with John that science has "...some good questions and a useful process for finding answers and then improving or abandoning those answers as the quest reveals more." I wonder what's really "out there" — even Einstein mused that there might be some great designer out there who had put it all together, but he was also a scientist through and through, and needed to see evidence and proof.

But will there be some convergence point between science and spirit? Hmmm...

Posted by: KG at February 20, 2007 4:56 AM

"If it is then how the hell do we explain entanglement."
they share all attributes/values.

Posted by: ace at February 22, 2007 11:07 AM

Awesome. The rhime, the subject, everything.

Also reaching new fans in Brazil.

Regards from Sao Paulo/BR, hope your success gets even bigger, mate!

Posted by: Gigante at March 1, 2007 6:32 PM