Is the M-Equation valid?

FIG. 1: M-Equation

FIG. 2: Solution for M_ir

FIG. 3: Solution for Q

FIG. 4: Solution for J

On at least one pro-UFO website, an equation has been presented, purportedly conveyed to a human recipient by the "Grays". The equation is called the "M-equation" and is shown in Fig. 1. In this equation, M_ir represents an irredicible mass, M is the mass-energy. According to the relevant link:

http://newenergynow-jmf.blogspot.com/

"I feel it (M-equation) has been intentionally omitted and suppressed because of its true freedom giving answers: 〈a〉 Near instantaneous same day travel across the universe and back in 〈b〉 fully operational traversable wormholes with clear magnetic mass membranes cleaning space allowing almost infinite acceleration of light and 〈c〉 in sending a test charge into the hole, infinite free and clean energy is extracted ∞.

The above M Equation is a close approximation based on the image transmitted to me by a very mild mannered dark blue Grey type Star Scientist in 2005 under priority Council directive and similar work on the Kerr Black Hole: “The Quantum Mass Spectrum of the Kerr Black Hole” J.D. Bekenstein, Center for Relativity Theory University of Texas. "

He goes on, commenting on the parameters in the equation:

"Common operators are:
M = mass energy, Q = charge & J = angular momentum.The fully developed M Equation and Quantum Theory of Gravitation will be released by the Council through me pending End of All War and Technological Conversion stipulations for preventing a Sixth Global Extinction and for procuring Workable Intergalactic Relations and Open Public Integration given earlier by me (since 1988)."

But is it a valid equation representing what the claimant says? This is the $64 question.

A first inkling arises by checking Fig. 2 which denotes the solution of the equation for the reduced mass, as obtained via the MathCad 14 symbolic processor. As Prof. Michio Kaku noted in his Quantum Theory of Fields one valid solution for the angular momentum quantum number J, is 0. BUT, if J=0 then all the irreducible mass results lead to singularities, or infinities. In fact, one cannot have an "infinite" irreducible mass.

The reason is quickly seen with reference to Fig. 3, and the symbolic solution for charge, Q. If the ireducible mass is infinite, and just confining attention to the top two solutions, it is easily seen that (with J= 0) the charge Q becomes infinite positive and infinite negative. However, there are only a finite number of charges in the universe (many of which are neutralized or quasi-neutralized, as in plasmas). So again, we see this end result yields an unphysical solution.

What about the solution for the angular momentum, as shown in Fig. 4? If one takes the limits of each solution (as Q -> oo, as M_ir -> oo) and allows that M cannot exceed M_ir in magnitude, it can be seen that the result is J = 1. However, this is already contradictory since the limits taken are predicated upon J = 0. Since J cannot be both 1 and 0 for a test of the same boundary condition, then the result is inchoate.

IF the Grays did perchance give this to a receptive human, they need to explain these incongruities away, and inform us exactly how this "M equation" leads to "near instantaneous same day travel across the universe and back", or how "infinite free and clean energy is extracted" by sending a test charge through a wormhole.

Any help these Grays can give would be vastly appreciated!

The Ilian Libertarians punk out again

For an IQ group in the top 1%, one would think that - under pressure of incisive arguments - they'd be able to respond with aplomb and parry all thrusts. Not just punk out. Okay, it isn't the entire group, but an enclave of dedicated Libertarians whose views seem to get a constant airing in their local (regional Intertel) newsletter, Port-of-Call - run by the current Intertel President Kort Patterson.

In a recent reply sent in timely fashion to my published article ('The Real Cause of the Financial Crisis’ ), Patterson again made follow-up editorial remarks on the piece that don't hold up under scrutiny. Those who wish to read the article, plus Patterson's response, can access it at the link:


http://www.hevanet.com/kort/2009/stahl5.html


Since Patterson did not publish my subsequent takedown of his editorializing nonsense, I do so herewith:

---

Response to Editor’s Note (‘Port-of-Call’ June-July, 2009)

This is in response to Kort Patterson’s recent editor’s note appended to my Port-of Call article ‘The Real Cause of the Financial Crisis’. Unfortunately, all Kort’s comment has achieved is adding more layers of irrelevant dross to what should be relatively simple (for the top 1% of intellects) to grasp. Especially, as I have laid out the basis for credit default swaps in meticulous detail in previous submissions and shown how there is a difference between a mild financial crisis incepted by a plethora of sub-prime mortgages circulating, and a systemic collapse arising from a device (credit derivative) that patches those sub-prime mortgages together with other benign financial instruments.

In his add-on, Kort insists I am “dismissing the simplistic real cause” which he also claims is “well-documented”(it isn’t, except by assorted fringe interests). I call him on this and assert he has no remote clue of what the REAL cause of the SYSTEMIC meltdown is, only an informal grasp (probably based on multiple googlings) of a peripheral or marginal cause: the enabling of too many high risk buyers of sub-prime mortgages.

But as I pointed out in earlier submissions, articles, even forty million such buyers would not pose a core systemic risk to the whole financial infrastructure. That had to arise from a proximate, immediate source which effectively “spider-webbed” the high risk sub-primes to millions of innocuous financial instruments, including municipal bonds, pension investments via “structured investment vehicles” or SIVs.

I regret this stuff may be a tad complex especially to novices, but merely because it is (again I am referring to the immediate cause of the systemic credit meltdown and bank credit seizures) doesn’t mean anyone is employing a “camouflage of complexity” as Kort paints it!

I submit we’re not going to get far in this exchange unless we put away the codswallop and agree that there are two aspects to what happened: 1) the enabling of too many high risk buyers with the ancillary availability of too many sub-prime mortgages and little assurance of paying off and 2) the invention of extreme risk credit derivatives (credit default swaps) which patched together widely disparate financial instruments, bonds etc. from around the world in a “daisy chain” of debt totaling more than $55 trillion (as pointed out by the FORTUNE article of Oct. 2008, already referenced but which I seriously doubt Kort has read)

Let me then agree that if (1) had not occurred, (2) would likely have been irrelevant. (It matters not HOW it occurred, but the “Community Reinvestment Act” was not a major component, only accounting for perhaps 25% of subprimes). In effect, (1) comprises what we refer to as a necessary condition for the meltdown. A necessary condition is one which – if it isn’t present- an event cannot transpire.

However, it is NOT the sufficient condition for the meltdown. Given the meltdown is defined by professionals in finance (see e.g. any of the extensive articles appearing in The Financial Times during December, 2008) as the SYSTEMIC collapse predicated on credit seizures and bank failures arising from over-leveraged debt from CDS, (1) is not factored in (we already accounted for the necessary condition). A sufficient condition, again, is:

One which – once it is present - the event must transpire. In this case the global financial meltdown based on tranching trillions of disparate assets to high risk liabilities – the sub-primes sold in the U.S.

Thus, while David X. Li’s (Gaussian copula) formula wasn’t the reason for concealing bad securities among good ones(and I remind readers I never claimed it was!) it DID provide the effective operational basis for the concatenation and intertwining of relatively innocuous securities (with high bond ratings) to toxic waste in the form of the sub-prime mortgage securities- via credit derivatives. (Again, for those who don’t know, derivatives were invented by physicists who had migrated to finance and based their creation on the concept of the mathematical derivative, e.g. dy/dx, such that a fractional incremental variation in one variable (dy) generates a corresponding change in another (dx).)

Thus, while Li’s formula wasn’t the reason for concealing bad securities in good ones, it did provide the facile enabling mechanism and basis to accomplish it with little oversight – because the obscure mathematics was generally not well understood by the investment banks (like Lehman’s) that offered the spuriously blended instruments. In other words, Li’s formula provided the effective underpinning to satisfy the sufficient condition (2).

Again, I reiterate, the most pernicious part of the financial crisis was the impending SYSTEMIC meltdown arising from seizure and freezing of all credit markets due to the liabilities in the form of $55 trillion in CDS generated on assorted banks’ books – engendered via the Gaussian copula formula of Li – admittedly misapplied by the investment bankers!

Kort’s aspersions cast on the Fed, based on the ruminations of a known crank – Thomas DiLorenzo (see e.g. the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report article:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=844

doesn’t put his comment on any intellectual footing, but rather in line with the endless conspiracy babble of legions of anti-Fed conspiracy theorists.

As I recall, one of the most famous of those tinfoil hat “crimes” involved the supposed Fed role in JFK’s assassination because the Fed opposed his (June, 1963) creation of separate “U.S. Notes” ($4.2 billion of them) by the U.S. Treasury (outside the Fed’s control). Kort’s harangues play right into this Fed mythos. That most of them are quoted or cited from work by DiLorenzo (who had a sketchy rep even when I lived in Maryland) doesn’t add anything of value. According to the SPLC IR, we know this about DiLorenzo:

“DiLorenzo is a senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a hard-right libertarian foundation in Alabama, and teaches at the League of the South Institute for the Study of Southern Culture and History, a South Carolina school established by the League of the South to teach its unusual views of history”

Though Kort imputes ignorance (or lies) to me, he continues to expose his own gross ignorance by repeating canards to do with the claim that inadequate regulation was not the problem and laissez faire wasn’t responsible for the financial meltdown”. His “list’ of Fed controls on page 6 is also laughable and merits a thorough catechresis which I’d deliver, if I had the time. For now I will refer him to three books[1] which put the kibosh on most of his claims, as well as howlers – such as failure to distinguish the Bank Holding Act of 1956 from the Bank Holding Act of 1984 passed during Reagan’s tenure, which paved the way for creation of the toxic waste known as “collateralized mortgage obligations” – the forerunner of CDS.

Then there was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall (1935) law which had previously kept investment banks’ practices apart and separate from commercial banks’ practices. Once that repeal was passed, in 1999, the way to deregulatory hell was paved – and only awaited an infernal mechanism like Li’s Gaussian Copula formula for its effective creation.

Let’s get it straight here the FED had nothing to do with it! The Fed did not approve or mandate the repeal of Glass-Steagall, it was done as a political mandate to deliberately loosen up securities markets for investment banks.

In his excellent article (which I suggest Kort read, outside of just googling terms) Sam Natapoff in The Financial Times (7/17/08) notes that the Fed’s creation was predicated on a political independence. Despite this, to this day well-meaning but uninformed people continue to think or believe the Fed is part of the Federal government when it is nothing of the sort.

The Fed, as Natapoff observes, is really there to provide a buffer between the forces of private capital and democracy. As he writes:

“In 1913 the Fed was created as a compromise between the needs of private finance and the demands of democratic government”.

Ironically, as Nataproff points out, it has been Republicans – “private finances’ traditional champions” who have sought to disturb the balance and give democracy short shrift.

No surprise then that the chief Fed culprit in the mix was none other than Allan Greenspan, appointed by Reagan. Greenspan is a high culprit in terms of having plumped for the ARM or adjustable rate mortgages for people he had to know couldn’t afford them. In one speech he gave in 2004 he aggressively promoted them.

But then it was also Greenspan, the erstwhile disciple of Libertarian guru Ayn Rand, who insisted that “good speculation will cut the top off the market peak” (Financial Times, August 11, 2008). Later, Greenspan came clean and apologized for his own role in the financial meltdown fiasco – since he created the original bubble by lowering interest rates to ridiculous, deflationary levels making money cheap as dirt.

Ironically, in all his ranting against the Fed, Kort has very little to say about Greenspan and his role, or the fact he’s always been one of the most outspoken Libertarians. Truth is sometimes inconvenient.

It is truly unfortunate that the Editor’s insistence on post-article-submission editorializing, interjections and sophistry continues to engender the real “camouflage” in inhibiting readers from grasping the actual dynamics in the financial meltdown. It seems he cannot simply stand back and allow a debate to naturally unfold – with other readers commenting or responding – rather than him reactively putting in his two cents.

Given that, it simply isn’t worth further elaboration on my part since Editor Kort will simply continue to apply his own camouflage and spin where and when he sees fit. Mostly using spurious or dubious sources, like Di Lorenzo. And, after all, this sticky wicket is his to control, since he as the Editor will always have the last word with his “Editor’s Note” – so there is no way I can prevail, even if I offered DVD seminars on credit default swaps to each Intertel member in this region, to accompany each rejoinder I might write.

So I will leave it at that. We will have to agree to differ. But I do hope that enough readers of Port-of-Call will at least be spurred to learn more about the Gaussian copula formula and the egregious ways it was put to use, to create a financially calamitous systemic risk to us all.


[1] The Origins of the Federal Reserve- by James Livingstone; Arrogant Capital, by Kevin Phillips; The End of Economic Man, by George P. Brockway.

How Stupid Can You get?

Fig. 1

Fig. 2.

In today's paper there appeared a news story that bordered on the incredible. Under the headline: 'NASA's Pocket Lint Unable to Cushion Blow of Asteroids' it was reported that - while Congress charged NASA with spotting Earth-threatening asteroids four years ago, it never provided the money to build the necessary telescopes to do so! How stupid can you get?

How big a threat are the Earth-crossing asteroids?

First it is instructive to see how they can emerge as a threat, when their orbits are perturbed as shown in Fig. 2 above, for Icarus (Fig 1. shows a large asteroid, Gaspra, that - if it struck Earth - would annihilate all life on it).


What makes any large asteroid dangerous, is its mass in combination with its relativity velocity or speed of approach. Thus, large Apollo objects and other asteroids would typically have relative velocities from 11,000 to 30,000 meters per second, or about 6.8 to 19 miles per second.

For an asteroid with a 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) diameter, at a density three times that of water, this would generate an equivalent energy on impact of one million Hiroshima sized atomic bombs. Since the Hiroshima explosion was equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, this means a larger asteroid would generate an explosive force of 13 thousand megatons. This already is roughly equal to the total equivalent of all U.S. nuclear warheads.

For a ten kilometer asteroid (roughly 6 miles across) the explosive equivalent would translate into 13 million megatons. This would dwarf all man-made nuclear stocks and warheads, and is rightfully called ‘planet –killer’. An asteroid about this size is believed responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs nearly 65 million years ago. For present day inhabitants of Earth, the consequences would hardly be less startling or grave. A Gaspra (12.5 x 7 x 7.5 miles) impact would obliterate all life on Earth - never to arise again.

The crater and blast effects alone would eliminate most of the population on the continent it struck. An ocean strike, creating tidal waves upwards of 2 miles in height, would be even worse. The debris, for its part, would block out most solar radiation and probably usher in massive extinction of oxygen producing plants including sea plankton – that account for ninety percent of our oxygen.


How probable is such a Torino 9 or so impact?

The calculation of the probability is based on an estimated 15 Apollo Objects acquiring an Earth-crossing orbit every million years.

From this it has been reckoned that the odds of a given Apollo Object eventually hitting Earth are 5 in one billion. This works out to one impact, on the average, every 200 million years. But wait. There are about one thousand such objects in all so that the probability that any one will strike Earth is now: (1000) x (5/1000000000) = 5/1000000. This figure: 5 in one million means that time wise, 5 asteroids would be expected to strike Earth every million years, or one every two hundred thousand years.

The problem with statistics like this is that they can lull a person into a false sense of security. It is true that the impact rate is low, relative to the scale of recorded history, but it is comparatively high in the context of geological time (thousands of millions of years). To fix ideas, consider that the most recent crater formed by a true Apollo object (as opposed to a large meteoroid) is at Lake Bosumtwi basin in Ghana, Africa. This is about 1.3 million years old. On this basis, the Earth is certainly long overdue for another hit of staggering proportions. Indeed, from the mean frequency of collisions we have worked out, the Earth should have been struck at least six times since the last impact by an Apollo object.

I should point out that in all of these statistics no account has been taken of the colliding comet factor. However, estimates by the Ames Research Center suggest that- with comets included - there are at least 2,000 objects that can cross the Earth's path. (Recall the recently photographed impacts on Jupiter were from a large comet). Since my calculations were based on 1,000 objects - e.g. asteroids only, the probabilities would increase by a factor two. The time interval between major collisions would be halved.

Of course, statistical behavior does not follow rigid rules. There is no statistical law that pre-ordains an asteroid impact on Earth with the precise regularity of a 200 thousand year interval. By analogy, there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't get a run of heads if I flip a coin ten times. Maybe I will get six heads in a row in one such run. The point, and it is an important one, is that the string cannot continue indefinitely. Assuming the coin is "true" the probability of heads must average 1 out of every 2 tosses. Looking at 100 tosses, for example, the total heads and tails will probably be very close to 50 each. The run of heads at some stage would have been compensated for by a similar run of tails to balance out the "law of averages".

Somewhat similar conditions apply to asteroid strikes on Earth. The run we are currently experiencing: no major hits over 6 successive periods of two hundred thousand years each, can’t go on indefinitely. As certainly as heads become tails for coin tosses, "no impacts" must become registered impacts for Apollo objects approaching Earth. The next big hit could come at any moment from an undetected asteroid. Or, it may come in the year 2015 when 1989FC is brought into Earth's vicinity, after its 1989 close pass.


In addition, there is always the possibility that the odds could be altered by some external factor. For example, the projected encounter in 2015 may start out a near miss, but the sudden intrusion of a new comet could change it to a direct collision. The comet's gravitational effects would have re-oriented the direction of the asteroid. Of course, this could also work in reverse: the direct hit may be transformed into a 'graze' by the same comet. Or, the asteroid could perturb the orbit of the comet so that the comet nucleus hits the Earth instead.



Let us hope, while congress sits on its hands - no large, threatening asteroids approach or threaten us. We would then quickly behold what real worries can exist, above and beyond our political ones!

In Memoriam

Mom, with folded flag - following burial.
Me, observing taps played before interment.

Having returned from Florida and my dad's funeral a month ago, I am only now able to put a memorial to him on my blog. I only learned of the funeral arrangements a day before, then spent the better part of the same day (Tuesday, July 14) making travel arrangements, hotel-motel bookings etc. All this consumed the better part of the day.

I flew out on Wednesday morning just after noon from Colorado and arrived in Fort Myers, Florida around 9 p.m.

The viewing of the body followed the next day in Port Charlotte, some 40 miles to the north, and the funeral Mass and burial followed on Friday. The latter at Charlotte Memorial Gardens in Punto Gorda, nine miles to the south.

As I attended all the events, and especially the funeral Mass (even though I am an avowed Atheist, there are exceptions in terms of form and formality which does not mean one is a "hypocrite") I felt a wave of conflicting emotions. At one point they were so overpowering I had to excuse myself.

Like most sons, my relationship with my father was not simple, but complex. It would be great to say we shared all the same interests, but alas, we did not. While I was passionate about baseball, for example, he was not. This probably was traced to an incident in his youth( as I often heard him recite it) where he happened to be reading a book under a tree not from the school baseball field, and a careless batter let his bat flying -crashing into his cranium. Thus did baseball earn a not particularly endearing spot in his heart.

But for me, growing up, it was everything. The Milwaukee Braves (since we lived in Milwaukee for ten years) were a particular passion: Aaron, Matthews, Spahn. Though baseball wasn't dad's game, give him his due. He went out of his way to get autographs from both Eddie Matthews and Henry Aaron, on the box top from a boxc of Corn Flakes no less, since that was the only write-worthy surface he had. He also got us tickets to a Cubs-Braves game at Milwaukee County Stadium, never mind the game was canceled after three innings because of rain - and we never used our rain check. Soon after, we were moving to Miami, FL.

In Florida, baseball continued to be my pastime, as I joined teams in the Khoury League, then in High school, as a pitcher. Though dad didn't like the game, he took me to them, and allowed me to participate in the baseball training after school. He even attended my pitching start, despite being shelled from the mound after one!

What were most memorable in the early days were all the family outings. These alas, became fewer and fewer as the inevitable financial problems arose from rearing a family of five kids in an economic backwater with few opportunities for the expression of his talent - mainly in art.
Approaching adolescence, our differences grew into a gulf, and basic communication became sparse. Conflicts often reared their ugly heads, especially when he'd lay down the law and order me to go out and do yard work in the hot Florida Sun, and when I'd frequently mutter "concentration camp!"
One major hiatus in the "cold war" came when he and mom jetted to Barbados for my wedding in 1975. It was a pleasant and harmonious interlude, in what was often a realm of interfamily strife.
Another such interlude followed in 1988 when they also visited and we treated them to a Barbados Christmas and holiday celebration.
Into the 1990s, and especially after a visit to Port Charlotte in 1990, more strife ensued - often about trifling little things. Not until I visited in 2001 did the conflict begin to ebb, and I still recall mowing dad's lawn for him, to try out his new mower since I was considering buying the same. The look of gratitude on his face said it all.
In the years after, he mellowed even more and I believe I did too. It became possible to share another sports passion with him, professional football, especially after his Tampa Bay team won the 2003 Super Bowl! Perhaps the beginning of his downturn started with a terrible fall later that year, and having to undergo hip replacement surgery.

Physically, he was never the same after that, and began to progressively lose weight. By the time he was struck with pneumonia in April of this year, he simply didn't have the physical vitality or constitution to ward it off. His demise was slow and terrible, the only interludes of pleasure arriving via the occasional Bob Evans biscuit and gravy breakfasts brought to him by my Mom.

As I saw him lying in peaceful repose, all I could think about were the words left unsaid, the activities left undone, the apologies for rash misbehavior and inconsideration not made. The regrets, pouring in, especially that we did not communicate more.

I am not sure added communication, especially in the turbulent teen years - would have made a difference, but they might have. We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, especially religion (much more on politics, interestingly), but then very seldom do sons do.

While at his graveside I made my peace with him, and I suppose, that is the best one can hope for. The grieving had passed the day before, now there was only the time left for taps - played by military guards, and the folding of the flag draped over his casket, and handing it to my mom. Followed by the guard shaking my hand, his oldest son's, and saying in a low voice: "We thank you for the service your father gave to his country".

At that moment, if not totally before, I understood how important it was to have been there. For a brief time, at least - and possibly a bit late- respect and a measure of filial love could replace a relationship too often marked by the opposites. I made my peace with dad, and that was the best I could have done.

"Our Most Delightful Holiday Ever!"

That was how Mom described her visit with Dad to Barbados in 1988. My wife Janice and I had always wanted to treat them and entertain them at a time there'd be no pressures, as for our wedding in 1975. So we invited them down this time, to spend a totally relaxing Barbadian holiday season with us.

They enjoyed the whole gamut of island experience, from going to the Harrison's Cave (which had not long re-opened earlier), to spending a whole week at an exclusive beach house on the island's east coast, to enjoying an old-fashioned Christmas dinner prepared Bajan style, to donning hats and celebrating "Old year's Night" on what Americans call New Year's Eve.

The photos here capture moments in that series of good times which we know both will always remember, and Dad told me he often thought about when I last spoke to him on the phone. For him, it made his recuperation at least tolerable to think of the pleasant times, days he spent with Mom amidst the sun and sea in Barbados.

Enjoy the photos!

From Top - down:

Janice and myself with dad and mom; me (seated) with dad & mom (right) and John & Trudi (who subsequently bought our home when we moved to the U.S. in 1992).

Dad & Mom hold up their beach shirt Xmas gifts, on Xmas morning, 1988; Posing with Janice at our beach house near Cattlewash on the east coast.

Dad, enjoying Xmas dinner with two of our guests, Christmas Day, 1988; Mom & Dad with Janice inside the Harrison's Cave.

Mom tries out Janice's baby grand piano.

Mom helps Janice prepare "chick peas" for use in the Bajan Xmas delicacy, "jug".

A Small Artistic Tribute

One of the talents my dad possessed was for detailed artwork. He painted murals with fantastic scenes, as well as small scale portraits on any number of topics. But his most endearing work often came about in the simple act of writing a letter - wherein he did a sketch on the top of the letter or made it the entire design for a letterhead.

On this page are four such sketches that I took off four of his letters to me, between 2001 and 2005. The work itself says it all, and the attention to detail. To see that detail, you can click on each image to bring it up!

What is it they say? A picture is worth a thousand words?

Well enjoy the 4 thousand "words" embodied in those sketches!

The Anti-Atheists Get It Wrong....AGAIN!

The Helix Nebula captured by the Hubble Telescope - an engineering marvel and manifestation of human REASON - not superstitutious codswallop.



What exactly is it with those prone to bashing Atheists? Why, given the bounty of information available on the web do they persistently get the Atheist position wrong? Once again we were treated to another spectacle of disinformation and misinformation as well as egregious assumptions in a recent Wall Street Journal letters section ('At Their Outer Edge, All Systems Are Metaphysical', Friday, July 3rd)


Leading off the charge is David Cartwright who asks: "On what basis can an atheist assume there should or will be order in the universe?"


The answer, of course, is that the Atheist makes no such assumption! While Christians and their ilk obsess over "order" the Atheist goes by science and what its actual investigations can uncover.


In truth and fact, barely 7% of the cosmos (according to the latest cosmological findings from an array of data) can be regarded (potentially) as being matter in its normal everyday form, and hence - subject to "mechanical" forces and arranged in what some may ascribe "mechanical order". Even for this fraction, more than 99% is in the form of PLASMA - meaning hot, ionized gas.


Apart from certain instances and exceptions, when plasma wave instabilities (mostly) occur, this form of matter will not display any organizaton, far less "order".The remaining 93% of the cosmos is in the form of either dark energy (70%) or dark matter (23%). The first is currently causing the cosmic expansion to accelerate by virtue of a repulsive force that can be accounted for fully within the scope of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Bottom line here? "Order" is the exception in the aggregate cosmos, not the rule, so the Atheist is definitely under no obligation here ....and certainly not to "assume" a thing. In fact, all the organizational manifestations we behold from our limited vantage point (say for the solar system) can be accounted for by appeal to a mix of gravitational force and electrostatic. Thus, the large original solar nebula would simply have been pulled by gravitational force into a more compact, condensed and hotter form....which became the Sun. As the contraction went on, fragments of the condensing solar gas cloud were spun off, each with their own portion of angular momentum...and these became the planets.


Thus, Cartwright's next question ('And if he sees order, where does it come from?') is also easily disposed of.

The next question 'On what basis can he trust his reason?' is also quickly disposed of.


We, including in the scientific and engineering professions, regular employ reason to devise new methods of investigation, or new machines, applications.

Thus, the success of our reason and its trustworthiness is visible everywhere one might care to look. Like that MRI machine which is making a diagnosis of a medical problem or anomaly. Or, that Mars ROVER spacecract which has been recording the Martian surface with such precision. A craft that traveled over 150 MILLION miles to the Red planet. How? Using the reason embodied in the equations of celestial mechanics which enabled us to forecast just where Mars would be in the time taken for transit, and what path the spacecraft had to take to intercept it.


You think "God" did that? Not in any way! It was applied mathematics under the direction of REASON!

One can also look at the Hubble Telescope which has captured some of the most phenomenal celestial objects in exciting detail. Its placement at 200+ miles up above the planet and its mirror (now having been corrected by reason) to achieve such resolution, is a work of the human mind and imagination unfettered by psychotic, supernatural phantasmagorias and delusions.

Look at that image of the Helix Nebula in Aquarius at the page top! THAT was captured by the Hubble! That was a work of reason in action, leading to the development of an engineering marvel able to deliver to our eyes objects tens of thousands of light years distant. Can your superstitious drivel do that, Mr. Cartwright? Can you trust your hijacked reason?

So, we have far more basis to trust our reason than the likes of Cartwright and his anti-Atheist clones have to trust their "faith" and supernatural delusions and revealed "sacred" books. None of which could have delivered a spacecraft to the planet Mars, or put a working giant telescope in orbit above the Earth!

Not to be outdone by the hitherto pitiful demonsration of his intellect, Cartwright goes on to aver: "Further, the atheist has no explanation for where the world came from"

Which echoes another letter writer (Martin M. Bednar) and his dreck that: If the universe was not created by an almighty God where did it come from?'

Given equivalent levels of doggerel, these two gentlemen can be addressed concurrently, by first giving the proviso that Atheism per se need not show or account for 'where the world-cosmos came from' since it depends on science for the answers. Science, meanwhile, offers a plausible answer in terms of the theory of quantum bootstrapping, that the universe came into being on the basis of a quantum fluctuation in space-time which provided the initial energy.

This can be shown from the energy-time uncertainty principle, given that a small enough variation in time leads to an ample energy to incept a cosmos.

The energy-time form can be written:

delta(E) delta(t) ~ h/bar

where h-bar ~ 1.02 x 10^-34 Joule.sec

Let the variable fluctuation in time be on the order of 10^-40 sec

and the change in energy is:

delta (E) ~ h-bar/ delta(t)

and one can get a handle on the energy available.

More formally, actual quantum gravity papers have been published which show how this can occur (e.g. 'Universe Before Planck Time – A Quantum Gravity Model', in Physical Review D, Vol. 28, No. 4, p. 756. In his model, T. Padmanabhan uses as a time coordinate hyperboloids of constant distance, inside the light cone of a point in de Sitter space. The point itself, and its light cone, are the big bang of the Friedmann model, where the scale factor goes to zero. But they are not singular. Instead, the spacetime continues through the light cone to a region beyond. It is this region that deserves the name, the pre big bang scenario. It is also this basis that provides the model for the instantaneous formation of the universe by a possible quantum fluctuation that arises when one treats the conformal part of space-time as a quantum variable.

As Padmanbhan shows in his paper, such a cosmos from nothing is perfectly expected and indeed, follows from the basis of the tensor set up, the light cone restrictions and so on. As he notes, ff the Euclidean four-sphere were perfectly round, both the closed and open analytical continuations (using complex integrals around specific paths), would inflate forever. This would mean they would never form galaxies. A perfect round four sphere has a lower action, and hence a higher a-priori probability than any other four -metric (x, y, z, t) of the same volume.

I don't doubt that most laymen can't understand conformal space-time or de Sitter space or much (if anything) of Padmanabhan's paper, but that deficiency doesn't mean a God did it!

Therefore, the fact that an explanatory basis does exist means that science need not depend on faith or 'God' for cosmic origin since so doing would commit the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius or explaining the not well understood by the even less understood. Thus, Atheists do have a basis for where the cosmos comes from if they choose to invoke it from scientific hypothesizing!


As for Cartwright's (final) claim that Atheists must fess up to having 'no basis for objective morals' - I am afraid not. What the Atheist avers is that the only basis for a practical ethics must come from humans, since any god-based form is inevitably quixotic and inconsistent.

In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own.

No god is necessary.

By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. This blindness probably results from a 'control' meme that proclaims the morality as ‘god-ordained’ or revealed in some scripture or other. If ordained by a god - whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh or whoever, it cannot be compromised or altered no matter what.

As Kai Neilsson asked in his book (Ethics Without God, Prometheus, 1992) : "Is an act good because God did it, or is it good independent of such action?" For a genuine ethical basis, any human action must be totally independent of whether a god did it (in scriptures) or ordains it. It must be good on its own merits.

A first test, as Neilsson observes, is ethical choice predicated on a humane standard. Consider: if a human parent knows his child is trapped in a burning house, s/he will try to save it however s/he can. There is no way the human parent will simply walk out and allow 'fate' or "free will" of the child to make the decision. If the human parent has an ounce of common decency s/he must intervene. However, god-ists seem quite happy to let their deity off the hook, when and where it suits their fancy.

Start then with the standard deity template, say espoused by 99% of Christians. This entity is posited as both omniscient and omnipotent (all knowing and all powerful). Let us say, as occured back in 1994, It knew from before all time that enraged Hutu tribal killers in Rwanda were headed for its "houses of worship to slaughter Tutsi tribe minorities hiding out there. Being omnipotent, it also had the power to halt the mammoth bloodletting as opposed to letting its church be used as an abattoir. Did it? No it did not! It permitted the Hutus to slaughter the men, women and children within it. All innocents. All dead.

Those (like Cartwright) who would defend such a deity - but who would hold a human parent accountable for negligence or manslaughter by allowing their child to perish in a house fire (when the child could be saved) - disclose inchoate ethics. To wit, demanding a vastly lower ethical standard of behavior for their deity than for fellow humans.

Those who beg the question with theo-babble ("we cannot fathom the ways or mind of God") are no better, and do no better. In many ways, they're worse, because they lack even the courage to face their own logic. And the consequences of their definitions! They either invoke the escape clause of "faith" or the impotence of human logic beside the alleged Divine Mind. (And surely, if humans sprung from such a mind, comprehensibility of its ways and modes must follow. Else he, she or it could as well be a Demonic clown who allows humans - innocent children- to be slain for sport) Thus it follows, even from the most generic examples (presupposing a supernatural, omnipotent force) that human ethics trumps divine ethics on its face.

If it does so, then it must also trump any and all human extensions of divine ethics. Whether in the ten commandments, canon law or wherever. Hence, it follows that human ethics and ethical standards can exist independently of invoking any divine or religious fluff, affiliations or baggage.

In terms of said "baggage" what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of (humane) ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" who will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him". Ethics without god then, is ethics elevated to its highest consistent standards without the need for baffling with bullshit.

A very good article for the basis of a godless morality, and especially for ethical imbeciles:

http://www.skepticfiles.org/human/morality.htm


As for letter writer Prof. Thomas Wooley's claim that science flourished in the West only because of the "faith of the curious" - no.

Because those like Galileo did not let their faith dictate their findings. Wooley mistakes the circumstantial condition of their (faith) backgrounds for the driving force behind their scientific methodology that enabled key discoveries (e.g. the heliocentric solar system, as opposed to the geocentric one of the Church) that contradicted the dogmas of faith.

Of course, none of this will stop the next religiously deluded loon from attributing false motives, concepts, insights or assumptions to Atheists. This god-besotted and money-worshipping society has too much invested in supersitition and bilge to stop now.