All Deserts are Man-Made.

Did you know that in one day a full-grown oak tree expels 7 tons of water through its leaves?
...

It's been proven by ecologist and meteorologists that before there were humans, there were no deserts. Turkey was a land of lakes and forests. Lake Chad covered 135,000 square miles and was 40 metres higher than present. The Sahara was a forest. Sea levels were low enough to allow men to walk from Africa to Sicily and into Europe.

Oak and pine forests once covered half of Scotland, but after centuries of exploitation only 1% of the forests remain. Recent flooding in Germany, China and Central America has been officially blamed on de-forestation. 30% of Honduran rainforest has been lost since 1960. 70% of the poor have no other fuel except firewood. Heavy rains wash away fertile topsoil where there are no trees.

The cause of deserts is the axe. For hundreds of thousands of years, men have cut trees for fuel, shelter, pottery, smelting, and ships. The Mediterranean was the birthplace of sea-borne trade. Wheat, timber, oil, silver, and gold were traded throughout the Mediterranean in ships built by the Phoenicians, Romans, and Greeks.

Land was cleared of trees for growing wheat, barley and rye. Glazed pots, timber-fired, allowed beer to be brewed and settlements grew as early men domesticated animals and plants.

Timber fuelled furnaces for the smelting of bronze and iron axes. By the time of the prophets, the deserts had been established. All the great civilisations of history, Phoenicia, Egypt, Abyssinia, Troy, Greece, Rome, Persia, have all left deserts in their wake. As a tree is lost, the moisture that it transpired back into the atmosphere is also lost. Downwind, the air is dryer. The Sahara is downwind of the ancient Phoenician Empire.

As each coastal great cedar was cut for ships or temples, the rains got weaker deep in the desert.

...Each tree is a water reservoir, holding 75% of its weight, requiring up to 140 gallons per day. A million trees can hold 80 million gallons of water.

...All Deserts are Man-Made. Greenhouse gases form a blanket around the Earth, trapping in heat that would otherwise be radiated back to space. This causes the Earth's atmosphere to heat up. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase at its current rate, it will rise to double its pre-industrial level during the next century. Heat waves and droughts will become more common, and more intense.

Moses said:

The proper work of men is the undoing of deserts. 74,000 years ago, men were burning deserts into the hearts of America, Africa, Arabia, India, China, and Australia. [before there were men, there were no deserts.]

(stolen entirely from here)

Sat, Feb 27, 2010  Permanent link

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existence is a singularity

Typing "existence is a singularity" in Google (oddly?) only returns eight results, so I can only assume that this may be a new idea, at least on the web.

http://www.normanspencer.co.nz/PsNetwork/01800.html

Starting at the beginning of the list we see that his collection of "propositions" is a modern day Book of changes or Q document:

1848: As existence is a singularity, there are no boundaries to existence.

1849: As each perceiver (monad) is of singularity, it is the centre of a singularity universe and the centre of the time-space universe. 1850: Perception collapses time inwardly to the locus of perception, and it collapses space outwardly away from the locus of perception. Gravity effects aside, when stellar objects are perceived from a particular time-space locus, they recede at a rate proportional to distance. 1851: Qualitatively, perception implicates awareness, knowledge and creative intelligence. As perception increases, space and entropy increase and remainder-time decreases.

1: Existence is an Absolute ... an all-inclusive, coherent, integrated whole, of infinite and finite magnitudes.

2: In finite magnitude, the whole appears to be separated into parts, each of which appears to be less than the whole. 3: In infinite magnitude, the whole is equal to each part and each part is equal to the whole and to every other part. 4: As formal, syllogistic logic applies only to the finite magnitude, oneness or implicativity thinking is also necessary if we are to access the whole truth. 5: The Absolute expresses itself eternally and in infinite variety.



On Norman Spencer:

"Norman Spencer was born in Wellington, New Zealand, November 7th 1921, and died in that city, January 25th 2001, aged 79 years.

Norman’s work began in 1968, when he became frustrated with the lack of data available to aid strategic planning in business. He resolved to gather his own data, and developed 44 hypotheses, or 'propositions', that formed the basis of his 'propositional network'.

Work on the propositional network continued through the years, and increased greatly after his retirement from business in 1979. Eventually, after an estimated 20,000 hours of effort, the propositions numbered 10,615, and dealt with an extremely broad range of topics.

Beginning in 1989, he produced annual predictions for the year ahead. These were published in the Evening Post, a Wellington newspaper. These forecasts covered global as well as domestic events, and he claimed 90 percent accuracy for them.

He wrote a number of books, including two which make up the bulk of the material on this website - Prediction Science and The Next 60,000 Years.

Prediction Science lists the hypotheses that make up the propositional network. It also includes an index to the network, and explanations of the underlying theory.

The Next 60,000 Years examines the long term future of the human race. It predicts that the human race will not destroy itself, that it has a bright future, and will colonize the stars."

Further comments by Russel Spencer:

“My name is Russell Spencer, and I am one of the six children of Norman and Joan Spencer. I have created this website to make some of my father's work available to a wider audience.

When I discussed this project with my father, his first priority was that his book The Next 60,000 Years should be included, as he felt this to be the culmination of his work on prediction science. His second priority was that his seven volumes Prediction Science be included. The bulk of these seven volumes is made up of the many thousands of propositions that guided all his predictions. My father called these propositions his 'Propositional Network'. I think of them as 'Dad's Theory of Everything'.”

Mon, Jan 25, 2010  Permanent link

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the collective organism

How many cells are there in the average human body?

There are an estimated 75-100 trillion cells in the human body. Which is a number that is higher than the estimated galaxies in the Universe.

We are the collective organism. Imagine what we can do as the collective of collective organisms?

Wed, Jan 20, 2010  Permanent link

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Disordered, quasicrystalline and crystalline phases of densely packed tetrahedra

(University of Michigan)



A, Ideal local packing motifs built from tetrahedral dice stuck together with modelling putty. The pentagonal dipyramid (a), the nonamer (b) and the icosahedron (c) maximize local packing density. The icosahedron can be extended by adding a second shell (d), but then the large gaps between the outer tetrahedra lower the density. The tetrahelix (e) maximizes packing density in one dimension. B–D, A quasicrystal with packing fraction φ = 0.8324 obtained by first equilibrating an initially disordered fluid of 13,824 hard tetrahedra using Monte Carlo simulation and subsequent numerical compression. The images show an opaque view of the system (B) and opaque and translucent views of two rotated narrow slices C and D. The white overlay in D shows the distinctive 12-fold symmetry of the dodecagonal quasicrystal. Corrugated layers with normals along the z axis are apparent in C. The colouring of the tetrahedra is based on orientation.

Full Article (pay access):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7274/fig_tab/nature08641_F1.html#figure-title



"The results of this research and the formation of quasicrystals offer some interesting and exciting possibilities on how it can be used in real-world applications. “This will enable the production of metamaterials, which are manmade materials that don’t exist in nature, with interesting physical and optical properties,” Palffy-Muhoray said. 'Applications are far-ranging, including high-resolution imaging useful for microscopy in medicine and materials science. This new packing method could enable the production of new kinds of materials, useful for computer chips, building materials and fabrics.'"

 http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1797791/breaking_the_tetrahedra_packing_record/index.html 

Mon, Dec 14, 2009  Permanent link

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light

i am humble,
therefore,
i deserve to uphold the light


Light is electromagnetic radiation, particularly radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye (about 400–700 nm, or perhaps 380–750 nm[1]). In physics, the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not.

Four primary properties of light are:

* Intensity
* Frequency or wavelength
* Polarization
* Phase

Light, which exists in tiny "packets" called photons, exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave–particle duality. The study of light, known as optics, is an important research area in modern physics.
(from Wikipedia)

images.google.com search results for "light":

Mon, Dec 7, 2009  Permanent link

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Communication is the key to human intelligence

Modern Human beings are unquestionably more intelligent than animals, not that animals are not incredibly intelligent on their own, but humans have one key advantage over them: complex communication. Human beings invented language — the ability to communicate internal thought processes with others. This gives us the astounding ability to pass information from one generation to the next. It was only after human beings invented and began to use language that we truly stepped “out of the garden.” Language gave us the ability to communicate dualism, an idea that does not exist outside of the human mind. Animals do not abide by the rules of good and evil, they are simply instinctual. Humans on the other hand have almost given up our instincts entirely in favor of relying on information gained by others and passed on to us. When humans finally recognize the coalescence of humanity into a single functioning organism we will finally emerge from darkness.

In order to achieve this future, we must have unbounded communication between all living beings. This will come in a form similar to telepathy between all humans and possibly even lesser creatures. In the same way that single celled organisms self organized into multicellular organisms, multicellular organisms themselves will self organize into a so called "superorganism" that will have emergent properties native to individual human beings. We can draw parallels with the emergence of higher intelligence in ant colonies. The ants themselves have very low intelligence; the queen is in fact the least intelligent member of the colony. Yet, a colony as a whole can remember events that have happened to it in the past, and can even use its "memory" to deal with future problems. Barriers to this coalescence can be seen as barriers in communication. These barriers consist of misinformation or false information being spread as true, misunderstandings due to the imperfect nature of language or interpersonal relationships, and communication bias. Barriers form from unwillingness to accept new information based entirely on the results of old information. Decisions must always be based on the most accurate information regardless of dogma, bias etc.

Human language has progressed through several different stages of communication density. Originally humans communicated in the same ways as our ancestors, the apes. Apes communicate essentially the same as most other animals. They communicate through body language; this conclusion is the result of years of scientific research, and the training of apes to understand human sign language. Humans (as well as birds, dolphins, etc.) evolved with the ability to understand complex vocal communication. Thus language has emerged as a complex code used to understand vocal communication between humans. The next stage came with the invention of writing. Writing allowed us to not only communicate in the present, at a short distance (within range of hearing), but allowed communication across the entire earth and across time. Next came the printing press. This allowed information to be reproduced and disseminated to many more people than the few in possession of hand written texts. Next came the invention of the telegraph. The telegraph allowed communication to take place instantly over massive distances. The Internet represents the current change in human communication. By tying ones brain into the Internet we have access to all of the worlds information instantly. The next future level of integration comes with the direct communication between brains. Every single human could access the senses, thoughts, emotions, and memories of every other human instantly. We could also access the entire sum of all human knowledge instantaneously. This is the level at which we see true emergence of the next level of higher intelligence.

But who will lead our collective soul to this next level? It seems an entity can only become sovereign when no individual parts have absolute control of the entity. It controls itself. Human beings do not have a "man in the head" controlling us. We control ourselves as an emergent property of our connectedness. Control must be manifested in a bottom up fashion, not top down. In this same way an emergent entity is, or will be in control of all humans and most likely all life, as we know. The biosphere itself will wake up and take its rightful place as the Supreme Being. We are the universe, or the collective consciousness, and we are God — only together we can achieve our true unbroken form.
———

Inspired by many of the intelligent minds here at space collective, as well as some older posts from huge-entity:
http://www.huge-entity.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=134&page=1

Thu, Sep 3, 2009  Permanent link

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Multicellular Manifesto

The history of multicellular organisms - we really are just a bunch of cells working together. Genes form the codes/laws/rules which one must abide by, or one will be considered a cancer. Symbiogenesis is the merging of two separate organisms to form a single new organism. Symbiogenesis, not just symbiosis will be necessary for the animals to reach the next level of evolution. We must form a superorganism to survive, but what form will this superorganism take?

Evolution of Animals:
Are animals living their lives in a suspended larvae or seed stage? Multicellular organisms evolved from the initial larvae forms of pre-anemones. Where anemones start life as a polyp and then settle down to one place, animals live their entire lives in this extended dispersal zone. The next step for humans may be to settle down and produce anew. Technology can be our next avenue of dispersion as we will primarily stay put, and live our lives through our technology. Science fiction stories tell of humans encased in eggs living just below the surface of the earth— all connected to one another with virtual reality. Will we eventually live our lives in this way?

The Selfish Gene:
Does the simple desire to exist fuel all evolution? Does the universe exist simply because it chose to? The selfish gene may answer these questions. Genes only exist in order to reproduce more of themselves. Their goal is existence and all life forms built upon genes carry with them this one single all encompassing desire. Genes are in fact so selfish (selfless) that they will regularly destroy themselves to ensure that copies will carry on.

On Gaia theory:
If all life forms on earth evolved from a single organism, then Gaia theory is correct by self-evidence alone. Gaia theory looks at the world not as a collection of different species, but as one single incredibly diversified life form, which has changed, merged, and grown over time. It is only a matter of time before this organism becomes self aware.

On Individuality:
I propose that individuality is an integral part of forming a higher collective intelligence. Members that make up the collective must remain individual. They must make their own decisions and take their own actions. In multicellular organisms more advanced organisms always have many more different types of cells than simple organisms. I propose that an ideal advanced life form will consist of many elements that are similar enough that they can work together effectively, but are as unique as possible in all other aspects. This massive spread in diversity amplifies the entire collective organism's intelligence and abilities exponentially for each organism added. Intelligence does not add linearly. With each new skill acquired by individual members the overall intelligence is increased by a factor larger than 1. These factors multiply exponentially over time and lead to rapid advancements. This can be seen in the evolution from single celled to multicellular organism. Even though the human body only consists of about 200 different types of cells, the overall complexity is astounding. The human body is much more complex as a whole than the 200 individual cells. Deindividualization can be seen as an obstacle in the inevitable evolution of life. Organisms evolved specifically to breed with mutations in order to evolve into more diverse life forms. Without this diversity evolution will not succeed.

Evolution of God: The greatest science of them all, the key to all understanding. Everything has evolved. The universe evolved out of the big bang, or possibly the big bang was an integral part of the beginning of evolution. The universe then evolved into its current form, and then evolved life, now what will life evolve into? God. God is the final step in evolution when the universe has reached maximum connectivity.

————

Tue, Aug 11, 2009  Permanent link

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