{"id":2445842,"date":"2019-06-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308685"},"modified":"2019-07-01T07:49:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T13:49:51","slug":"glenn-k-beaton-in-understanding-universe-were-like-dogs-playing-shell-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/glenn-k-beaton-in-understanding-universe-were-like-dogs-playing-shell-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenn K. Beaton: In understanding universe, we\u2019re like dogs playing shell game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dogs can\u2019t understand a simple shell game. Try it.<\/p>\n

Let the dog watch as you put two cups on the floor. Under one, put a clean toy (not a treat or a dirty toy because the dog can smell them out). As the dog watches, slowly switch the positions of the two cups.<\/p>\n

Then ask, \u201cWhere\u2019s your toy?\u201d<\/p>\n

The dog will choose the wrong cup. That\u2019s simply because the wrong cup is now in the location where he last saw the toy. He\u2019s unable to grasp the fact that when you switched the positions of the cups, you also switched the positions of their contents. Dog brains are limited.<\/p>\n

Human brains also are limited. Humans are unable to grasp some concepts, no matter how hard we think, experiment and data-gather. The following examples may fall into that category.<\/p>\n

What existed before the universe came into existence 13.8 billion years ago? Almost as a matter of semantics, your answer must be \u201cnothing\u201d because the universe is defined to include everything.<\/p>\n

OK, then how did the universe \u2014 everything \u2014 come into existence out of nothing? That would seem to require an effect without a cause.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another. Why do things fall? In other words, what is gravity? We can predict the consequences of gravity, at least in conventional time and space, but we don\u2019t have a clue as to what it is.<\/p>\n

How did life begin? This is a biggie. Consider first that life happened only once on Earth. We know this because all life is the same at the molecular level, and so scientists agree that it has one common ancestor.<\/p>\n

Consider second that there\u2019s no evidence that any extraterrestrial life has ever visited us. In fact, we have zero evidence of life anywhere but Earth, even though we\u2019ve been searching for a couple of generations. As the great physicist Enrico Fermi put it 69 years ago, \u201cWhere is everybody?\u201d<\/p>\n

And consider third that our best minds using our best laboratories have been unable to create life in a test tube.<\/p>\n

Those who say life happens accidentally everywhere in the universe that holds a primordial mud puddle have a lot of explaining to do about these three considerations.<\/p>\n

Oh, I know about the Drake Equation where number crunchers put variables into an equation, crunch the numbers and out comes a calculation showing that alien life is all over except, evidently, hereabouts.<\/p>\n

But recent work suggests that there may be many more input variables than we thought. Life requires more than a planet at a convenient distance from a suitable star.<\/p>\n

It may require such things as a large moon produced by a freak impact with another planet at just the right distance to intercept most collisions with asteroids. Or a planet with a rocky mantle and a moving molten core to produce a magnetic field to block deadly cosmic rays. Or a bizarre biochemical reaction, or other things that may be rare.<\/p>\n

As for the variables that are already in the Drake equation, we now know that they can be rationally assigned values that put the number of inhabited planets in the universe at exactly one \u2014 Earth. A recent TED show discusses this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like the old expression in computer programming. GIGO, or garbage in, garbage out. The Drake Equation is only as good as our guesses about the variables in it.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind that it\u2019s not unprecedented for events to happen only once. I happened only once, you happened only once and today happens only once. Why is that?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one last problem that appears incomprehensible to humans. Scientists say some 85% of the universe is unaccounted for. They call it \u201cdark matter.\u201d It\u2019s everywhere but we can\u2019t find any of it. As Fermi might have put it had he lived longer, \u201cWhere is everything?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some things just seem beyond our grasp. Maybe it\u2019s not a matter of gathering more information or doing more experiments. In the area of fundamental physics \u2014 the science that would tell us what we are, who we are and why we are \u2014 we\u2019re like dogs defeated at the shell game.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something humbling and liberating about that. Dogs are happy, right?<\/p>\n

All this reminds me of Job. After enduring terrible and undeserved misfortune, a puzzled and angry Job demanded an explanation from God. The reply Job received went something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Where were you when I laid the Earth\u2019s foundation? Who marked off its dimensions? On what were its footings set, and who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?\u201d Job 38.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good for us to ask the hard questions. But we can\u2019t complain when our brains are too small to comprehend the answers right in front of us. Like the stars and the angels, we sometimes can only sing together and shout for joy.<\/p>\n

Correspond and subscribe at theAspenbeat@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dogs can\u2019t understand a simple shell game. Try it. Let the dog watch as you put two cups on the floor. Under one, put a clean toy (not a treat or a dirty toy because the dog can smell them out). As the dog watches, slowly switch the positions of the two cups. Then ask, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 14:18:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2445876,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445842\/revisions\/2445876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}