Quotes & Sayings
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Bill Gates' Summer Reading List, 2022
Saturday, June 11, 2022
The Primordial World of Early Evolution
OBSERVATION
Earth's entire planetary development is an example of how entropy works in bringing balance to unbalanced systems. It is also why it would be wrong to think of entropy as a destructive breakdown of things when in actuality its very process "creates" life as a very necessary assist to earth's cooling geologic processes.It is also why we can describe entropy as a processual response cycle to endless evolutionary changes occurring in a planet's living ecosystem. And as the idea of "process" implies interactional relationality then a cosmoecological evolutionary system is inhabited by processual relationality as shown through the complex primordial development and organisation of living and nonliving systems found within these entropic webs of life.
R.E. Slater
June 11, 2022
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I'm always amazed by the great age and high development of new dinosaur discoveries. But even at that, ancient sea life goes much further back than did the dinosaur eras of the ancient earth:
"Dinosaurs lived during most of the Mesozoic era, a geological age that lasted from 252 million to 66 million years ago. The Mesozoic era includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods."
Explore the age of the dinosaurs. Discover what the prehistoric world was like and how it changed between when dinosaurs first appeared and the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
The ancient seas held even earlier forms of life which go much further back than did the dinosaur eras of the ancient earth:"...Evidence shows that life probably began in the ocean at least 3.5 billion years ago."
The article linked above briefly describes how the geologic processes of the earth required primal biologic life to assist with earth's cooling.
However, the first cells of life occurred in the hot, slimy mud flats around volcanoes before moving to the sea to flourish as land formed:
"First cells likely arose in steamy mud pots, study suggests. Earth's first cellular life probably arose in vats of warm, slimy mud fed by volcanically heated steam—and not in primordial oceans, scientists say."
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as Ga, for gigaannum) and evidence suggests that life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga.[1][2][3] Although there is some evidence of life as early as 4.1 to 4.28 Ga, it remains controversial due to the possible non-biological formation of the purported fossils.[1][4][5][6]The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the process of evolution from a common ancestor.[7] Only a very small percentage of species have been identified: one estimate claims that Earth may have 1 trillion species.[8] However, only 1.75–1.8 million have been named[9][10] and 1.8 million documented in a central database.[11] These currently living species represent less than one percent of all species that have ever lived on Earth.[12][13]The earliest evidence of life comes from biogenic carbon signatures[2][3] and stromatolite fossils[14] discovered in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks from western Greenland. In 2015, possible "remains of biotic life" were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia.[15][5] In March 2017, putative evidence of possibly the oldest forms of life on Earth was reported in the form of fossilized microorganisms discovered in hydrothermal vent precipitates in the Nuvvuagittuq Belt of Quebec, Canada, that may have lived as early as 4.28 billion years ago, not long after the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.[16][17]Microbial mats of coexisting bacteria and archaea were the dominant form of life in the early Archean Epoch and many of the major steps in early evolution are thought to have taken place in this environment.[18] The evolution of photosynthesis, around 3.5 Ga, eventually led to a buildup of its waste product, oxygen, in the atmosphere, leading to the great oxygenation event, beginning around 2.4 Ga.[19] The earliest evidence of eukaryotes (complex cells with organelles) dates from 1.85 Ga,[20][21] and while they may have been present earlier, their diversification accelerated when they started using oxygen in their metabolism. Later, around 1.7 Ga, multicellular organisms began to appear, with differentiated cells performing specialised functions.[22] Sexual reproduction, which involves the fusion of male and female reproductive cells (gametes) to create a zygote in a process called fertilization is, in contrast to asexual reproduction, the primary method of reproduction for the vast majority of macroscopic organisms, including almost all eukaryotes (which includes animals and plants).[23] However the origin and evolution of sexual reproduction remain a puzzle for biologists though it did evolve from a common ancestor that was a single celled eukaryotic species.[24] Bilateria, animals having a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other, appeared by 555 Ma (million years ago).[25]Algae-like multicellular land plants are dated back even to about 1 billion years ago,[26] although evidence suggests that microorganisms formed the earliest terrestrial ecosystems, at least 2.7 Ga.[27] Microorganisms are thought to have paved the way for the inception of land plants in the Ordovician period. Land plants were so successful that they are thought to have contributed to the Late Devonian extinction event.[28] (The long causal chain implied seems to involve the success of early tree archaeopteris (1) drew down CO2 levels, leading to global cooling and lowered sea levels, (2) roots of archeopteris fostered soil development which increased rock weathering, and the subsequent nutrient run-off may have triggered algal blooms resulting in anoxic events which caused marine-life die-offs. Marine species were the primary victims of the Late Devonian extinction.)Ediacara biota appear during the Ediacaran period,[29] while vertebrates, along with most other modern phyla originated about 525 Ma during the Cambrian explosion.[30] During the Permian period, synapsids, including the ancestors of mammals, dominated the land,[31] but most of this group became extinct in the Permian–Triassic extinction event 252 Ma.[32] During the recovery from this catastrophe, archosaurs became the most abundant land vertebrates;[33] one archosaur group, the dinosaurs, dominated the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.[34] After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 Ma killed off the non-avian dinosaurs,[35] mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity.[36] Such mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.[37]
Conjugate variables of thermodynamics | ||||||||
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In classical thermodynamics, entropy is a property of a thermodynamic system that expresses the direction or outcome of spontaneous changes in the system. The term was introduced by Rudolf Clausius in the mid-nineteenth century from the Greek word τρoπή (transformation) to explain the relationship of the internal energy that is available or unavailable for transformations in form of heat and work. Entropy predicts that certain processes are irreversible or impossible, despite not violating the conservation of energy.[1] The definition of entropy is central to the establishment of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of isolated systems cannot decrease with time, as they always tend to arrive at a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, where the entropy is highest. Entropy is therefore also considered to be a measure of disorder in the system.
Ludwig Boltzmann explained the entropy as a measure of the number of possible microscopic configurations Ω of the individual atoms and molecules of the system (microstates) which correspond to the macroscopic state (macrostate) of the system. He showed that the thermodynamic entropy is k ln Ω, where the factor k has since been known as the Boltzmann's constant.
Tree of life (biology)
The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, model and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859).[2]
The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth.
— Charles Darwin[3]
Tree diagrams originated in the medieval era to represent genealogical relationships. Phylogenetic tree diagrams in the evolutionary sense date back to the mid-nineteenth century.
The term phylogeny for the evolutionary relationships of species through time was coined by Ernst Haeckel, who went further than Darwin in proposing phylogenic histories of life. In contemporary usage, tree of life refers to the compilation of comprehensive phylogenetic databases rooted at the last universal common ancestor of life on Earth. Two public databases for the tree of life are TimeTree,[4] for phylogeny and divergence times, and the Open Tree of Life, for phylogeny.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
A Postmodern Process-Relational Cosmotheology
Our vision is of a world in which an evolving interconnected universe, with its unique community of life on our home planet Earth, is a context for understanding, belonging, inspiration, decision-making and creating the future. - Deeptime Network (DTN)
The Deeptime Network's development of de Chardin's contributions along the lines of an “Ultra-Physics” and Berry's “New [Cosmic]Story” - is dedicated to evolving in like manner-and-spirit to these theologian's work, in an effort to be at once consonant with science, world religions, and all fields of knowledge, bar none.
I spent a bit of time yesterday expanding and deepening the original article here presented to help better explain the differences from other competing, non-processual Christian and non-Christian cosmotheological systems being presented alongside Whitehead. Hopefully this effort might help guide a few applicants so that their energies might be more happily applied to staying on the larger paths of truth-seeking as versus the many time-wasting bunny trails deviating from Process Studies and leading "everywhere, all-at-once" (as a recent, 2-thumbs down, movie had used in its title) pretending knowledge but more simply catching up the strays not staying their path. - re slater
Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 1 Kgs 19:18, KJV
If an Integral Theory of Everything (ITOE) is to be as it name claims then such a theory must be "Sufficient in itself. Efficient in its purviews and explanations. And able to evolve without losing its basis of origination."
All is connected. All is open. All certainty is uncertain. All avowed is to be held in glorified doubt and exploration. - R.E. Slater
- It would certainly include such areas of study as Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry whose emphasis was to offer a grand synthesis of everything that integrates scientific with religious cosmologies by identifying common universal elements (singularities) which are the foundation and structure of all created things.
- Ken Wilbur's East meets West psychodynamic modeling between cultures and religions (as explained further below)
- The Gaia hypothesis, also known as the Gaia theory, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
- And any and all studies related to psycho-spiritual consciousness in religious, synthetic, sociological, aural, and neural studies.
- Historical Origin stories of the earth and its people weaving each locality's narrative into the larger meta-narrative of the earth's history, and the earth's history with the story of the universe.
- Finally, as an integral story of mankind, to discover what each separate area of study may mean for the world's consciousness of itself and its communities. These would pertain to morals and ethics relating to all areas of mankind and nature such as ethno-religions, cultures, economic, and socio-political structures
A proposed hypothetical cosmotheological model is to be in harmonic orchestration depicting a progressive integral cosmology such that:(a) it may bridge the age-old gap between science and religion;(b) strike a balance reconciling difference, diversity and individualism with a universal metanarrative in which our smaller stories fit and make sense;(c) may reveal how all things interconnect as one, naming the singularity with its unifying energy in the Omega Point;(d) may anticipate, forecast, and names the next stage (phylum) of psycho-spiritual evolution;(e) may provide a numinous icon/symbol that is at once novel, inclusive, archetypal, and conducive to a universal synthesis;(f) and may identify Spirit/Pneumena along organic lines, correlating the model as incarnational in nature while extracting from it helpful psychophysical terms.
*NOTE. The non-processed based study reference used here by the Catholic version of cosmotheology as laid out above was excerpted from a chapter sub-heading entitled “A Post-Modern Cosmotheology,” from Joseph C. Masterleo’s book, “The Ambient Christ, The Inside Story of God in Science, Scripture and Spirituality,” which utilizes the Judeo-Christian Scripture as a platform and portal to the proposed cosmic unified field which I am assuming correlated with Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry's earlier philosophic-theological research studies.
- R.E. Slater
The Ambient Christ: The Inside Story of God in Science, Scripture, and SpiritualityPublished in Paperback – September 29, 2020by Joseph C Masterleo (Author)There is a unified field in the cosmos that holds everything together, and every discipline is a portal to it. Science calls it a field of fundamental forces and elementary particles. Religion calls it God and accepts it by faith as an impenetrable mystery. How can their unbending perspectives be reconciled? In The Ambient Christ, the author proposes a novel paradigm that explains their complementarity as a seamless unity. This innovative model provides a new story for an ailing and divided planet in the twenty-first century, and a viable solution to the holy grail quest."There is something too narrow and missing in the gospel as it is presented to us. In spite of appearances, our age is more religious than ever; it only needs stronger meat" - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin."A religion, [either] old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge." - Carl Sagan
ADDENDUM
- Integral theory is a meta-theory that attempts to integrate all human wisdom into a new, emergent worldview that is able to accommodate the perspectives of all previous worldviews, including those that may appear to be in contradiction to one another.
- What does AQAL stand for? An acronym for “all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types,” this approach organizes for integral thinking, combining as it does the essential elements of the theory to represent the holistic nature of the concept.
- What is AQAL philosophy? Ken Wilber's AQAL, pronounced "ah-qwul", is the basic framework of Integral Theory. It suggests that all human knowledge and experience can be placed in a four-quadrant grid, along the axes of "interior-exterior" and "individual-collective".
- What is Ken Wilber's religion? In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber refers extensively to Plotinus' Neo-Platonic philosophy, which he sees as nondual. While Wilber has practised Buddhist meditation methods, he does not identify himself as a Buddhist.
- R.E. Slater
Integral Spirituality is being widely called the most important book on spirituality in our time.Applying his highly acclaimed integral approach, Ken Wilber formulates a theory of spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity—including the revolutions in science and culture—while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions. He shows how spirituality today combines the enlightenment of the East, which excels at cultivating higher states of consciousness, with the enlightenment of the West, which offers developmental and psychodynamic psychology. Each contributes key components to a more integral spirituality.On the basis of this integral framework, a radically new role for the world’s religions is proposed. Because these religions have such a tremendous influence on the worldview of the majority of the earth’s population, they are in a privileged position to address some of the biggest conflicts we face. By adopting a more integral view, the great religions can act as facilitators of human development: from magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral—and to a global society that honors and includes all the stations of life along the way.