Reality Crowd

The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign is having a lot of trouble getting their message out. The original campaign was to start in Bloomington, Indiana, but the town decided they would not allow “You Can Be Good Without God” posted on the side of their buses. Recently, the campaign was approved to start running the ad on buses in South Bend, Indiana, however, there is a delay because of the “controversial message.” RealityCrowd would like the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign to have all the publicity it can. Please send this post to your friends!

Trouble in Bloomington:

Original Campaign Launch:

I enjoy this discovery because it reminds me of a concept I learned while studying music. Playing very high notes or very low notes (especially on wind instruments) is difficult. Players spend years trying to stretch that one half-step further or gain the ability to play just a little louder or keep control at the very softest tone. Stretching your ability that far, though, has more value than just being able to finally hit that high C. The benefit also lies in the fact that all the notes you play in between—the notes you have played for years—become stronger as you expand your total range.

This gamma ray burst is like that high C, and understanding it will bring the benefit of better understanding all the galaxies, stars, and other celestial objects in between that we have been “playing” for years. Our understanding of physics will become more refined as scientists may now have a glimpse into the very first generation of stars (with undoubtedly different properties from stars we commonly study today). For a more detailed description of this event and its implications, view the NewScience article here.

Please comment what this discovery means to you (even if you don’t see why a little yellow smudge could get people so excited)!

Every morning I wake up, and I still feel like me. My conscious experience feels stable, natural, consistent, and singular (me). However, as Jill Bolte Taylor, our speaker and brain scientist describes, the two halves of our brains have distinctly separate experiences. They function very differently from one another and care about different things entirely. Having a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain and having left-brain functions individually shut down gave to her unique insight to her mind. She describes in vivid detail how her unaffected right hemisphere became more and more responsible for her entire conscious experience as her left-brain failed. She describes a profound awakening experience as she came to know pure right-brain thought and the hemisphere’s personal experience. She gives insights to the mind on a scientific level and even reaches into—dare I say—a spiritual realm offering her own words of hope for the experience of the human race.

Now for the fun part! Test your own hemispheres with this optical illusion.

Have a seat and enjoy your free virtual reality haircut (with headphones). Enjoy the amazing ability of your brain to perceive the location of a sound by calculating input from both ears.

Researchers now say they have strong evidence to suggest that the area of the brain responsible for this discerning ability is the planum temporale. Read this Science Daily article here discussing recent findings of the planum temporale and the brain’s amazing ability to locate sounds in three-dimensional space.

University of Sydney scientists have discovered that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is twice as wide as previously thought. It seems very strange that this could be the case, doesn’t it? Scientists have peered billions of light years into the cosmos. They have made observations and calculations of mass and distance of a multitude of celestial objects and even of the universe itself. But right here at home, our own galaxy we calculated to be about 6,000 light-years thick, and these scientists now claim that in reality, it is 12,000 light-years thick. It is fascinating to learn that these scientists did not even make any new observations; they simply used data already collected that was available on the Internet! This surprising result has elicited mixed emotions from the scientific community. From the University of Sidney article:

“Some colleagues have come up to me and have said ‘That wrecks everything!’” says Professor Gaensler. “And others have said ‘Ah! Now everything fits together!’”

Here at RealityCrowd, we often cite ways in which science and religion are opposed. This event is a beautiful example of how in the scientific community, new evidence can change even a long-held belief. If assertions are supported by evidence, then those assertions must be taken seriously. However, religion, as many readers realize, does not change in the light of new evidence, and this is why we incessantly hear unsupported claims from many Christians such as the age of the universe being only about 6,000 years. Not even the mountain of evidence to the contrary will convince a true Bible believer. This unwavering stance may be comfortable for those who need the universe to be predictable and simple, but those of us with open and inquisitive minds will celebrate these times that we can say, “Hey, we were wrong!”

Read the entire University of Sydney article here.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

~How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later

“So we and our elaborately evolving computers may meet each other halfway. Someday a human being, named perhaps Fred White, may shoot a robot named Pete Something-or-other, which has come out of a General Electric factory, and to his surprise see it weep and bleed. And the dying robot may shoot back and, to its surprise, see a wisp of gray smoke arise from the electric pump that it supposed was Mr. White’s beating heart. It would be rather a great moment of truth for both of them.”

~ The Shifting Realities of Phillip K. Dick

Sometimes reality is hard to define. At Reality Crowd we look at the issue from all sorts of perspectives and angles. Sometimes we have to break out quantum mechanics or theology to make a point. But what hope do we really have of defining reality if we can’t even agree on what an ad is telling us to do? This ad from Checkers is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. What am I supposed to purchase? What do I get when I purchase it? I have read over this many times and I can’t for the life of me figure it out. Posters on this photo’s Flickr page have been trying to discern it’s mystery as well and it’s not going too well. Here are some choice selections:

i would say that the “2 for” deal is a two for one deal and thus i think the add really means. buy two sandwiches for the price of one and get a third item for free…
i think

“So essentially you get two double deals, and 1 double value for the price of 1 double deal.” So, that’s five sandwiches for the price of two, correct? Except that one of them (”value”) is smaller?

So if I order the “2 for $3 Double Cheeseburger Deal”….I get a FREE SINGLE DEAL, which is what, a single cheeseburger? No, can’t be, because it’s from the DOUBLE VALUE menu, which I assume only has things like Double Cheeseburgers. But then is one double cheeseburger a “SINGLE DEAL”?

The debate rages on several different websites…for some choice comments (and a few good laughs) check out the Flickr page, the post on boing boing, and the post on Without Warning for more.

So what do you think? As a lover of reality how do you explain this?

The absolute truth of our existence will likely never be discovered. Everything we learn leads to more questions. When our species learned that matter was made of things called atoms, it appeared that we were much closer to understanding the nature of our universe. Soon, however, we learned that atoms are made of quarks and that there are structures and events existing on an even smaller scale. How do we try to make sense of our existence when every answer seems to lead to more questions?

Scientists who make it their life’s work to advance our understanding of the cosmos play a creative role finding answers. They make theories; they use their imaginations. Having a “theory,” though, means that it needs to be tested. If there really is an answer to the nature of our existence how can we be sure that it is even POSSIBLE to test it? If it can’t be tested, then it isn’t science.

That’s where philosophy comes in to save the day. Philosopher Dr. Nick Bostrom offers his own creative proposal to the nature of our existence: We could all be living in a computer simulation. Though only one of an infinite number of possibilities, his idea sparks much discussion, debate, and creative endeavors by others. His clearest argument is based on the premise that eventually the human race will create a computer that is more powerful than all human brains combined. (He is not alone in making this assertion.) Eventually, he believes, we will be able to run computer simulations in such incredible detail that the inhabitants of this simulated place would simply understand their virtual environment as the universe--the only one they’ve ever known.

It is a compelling argument if you accept that humans will eventually be able to make such a simulation. In that case it seems rather likely that we are also simulated. If you would like an expanded view of Bostrom’s Simulation Argument I have posted three links.

New York Times article:
“Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch”

The original Simulation Argument by Nick Bostrom:
“Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”

Popular review of Nick Bostrom’s argument
by Brian Eggleston

Anyone that missed “A Scanner Darkly” when it came out in 2006 would be well served to check out the film. It’s the perfect combination of Richard Linklater’s Rotoscope animation style (developed on “Waking Life“) and Phillip K. Dick’s paranoid tale of drug hallucinations in a society obsessed with surveillance. The film is both highly entertaining and extremely thought provoking.

Hit the jump to see more clips from the film:
Read the rest of this entry »

Hello and welcome to RealityCrowd.com! This is a site for those of us concerned with finding real truth in the world at large. We are not content to get our answers from old books or superstitions, and we do not accept “I don’t know” for an answer. Mysticism and religion will be looked at through a skeptical lens and the power of science and reason to give us insights into our place in the universe will be explored. This website will focus on debates in Science and Religion but will include all topics in the great debate that is reality. What is real and how can we tell? Hopefully with your help we start to find out.

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one”

~ Albert Einstein