the evolving mind

Man, wouldn’t it be cool to walk the surface of Mercury?

Yet, if you did it every day . . . ho-hum?

Due to psychology mechanisms such as habituation (with repeated exposure to a stimuli we respond more and more weakly), novel events tend to excite us more.

Before I head out into my relatively rich and wild backyard (relative to Mercury’s desert landscape) to do some gardening, I wish I could shake the bulk of my familiarity with it from my mind. My experience would be less tedious and more WOW!

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: images, psychology

This just in: NASA’s Cassini space probe has found no evidence of gods in our solar system. Hmm. I wonder why that is….

Why is science seemingly hostile to religion? (Any hostility exists in how the results are received.) Because science refuses to place a finger on the scale when weighing the evidence for gods. Honest science, anyway. Objectivity doesn’t favor the existence of gods. The inkblot of subjective experience, however — well hell, anything can be made of that.

Yes, I’m an atheist. No, don’t take my word for it. Look at the evidence. Good evidence. And what you will find is that Saturn is devoid of evidence of a god. And a quadrillion other things are likewise devoid of gods and/or their influence.

Speaking of devoid of gods, I invite you to check out the latest godless blogging carnival: Carnival of the Godless, No. 136 – Revolutionary Communist Edition!

—

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: atheism, religion, science

Beautiful. The launch of a spacecraft over water. [photo thanks to NASA]

The root of providence is to provide. The term is a favorite among religious folk. Providence is what their god does. Provide. Their everything.

What does the space program provide? Knowledge, for sure. Technological advances that improve our limited days, yes. Ever-lasting life? No. Transportation to a supernatural realm? Naw. Some argue that space travel may one day be our ticket “out of here.” And by that they mean to another hospitable planet. This one may not remain hospitable. Not forever it won’t.

When is providing knowledge not enough? I guess the cost must be considered.

Care to explore new realms of thought and perhaps gain some knowledge at very little cost (some effort, some time, no exchange of cash)? I recommend checking out the 131st Skeptics’ Circle posted yesterday over at . . . Providentia.

I’m going to blast that way later on today.

Technorati Links: knowledge, NASA

Oh man. To be that guy. Or gal.

A dream of mine: to float above the Earth like that, tethered to a nearby spacecraft by a mere cable. A great, big, beautiful, blue planet before me. Home. Behind me and otherwise all around — the vastness of relatively black space.

I just went a bit breathless thinking about it.

[photo thanks to NASA]

Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft our eyes can appreciate this far-out view (in both senses of the term): Saturn’s moon Tethys “setting” behind it, with Saturn’s roughly 96% hydrogen atmosphere clearly visible. That image of those rocks, rocks!

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos, NASA

I’ve got to spend more time outdoors at night. For only when my area of Earth is in the shadow of itself can I view other planets and a vast multitude of stars. And what a profound view it is.

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos

Apparently Gawd didn’t use enough glue when creating the heavens. Chunks of it keep falling to earth.

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos, creationism

Saturn. And?

And I’m hungry. It’s time for lunch. Is there vegetation suitable for a salad on Saturn? How many calories in that ring? In the least, you should be able to make one heck of a salsa with it.

Or maybe not.

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos

While the moon landing was not a hoax, I thought I found the equivalent of a waving flag in the above photo NASA posted on its photo-of-the-day site.

Can you spot it?

Check out that shadow. Even if the light sources were bright enough to cast a shadow, with sources, plural, the shadow certainly wouldn’t be that neat and clean.

But wait. It’s no hoax. The caption to the photo called the image by photographer Larry Landolfi a “tantalizing fantasy.”

Damn. I thought I had stumbled upon fresh evidence that there was second gunman aboard Apollo 11. Or something.

Technorati Links: conspiracy, NASA

What in the world!?

It’s a crater. On a moon. Not THE Moon. On the Martian moon Phobos.

Cool. Amazing.

Who needs drugs when you have astronomy?

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos, NASA