Reading Network - Team: Technology Divides

[YOSS]

How technology helps understanding more, both scientifically & religiously.

[taifoon]

Originally Posted by YOSS

...

"The atom is the basic building block of all matter. It is the smallest unit that has all the properties of one particular element. Atoms make up the human body; plants and animals;air and water; and all of the planets, stars and galaxies in the universe." Source: www.pantex.com/education/instructorsmanual.pdf pp.3

Not to mention the big bang theory.. all was 'One', BOOM, dispersed fireballs, some froze, made planets, on this one life started at some point, etc.

....

Kama fi l sama2 kazalika 3ala l ard.. Hallelujah..

The puzzle of life and all what surrounds us will defy us untill we evaporate under the might of our growing sun, in some 5 billion years ( if not before.. or unless we find some new home in space..)

Being part of and stuck deep within the same helarious puzzle of existence will allways give many of us enough fuel to enjoy the wonderings in the near or distant and beautiful landscapes of knowledge, but we are nevertheless bound to allways fail and will never make it, to the end.. But that is probably part of the charm of living ;)

As an analogy, if you, me, and others, as humans, are only atoms which among others constitute the whole creation of a table, could anyone of those atoms ever be able to conceive that they indeed do belong to a creation called table, carpented by the skillfull hands of Mr X at the Y Carpentary..? No, never!

When you look deep down inside any atom, you will at the same time be looking far up high at deep space.
Remember the proton at the core of the atom and the electrons orbiting it on different levels?
There you have your solar system with the sun at its core and our planets orbiting it..

When you hear your heart beating, you will be listening to and seeing the mechanism which governs the birth, death and rebirth of the universe. The basic move being a traction and a retraction move:

While bearing in mind that nothing ever created or existed will ever cease to exist, close your eyes and behold the expanding Universe, having started at some point in no-time at the huge explosion of a singularity (Big Bang), where the rushing galaxies, blackholes and all the existing objects that constitute ALL, will converge, merging together at some second in future-time on the virge of the so called bowed time horizons line, to form the ultimate blackhole of all blackholes, where everything that ever existed will be swallowed back into itself, until the same singularity mass which everything once originated from, is reached again, and a new huge divine Big Bang is unleached, and the same set of materia and non-materia journey through the same space, non-space and time is re-launched...again..and again, and again...

You, me and all of us, will be on that same journey again, just as every fly, cool breeze and wave..

Remember, we come from where we are heading to..
Looks like it's all a recycling issue.. (God is probably a good ecnomomist and a good Green Peace Fan too )

Regards

[YOSS]

[quote=taifoon]

Kama fi l sama2 kazalika 3ala l ard.. Hallelujah..

The puzzle of life and all what surrounds us will defy us untill we evaporate under the might of our growing sun, in some 5 billion years ( if not before.. or unless we find some new home in space..)

Being part of and stuck deep within the same helarious puzzle of existence will allways give many of us enough fuel to enjoy the wonderings in the near or distant and beautiful landscapes of knowledge, but we are nevertheless bound to allways fail and will never make it, to the end.. But that is probably part of the charm of living ;)

I'm not too sure about that constant failure... are you?

As an analogy, if you, me, and others, as humans, are only atoms which among others constitute the whole creation of a table, could anyone of those atoms ever be able to conceive that they indeed do belong to a creation called table, carpented by the skillfull hands of Mr X at the Y Carpentary..? No, never!

Well, it sounds the same as if you're telling me "can a blood vein realize it is part of a creation called modernly human". Nor the atom, nor the combination of some billions of it that make up some blood vein can "conceive" or realize anything for that matter. What the context here was, that all living things, air & water are made up of similar atoms suggesting everything was bread from a similar place.

When you look deep down inside any atom, you will at the same time be looking far up high at deep space.

Very true...

While bearing in mind that nothing ever created or existed will ever cease to exist, close your eyes and behold the expanding Universe, having started at some point in no-time at the huge explosion of a singularity (Big Bang), where the rushing galaxies, blackholes and all the existing objects that constitute ALL, will converge, merging together at some second in future-time on the virge of the so called bowed time horizons line, to form the ultimate blackhole of all blackholes, where everything that ever existed will be swallowed back into itself, until the same singularity mass which everything once originated from, is reached again, and a new huge divine Big Bang is unleached, and the same set of materia and non-materia journey through the same space, non-space and time is re-launched...again..and again, and again...

You, me and all of us, will be on that same journey again, just as every fly, cool breeze and wave..

Remember, we come from where we are heading to..
Looks like it's all a recycling issue.. (God is probably a good ecnomomist and a good Green Peace Fan too )

Regards

Well, given how this 'recycling' process you describe takes about a gazillion years to take place in each time, I was thinking perhaps in the meantime maybe technology develops in a sort where it would unite us. One way to do this, and to relate to the space idea you propose, is to perhaps spend the 3 week campaign budget in Iraq of 75 billionUSD on a NASA program who's current annual budget is circa 15 BillionUSD! That's three weeks money.. If the world does unite on such programs, maybe advancement can be made in order to move onto another planet as you propose? Maybe once we move we'd have different ideas about this... 'recycling' theory.

[Stella]

Originally Posted by taifoon

Kama fi l sama2 kazalika 3ala l ard.. Hallelujah..

The puzzle of life and all what surrounds us will defy us untill we evaporate under the might of our growing sun, in some 5 billion years ( if not before.. or unless we find some new home in space..)

Being part of and stuck deep within the same helarious puzzle of existence will allways give many of us enough fuel to enjoy the wonderings in the near or distant and beautiful landscapes of knowledge, but we are nevertheless bound to allways fail and will never make it, to the end.. But that is probably part of the charm of living ;)

As an analogy, if you, me, and others, as humans, are only atoms which among others constitute the whole creation of a table, could anyone of those atoms ever be able to conceive that they indeed do belong to a creation called table, carpented by the skillfull hands of Mr X at the Y Carpentary..? No, never!

When you look deep down inside any atom, you will at the same time be looking far up high at deep space.
Remember the proton at the core of the atom and the electrons orbiting it on different levels?
There you have your solar system with the sun at its core and our planets orbiting it..

When you hear your heart beating, you will be listening to and seeing the mechanism which governs the birth, death and rebirth of the universe. The basic move being a traction and a retraction move:

While bearing in mind that nothing ever created or existed will ever cease to exist, close your eyes and behold the expanding Universe, having started at some point in no-time at the huge explosion of a singularity (Big Bang), where the rushing galaxies, blackholes and all the existing objects that constitute ALL, will converge, merging together at some second in future-time on the virge of the so called bowed time horizons line, to form the ultimate blackhole of all blackholes, where everything that ever existed will be swallowed back into itself, until the same singularity mass which everything once originated from, is reached again, and a new huge divine Big Bang is unleached, and the same set of materia and non-materia journey through the same space, non-space and time is re-launched...again..and again, and again...

You, me and all of us, will be on that same journey again, just as every fly, cool breeze and wave..

Remember, we come from where we are heading to..
Looks like it's all a recycling issue.. (God is probably a good ecnomomist and a good Green Peace Fan too )

Regards

LOL Taifoon, the best cosmology related post since Kamikaze's absence!

And you are talking about the universal pattern, right? Fractals I mean, it really sounds like a magical world, but of course its just an illusion that it can explain any of our concerns.
The cycle you mentioned may sound logical, but it depends on the point of view. What if everything is rather constant, time is constant, space is constant, and everything exists within a marvellous symmetry?

[taifoon]

Originally Posted by YOSS

I'm not too sure about that constant failure... are you?

When it comes to matters of such dignity, as to be sure of this or that, a "not so sure" point of view is allways safier and humbler to bear than not..
Allow me though on this specific issue to tell you: Yes, i am sure.
But in order to clearify further the point of this matter, let me be more specific: You have mis-interpreted what i wrote. The quest for the ultimate knowledge, in this context, the final answer to the puzzle of CREATION in whose overwhelming complexities we - life as both concept as physical and chemical laws and mechanisms - reside, will never be reached, simply because we are parts of this puzzle. Once we are able to get out of it and be part of something different, then perhaps our chances will slightly increase to grip or conceive the final shape, form, move, and purpose of this thing called Creation.

This has nothing to do with being in a constant failure status. On the contrary, as i mentioned, it is due to this same paradoxal charming impossibilty of the mission, we are allways bound to develop and evolve, through repeated knowledge conquests.

Well, it sounds the same as if you're telling me "can a blood vein realize it is part of a creation called modernly human". Nor the atom, nor the combination of some billions of it that make up some blood vein can "conceive" or realize anything for that matter. What the context here was, that all living things, air & water are made up of similar atoms suggesting everything was bread from a similar place.

No. I was not telling you that atoms are minuscule thinking thingees. It was an analogy as i stated before, to exemplify the impossibility of any part of a creation to ever be able to conceive the entity it is an integrated part of.

Well, given how this 'recycling' process you describe takes about a gazillion years to take place in each time, I was thinking perhaps in the meantime maybe technology develops in a sort where it would unite us. One way to do this, and to relate to the space idea you propose, is to perhaps spend the 3 week campaign budget in Iraq of 75 billionUSD on a NASA program who's current annual budget is circa 15 BillionUSD! That's three weeks money.. If the world does unite on such programs, maybe advancement can be made in order to move onto another planet as you propose? Maybe once we move we'd have different ideas about this... 'recycling' theory.

I don't know about your gazillion figure, could be so, plus minus a couple of light weeks ;), eventhough time scale is quite irrelevant when the proportions of this enterprise are on so called 'floating constants' which means constants with unlimited boundaries, due to all too huge and unknown factors.

I still support from the deep of my heart your call for more spendings on such issues and i pitty humanity for still not putting more focus on its own survival, through more fundings for not only astronomical or cosmological studies, but also for even more earthly and urgently medical, environmental and social achievements, studies and development projects.

[taifoon]

Originally Posted by Stella23

...
And you are talking about the universal pattern, right? Fractals I mean, it really sounds like a magical world, but of course its just an illusion that it can explain any of our concerns.

Stella23

I understand your fascination with fractals.. (Me also fascinated ;)
" The basic concept of fractals is that they contain a large degree of self similarity. This means that they usually contain little copies of themselves buried deep within the original. And they also have infinite details..."

Here we have it again: The infinity of the smallest structure mirroring the infinity of the largest one. Truely mind blowing.

The cycle you mentioned may sound logical, but it depends on the point of view. What if everything is rather constant, time is constant, space is constant, and everything exists within a marvellous symmetry?

Maybe so! Or maybe not ;)
If we live in a, to us, never ending equation of constants, then we will also and naturally be assuming that we live in a closed and sealed Universe where Nothing new enters as nothing escapes it, a constantly recycled Univers with a finite space and time limits (if we ever can use such references), the kind of Universe i in fact also beleive we are trapped into ..
I can not immagine such a Universe existing without a marvellous symmetry or if you permit, anti-symmetry, where a divine balance is uphold through forces which have their exact equivalents of anti-forces..

But if we dare stretch our imagination just a little, we can also think of infinite such Universes, again, together constituting some sort of creation.. And again just like atoms, layed side by side and also subject to physical forces which are even farther beyond our imagination to concieve.

This is, as i think you also agree on, a breath-taking journey we can endlessly enjoy participating in which also as YOSS mentioned include both philosophy, religion as well as all the known noble arts humanity can mobilize. ;)

Regards

[Stella]

Originally Posted by taifoon

Maybe so! Or maybe not ;)
If we live in a, to us, never ending equation of constants, then we will also and naturally be assuming that we live in a closed and sealed Universe where Nothing new enters as nothing escapes it, a constantly recycled Univers with a finite space and time limits (if we ever can use such references), the kind of Universe i in fact also beleive we are trapped into ..
I can not immagine such a Universe existing without a marvellous symmetry or if you permit, anti-symmetry, where a divine balance is uphold through forces which have their exact equivalents of anti-forces..

But what if in this constant universe actually everything is in constant move? The energy of the system is constant, within it the patterns are infinite, yet all the same.

But if we dare stretch our imagination just a little, we can also think of infinite such Universes, again, together constituting some sort of creation.. And again just like atoms, layed side by side and also subject to physical forces which are even farther beyond our imagination to concieve.

Yes they are now, but we shall work on it to bring them closer.

This is, as i think you also agree on, a breath-taking journey we can endlessly enjoy participating in which also as YOSS mentioned include both philosophy, religion as well as all the known noble arts humanity can mobilize. ;)

Regards

Sounds marvellously.

[Stella]

When Technology meets Art

Cleared by X

The Mona Lisa studied in 3D
POSTED: 9:42 a.m. EDT, September 27, 2006

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci's 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said Tuesday.

The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.

Bruno Mottin of the French Museums' Center for Research and Restoration said that on very close examination of the painting it became clear that the Mona Lisa's dress was covered in a thin transparent gauze veil.

/Watch here the 3-D technology to unlock the mystery of the Mona Lisa/

"This type of gauze dress ... was typical of the kind worn in early 16th century Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine," he told a news conference.

"We can now say that this painting by Leonardo da Vinci was painted to commemorate the birth of the second son of the Mona Lisa, which helps us to date it more precisely to around 1503."

The young woman with the ambiguous half smile has been identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco de Giocondo. She had five children.

Mottin also said that, contrary to popular belief, the subject had not let her hair hang freely but in fact wore a bonnet from which only a few curls managed to escape.

"People always wrote that the Mona Lisa had allowed her hair to hang freely over her shoulders. This greatly surprised historians because letting your hair hang freely during the Renaissance was typical of young girls and women of poor virtue," he said.

The experts from Canada's National Research Council said the painting was in fragile condition but should not suffer too much damage if taken care of properly.

"The wood panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted is sensitive to temperature and climate variations. However, if its current storage conditions are maintained, there is no risk of degradation," the NRC said in a statement.

"The 12 cm (3-1/2 inch) split on the top half of the painting, which was probably due to the removal of the original frame and repaired between the middle of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, appears to be stable and has not worsened over time."

The council had hoped to discover more details about Leonardo's "sfumato" technique of subtly blending one tone into another, which the artist used to create a hazy effect. But scientist John Taylor said the team had been frustrated by the lack of brush stroke detail on the painting.

"It's extremely thinly painted and extremely flat, and yet the details of the curls of hair, for example are extremely distinct. So the technique is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Leonardo was in a league of his own," he said.

Close examination of the craquelure -- the fine pattern of cracks formed on old paintings -- showed the paint layers were still firmly attached to the poplar wood panel on which Leonardo created his masterpiece.

"We didn't see any sign of paint lifting. So for a 500-year-old painting it's very good news. And if they continue to keep it the way they have in an environment-controlled chamber, it could remain like that for a very long time," Taylor said.


source: CNN

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by Stella

When Technology meets Art

Cleared by X

The Mona Lisa studied in 3D
POSTED: 9:42 a.m. EDT, September 27, 2006

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci's 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said Tuesday.

The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.

Great post Stella! I always admired the mysteries around this great painting by one of the most unique artists in the history!

The Mona Lisa is famous for her fantastic facial expression and the smooth transitions of tone and color. Leonardo used a pyramid design (holy pyramid!!) to place the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck, and face glow in the same light that softly models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles, which includes the arc of her famous smile.

Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so differently by people. Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University has argued that the smile is mostly drawn in low spatial frequencies, and so can best be seen with one's peripheral vision. Thus, for example, the smile appears more striking when looking at the portrait's eyes than when looking at the mouth itself. Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich of the Smith-Kettlewell Institute in San Francisco believe that the changing nature of the smile is caused by variable levels of random noise in human visual system. Dina Goldin, Adjunct Professor at Brown University, has argued that the secret is in the dynamic position of Mona Lisa's facial muscles, where our mind's eye unconsciously extends her smile; the result is an unusual dynamicity to the face that invokes subtle yet strong emotions in the viewer of the painting.


-------


In 2005, researchers from the University of Amsterdam ran the painting's image through an emotion recognition software. The software found the smile to be 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, less than 1% neutral, and not surprised at all. Rather than being a thorough analysis, the experiment was more of a demonstration of the new technology. The faces of ten women of Mediterranean ancestry were used to create a composite image of a neutral expression. Researchers then compared the composite image to the face in the painting. They used a grid to break the smile into small divisions, then checked it for each of six emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.

The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape. One interesting feature of the landscape is that it is uneven. The landscape to the left of the figure is noticeably lower than that to the right of her. This has led some critics to suggest that it was added later.





When Leonardo began painting in oil directly onto the wood, he added weak turpentine, which allowed him to paint many layers of glaze and remodel the face as many times as he liked. The painting has been restored numerous times; X-ray examinations have shown that there are three versions of the Mona Lisa hidden under the present one.


more to come about La Gioconda...

[Stella]

When technology divides the public opinion.

What do you think about the following issue?

Girl or Boy? As Fertility Technology Advances, So Does an Ethical Debate

By DENISE GRADY
Published: February 6, 2007


If people want to choose their baby’s sex before pregnancy, should doctors help?

Some parents would love the chance to decide, while others wouldn’t dream of meddling with nature. The medical world is also divided. Professional groups say sex selection is allowable in certain situations, but differ as to which ones. Meanwhile, it’s not illegal, and some doctors are already cashing in on the demand.

There are several ways to pick a baby’s sex before a woman becomes pregnant, or at least to shift the odds. Most of the procedures were originally developed to treat infertility or prevent genetic diseases.

The most reliable method is not easy or cheap. It requires in vitro fertilization, in which doctors prescribe drugs to stimulate the mother’s ovaries, perform surgery to collect her eggs, fertilize them in the laboratory and then insert the embryos into her uterus.

Before the embryos are placed in the womb, some doctors will test for sex and, if there are enough embryos, let the parents decide whether to insert exclusively male or female ones. Pregnancy is not guaranteed, and the combined procedures can cost $20,000 or more, often not covered by insurance. Many doctors refuse to perform these invasive procedures just for sex selection, and some people are troubled by what eventually becomes of the embryos of the unwanted sex, which may be frozen or discarded.

Another method, used before the eggs are fertilized, involves sorting sperm, because it is the sperm and not the egg that determines a baby’s sex. Semen normally has equal numbers of male- and female-producing sperm cells, but a technology called MicroSort can shift the ratio to either 88 percent female or 73 percent male. The “enriched” specimen can then be used for insemination or in vitro fertilization. It can cost $4,000 to $6,000, not including in vitro fertilization.

MicroSort is still experimental and available only as part of a study being done to apply for approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The technology was originally developed by the Agriculture Department for use in farm animals, and it was adapted for people by scientists at the Genetics and IVF Institute, a fertility clinic in Virginia. The technique has been used in more than 1,000 pregnancies, with more than 900 births so far, a spokesman for the clinic said. As of January 2006 (the most recent figures released), the success rate among parents who wanted girls was 91 percent, and for those who wanted boys, it was 76 percent.

Regardless of the method, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes sex selection except in people who carry a genetic disease that primarily affects one sex. But allowing sex selection just because the parents want it, with no medical reason, may support “sexist practices,” the college said in an opinion paper published this month in its journal, Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Some people say sex selection is ethical if parents already have one or more boys and now want a girl, or vice versa. In that case, it’s “family balancing,” not sex discrimination. The MicroSort study accepts only people who have genetic disorders or request family balancing (they are asked for birth records), and a company spokesman said that even if the technique was approved, it would not be used for first babies.

The obstetricians group doesn’t buy the family-balance argument, noting that some parents will say whatever they think the doctor wants to hear. The group also says that even if people are sincere about family balance, the very act of choosing a baby’s sex “may be interpreted as condoning sexist values.”

Much of the worry about this issue derives from what has happened in China and India, where preferences for boys led to widespread aborting of female fetuses when ultrasound and other tests made it possible to identify them. China’s one-child policy is thought to have made matters worse. Last month, Chinese officials said that 118 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2005, and some reports have projected an excess of 30 million males in less than 15 years. The United Nations opposes sex selection for nonmedical reasons, and a number of countries have outlawed it, including Australia, Canada and Britain, and other nations in Asia, South America and Europe. Left unanswered is the question of whether societies, and families, that favor boys should just be allowed to have them, since attitudes are hard to change, and girls born into such environments may be abused.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a group for infertility doctors, takes a somewhat more relaxed view of sex selection than does the college of obstetricians. Instead of opposing sex selection outright, it says that in people who already need in vitro fertilization and want to test the embryos’ sex without a medical reason, the testing should “not be encouraged.” And those who don’t need in vitro fertilization but want it just for sex selection “should be discouraged,” the group says.

But sperm sorting is another matter, the society says. It is noninvasive and does not involve discarding embryos of the “wrong” sex. The society concludes that “sex selection aimed at increasing gender variety in families may not so greatly increase the risk of harm to children, women or society that its use should be prohibited or condemned as unethical in all cases.” The group also says it may eventually be reasonable to use sperm sorting for a first or only child.

Dr. Jamie Grifo, the program director of New York University’s Fertility Center, said that he opposed using embryo testing just for sex selection, but that it was reasonable to honor the request in patients who were already having embryos screened for medical reasons, had a child and wanted one of the opposite sex. In those cases, he said, the information is already available and doesn’t require an extra procedure.

“It’s the patient’s information, their desire,” he said. “Who are we to decide, to play God? I’ve got news for you, it’s not going to change the gender balance in the world. We get a handful of requests per year, and we’re doing it. It’s always been a controversy, but I don’t think it’s a big problem. We should preserve the autonomy of patients to make these very personal decisions.”

Dr. Jeffrey M. Steinberg, from Encino, Calif., who has three clinics that offer sex selection and plans to open a fourth, in Manhattan, said: “We prefer to do it for family balancing, but we’ve never turned away someone who came in and said, ‘I want my first to be a boy or a girl.’ If they all said a boy first, we’d probably shy away, but it’s 50-50.”

“Reproductive choice, as far as I’m concerned, is a very personal issue,” Dr. Steinberg said. “If it’s not going to hurt anyone, we go ahead and give them what they want.”

Many patients come from other countries, he said. John A. Robertson, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Texas, said: “The distinction between doing it for so-called family balancing or gender variety would be a useful line to draw at this stage of the debate, just as maybe a practice guideline, and let’s just see how it works out.”

In the long run, Mr. Robertson said, he doubted that enough Americans would use genetic tests to skew the sex balance in the population, and he pointed out that so far, sperm sorting was more successful at producing girls than boys.

He concluded, “I think this will slowly get clarified, and people will see it’s not as big a deal as they think.”


NY Times