Maybe Life in the Cosmos Is Rare After All

Reading the following article "Maybe Life in the Cosmos Is Rare After All" the author Paul Davies says:

When I was a student in the 1960s almost all scientists believed we are alone in the universe. The search for intelligent life beyond Earth was ridiculed; one might as well have professed an interest in looking for fairies.

Contrast that with today! What scientists believe in those matters that cannot be investigated seems to be influenced by fashion and what their peers believe. Of course we didn't know of the existence of any exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) back in the 60's. But it was always likely that our Sun wouldn't be unique in this respect.

My belief is that intelligent life will be rare in the Universe.  Technological civilisations I imagine will be vanishingly rare. I'll make a wild speculative guess at around 100 or so in our galaxy (the Milky Way)?

G.E. Moore's Hands.

Just read the following article:

G.E. Moore’s Hands Roger Caldwell takes a sceptical look at scepticism.

The author doesn't understand all the underlying issues. Especially where he effectively says that we can trust what scientists tell us about reality!

Also people tend to be inconsistent here. They rail against idealism (the notion that matter doesn't have a consciousness-independent existence), yet are quite happy to suppose that colours, sounds and smells don't actually exist out there, but are creations of the mind. They are also happy to take our scientific theories literally so that, for example, we never actually touch anything since the sense of touch is allegedly the repulsive forces between the electrons in my fingertips and the electrons in the "touched" object. And that all matter is mostly empty space etc.

With idealism, at least subjective idealism, colours, sounds and smells are really out there in the world, even though the world is mind dependent.

Becoming rich is largely a matter of luck

Just read the following webpage:

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.

I think people have no idea how much our lives are ruled by randomness. One may often need certain qualities to become rich, but out of all these people who have such qualities, only a small percentage of them will become rich, and that through sheer luck.

Deciding on a novel to read

I've decided to avoid reading all 5 star customer reviews on amazon -- they can't be trusted since 66% of all reviews on Amazon are 5 star. OK, looking for a novel to read. I read the blurb, sounds great, but then read the customer reviews and keep getting put off!

The scientific method is the best way we have to understand the universe?

Sara Passmore who is the president of the Humanist Society of New Zealand says:

The scientific method is the best way we have to understand the universe.

I often hear people say this, especially scientists.  The problem here is that the word "understand" in this context is ambiguous.

Let's consider an analogy. Is the best way to understand a computer game to play it?

Well, it depends what is meant by "understand". By playing it we come more proficient at the game, we can predict more readily what will happen when one's character carries out certain actions. But no matter how often we play the game, one will never understand why the game has the particular characteristics it has, nor why it exists in the first place.

Likewise with science.  The purpose of science is to map out the patterns discerned in reality and calculate how the world changes with particular actions on our parts.  But that's all it does.  Science tells us nothing about the underlying machinery of reality. It tells us nothing about how or why the world exists at all and why it has the particular physical laws it does. That is what metaphysics deals with.

So, when people say "the scientific method is the best way we have to understand the universe", do they simply mean "understand" as in the patterns we discern in reality and the way they change? I don't think so, because often people who say this are atheists and seem to be insinuating that science offers an alternative explanation to "God" as to why there is a Universe at all, and why we exist etc.  And this includes prominent scientists like the late Stephen Hawking, who really should know better.

Inequality in the USA.

People in the USA who are more wealthy than between 80-90% of the rest of the population are roughly as well off as they would be if all the wealth were distributed uniformly. So I find it curious that so many people belligerently defend this state of affairs. What does this tell us about their intelligence and morality?

England where I live is pretty bad, but not quite as bad as the USA.